Attention, number crunchers and bean counters! Thanks to an inadvertent slip of the webmaster’s finger, Apple may have just unwittingly revealed the semi-imminent release of Filemaker Pro 13, Apple’s in-house database software for Mac, PC, Web and iPad.
Wireless phone carrier Consumer Cellular has announced a deal that will allow it to start carrying the new model iPhone 5c and 5s.
Breaking with the tradition of Friday launches in India — and despite rumors that it would take place on November 29 — Apple has announced that customers in India will be able to buy the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina Display as of Saturday, December 7.
We’ve seen roughly one zillion iPhone wallet cases passing through the pages of Cult of Mac, and like neutrinos there are surely untold others which we never even detect. And yes, the Access Case is another wallet case, and yes, it’s even a Kickstarter project. But it has one thing none of the others do: it has a sweet-looking sister that fits the iPad, and which knows how to suck…
Liquid looks set to be a fixture on my Mac. It’s an app which lets you carry out transformations and operations on any selected text, which doesn’t sound like much unless you write for a living, or just have to wrangle lots of letters. It’s actually been around for quite a while (the current version is 4.3), but I figured that if I hadn’t heard of it yet, then maybe you hadn’t either.
When University of Michigan medical student Paul DeWolf was shot to death earlier this year, police had few leads.
That all changed when a stolen MacBook Air revealed a key piece of information — and helped police track down the alleged killers.
Lost for photo inspiration? Fear not. Instead of just firing up Instagram and looking at great photos taken by other folks, you should launch the new OKDOTHIS app and follow along. The app tells you what to take a photo of, right there, and you just have to do what you’re told.
I love this case: It’s a plain old polycarbonate shell for the iPhone 5/S, but it comes with a bunch of handy pull-out tools in embedded into the plastic itself. It’s like the pen and tweezer tools from Swiss Army Knives, only all of the tools are like that.
The euphoria of Black Friday is over, and like the comedown after any spend-heavy holiday it’s time to look at the receipts.
According to analytics firm InfoScout, the iPad Air and iPad mini were two of the day’s big winners.
If I cut out the middle of a sentence from the Indiegogo page for the Apple Worm case, I get the following nugget of comedy gold:
You may need a phone holder […] at any time when you […] go to toilet, etc. Our “Apple Worm” can meet all your needs.
But aside from the toilet/worms gags, the case looks pretty handy.
I love Cyber Monday, but not for the reasons you think: I don’t give gifts, not do I buy yet more crap to fill my apartment. I love it because it’s the only place that the word “cyber” can still be used without people ridiculing you. Hell, I even cringe when I read Neuromancer these days.
By way of celebration, we bring news of the Apps for Snaps Cyber Monday deal, a collection of iOS photo apps which can be bought today for just a buck apiece.
Amazon has a new ad out for the Kindle Fire HDX that uses the new iPad Air as a scapegoat. It brags about how the HDX has more pixels (hardly any more), weighs less, and costs less.
Ho-hum. Microsoft, Nokia, and every other competitors make plenty of ads based on practically the same formula. What makes this new one from Amazon special is the iPad Air’s narrator. “This is the magical new iPad Air,” says the male voice with a slightly British accent—perhaps a subtle dig at Sir Jony Ive?
There are far more egregious examples of anti-Apple ads from other tech companies, and Amazon does make good points about the HDX weighing and costing less. Not sure why the narrator for the HDX has such a weird twang, but oh well. At least Amazon won’t have to pull this ad out of embarrassment.
We are marking #World AIDS Day by turning Apple’s logo red. Together we can achieve an AIDS free generation. pic.twitter.com/3kdx9UZr9f
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 1, 2013
December 1st is World AIDS Day, a movement that raises awareness for the fight against HIV. Apple is honoring the cause by tinting Apple store logos around the world red.
“We are marking #World AIDS Day by turning Apple’s logo red,” tweeted Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Together we can achieve an AIDS free generation.”
Kim Dotcom’s questionably-legal controversial cloud storage service, Mega, now has an official iPhone app. Designed specifically for iOS 7, the new app lets users manage their accounts and files on the go.
Not only can you see your files in a Dropbox-like interface, but you can export and import links to share with others. You can view and stream supported file formats and save them for offline viewing.
It’s our T-Day edition CultCast! This time: Jony Ive’s golden touch makes millions for charity; Apple teases underwhelming Black Friday deals; how Apple’s blacklist keeps bad press at bay; the new money in old macs; and we pitch our favorite Thanksgiving Day foods on our holiday edition Faves ’N Raves!
Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Download new and past episodes of The CultCast on iTunes or hit play below and let the audio enjoyment commence.
Thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.
I’ve tried plenty of popular translation apps in the App Store, and my favorite by far is SonicoMobile’s iTranslate. Until a couple days ago, the app was only optimized for iPhone, but on Turkey Day an iPad version was released as a free update to the existing app.
iTranslate recently underwent a big overhaul for iOS 7, and the new design is clean and efficient. There’s support for over 70 languages and a pretty capable text-to-speech translation tool. Intuitive gestures are peppered throughout the app, like swiping in from the outside of the right or left to initiate voice recognition.
The app is a free download, and a small in-app purchase removes ads, unlocks Siri voice recognition, and the ability to translate long amounts of text at once. Check it out. SonicoMobile also makes other great apps, like iTranslate Voice, Files App, and Languages.
Source: App Store
Cult of Mac Magazine wants to get you on the right track for giving good gifts in 2013.
It happens to all of us. There’s a time when “thanks” is as hollow as a fuzzy stocking on December 26. That half-hearted “you shouldn’t have!” that comes out when you have just given (or received) a total dud for a gift. You don’t like it. You certainly don’t need it. Or maybe you aren’t even sure what it’s for, like that InstaSlim compression shirt. So the item in question gets shoved under a growing mountain of gift paper that the recipient (perhaps) hopes goes into the recycling bin, never to be seen again.
Here’s where we come in. Our stellar reviews editor, Charlie Sorrel, has momentarily put aside his bah-humbugging to trawl through all the best items that he has attached, stuffed or otherwise prodded his iGadgets with this year to get down to the essentials. He’s got the goods on what you need to buy for all of your devices – and, yeah, while you’re at it, your loved ones’ devices, too.
You’ll also read about how publisher Leander Kahney earned the reputation for being the worst gift giver in his entire family and get the real deal on how to get better deals on Apple products with our exclusive “Ask A Genius” column.
Dog Diary — Lifestyle — Free
Dog Diary is an app that helps you keep track of all the people and events in your canine friend’s life. You can store important, pet-related contacts, expenses, and photos. You can also create entries for multiple animals to keep everything organized. It’s an address book, a photo album, and a bookkeeping program all in one. You can also track measurements like body temperature, provided you’re not shy about pulling out your phone as soon as the vet pulls out the thermometer.
I’m still waiting for an app that will walk the little guy for me once it gets snowy out, but we might need a robot for that.
Apple surprised us with its Black Friday deals for Australia, which include free Apple Store gift cards with new Macs and iOS devices, but no discounts. And as you may have suspected, it’s the same story in the U.S., where customers can now get credit worth $150 with a new Mac, up to $75 with a new iPad, and up to $50 with a new iPod.
Apple is also offering gift cards worth up to $25 with other accessories and gadgets, including the Apple TV, the Nike+ FuelBand SE, and Logitech’s Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad mini.
Readdle, the team behind some of the best productivity apps and utilities for iOS, has slashed 50% off five of its top offerings for Black Friday. The sale includes titles like PDF Expert for iPhone and iPad, Calendars 5, and Printer Pro — all of which are now half price for a limited time.
Yahoo! has released its list of top searches for 2013 and, when it comes to tech, Apple is once again leading the way.
The iPhone had the most searches (the second most searched subject overall), with the iPad making it to fourth place — ahead of PS4 and XBox One — and the iPod to eighth, above the Nokia Lumia and just below the Blackberry.
Practically everyone reading this will have heard the reports about the lengths Apple will go to in order to ensure that its products are on the cutting edge of industrial design.
Well, to those reports you can add the one which suggests that Apple recently paid a total of $578 million — more than half a billion dollars — to GT Advanced Technologies to speed up “the development of its next generation, large capacity ASF furnaces to deliver low cost, high volume manufacturing of sapphire material.”
This move is designed to help keep down the costs of the Sapphire Glass screen rumored to be featured as part of the iPhone 6 — along with a redesign and bigger display.
When you’re among the world’s most sued companies, we imagine that you get used to some pretty hefty legal fees from keeping lawyers on retainer.
Even Apple has kicked up a fuss, however, when its court-appointed “monitor” — given the job of ensuring Apple’s antitrust compliance concerning e-book price fixing — handed in what the company considered a fairly outrageous time sheet.
There are different ways to measure the success of a tech company — thing like how many lucrative patents it’s sitting on, how much money it’s giving back to shareholders, and what its overall market penetration is in whatever area it’s operating in.
Well, there’s another way also: how much do its product launches correlate with a spike rates. You can keep your reports about Apple’s recent financial quarters disappointing Wall Street analysts — as far as San Francisco’s criminal element is concerned, Apple is doing better than it has in years.
The ClipR is a little disk that turns any headphones into a set of Bluetooth headphones. Or, to be more accurate, it turns any 3.5mm jack cable into a Bluetooth-enabled jack cable.
And it has a clip, so you can tuck that cable neatly away.