We’ve been hearing tell that Microsoft will release a version of Office for iPad “soon” since at least February 2012, but instead of a native version, the only thing Microsoft has released so far is Office 365, a cloud-based version of the Office suite that works on mobile devices.
According to some well-connected insiders, though, the wait is almost over, and Microsoft could launch Microsoft Office for iPad in the next three months.
Chalk it up to the state of modern life if you want — where we’re much more comfortable looking at an iPhone screen than building fires and hunting wild animals — but there’s something undeniably manly about the idea of cleaning your iMac with something called a Screen Cleaning Blade.
Okay, so things get less rugged individualist when you hear that this is a scented, anti-bacterial Screen Cleaning Blade, and still less so when you hear that it features a “vibrant satin finish” — but, hey, at least it’s something, right? Coming packaged with another cleaner designed for your keyboard (the Keyboard Blade?), these two handy gadgets promise to keep your Apple products looking as shiny as the day you first unboxed them.
So do they live up to their word?
This week saw the publishing of one of the iPhone’s most recognizable patents.
Arriving with iOS 3 in June 2009 was the ability to select, copy, and paste text using two draggable selection handles displayed on screen. Miles ahead of what other smartphones were offering at the time, Apple’s solution was a neat way of transferring to mobile a tool that was a key part of the personal computer user experience.
To celebrate the publishing of this historic patent, Cult of Mac spoke with one of its inventors, user interface designer Bas Ording, about the development process.
With popular music streaming apps like Spotify and Pandora already popular and on devices all over the world, any newcomers are faced with an immediate challenge. The makers behind the popular headphones and speakers Beats By Dre are taking their crack at the genre, with their new app and service Beats Music.
Take a look at the new Beats Music app and see how it compares to the competitors.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Beats Music” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
The famous Macintosh “Picasso” trademark logo was developed for the introduction of the original 128K Mac back in 1984. A minimalist line drawing reminiscent of the style of Pablo Picasso, this whimsical graphic implied the whole of a computer in a few simple strokes. It was an icon of what was inside the box, and became as famous as the computer it represented.
The logo was designed by Tom Hughes and John Casado, art directors on the Macintosh development team. Originally the logo was to be a different concept by artist Jean-Michel Folon, but before launch it was replaced by the colorful line drawing. It’s been famous ever since, and the style has endured across decades.
Casado recently attended the 30th Anniversary of the Mac celebration, and emailed Cult of Mac to shed some light on the history of this famous graphic. It turns out Picasso was not the primary inspiration for this after all – rather, it was Henri Matisse!
With rumors of the iWatch and future Apple products focusing on health continuing to swell, Apple has hired yet another medical device expert.
Marcelo Malini Lamego joined Apple at the end of last month, having previously spent 8 years as the CTO of Cercacor — a medical device company, based in Irvine, CA, involved with the development of non-invasive patient monitoring technologies, including medical devices and sensors.
The popular Hitman franchise will finally break away from consoles and make its way to iOS with a forthcoming game called Hitman GO.
Created by the Square Enix Montréal team, Hitman GO features a turn-based gaming experience, set in the Hitman universe.
Today sees the iOS launch of Deadman’s Cross, a zombie-themed collectible card battle RPG from Square Enix, the company behind Final Fantasy and the multimillion-download hit Guardian Cross.
Set sixteen years in the future, the game takes place in a zombie apocalypse in which a rampant virus has turned large numbers of people into the walking dead.
Phil Schiller and possibly Scott Forstall are expected to make witness appearances for the next round of the Apple v. Samsung trial, when the two companies return to court in California in late March.
As Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Schiller was the highest-profile witness to take the stand during the first jury trial in the patent case between Apple and Samsung in August 2012.
Users of Picturelife on iOS can now edit their cloud-stored photos right there in the app, thanks to an update launched yesterday. Picturelife was already one of the most full-featured photo-wrangling services around (it’s my favorite, although I have a bit of a dupe problem at the moment), and now it can serve as a full-on organizing, editing and sharing suite.
Responding to the tech industry’s effect on San Francisco housing, Bay Area artist Alfred Twu has taken it upon himself to show what Silicon Valley tech campuses might look like if they converted their parking lots into accommodation for their employees.
Alongside mini-cities for Facebook and Google, Twu created these designs for iTown — with 13,000 apartments for Apple’s 13,000 Cupertino employees, ajoining the new Apple 2 campus.
IFTTT’s new Evernote action might not seem like much, adding one measly little function, but it’s a biggy. You can take anything, and append it to an Evernote note as to-do item, complete with a checkbox.
Example uses: Send your Foursquare to-dos to an Evernote checklist, or save iOS reminders to Evernote.
Reader 7 is a single-minded app with a single-serve purpose. You know when somebody sends you an MS Word DOC or DOCX file via email and all you want to do is look at it, and maybe track the changes that have been made to it, but then you open in in Pages and all bets are off? That’s what Reader 7 is here to fix.
It’s an app which can accurately display Word documents with complex formatting.
Rapoo’s new E2700 looks to be the perfect companion for my iMac, which is sat on a desk at a suspiciously convenient distance from the sofa in my office, letting me kick back and be amazed by episodes of True Detective and, uh, The Mentalist. Aside from being a regular keyboard with all the usual media keys, it also packs a trackpad on the rightmost end, so you can play/pause those annoying browser video players that don’t respond to the spacebar.
Hey, owners of the Best Camera Ever™ who want to use a 50mm equivalent once in a while – I have some good news for you. Fujifilm is set to release a 50mm adapter for the X100S, letting you use this classic “standard” lens focal length.
Keeping photos on Instagram, Facebook, iPhoto, Google Drive, Google+, Flickr, Lightroom, Aperture, Picasa, Dropbox or OneDrive? Then you might like StreamNation, an app and service that collects them all together in one place.
What’s more, it also gives you 20GB of free storage to get started, and the upgrade rates aren’t so bad either.
Kitchen Utensil. Mobile Office. Study Stand.
Sure, those don’t all go together, but Twelve South’s new iPad Air and iPad mini stand looks like nothing you’ve seen before. It might as well find a place in a kitchen drawer, next to all the Pampered Chef gizmos you’ve got in there.
This new iPad stand — made for the iPad Air and iPad mini — is foldable, easy to use, and just plain sweet looking.
While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?
Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application “Shuriken Block” brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
See that? That’s the excellent looking retro action platform from Levels or Lives, Super Fun Games, and Crescent Moon Games. It’s called Crystal Catacombs, and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in July of 2012.
To continue the process, the developers want to get Crystal Catacombs on Steam, which is perhaps the most well-known gaming distribution platform for Mac, Windows, and Linux games. The process there is known as Project Greenlight, and Steam members all vote on the games they’d like to see on Steam.
A patent application published Thursday reveals how Apple could incorporate flexible OLED displays into future devices to improve their function without sacrificing strength. The technology could get Apple closer to producing bezel-less devices in existing product lines such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook as well as speculative product categories like the iWatch.
The patent refers to a technique for reducing a display border by bending the sides of a display surface in such a way that electrode materials used in the device could be made to stretch rather than break when bent or folded. The application, titled “Flexible Displays” and filed in July 2013, means that future Apple devices need not be limited in size by the requirement that they include metal or plastic housings.
Comcast, the number one cable provider in the U.S., has announced that it plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable firm in the U.S., for a reported $45 billion.
The deal — set to be officially announced later today — will see Comcast offer $158.82 per share in an all-stock deal.
Around half of U.S. consumers are hoarding their old iPhones in cupboards and sock drawers — representing an inventory worth around $13.4 billion in total.
According to the annual “Mobile Mountain Study” conducted by research group OnePoll for resale site SellCell.com, this figure is down from the 55% of people who admitted to holding onto their old smartphones last year — although the total amount of money being left on the table is up from last year’s sum of $9 billion, thanks to the growing smartphone market.
“Americans are still unaware of the money they can make by trading in their old mobile,” says SellCell founder Keir McConomy.
A new survey of 2,000 iPhone users saw 3/5ths of respondents admit to having a “blind loyalty” to the Apple brand.
78% percent claimed they “couldn’t imagine having a different type of phone now,” while 52% said they had been “really impressed” with the iPhone.
Tivoli has long made great-looking, full-toned radios and speakers with a distinctly classic style, and the new Model Three doesn’t change any of that. But there’s one addition which is distinctly modern. The nine-year old design now comes with Bluetooth.
Ahead of the 86th Academy Awards show, the Heads Up! app dreamed up by this year’s host Ellen DeGeneres has received a timely update — offering questions related to the Oscars.
Joining existing game categories including Celebrities, Animals, Accents, and Characters, the new time-limited Oscars game deck offers users a chance to brush up on their movie trivia knowledge in the most time-pressured setting imaginable. “It’s perfect perfect for your viewing party, or preparing for the big night starring Ellen,” the app’s developers state.