Are you ready to access your Mac Chromotely? No, doubtlessly not. None the less, you will soon have the option to do just that from your iOS device, if an online document from Google is to be believed.
The arbitrary 140 character limit of tweets can oftentimes seem as maddeningly arbitrary as it is maddeningly short. It’s not arbitrary, actually: Twitter was originally designed to work over dumbphones as an SMS service, and 140 characters is the maximum size of a single SMS (longer SMSes are actually sent as multiple messages and pieced together by your phone). In turn, the reason SMSes are 140 characters is that’s the maximum amount of information that fits into the small pocket of bandwidth that is left over with all the cellular voice calls whizzing through the air.
Interesting, huh? And, of course, Twitter’s cultural tersity has its benefits. Still, sometimes you just want to send a longer tweet, only to be thwarted by Twitter’s hardline stance. For just those moments, a new jailbreak tweak called Infinite Tweet 2 has come to make things easier for you.
Creepypasta meme Slender Man is back again — this time in an official sequel to 2012’s Slender Rising called, imaginatively enough, Slender Rising 2.
For those unfamiliar with the game, it pits you against the so-called Slender Man in four different horror movie-style locations, including the fan-favorite Mansion and Ghost Town. Your task is to rescue lost souls and pick up signs along the while, all while defending yourself with a shogun.
Following yesterday’s report that the official iOS Starbucks app was storing users’ credentials, passwords and GPS location in plain text — a big security no-no — the Seattle coffee maker has quickly pushed an update that seemingly resolves the issue. Or does it?
A new Apple Store has opened in Brisbane, Australia — representing the fourth to open in Queensland, and the largest in Australia’s Sunshine State.
Around 500 fans queued up for the grand opening ahead of time, with some camping out all night. The second person in line was Apple Store aficionado Gary Allen, who had traveled from California for the opening — which represents his 38th store opening.
Most musicians I know are struggling to buy a new set of guitar strings, let alone a new iPad Air. But if you are a music-making, iPad-toting, live-gig-playing musician, then you might be interested in IK Multimedia’s new iKlip 2, and the accompanying iPad Adapter.
News Republic — the iOS app which describes itself as the “definitive news app” — has received an upgrade, including several significant improvements.
Version 4.0 boasts a fresh, iOS 7 optimized look featuring a new icon and added space in the layout for easier browsing and reading of the news.
Imagine that your devices could send you a push notification asking if they could switch themselves off. That you could switch appliances on and off remotely to stop them drawing power in standby mode. That would be neat, right? Well, that’s exactly what the energy-saving Parce plug will do.
Last week we saw Command-C, a super-useful app that uses Wi-Fi, iOS 7 multitasking and push notifications to easily send your clipboard between devices. Now, there’s Scribe, which goes one better by ditching the Wi-Fi sending the clipboard between devices using low energy Bluetooth.
Apple has been accused of censorship in the past when it has been a little heavy-handed (to say the least) about banning content in the App Store.
With that being said, few were upset to hear that Plastic Surgery for Barbie — a game which asks players of 9 years+ to perform liposuction on Barbie-styled characters to make them “slim and beautiful” — has been pulled from the App Store. Google has similarly pulled the app from its own Google Play store.
Today is turning out to be photo-journal app Friday, with the latest entry in the list from iOS developer Manton Reece. It’s called Sunlit, and it’s a way to put together a journal of your daily meanderings with photos, text and check-ins. And here’s the twist: the free app uses App.net as it’s storage backend, so you can finally get some use for that account you signed up for but never use,
While Touch ID saves you the pain of writing in a passcode to unlock your iPhone, until now Mac users haven’t been afforded the same ease of use.
A new jailbreak feature is looking to change that, however, since it gives users the opportunity of using their iPhone 5s’ Touch ID feature to unlock their Mac computer.
Just the other day I asked my Twitter followers to recommend me a good app for making animated GIFs out of my photos. The response was stunning in its silence – not a single reply. But I don’t care. I now have PicGIF, a Mac app that does one thing: Turn Pics into GIFs.
After years of speculation — and some incredibly drawn-out contract negotiations along the way — China Mobile finally began selling iPhones today.
Tim Cook was in Beijing for the launch, where he handed out autographed iPhones to customers, alongside China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua. Cook tweeted the following:
Storehouse is today’s big app story. It’s an iOS app that lets you take text, pictures and video and combine them into great-looking stories. It’s kind of like a cross between iPhoto’s Journals and a printed magazine, only better than both.
Smartphone crime has become an epidemic. Especially in places like New York City where the crime rate went up for first time in twenty years thanks to thieves mugging people for their iPhones.
As a response to the iPhone crimewave, Apple added some significant improvements to iOS 7, including a new Activation Lock feature, but according to the New York Police Department’s new commissioner, Bill Bratton, that’s not enough. Not only that, Bratton is pretty sure Apple and other U.S. smartphone makers are in cahoots with insurance companies to make a fortune by not installing a kill switch.
Today Skype updated its iPhone and iPad apps with two-way HD video calling. The enhanced resolution is only available on the iPhone 5s, iPad Air, and Retina iPad mini.
Chatting over text has gotten much better with today’s release. Skype has integrated with Apple’s Notification Center to show incoming messages even when the app is closed. In the past, Skype had to still be running in the background for push notifications to work. Group chats will be receiving the same upgrade in a future update.
Source: Skype
Apple released the second beta build OS X 10.9.2 to developers today, nearly a month after the first beta was released. Developers can grab Build 13C39 from the Mac Dev Center, or by running a software update if you’re already running the first beta.
The seed notes don’t list any new features, but ask devs to focus on Mail, Messages, graphics drives, VoiceOver, VPN and SMB2. The last beta added FaceTime over audio to the Messages and FaceTime apps. Apple also seeded the first beta of Safari 6.1.2 to developers that looks like it’s mostly filled with bug fixes.
Source: Apple
iBeacons are pushing to become the big new retail trend of 2014. The tech debuted last year with a demo by the MLB, before launching in Apple Stores nationwide as well as some Macys stores. You can add American Outfitters to the list too as ShopKick announced this morning that its partnered with the clothing company to bring iBeacons to 100 locations.
Let’s admit it. You’re the best goddamn drummer your bus stop has ever seen. When “Hot For Teacher” rounds the corner on your iPhone, you transform into a radiant drumming beast. Sadly, all of your gut-busting drum sessions take place right there in your lap. Nobody can hear the majesty of your air drum solo, but thanks to the latest advances in drumming technology, now they can!
That’s pretty much the pitch for DrumPants, a set of Bluetooth LE-enabled sensors that capture triumphant thigh thumping to play more than 100 different sounds controlled by your iPhone or iPad. They’re kind of like those ridiculous Keyboard Jeans, except the sensors aren’t a part of your clothing, allowing you to attach DrumPants to anything you’re wearing. They come as both drum pads and foot pedals, so you can take your customized instrument wherever you go.
Check out the promo video below:
We got a sneak peek at Codename Cygnus, a Kickstarter-funded interactive radio drama game for iOS, at PAX this last fall. Developer Reactive studios has just updated the app with more than 20 Game Center achievements, improved voice recognition, VoiceOver features, and a redesigned iOS 7 friendly interface.
Oh, and it’s cheaper, too.
Autism is an epidemic that can’t be overstated. The disorder is really a spectrum of behaviors and needs, and it affects about one in every 50 children in the US alone.
The Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) has developed an app that puts its research-based interventions into an educational iPad app with mini games for reinforcement. The app, titled Autism Learning Games: Camp Discovery, provides children ages two to eight with direct instruction on topics that kids with Autism have trouble sorting out.
“The idea here is that there are so many things a kid needs to learn, to ‘catch up’ with their peers,” CARD’s chief strategy officer, Dennis Dixon told Cult of Mac during a phone call. “Autism has a number of skill deficits. ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) targets those skills one at a time.”
Camp Discovery, then, is like having a behavior intervention teacher on the iPad, presenting lesson after lesson with 100 percent accuracy. But will kids play with it?
While Microsoft and BlackBerry are still trying to piece together a decent mobile user base in the U.S., Apple and Samsung managed to widen their lead against the competition in terms of smartphone marketshare in the U.S. Both companies experienced a significant bump in 2013, but Apple claimed the largest increase despite murmurs that the company is getting out innovated by Google.
An iOS version has been available since last year, but today sees the official launch of popular email client (and former Kickstarter project) Mail Pilot for Mac.
If you’re particularly concerned about the security of your passwords, you might want to stay away from Starbucks’ official iOS app: the Seattle-based coffee maker has just confirmed that passwords, credentials and location in the company’s app are stored in plain text, and are not hashed or encrypted at all.