Apple has been trying to be less dependent on Samsung components for years now, but ditching its rival has been a lot more difficult than imagined, mostly because there’s not a single company that can churn out displays and RAM like Samsung.
A new report from NPD DisplaySearch claims that Apple’s dependency on Samsung displays has only deepened recently, thanks to shortcomings by LG Display and other manufacturers as the iPad mini 2 launch looms ahead.
One of Apple’s Best Apps of 2012, Pixowl’s The Sandbox is a fantastically inventive mobile game that encourages players to create entire worlds and works of art, right on their iOS or Android devices. The Sandbox has reached five million downloads across app stores, and has over 300,000 unique worlds shared in its Online Gallery. That’s a lot of stuff, folks!
The new update for iOS today brings vehicles to the pixel-based world-building game, letting you carry yourself and crafting materials in a Truck from one place to another much faster. Or, if you’re of a combative turn of mind, grab a Tank or twelve and create a battle world to experiences the horrors of war, digitally.
There are new, more advanced contraptions as well, like Conveyor Belts and Multi Electro contraptions, letting you create and manage even more complicated machines and systems within your world.
Infuse is my favorite third-party media player for the iPhone and iPad. And until VLC for iOS returned to the App Store, there was really no competition. FireCore, the maker of Infuse, isn’t letting other apps get the last word. In today’s big update, Infuse has received a number of great features, including support for AirPlay and file transfers over Wi-Fi.
Apple’s yearly music festival is set to kick off at the Roundhouse venue in London’s Chalk Farm next month, and while the festival already had 23 acts slated for the month long concert, Apple just added 17 more artists to the line-up.
The new additions include Avicii, Bastille, Janelle Monae, The Lumineers, Tinie Tempah and many more to go alongside Elton John and Justin Timberlake. U.K. residents can use the iTunes Festival app to get free tickets, while the rest of the world will be able to watch the shows live from an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV.
Here’s the full line-up:
Adobe may know how to make terrific software, but it also knows how to milk its users for every penny it can get. The latest example of that comes with a new Adobe Reader 11 update for iOS that adds some nifty PDF conversion features—which you’ll have to pay yearly to enjoy.
Amazon expanded its digital software marketplace to the United Kingdom today, allowing Brits to download apps and games directly to their Mac or PC—just like U.S. users have been doing for some time. The process for purchasing digital items is no different, but once you’ve paid for your order, you’ll be able to download it right away.
We’re living in a post-PC age. You know it. I know it. Steve Jobs knew it when he coined the phrase three years ago at the original iPad launch event, and of course, it was the iPad that was in many ways the final nail in the coffin of decades of PC market growth.
Apple’s still the number one PC maker by unit sales, but even the growth of the Mac has been shrinking, while other PC Makers numbers are in freefall. Analysis firm Canalys, which does a lot of business analyzing PC sales, made a bizarre decision a while back to inflate their numbers by including tablets as PCs.
Even by that measure, though, Apple’s still the number one “PC” maker. But because Apple hasn’t released an iPad or iPad mini so far this year, they find that the “PC” Market was flat in Q2 2013.
What’s everyone’s favorite U.S. streaming service? Netflix? Hulu? Amazon? Angry buzzer sound! You’re wrong! It’s iTunes, natch, at least according to a recent consumer satisfaction survey by ForeSee.
https://youtu.be/i3I_7H1mByA
WhatsApp, one of the most popular univeral messaging apps out there, now has a neat new ability for iPhone users: you can exchange voice messages via push-to-talk, and your message can be received and responded to by any WhatsApp user, whether on Android, Blackberry, Nokia or Windows Phone.
If there’s one thing us iPad owners like as much as iPad cases, it’s iPad stands. And no wonder: without such a prop, the iPad can do little more than lay flat on the floor or table like a dead fish. Only unlike the poor fish, it won’t even entertain us by flapping desperately around for a few long seconds as it fruitlessly tries to push a few more drops of nonexistent water through its gills, before slowly expiring and laying eerily still.
The Boomerang case won’t provide the same pizzazz as the last few seconds of a suffocating real-life Big Mouth Billy Bass, but it does bend in the middle, and it does support your iPad.
There’s one safe prediction even prophecy-shy folks can make about the “next” iPhone: It will have a better camera.
But what does “better” mean these days? The 8MP photos from my iPhone 5 are more than big enough for editing, cropping and printing, so where does Apple go with the iPhone 5S?
If it listens to the biased opinions of the nerds who participated in DIY Photography’s latest poll, then the answer is not “more megapixels” but “better low-light performance.”
The FlameStower looks like a clever way to keep your iPhone charged while you’re camping in the wilderness. Just fill its reservoir with water, stick the other end into the flames of your campfire and plug your chosen gadget into the USB port. Relax with the charred meat and beverage of your choice, and—just three hours later—your iPhone will be fully charged.
Bind is one of those ideas that’s so simple that you get the idea you could just go and make it yourself. It’s a wide band of “methacrylate compound” (aka plastic) that has a few slots cut into it to fit the battery chambers of your Apple wireless keyboard and your Magic Trackpad. The idea is that it keeps them next to each other on your desk.
But there’s another trick in there, too.
OmniWeb has just been updated to v6.0. “What?!” I hear you scream? “OmniWeb is still around?” The answer is yes. And it seems like it’s as great as it ever was—in a retro-style kind of way.
Spinlister is like Airbnb for bikes. Instead of renting some piece-of-junk city bike for exorbitant rates while you’re on a city vacation, you can instead rent a hipstermobile from a private individual. For—it seems—equally exorbitant rates. And you can of course make some extra cash in your home town renting out your own spare steed.
Quora is a motherlode of information and often sees top experts answer thoughtful questions posed by its users. Every once in a while, a superstar will step into answer—as Ashton Kutcher himself did, when someone asked “How did Ashton Kutcher prepare for his role as Steve Jobs in the new movie Jobs?”
Here’s a problem: Let’s say you’re a diabolical dictator bent on world domination. You’ve decided to bypass the corporate mass media (which can’t be trusted) and inform the little people of your plans via podcast. You create one—only you don’t have a method of broadcasting the podcast, since you insist on personally playing your message directly onto the iDevices of your soon-to-be thralls.
The answer, of course, is the world-domination tool TuneMob. As long as you can gather everyone in the world into the same room. And by everyone, I mean a maximum of seven people. Who all need to be running TuneMob. And have fairly newish iDevices.
Two dazzling innovations we’re pretty enthused about have melded, as Flowboard becomes one of the first apps to integrate Leap Motion into its Mac platform.
So, the dude who said he’d quit rock and roll when he turned 33 just turned 70. This is a guy that typically covers 12 miles during a Stone’s show as he leaps about the stage, running and dancing. Mick Jagger has been on the cover of Rolling Stone (no relation) twenty times, the first time in 1968.
To celebrate this fairly amazing milestone for the quintessential rock and roll superstar, This Day In Music apps has made its Rolling Stones tribute app, This Day In The Rolling Stones, free.
If you’re a Stones fan, and let’s face it, most of us are in some way, you should check this one out. According to the developers, This Day In The Rolling Stones is going to remain free forever. Bravo!
After using iOS 7 for a couple of months, I’ve been missing some of the gorgeous iPhone themes that are out there for jailbreakers. You may think that theming iOS 6 is pointless when Apple’s next-gen OS is right around the corner, but one of the most prolific designers in the jailbreak community doesn’t agree.
We’ve highlighted Sentry’s work multiple times on Cult of Mac, and he’s most famous for Auxo, a popular app switcher replacement tweak. Aplo is a new Winterboard theme from Sentry that has been in the works for quite some time, and it’s drop-dead gorgeous.
Fitness trackers are a dime a dozen these days. Good fitness trackers are a little harder to find, but they’re out there. With rumors swirling that Apple itself is getting into wearables, everyone is getting into what is quickly becoming a very crowded market.
Shine is a new product from Misfit, a startup co-founded by former Apple CEO John Sculley, that takes a unique approach to monitoring physical activity. It comes with a gorgeous iPhone app, and it’s designed to clip onto more than your wrist.
We’re big fans of the Philips Hue lighting system, which allows you to control your house’s mood and lighting with a slick iOS app. The only problem is that there’s been only one kind of Hue lightbulb until now.
But the Hue lineup is getting more versatile. Philips is set to expand their funky Wi-Fi-controlled lightbulb line with LightStrips and Bloom Bulbs.
Twitter announced today that it is bringing a new verification process to its iOS and Android apps to improve security. The new feature allows you to protect your account with two-factor authentication that can be turned on and managed directly from the app, rather than having to depend on third-party SMS clients.
Along with beefing up security, Twitter also added a new gallery view that can be seen when you tap “view more photos’ from a profile, or by doing a photo search. Lists can be managed from within the app now, too.
You can read about all the engineering details that went into the new two-factor authentication on Twitter’s blog and grab the free update right now on the App Store.
Here are the release notes:
Twelve South, one of Cult of Mac’s favorite accessory makers, has a new stand out called the HiRise. Announced today, the elegant, metallic device is designed for holding the iPhone 5 and iPad mini. Like most of Twelve South’s products, the HiRise looks right at home amongst your other Apple products.
iOS 7 beta 4 was just released last week, but that hasn’t kept Apple from pumping out another beta to developers faster than you can say “Oppenheimer.” Beta 5 was released today, and like always, there are some subtle and not-so-subtle changes worth noting.
Here are eight changes in iOS 7 beta 5: