News - page 1540

There are several truths about cables:

1. Despite having a rats nest of cables in the back of your closet, you can never find the one you actually want.
2. All cables – ALL OF THEM – are self-tangling. And “tangle-free” cables are the worst.
3. Try as you might, you have never managed to come up with a good way to organize cables and have them look good.

This is one reason I like the look of Brit Morin’s cool DIY project. The other reason is that it’s not just for cables but for several other things I have too many of: sunglasses, neckties, straps (just kidding about the neckties).

This somewhat blurry image of a game controller built by Logitech is believed to be one of the first Apple-approved controllers for iOS 7 that will join the “Made for iPhone” program. It’s built for the iPhone 5, and it’s been designed to meet Apple’s new guidelines for Mac and iOS game controllers.

Bonzart’s Ampel is a cool-looking — and cheap — digital camera styled on the TLR (twin-lens-reflex) cameras of old. But the retro case design isn’t just a gimmick: the Ampel actually packs some great featurres into the old-fashioned shape, including a dedicated tilt-shift lens.

It looks like iOS 7 adds a digital zoom to the video-camera app. You’ll need to be running it on an iPhone 5, but if you are, you can zoom in 2–3x as you shoot. Plus, it doesn’t appear to be the crappy digital zoom used for stills.

You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking it’s been three whole days since I posted about a wooden iPhone case. And since the last one before that was maybe at the beginning of last week, I’m thinking it’s about time for another one. So here it is: The Colors Handcarved Wood iPhone 5 Case.

Lightroom-using, iPad-owning readers might remember an app called Photosmith. It promised to let you sync your photos ’twixt iPad and Lightroom and let you add tags, keywords and metadata, as well as selecting picks and rejecting the crud before syncing everything back again.

The trouble was, it was confusing as hell, and crashed every few button taps. Now we have version 3.0, and it is everything the original tried to be. In fact, it’s pretty great.

Apple has issued a statement which explains its commitment to customer privacy and how it handles government requests for data following the PRISM scandal. The Cupertino company has reiterated that it did not know about the PRISM program until June 6 when it was first contacted by the media, and that it does not provide government agencies with direct access to its servers.

Remember when the iPad first appeared and everyone said “it’s just a big iPhone”? They were right. From the lock screen to the multitasking tray to the awful, awful clock app, the iPad really was running a blown-up version of the iPhone OS.

Now, though, it looks like Apple has finally designed iOS to sit properly on the iPad’s bigger screen. These screenshots, taken from X-Code’s device emulator, show what the iPad looks like when it’s running iOS 7.

In May 2012 several U.S. carriers started rolling out a nationwide wireless emergency alerts (WEA) system for wireless subscribers. The free service is intended to share information about natural disasters and other location-centric news, like AMBER alerts.

Over the weekend AT&T announced that it is bringing WEA to its iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S owners across the country. The service will be enabled via a carrier firmware update that has started rolling out to subscribers on iOS 6.1 and higher.

My first impression on seeing iOS 7 on my iPhone was: What is this, a My Little Pony theme?

But after scrutinizing, analyzing, deconstructing and living with the new version, I’m ready to declare iOS 7 an unambiguous masterpiece, a stroke of genius, really.

That may sound like a weird thing to say about a fruity, copycat platform that crashes constantly. But it’s true, and I’ll tell you why.

I’ve tried multiple Mac menubar apps for accessing Facebook, and they’ve all been ugly and clunky when compared with Moment, a recently released OS X app from Tapmates.

Moment sits in your Mac’s menubar and gives you quick access to sharing on Facebook and viewing notifications. It’s beautifully designed, simple, and unobtrusive.

Instagram is in desperate need of an iOS 7 redesign. The current interface looks very outdated and overly textured compared to the rest of Apple’s newest OS.

To be fair, iOS 7 won’t ship to the public for months, and I’m sure Instagram’s talented designers are working on an update right now. But in the meantime, the above concept looks great. The navigation buttons and typography meshes perfectly with iOS 7, and I would totally use it on my iPhone.

The design is by Michal Vasko on Dribbble. What do you think?

Source: Dribbble

iOS 7 looks totally different than iOS 6, and most App Store apps are going to have to undergo a big design overhaul to fit it. Gone are the rich textures and deep garnishes. Corinthian leather has been replaced with Gaussian blur. A lot of iOS 6 apps look instantly out of place.

There are, however, quite a few popular apps that look like they belong in iOS 7. Whether it’s by coincidence or intentional forethought, these 16 iOS apps fit in with iOS 7 very well already:

Going to see Man of Steel this weekend? Then check out the official iOS game by Warner Bros. You fly around as Supes and beat on General Zod and his posse.

The gameplay looks decently fun for an iOS title, although the graphics leave much to be desired.

This is another small but great feature in iOS 7: you can now scrub through songs from the lockscreen if you are playing them through the official Music app. This doesn’t work with third-party music apps, like Rdio, and in practice in the first beta, it can be a little difficult to scrub (the touch target is too small). Still a very nice addition indeed.

Via: Reddit

SAN FRANCISCO, CA Collin Donnell wants app developers to learn from his mistakes.

Donnell, a full-time iOS developer  since 2008 whose app credits include Pinbook for Pinboard, shared some tips to a packed room at AltWWDC, which we have been all over like an snuggle iPad case. He divided them into practical and philosophical, but they sort of blend together.

The new Mac Pro is probably going to be one of the most insane piece of desktop hardware ever created.

We know all that horsepower is going to be used to create some really great creative content, but there are some altnative uses for the Mac Pro that you’d never even dream of, like a beer keg.

Here are the best alternatives uses for the new Mac Pro:

Microsoft just loves to poke fun at the iPad, doesn’t it?

It has already aired a number of commercials for the Asus VivoTab that mock its size, weight, lack of Office support, its inability to run two apps simultaneously, and most of all its price. And now the software giant is doing the same on behalf of Dell.

We’ve all seen iOS 7 running on the iPhone 5 now, but Apple’s still holding back showing it off on the iPad… at least, everywhere except on their site, where the eagle-eyed boys over at iGen.fr spotted Apple’s official shots of iOS 7 running on the iPad 2, iPad 3 & 4, and iPad mini.

There’s even a shot of what the official Music app looks like running on the iPad. Looking good!

Source: iGen.fr
Thanks: Anthony N!

With one WWDC special episode already already under our belts, you think we’d be good, but with so much great hardware and software coming out of Apple’s big 90-minute keynote, we had to make the pleasure last.

Join us for another new CultCast, this time with Wired writer and special guest Christina Bonnington, as we discuss our favorite iOS 7 features and why its current look is still a big “a work in progress.” Plus—we asked, you answered—we’ll read your thoughts on iOS 7’s radical new look and the new features you love.

All that and more on this week’s second CultCast! Stream or download our new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll. Show notes up next!

The new Mac Pro is tiny. How tiny? It’s only slightly bigger than a roll of paper towels. And yet inside it is the power to render, I dunno, a jillion 3D models of them.

Via: Reddit

iBooks has been a big successful venture for Apple — despite the ongoing price fixing case from the Department of Justice — but it’s a service that may never have been if Eddy Cue hadn’t convinced Steve Jobs it would be awesome on the iPad.

Before Apple was gearing up to launch its popular tablet in late 2009, Steve Jobs wasn’t interested in the iBooks idea, and he felt e-books had no place on desktops and small smartphone displays.

TweetDeck for Mac just got a pretty nice update via the Mac App Store that introduces a new user interface and a number of new features. Users will find it’s now easier to navigate their way around the app thanks to a new sidebar, while the built-in translation makes it easier to communicate with foreign friends.

Got wood? Good. Then you won’t be interested in the new Clic Wooden case from Native Union. It’s a rather slick little number featuring a solid cherry wood back panel with a high-gloss plastic insert.

Mango is yet another browser-based text editor from Hog Bay Software, the folks behind apps such as TaskPaper and FoldingText. This one is a Markdown editor, but as usual with anything made by Jesse Grosjean, it has some clever twists.