Think your inbox is a dizzying mass of junkmail? The serial entrepreneur who started About.com wants to help you unclutter; not by getting rid of spam, which has been pretty much wiped out at this point — but by allowing you to group or unsubscribe from commercial emails with laser precision.
The big idea behind Looxcie’s video cameras is that they can live-stream video to a variety of audiences (including Facebook) by linking, via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, to an iPhone or Android phone running Looxcie’s free companion app.
But unlike the action-oriented $200, 1080p Looxcie HD, which is pretty expensive, or the lightweight Looxcie 2, which is only capable of 480p, the more social Looxcie 3 seems to have found a $100, 720p sweet spot. Plus it looks far less dorky when worn.
“Siri, what are your political views?” You’d think that Siri would answer that question with a clever quip about how she doesn’t take sides, but no, she has an answer. And it’s not what you would think.
For some odd reason, asking Siri her political views will take you to Ron Paul’s Wikipedia page every time.
This morning Apple released its first major beta build of iOS 7 to developers since the release of iOS 7 in September. On the surface the update seems to be just a bunch of bug fixes and performance improvements for a number of apps, but once you dig into the new software a little more there are a couple UI changes and new features that we’ve found.
Here are the new changes to iOS 7.1 that you might actually notice:
Today Sprint announced a limited time deal that gives students a full year of free cellular service with the purchase of a smartphone at any Best Buy location. The offer includes unlimited talk/text and 1GB of data per month, with the option to have unlimited data for $10 per month.
The typical two-year contract isn’t required, but Sprint is charing a “student activated price” that’s actually a little more than the full, unsubsidized cost of most phones.
Along with the iOS 7.1 beta, Apple has also released a new beta for Apple TV to developers today. According to the installation guide, the new Apple TV Software beta “enables users to mirror content of an iPad to an Apple TV using AirPlay.”
Developers can find the Apple TV Software beta in the iOS developer center, Apple notes that the beta is being provided to test the latest AirPlay functionality with your iOS apps and websites. We’re downloading the software now and will let you know what’s inside.
Stay tuned. More to follow.
Apple has just seeded the first beta for iOS 7.1. Registered developers can grab the update from the Developer Center. The beta release comes just four days after Apple published iOS 7.0.4 to the public that included a fix for failed FaceTime calls.
We’re still waiting for more info on the new goodies, but we’ll update you on new features once we’ve got it downloaded.
According to the release notes iOS 7 beta 1 includes a number of performance enhancements and bug fixes.
Here are some of the new things we’ve found so far:
It was just last week that Cult of Mac was bemoaning the kind of consumer society we live in where we’re so desperate for the latest iPhone that Apple Stores have to be opened on Thanksgiving.
Despite the presence of the anti-theft Find My iPad solution, thefts of iPads (along with other tablets) have soared on UK railways over the past year. According to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, thefts of iPads are up 10 percent for 2013 — with only 2 percent of the reported 949 stolen units ever recovered by their owners. During that same period of time, thefts of laptops and computers fell by 22 percent.
It has been reported that that Foxconn Electronics will stop production of the iPhone 5c at its Zhengzhou factory in northern China. This isn’t a sign that Apple is severing ties with Foxconn, however, as the workforce previously working on the iPhone 5c will instead be shifted to work on the iPhone 5s production line.
It’s the holiday season, and money is a little bit tight. If you’ve got an iPhone on your shopping list and want to save $100 off, AT&T is selling Apple’s new iPhones — including the 16GB iPhone 5s and 16GB & 32GB iPhone 5c — for half-off their initial up-front price. That means you can get an iPhone 5s for the price of an iPhone 5c, and an iPhone 5c for just $49.99.
There’s a reason that Apple usually invites Epic Games on stage. The developers’ mobile-only series, Infinity Blade and its sequels, shows off the gaming potential of any new iOS device by pushing its graphical potential to the very limits.
Infinity Blade games look beautiful no matter what device you run them on, but there’s a big difference graphically between playing Infinity Blade III on an iPad 2 and an iPad Air. If you happen to have a jailbroken device, though, a new jailbreak tweak will trick Infinity Blade into running at a higher graphical setting… apparently with little degradation of performance.
Over the years the reports of Apple's death have been greatly exaggerated.
According to the always entertaining Apple Death Knell Counter, Apple has been declared dead no less than 65 times since April, 1995. Usually the attempt of journalists looking to pick up click-throughs/sell books/make a fool of themselves, the disease can often manifest in business analysts, other CEOs, and generally anyone who should know better. A recent example? Trip Chowdhry, writing for CNBC, who sagely noted that Apple must come up with its debut wearables product within 60 days or it will perish. "It will take years for Apple's $130 billion in cash to vanish, but it will become an irrelevant company ... it will become a zombie, if they don't come up with an iWatch.” See what we mean?
Sadly these rumors won’t go anywhere, regardless of what AAPL stock prices do. Hey, at least they make amusing reading after the fact.
Every year, Apple takes pity on the poor App Store overseers who guard the gates of the company’s walled garden and gives them a few days around the holidays off from the crushing grind of manually approving new apps and updates. During this time, app store developers can’t submit app updates, price changes, or in-app purchases, and Newsstand publications will not be updated, even if a new issue is available.
When will this fallow period come this year? Exactly when you’d expect: Christmas week.
Fantastical is hands down my favorite calendar app for both the Mac and iOS, and Fantastical 2 for iOS went a long way to bringing the app in line with iOS 7’s major aesthetic changes. Now, just three weeks after its lauch, Fantastical 2 has seen its first app update, and there are some cool new options in here.
I like seeing photos in my Twitter timeline, but I don’t like the painful process of looking at them. You have to tap, and then wait while the picture loads, and while you’re waiting you can’t scroll through and read other tweets as they’re usually blocked by the loading photo.
Photofon doesn’t fix this (the only app that ever did it properly was Loren Brichter’s original iPad Twitter app that kept loading pages in their own independent sheet), but it does turn the viewing of Twitter photos into something you’ll actually enjoy doing.
If you’re using the Chrome browser on your Mac, then you might like to take a look at Backtick, an extension which lets you fire off bookmarklets with a few keystrokes. Like Alfred, Launchbar or Quicksilver on the Mac, Backtick lets you hit a key combo and type in a couple of letters to trigger a command. Only instead of launching apps and so on, it launches bookmarklets.
One of the essential parts in my RSS-BitTorrent-iPad TV-watching setup is iFlicks, a Mac app from Jendrik Bertram that takes a video file, adds cover art and movie/show metadata and then converts the file into an iTunes or iPad-friendly format. It even adds in subtitles if you have them in the same folder as the video file.
Now v2.0 has launched its public beta stage, so you can try out the faster, better and more powerful-er next version.
Wow, the Evernote folks are on a real roll these days. Not only does the iOS app now not suck enough to use it every day, but the new Safari web clipper is good enough to make me use my Mac for browsing the web again. It’s like a combination of Skitch, Instapaper and, well, Evernote.
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.