News - page 1593

There aren’t many good docks out there for Apple devices with the new Lightning connector, especially the fourth-gen iPad and iPad mini. While you’re on the hunt for a viable docking solution, check out this neat iPad dock made entirely of Legos. It’s from the same people who made the iPhone 5 Lightning Lego dock we showed you last year.

It’s a pretty cheap dock alternative that appeals to the kid in all of us. You assemble the kit yourself, and it works with any iPad that uses a Lightning connector.

Starwood Hotels recently opened Aloft Cupertino, a slick hotel that is located two blocks away from Apple’s famous One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino, California. Given its close proximity to Apple itself, it only makes sense for Aloft to put Apple products into its rooms.

Unlike the crappy cable boxes that are usually in hotels, Aloft has installed an Apple TV in each of its 123 rooms with full access to all of the set-top box’s features, including AirPlay.

If you’re a designer or developer hunting for a CSS editor that does it all – and is going to save you a boatload of time – then there is no better opportunity out there with this Cult of Mac Deals offer. You’ll get Stylizer for only $40 – that’s 50% off the regular price!

The real-time editing capability allows you to edit your pages faster than ever and will literally help you save hundreds of hours in the course of a year playing around with your style sheets. Plus, this software works with both Mac and Windows machines. (Note: Browser previews dependent on your operating system).

Facebook has released an update to its iOS app that adds a few improvements, most notably the ability to change your cover photo. For some reason this feature has been missing all this time, and now it’s finally been implemented.

Group messaging has also been streamlined. Facebook says it takes fewer taps to start a group message, and it’s easier to name and find conversations in your inbox.

Source: App Store

Apple’s Mac sales have been in a bit of a slump lately thanks to issues with the production of the super skinny iMacs. Now that constraints have eased up a bit, sales are coming back strong.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster released a new research report today that covered Apple’s U.S. Mac sales from January-February 2013, and revealed that Mac sales are currently up 14% year-over-year.

Pay $80, get $100 worth of apps, music, movies or iBooks, thanks to this killer iTunes Gift Card deal over at Best Buy.

That’s basically free money: if you’re ever likely to spend more than $80 through iTunes (and that’s pretty much all of us) you’d be stupid to pass this opportunity up. Better act fast.

Source: Best Buy
Thanks: Roger

During his tenure as CEO of Apple, John Sculley saw the company suffer through a serious lack of innovation that nearly sunk the company, before Jobs came back and rescued it.

In an interview earlier this month, Sculley said he thinks Apple is experiencing a “lull in innovation.” To clarify his stance, Sculley just gave another interview and said that even though Apple’s experiencing a lull, it’s not really its own fault.

Speaking with Huffington Post, the former Apple CEO had the following to say about Apple’s perceived innovation problem:

If you jailbreak your iPhone or iPad, you are most likely to be an American male under the age of 30, you’re using either an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 running iOS 6.1 and your phone probably crashes around once or twice a week.

Or so says, at least, the following infographic, cataloguing the responses of 400 redditors, trying to put together a picture of the typical jailbreaker. The responses are illuminating, but definitely put the geoscape of jailbreaking in very clear perspective. Check it out.

As a reader of Cult of Mac, I’d say it’s a safe bet that you have a whole bunch of 30-pin docks around your home. And that those docks have been rendered useless by Apple’s evil insistence on equipping all of its new devices with smaller, tougher, easier to use Lightning plugs.

Now, we bring good news. With just €13, you can resurrect your pointless plastic paperweight.

After hearing the news that Ashton Kutcher’s phenomenal Steve Jobs biopic has been delayed, you’re probably super bummed right? Well, the first Steve Jobs biopic is coming really soon, except it wasn’t written by Aaron Sorkin, nor does it star Ashton Kutcher.

Justin Long is set to star as Steve Jobs in Funny or Die’s own Steve Jobs movie, iSteve. The Steve Jobs biopic from Funny or Die will be a parody on biopics, and it will be released online on April 15th.

Ask some people and Apple’s Maps is the cat’s meow, and just as reliable (if not more so) than Google. Ask others (like me) and Apple Maps seem to have been plotted out by the Buster Bluth of catographers, and they haven’t been able to get accurate directions anywhere ever since iOS 6 launched.

The Apple Maps vs. Google Maps debate isn’t likely to be settled any time soon in userland, but what do developers think? Which is better for developers: Apple Maps or Google Maps?

We keep hearing rumors that the iPhone 5S is going to come to us in a rainbow of different color options. While we find it hard to believe that Apple will colorize the iPhone 5S, we do think the rumored cheaper iPhone, with it’s plastic or carbon fiber body, would be perfect for colorization.

Concept artist Martin Hajek has a few new renders of what a colorful iPhone 5S or cheap iPhone would look like. Basically, it looks a lot like the current iPod Touch in a good way. Having the option to choose blue or red iPhone would be a lot better than just black or white, but do you guys think Apple is actually going to colorize the iPhone?

Take a look at the pictures below and tell us what you think:

WhatsApp, the hugely popular cross-platform messaging service, is bringing its paid subscription model to iOS. The company hasn’t yet confirmed when the move take place, but it will “definitely” happen during 2013. When that time comes, you’ll need to pay $0.99 a year to use the service.

Back in 2010, a team of hackers who went under the group handle Goatse Security exploited a hole in AT&T’s website to steal over a hundred thousand iPad subscribers’ email addresses.

The first of the pair, Daniel Spitlier, plead guilty to the attack back in 2011, bringing him a 12-18 month maximum sentence.

His partner, though, hasn’t gotten off nearly as easily: Andrew ‘weev’ Auernheimer has just been sentenced to forty-one months.

Loren Brichter is a legend amongst iOS developers. The 28 year old developer is the creator of Tweetie, which eventually became the official Twitter app. He’s the guy behind fan favorite word game Letterpress. He’s the creator of ‘Pull To Refresh’, cell swipe and slide-out panels that have become synonymous features in mobile app development. Yet few people who aren’t app and design junkies even know who he is.

You know what you need when you go away on a weekend trip? Along with your two suitcases worth of clothing, a laptop, a pair of iPads, a speaker maybe, plus case of shoes (rain or shine… Who knows?), chargers, your own personal pillow and, well, you get the point. Now you can add to that list the Traveler Laptop Stand from Magma. That’s right: a folding, portable stand for your folding, portable computer.

Apple has extended its warranties on Macs and iOS devices in Australia from 12 to 24 months, but the Cupertino company is keeping quiet about it, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

The change has been made to comply with Australian consumer law, which states that statutory warranties should stand for a “reasonable” period of time, even after the manufacturer’s standard warranty has expired.

The iPhone’s user interface is getting old and Apple isn’t innovating fast enough, according to Thorstein Heins, CEO of BlackBerry. Yes, the same BlackBerry which just released the BlackBerry Z10 (several months late) in a last ditch attempt to save the company from going under because of the iPhone.

Heins admits that Apple “did a fantastic job” with the iPhone and its iOS operating system, but he believes the company is now falling behind, giving Android and the new BlackBerry 10 OS a chance to beat it in many areas.

There’s never been much chance that Apple was going to release a new iPad mini with Retina display before later this year.

Although it’s true that Apple refreshed the fourth-gen iPad last just eight months after introducing the third-gen iPad, that refresh had the hallmark of being an exception aimed at making sure every iOS device was compatible with the new Lightning cable.

So it’s unlikely we’re going to see a Retina iPad mini this spring, and here’s further proof: current iPad mini sales aren’t tapering off, giving Apple no reason to upgrade their mini any earlier than necessary.

In response to Samsung’s Galaxy S4 announcement last Thursday, Apple has updated the iPhone 5 pages of its website to remind visitors why people love the iPhone. “Loving it is easy. That’s why so many people do,” the landing page reads, before going on to list all the reasons why the Cupertino company’s smartphone is so popular.

This week’s roundup of must-have iOS apps kicks off with, The Croods, the latest game from Angry Birds maker Rovio. It’s the official game for the upcoming motion picture from DreamWorks, and it sends you back to the Stone Age for a pre-historic adventure. We also have Calendars, the latest app from Readdle; the hugely addictive Super Stickman Golf 2, and more.

Or rather, “have someone drive you home.”

After being vilified so much for contributing to dangerous roads (along with all other smartphones, of course), the iPhone will soon turn Samaritan, and maybe help to make the roads a little safer. That’s thanks to the new Breathometer, “the world’s first smartphone breathalyzer.”

The Steve Jobs biographical film,”jobs,” starring Ashton Kutcher, has been delayed. Originally set for an April 19th release, the distributor, Open Road, feels like it hasn’t been able to create enough buzz for the flick before this date.

There’s no new release date announced, either, though it’s fairly atypical for a distribution house not to set a new one when the orignal date is delayed. We can only assume that Open Road will want to avoid the Aaron Sorkin film on the same subject, not wanting to go up against The Social Network screenwriter, no matter how much star power they hoped Kutcher would bring to the project.

The rumors that Apple’s making a cheaper iPhone have kind of died down a bit with all the iWatch madness, but there’s a new rumor to add some more smoke to the situation.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that the low-cost iPhone is indeed coming, and it will have the same 4-inch screen as the iPhone 5.

Even though Apple’s iOS feature, Newsstand, hasn’t really taken off, Google might be looking to launch its own similar feature.

Google’s newspaper feature will be called Google Play News, and it will be come in issues and subscriptions, similar to the way content is distributed on Apple’s Newsstand.