News - page 1484

Sir Jony Ive and famed designer Marc Newson have teamed up with Bono to a mega-auction of fancy master-pieces of design that will be sold to benefit (RED). Among the list of items up for grabs is a custom pair of Apple EarPods made of solid rose gold.

Jony and Marc actually did all the curation of the collection themselves over the past year, as well as collaborating on two custom made items – a  Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera, and an  aluminum desk produced by Neal Feay Studios. A total of 40 items will be auctioned off, including pieces from space travel, lighting, contemporary art and rare automobiles.

Here’s what Jony had to say about his contribution:

Apple’s first major product event of the year is set to take place on Tuesday, September 10th. There was WWDC in June, but this time around will be all about the iPhone, Apple’s crown jewel.

The event will be held in Apple’s Town Hall auditorium at its Cupertino headquarters, which is a venue that was last used for the debut of the iPhone 4S in 2011. The iPhone 5S is expected this year, and like the 4S was to the 4, the device will look nearly identical to the iPhone 5 and focus on internal improvements. For the first time in Apple’s history, the rumor mill is predicting the unveiling of not one, but two new iPhone models at once, with the second being the iPhone 5C.

Here’s everything to expect from Apple’s September 10th iPhone event:

At this point, we’re pretty confident that Apple will unveil two new colors for the iPhone 5S: a gold/champagne and white model, and a graphite and black model. If you’re wondering how the latter will look against the existing black iPhone 5, then this new hands-on video should give you a good idea.

We’re nearly 24 hours away from Apple’s iPhone keynote, but a new video just hit the web that shows what Apple’s budget iPhone looks like when in operation. A video posted by C Technology shows an alleged blue iPhone 5C powered-on before going through a quick tour of iOS 7.

While the short video doesn’t show many details of the device, it does look consistent with some of the other leaks we’ve seen, and could indicate that the iPhone 5C will be ready to ship shortly after tomorrow’s keynote.

You can watch the full video below:

https://youtu.be/E86uHpgWn4M

I am 100% on board this mock commercial of who will buy the gold iPhone 5S, from digital media company Andy Media. Even if the gold iPhone 5S does actually look pretty fantastic in real life, this is still largely the clientele I expect to be buying it. Absolutely hysterical.

Source: YouTube

I can think of little more boring than grinding away on a gym treadmill the thump, thump thump of your heavy feet slamming out a soporific beat over the even more mind-numbing whirr of the machine. Running outside is dull enough; running inside must be insufferable.

Which is why Steve invented the iPad. For reading while you’re at the gym: how else can you explain its bright, easy-to-read screen or it wipe-clean glass front? The problem? Jiggle. That is, your head is moving, your iPad’s screen isn’t and the mis-match makes reading hard, which is the problem the Run-n-Read purports to solve.

Quick, tell me what you thought when Facebook bought Instagram last year. Your first thought — more of a feeling, really — was probably an impending sense of doom, as if a planet with the face of a demon had just been announced to be hurtling towards Earth. But after that passed and you realized Facebook buying Instagram wasn’t going to be the end of the world, my guess is you mostly just shrugged and said, “I wonder how long it will take them to mess it all up with ads.”

Well, Facebook is taking it slow. In fact, seventeen months after they first purchased Instagram, they’re only now starting to talk about how they’re going to mess it all up with ads! Thanks for the restraint, Facebook.

Are you a big user of the iOS Kindle app? If you intend on updating to iOS 7 first thing when it drops next week, you might want to update your Kindle app sooner rather than later. A new critical update has been released that Amazon says will prevent iOS 7 from messing your Kindle library up.

You know the drill: you get some crazy attachment in the mail, and you need to convert it to a format you can use. And – of course – you’re on your iPhone or iPad.

Maybe it’a a FLAC file you want in AAC, or a Microsoft DOC file that you’d prefer to see as a PDF. On the Mac you can convert these with little problem, but on iOS? Well, it’s now actually even easier than it was on the desktop. If you use CloudConvert anyway.

Go figure. Just a week and a half before Apple is set to launch iOS 7 out into the world, someone has finally succeeded in hacking iOS 6.1.4. Oh, the irony!

Remember the Radius? It was an iPhone case so minimal that it was almost invisible when viewed from anywhere but the back, and weighed in at just 4.4 grams, a weight too light to even register on the scale of ounces [1]

The Corners 4 somehow manages to be even more minimal than the Radius, ditching that heavy x-shaped brace on the back and just putting a little round puck on each corner of the iPhone.

At an event in Japan today, Sony unveiled the new PS Vita TV, a tiny set-top box that will sell for around $95 and look to compete with devices like the Apple TV. Not only will it let you stream content from services like Hulu and Sony’s own Video Unlimited service, but if you connect a DualShock 3 controller, it will also allow you to play PSP and PS Vita games on your TV.

PRONGGGG! That’s the name of the company that makes the clevertastic PocketPlug, an iPhone case that comes with a built-in charger so you can just flip out its prongs and stick them into the nearest available wall socket.

If you’ve been running the iOS 7 beta, or have seen it up close, then you’ll be familiar with the ugly icon problem, in which some icons have janky edges thanks to a change of the corner radius in iOS 7. You can see the changes in this animated GIF from Czech site Letem Světem Applem (or something), which shows the design change as applied to the icons in the iTunes Store.

Some of you poor folks live in a country where the police has been militarized to such an extent that it’ll shoot its citizens just for pointing a cellphone at them wrong. So just what would your public “servants” (paid by you via your taxes) make of the Urban Holster, a neat-looking belt-bag that looks like nothing more than a place to stow a pistol?

A newly discovered Apple patent reveals how the iPhone’s redesigned Home button will work as a fingerprint scanner.

It’s widely rumored the iPhone 5S will include a fingerprint scanner built into the Home button. But putting a fingerprint scanner into the Home button presents Apple with a problem. The Home button is used as the primary navigation device. Pressing the Home button quits apps and returns the user to the Home screen. If the fingerprint Home button is used as an authentication device, to conduct a secure online purchase say, the user needs to avoid accidentally pressing it. The last thing they want is to quit the browser and be returned to the Home screen.

The solution is a capacitive ring built around the Home button that detects the user’s finger without a button press.

Despite rumors that Apple will announce a new Apple TV at its September 10th iPhone event, no such hardware unveiling is planned, according to AllThingsD. But a big software upgrade will be announced, and it will reportedly add new AirPlay functionality that makes it easier to watch content you purchased from the iTunes Store on a friend’s Apple TV.

The time ’round on the Cult of Casts: it’s finally confirmed! New iPhones are coming September 10th… we’ll run through our expectations for the big day and offer a bold prediction of a big 5S spec bump. Then, Apple’s about to do something no tech company has ever done, and… seriously Samsung, a smart watch?

And stick around for our new segment, CultCast Second Hour, and catch our conversation with professional video editor and visual effects artist Mike Gaines as we talk the pros and cons Final Cut X; what software the editing pros use; the best cameras for indie projects; and all the Mac gear you need for a solid video product rig; plus so much more.

Have a few laughs and get caught up on all the finest Apple stories in the land. 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 the unadulterated audio enjoyment begin. Show notes up next.

It’s finally here! Terraria for iOS brings the 2D Minecraft-inspired crafting, mining, and fighting open-world game to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, and boy is it fun!

Developer 505 Games spent a ton of time making this work well on the touchscreen, and it shows, with controls that, while they take some getting used to, work really well to bring the complexity of a game like Terraria to our favorite gaming devices. Here’s a video of a bit of the tutorial, so you can see for yourself.

In light of yesterday’s shocking news that the NSA has deliberately inserted weaknesses into computer security products, the developer of popular password and security app for Mac and iOS, 1Password, has written a fairly telling blog post on their vulnerability to this type of NSA intervention.

Here’s what AgileBits says:

Has 1Password been deliberately weakened?

No.

Have we, AgileBits, ever been asked/compelled/pressured/contacted by any entity asking us to weaken 1Password?

No.

That’s the easy part; anyone could say that. Let’s look a bit deeper.

The prospect of Apple redesigning the iPhone’s home button has been floating around the rumor mill for years, but until now it never had much weight. But as the launch of the iPhone 5S draws near, it appears that the iconic home button could finally see its first redesign.

Since the 5S is expected to feature a fingerprint sensor, expect the look of the home button to change. Here’s why:

If you were planning on being one of the first in line to buy the upcoming iPhone 5S or 5C, you’ve been beat. Two guys from Apple reseller Sell Your Mac showed up at the iconic Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City this morning only to find that two other guys were already camped out.

Apple won’t even be announcing its new iPhones until Tuesday, but that hasn’t stopped lines from forming. A lot of companies do this kind of thing for brand promotion and media attention, but waiting in a line for two weeks to get a new iPhone takes commitment either way.

Regardless of their motives, props to the Sell Your Mac guys for getting in line so early. And to the dudes that were already there, your obsession with Apple is unquestioned.

Source: @SYM_Jon

After years of negotiations, Apple is ready to bring the iPhone to the largest carrier on earth, China Mobile. Rumors have said that the two have reached an agreement for this fall, and now The Wall Street Journal is reiterating those claims, adding that Foxconn has been enlisted to start making iPhone 5Cs for the carrier.

The e-book price-fixing saga between the U.S. government and Apple has finally come to an end. After a long and messy trial, presiding judge Denise Cote has given the final ruling against Apple. The injunction isn’t as punitive as expected, but there are still several stipulations that will change the way Apple does business regarding the iBookstore.

My 13-inch MacBook Air is a fantastic portable computer – fast, light, crazy battery life and with a “bigger” screen than my old 13-inch aluminum MacBook[1]. But as a desktop computer it sucks: only two USB ports, no Ethernet, and a tiny amount of storage.

Which is exactly why the Landing Zone exists. It’s a dock that stays on your desk, hooked up to all your peripherals, and which grabs onto your MacBook like a facehugger grabs onto, uh, a face.

I’ve been using one for a while now, and it’s almost entirely excellent.