I said that the original Mattebox may be “the best iPhone camera app around, but then I went back to using the iPhone’s built-in camera for everything and doing the edits in post.
But Mattebox 2 has just launched, and it is certainly good enough to tempt me back. It keeps the same super-simple interface, and adds Lightroom filter export and exposure compensation.
Friday afternoon I checked out the Retina iPad mini at a local Apple reseller (spoiler: it’s awesome), and I tried it right after I’d hefted the iPad Air. And I noticed something I hadn’t heard about in any reviews: The colors are way brighter and, well, more colored on the iPad Air. The wallpaper looks more saturated, and the blue/green icons really jumped out at me on the bigger display.
The mini, by contrast, looked just like the old mini, only with higher resolution. And it turns out that my eyes were right. Anand Lal Shampi of Anandtech did the tests and found that the color gamut of the Air is wider than that of the Retina mini.
Apple is close to buying PrimeSense, the company that invented the 3D motion tracking technology used in the original Xbox Kinect. Whispers of the acquisition were first reported by an Israeli publication called Calcalist back in July, and the site is now reporting that Apple has a deal in place with PrimeSense to the tune of around $345 million.
While Apple’s mysterious ‘iTV’ product seems like an obvious reason for the acquisition, PrimeSense has also developed a smaller 3D sensor called Capri that’s more suited for mobile.
UPDATE: Cult of Mac has learned that the Apple 1 did sell after the auction closed. Read more here.
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Markets rise and markets fall – that’s true for stocks, real estate, tulips, etc. That’s also true with vintage computers – though even in a down market there’s still some money to be made.
At an auction in Germany held on Saturday November 16, a working Apple 1 – from the first batch of 50 units made – did not receive any bids. Nor did a restored Lisa 1, with dual Twiggy floppy disk drives. But a prototype Twiggy Mac, one of only two known working units, sold for €25,000 ($33,725), quite possibly the highest price ever paid for a vintage Macintosh.
Affix your party hats, fine friends, and join us for a rip-roarin’ good time as we celebrate our 100th episode of The CultCast—recorded live! We’ll recall some of our favorite moments from episodes past, tell you how you to win a free signed copy of Leander Kahney’s new much-hyped Jony Ive book, plus, we talk the new iPad mini Retina; killer Black Friday iPad deals; and more rumors iPhone 6s with way bigger screens.
Have a few laughs and get caught up on each week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below adventure begin.
Thanks to Reflector for supporting this week’s episode. Looking for a great way to mirror your iPhone or iPad’s screen on any Mac or PC? You need Reflector.
We’ve dedicated this issue of the magazine to Sir Jony Ive, the Apple designer whose imagination brings us all the gadgets we love.
Inside, you’ll find an exclusive excerpt from publisher Leander Kahney’s brand-spanking-new book “Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products” along with the story of how Leander met Ive for the first time. (It turns out Jony is nice, especially to forgetful reporters.) The book excerpt takes you back to where it all began: in the UK where a young Jony started working with his father in the garage.
As we do every week, we also bring you the best in new apps, picks from what’s worth your while in books, music and movies in iTunes and our exclusive Apple genius column delves into getting hired and what to do if you happen to find love while getting your iPhone repaired.
Keep the feedback coming — we’re listening!
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is blocking the donation of 30-year-old documents to a museum, claiming they contain valuable trade secrets.
“It’s silly,” said Hartmut Esslinger, the design guru recruited to help Apple become a leader in design in the early 1980s.
Speaking at a Jony Ive book launch party on Thursday night, Esslinger explained that Apple has prevented him from donating some historical old documents to a museum.
Esslinger’s design firm, Frog Design, was hired by Steve Jobs to bring world-class design to Apple. Esslinger’s “Snow White” design language, characterized by elegant off-white plastic cases, influenced the entire computer industry for more than a decade.
Tiny Death Star may in fact destroy my free time if I keep playing it like I have over the last week. It’s a collaboration between Disney Mobile, Lucasarts, and Nimblebit–and the quality shines through as a result.
Built your Death Star, level by level, with residential, service, retail, and Imperial levels where you can interrogate those nasty Rebel scum. The game is packed with Star Wars references and a great sense of humor; the interaction between the Emperor and Darth Vader is particularly funny.
It’s a free-to-play app, it’s in the App Store right now, and it’s got 8-bit Princess Leia and Boba Fett. What more do you need? Go check it out now.
Source: App Store
Apple has seeded the first developer beta of OS X Mavericks 10.9.1. This will be the first incremental update to Mavericks when it ships to the public. Apple has released a fix for Gmail in the Mail app on Mavericks, but the OS remains at version 10.9.
It’s currently unclear when 10.9.1 will be available for everyone, and there are no known issues with this first beta.
Source: Apple
Since Apple won a $1 billion lawsuit against Samsung for patent infringement last summer, both companies have been fighting to determine how the ruling will actually unfold. In March of this year, the presiding judge for the case subtracted $450 million from what Samsung owed Apple due to the jury’s miscalculations for damages.
The Apple vs. Samsung retrial kicked off earlier this week in California court, and Apple requested an additional $380 in damages from Samsung on top of the $600 million already owed. Samsung believes it should only have to pay Apple $52 million for infringing on five patents related to the iPhone.
Today Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing, took the stand in court to talk about the iPhone’s importance to Apple, calling it a “bet-the-company” product. He also got pretty snarky about Samsung copying Apple.
Schiller began his testimony by recounting the original iPhone’s launch and the product’s success to date. He expressed frustration that Samsung started making phones that looked just like the iPhone after Apple started seeing success in the smartphone market. Schiller said he was “quite shocked” when he first saw the Samsung Galaxy. “My first thought was, ‘They’ve copied the iPhone.'”
These first few years of the iPhone’s existence have been “an incredibly important time” for Apple, said Schiller. And Samsung’s infringement has made it “harder for us to get new customers and bring them into our ecosystem.” The iPhone is Apple’s biggest money-maker by far. “At this point, it’s fair to say that most everyone at Apple works on iPhone,” said Schiller from the stand. “It’s our biggest product.”
While being cross-examined by Samsung’s lawyers, Schiller gave off a little Jobsian snark with his responses:
Schiller on Samsung gaining while other android makers lost share. “One is copying. the other are not copying… as much.” #icourt
— Ina Fried (@inafried) November 15, 2013
Samsung atty shows Schiller a Samsung device and Schiller says – “I can’t tell from here. It looks like an iPad to me.” #icourt
— Shara Tibken (@sharatibken) November 15, 2013
The retrial is expected to close next week.
Via: CNET
Image: AP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onb6Gqtf41Y
I’m a little on the fence about whether Toymail is a genius idea or an error that’ll have your kids talking to mailboxes.
When I opened up the package containing the SlipStopper, there was a little card inside from my contact Mark. It read “Try sticking your iPad mini on a window, great party trick :)”
I don’t go to may parties these days, but I tried it at home and in the office and there reaction was the same both times: amazement — quickly followed by fear.
Nothing can touch the Fallout series of role-playing games for post-apocalyptic immersion; the ’50s, atomic-era nostalgia and post-nuclear holocaust loneliness and horror that the games simulate have gained the series a huge and devoted following. But none of it would have been possible without a breakout 1988 computer RPG called Wasteland.
Edifier is a lesser-known company with roots in China, and a design lab in Vancouver, British Columbia. While Edifier speakers have seen table time in Apple stores in the past, they seem to be making a bigger push here in the States within the last year or two.
Their latest set is the e25 Luna Eclipse, Bluetooth-equipped speakers stuffed with some trick tech and 74 watts of power per channel — at the upper end for a set of desktop media speakers.
An official Google Play Music app is finally available on iOS, bringing Google’s All Access music streaming service to your iPhone. Users can listen to millions of tracks on demand and enjoy custom radio with no limits, as well as access to the music they’ve uploaded to Google’s cloud-based storage service.
Want to make your Apple TV look like an SNES, Gamecube, NES, or even a big waffle? These decals have you covered.
Remember Apple Tracker, the web app that checked Apple’s inventory in order to help you find new iPhones and iPads in your area? Apple killed it off ahead of the iPad mini Retina launch , but now it’s back… just not on the original site.
Do you remember how last week, the iPad mini with Retina Display was said to have been delayed to November because of LCD burn-in issues with Sharp’s IGZO display panels? It appears the rumor was true, because the iPad mini does have image retention issues.
Every time Apple releases a new version of iOS, there’s a good chance they have broken existing jailbreak techniques with it. If a public jailbreak has already been released, it means your jailbreak has gone away; if a public jailbreak hasn’t yet been released, an update can kill an exploit that will delay a public jailbreak by months.
Yesterday, Apple released iOS 7.0.4, but did they break the possibility of an iOS 7 jailbreak? Are you safe to update?
Runtime stands out above other run-tracking iPhone apps thanks to its great design: it’s not – like most other apps – fugly as hell. It also use the iPhone 5S’s M7 MoCoPro to track you even when you’re walking.
While it isn’t strictly Apple news, I thought I’d let you know about Amazon’s cool new feature for Kindle covers anyway. After all, plenty of us have Kindles to read when we leave out nerd caves and head out into the sunlight, right?
So what has Amazon done that’s worth writing about? Exactly what Apple should do: Covers personalized with your own photos.
It’s hard to describe Curator for iPad as anything other than a digital scrapbook… In a good way. It lets you pull in snippets and content from pretty much anywhere, presenting them in a clean grid layout. If you ever used Evernote to collect a stuff together on one place for a project, you might consider Curator instead.
HopTo is a great version of Microsoft Word for the iPad. And that’s because it is MS Word, up in the cloud, driving a native iPad app. And you know what? If Microsoft just made the exact same app only with the Word part running locally on the iPad, I’d be happy. It really is nice enough to let you forget you’re using Word.
What if you could condense all of the credit, debit, membership, and gift cards in your wallet down to a single card? Companies like Apple and Google have tried to give us digital wallets, but nothing has really caught on. People still feel tied to their physical wallets.
Coin is a new product that became available for preorder today. It looks like a normal credit card at first glance, but Coin is much smarter than your average piece of plastic. A small display and a fancy magnetic strip let you choose from a range of your cards and memberships before paying.
iWork for iCloud is technically still in its beta phase, but Apple pubilished an updated to its suite of productivity apps this afternoon that will certainly make it more appealing for those looking for a Google Docs alternative.
The new iWork for iCloud update includes a number of features that focus on giving users more tools to collaborate with each other – many of which we heard about at Apple’s iPad keynote. The update includes new features for both Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes that come with some of the same features including the ability to see cursors and selections for everyone in a spreadsheet, as well as an option to view a list of collaborators working on a spreadsheet.
Users can access the new features for free over at iCloud.com and will also find a new option to print docs directly from the Tools menu and the ability to organize documents in folders.
Here’s a full list of what’s new: