Apple is yet to confirm its iPhone deal with China Mobile — the one we’ve been waiting for since the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c were unveiled back in September — but that hasn’t stopped some stores from putting their iPhone posters up early. According to the company’s new 4G teasers, the devices could finally go on sale between November 9 and November 11.
Back in OS X Lion and then again in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple hid access to the user Library folder to prevent neophyte OS X users from messing around in the areas of the file system that could cause some damage to their Macs.
That’s fine, of course, but it took a lot of messing around in the Terminal to get that access back, and who remembers Terminal commands from last year? Not us, that’s for sure.
Luckily, Mavericks has a much easier way to turn Library access on.
This Friday, Apple will be launching the iPhone 5s and 5c in sixteen new countries: Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. But the fun’s not stopping there, with November 15th being pegged as the next launch window for Apple’s latest iPhones.
Last week, we reported that cutesy-wutesy-fuzzy-wuzzy-wumpus-bear (and Apple co-founder) Steve Wozniak was unimpressed with the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina Display. His supposed complaint? 128GB just wasn’t enough for a man with a huge media collection like him!
It seemed uncharacteristic for Woz to publicly bash the company he helped create. Woz is an innocent, and usually reacts to every new Apple product with wide-eyed glee, so his complaints seemed strange. For good reason, too, because Woz says he was misquoted, and actually likes the new iPads just fine.
The new MacBook Pros with Retina Display may be Apple’s most powerful laptops yet, but a growing number of users are experiencing issues with both the 13-inch and 15-inch version of the laptop.
Understandably, the latest point-oh release of iOS always ships with quite a few bugs. Hey, it’s complicated making an operating system for millions of devices, things break! Almost invariably, though, there is one particular bug that repeats itself every year: an Daylight Savings Time bug that comes up time after time after time after time.
Guess what? iOS 7 has a Daylight Savings Time bug too.
IPhoto 2.0 for iOS has two amazing new features that no other photo editing has, nor will have for the foreseeable future: It can write its edits directly back to the iOS Camera Roll, and it can delete photos from the Camera Roll. This pretty much means you can now do all your photo organizing right from the app.
Federico Viticci, the sleepy-eyed sexpot founder of Mac Stories, made this discovery by the unusual means of actually reading the release notes of the app. And thank God he did, because it makes iPhoto around a zillion times more useful.
I wonder just what effect the new iPad Air will have on keyboard covers? The iPads one to four were all big enough that you could pretty much squeeze a full-sized keyboard into a matching cover, but all the keyboard cases I have so far tried for the iPad mini have been unusable, like a netbook keyboard.
Belkin’s new keyboards for the iPad Air hope that physics will continue to favor the former situation.
Chromic is both an video-grading app for the iPhone and a demonstration that we are all living in the future, carrying powerful supercomputers in our pockets. How else do you explain the fact that you can instantly apply any of Chromic’s filters to your video in real time as you watch it? You can even – and this is totally rad – scrub through the video and the effects are still applied as if a coat of paint had already dried on your pixels.
As long as Miniot keeps making its lovely wooden iPad cases, we’ll keep writing about them. The latest is this rather fetching little number for the iPad, arriving just in time to cover the front of your hot new Retina model with slivers of dead trees.
Mavericks’ new in-Finder tagging is great, letting you treat your files like you treat your Gmails and effectively keeping the same file in multiple “folders” at once. But actually tagging the files is still kind of a pain. Happily, Brett Terpstra is here to help with a rather simple tip.
CloudConvert, you will remember, is a web service that lets you convert any document from you Dropbox into pretty much any other file type that makes sense. Now, it has added support for iWork documents, letting you convert Pages documents to Word DOC and DOCX for example.
The killer for some, though, is that you can roll back your newly screwed-up iWork files to work with iWork ’09.
Even a designer at fashion house Christian Dior can’t get her hands on a gold iPhone.
Camille Miceli, Dior’s artistic director of accessories, loves her iPhone. According to a Q&A with the Wall Street Journal, she spends every morning reading daily “Le Monde” on it in bed. (Oh la la!)
Though we harbored doubts before the debut that it was the epitome of tacky, Apple’s golden iPhone 5S mines current fashion trends – the color has been glimmering more on store shelves by a whopping 88 percent.
The big iPad event might be over, but take heart fellow Apple fans, there are still plenty of great Apple stories to chat about on our all-new CultCast. This episode: the iPhone stops giving motion sickness to the pukers; some of your favorite Apple apps get big redesigns; the new Macbook Pro gets benchmarked; Apple puts your passwords in the iCloud; and more!
Join us for our second CultCast this week! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let baseline roll. And don’t miss episode 96 for our MEGAsode coverage on all that was announced at Apple’s big Oct. 22nd event.
This week’s Cult of Mac Magazine is all about apps that push boundaries – enabling us to share, connect and get stuff done.
Think back: When was the last time you hitchhiked? Crashed on the couch of a stranger? Did you get your last job on the street corner? Or meet that special someone there?
You’ve probably used your iPhone recently to couch surf, catch a ride downtown, find a date or maybe even source a freebie for dinner.
We talk to experts to understand why we feel comfortable doing things with our iPhones that were traditionally “Stranger, Danger” territory and our intrepid reporters find out what happens when you catch a ride, look for work, open up your house and try to get rid of Cheetos snack packs to perfect strangers.
There’s a crazy gallery of apps that pushed Apple’s boundaries too far — remember Baby Shaker? — and an update on why you can still find your dictator of choice in the iTunes store.
Our exclusive Ask An Apple Genius column weighs in why Mavericks scrolling seem so sluggish and why the geniuses sometimes don’t seem as smart as you are.
Check us out on iTunes.
We aim to please – and read all of your comments and questions – so keep ’em coming!
As part of their upcoming charity auction for Project Red, Jony Ive and Marc Newson announced that they’ve created a one of a kind, red Mac Pro as part of their auction for Bono’s Project (RED).
The red Mac Pro is estimated to sell for $45,000-$60,000 dollars and will be included in a lot of items to be auctioned off at Southeby’s on Nov. 23rd to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Jony and Marc collaborated on curating a list of items for the auction, as well as co-designing many products themselves, such as a custom Leica M, gold EarPods, and this aluminum desk.
A listing of the items in the auction block can be viewed on Sotheby’s site. Here are some more pics of the red Mac Pro:
Seriously, you guys, you have got to try out Device 6, from developer Simogo Games
Yeah, I know it’s $3.99, but dammit, skip the latte this morning and just buy this game. Oh, and watch the video below.
Yes, Kickstarter projects are still a dime a dozen, but this game is worth your attention.
It’s Sentris, a music-creation tool that masquerades as a puzzle game. Want to play a music or rhythm game without having to figure out how to hold a plastic guitar? Sentris is the game for you.
We saw Sentris last month at the 2013 Seattle Indies eXpo (SIX3), which was co-located with the Penny Arcade Expo in downtown Seattle.
Developer Samantha Kalman hopes to release a full game–she’s only put together a stunning prototype at this point–and she’s taken time to explain why in the video below.
There’s nothing I like better than a game that charms from the get-go, and delightfully indie Towncraft is one of those games.
Developer Flat Earth Games has created a gentle yet deep crafting game that plays as equal parts Sim City and Minecraft, with hundreds of crafting recipes, super cute music, and adorable artwork.
What’s not to like?
Take a look in your local bike emporium and you’ll see zillions of options for mounting your iPhone onto your handlebars. Wahoo’s PROTKT, as its name suggests, goes for boxy protection above all else, although the iPhone within remains quite usable. But should you go for this coddling case, or would you be better off with a super-simple silicone band?
Nice Weather 2 – Weather – Free
I appreciate a simple, uncluttered interface, and that’s why I hate the Weather Channel app. But I’ve replaced that table-laden monstrosity with Nice Weather 2. It’s a jumble-free program that has all the information you need that still manages to look neat and clean. The curved line at the bottom represents the temperature over time, and you can drag that little ball along it to get actual numbers. You can also check humidity and the wind’s speed and direction, and the high and low temperatures are marked for your convenience.
Beyond that, it’s just striking to look at. And I know I’m talking about the weather here; that’s how good-looking this thing is.
MOGA’s new gamepad for iPhone has been leaked ahead of its official debut, and I think you’ll agree that it looks pretty incredible. The device follows Apple’s guidelines for game controllers designed for iOS 7 — so it has all of the buttons that will soon become standard for iOS gamepads — as well as a built-in battery and a nifty design that closes up for portability.
Tweetbot, the immensely popular Twitter client from Tapbots, finally got its long-awaited iOS 7 update yesterday, introducing a beautiful new design for iPhone. Unsurprisingly, it’s been a massive success so far, and less than 24 hours on, it’s already the top paid app in 35 countries.
While Apple’s iLife and iWork software suites are considerably cheaper than competing products from rival companies, there’s still a bunch of people who would rather download them illegally than have to fork out the $20 fee for each app. And believe it or not, those who do will get a free upgrade to the latest versions direct from Apple.
When the Cupertino company pushed out its latest OS X apps following the iPad event earlier this week, anyone who had already installed the apps on their Mac was entitled to the latest version for free — even if the were using trial software, or they had downloaded the apps illegally.
Apple knows this, and it says it wasn’t just a bug. It also accepts that it’s easy to pirate its software — but it would rather trust you not to than implement some cumbersome anti-piracy feature.
I rely on the iPhone to get me around most places, even in my current hometown. I just really have a bad sense of direction. But ever since the advent of online maps and the GPS function of my iPhone, I’ve longed for the ability to quickly look up an address on my Mac, hit a button, and have the directions go to my iPhone.
That’s never been possible until now, with the advent of OS X Mavericks and the addition of the new Maps app to the Mac. Ideally, you’re supposed to be able to just launch Maps, get a set of directions, and then hit the little Share button to send those directions to your portable device.
I was super disappointed, then, when I went to send some directions to my iPhone from my Mac today and didn’t see my iPhone or iPad listed in the Share list.