News - page 1597

Have any of your Instagram photos ever gotten over 20,000 likes? Yeah, mine either… But Cory Staudacher’s images do all the time. WithHearts is his name on that popular social service, and by posting one beautifully captured image each day, every day — all taken with only an iPhone — he’s become one of Instagram’s most popular users, now with just a hair under 206,000 followers.

Want to learn how he does it? Join us on this week’s CultCast as WithHearts reveals the photo apps he loves, workflows he lives by, and editing tricks he uses to create some of the most captivating iPhone photographs on the internet. He even surprises us with a few tools we never once considered using.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Show notes coming up next.

Have you ever tried to do any serious videography with an iPad? I don’t recommend it casually, but the iPad can be a great HD video tool, combining high resolution video capture abilities with a large screen for monitoring. Connecting it to a tripod, however, can be a trial.

SerialKickers aim to solve this problem with a new product for iPad, the ArchMount, an ultra-portable mounting system that will let you attach your iPad to a camera tripod for use in video, tele-prompter, or music applications.

IK Multimedia is a powerhouse of music peripherals and apps for the mobile musician, with a range of products including the iKlip mic stand mounting series for iPad and iPhone, the iRig Mic and iRig Pre, and a host of guitar, voice, and recording apps for iOS.

Recently, the company released iLectric Piano, an electric follow up of sorts to its iGrand acoustic piano app of a few months back. iLectric provides 19 different electric pianos, sampled from the instruments themselves, and placed in a fun, easy to use, useful iPad app that’s just brimming with the funky, groovy sounds of electric piano the likes of the Wurlitzer 200A and the Hohner D6 Clavinet.

$328,671. That’s how much it would cost to buy 999 base model iPad minis. While you’re probably not going to be buying that many iPads anytime soon (at least I hope not), you may like to know that Apple now lets you buy more than two iPad minis at once. Each customer could previously only purchase a maximum of two.

Apple usually has this kind of restriction for new product purchases during the first few months of availability. Once supply catches up with demand, the restriction is lifted. In Apple’s online store, the iPad mini only recently became fully in stock after months of delayed shipping estimates. Now Apple is saying that it will ship new iPad mini orders within 24 hours.

Source: Apple Store

Via: iPhone in Canada

Apple has lost nearly half of the $1 billion in damages it was awarded last August after beating Samsung in a high-profile U.S. patent lawsuit. The presiding judge over the case, Lucy Koh, decided to invalidate $450.5 million of the original damages owed to Apple in a new ruling today.

Damages were incorrectly calculated for 14 Samsung devices related to the trial, and Koh has ordered a retrial for the updated damages amount.

Apple announced today that they have updated Safari’s web plug-in that blocks older versions of Adobe Flash Player.

The update comes after Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft experienced a slew of malicious attacks on their computers via a Java exploit. Blocking the Adobe Flasher Player plugin should protect users from vulnerabilities.

We’ve seen quite a few rumors over the last couple of months that the next iPhone will come in a variety of colors. Last month we even detailed exactly how Apple will colorize the iPhone 5S, and it looks like we’re probably right.

Apple just posted a new job listing today that shows they are looking for an Anodizing Engineer to help add color to the next generation of Apple products like the iPhone 5S.

Last week, three earnest audiophiles rang my doorbell and stormed into my living room to show me a handsome Bluetooth speaker that they claimed was going to reinvent the world of Jambox-alikes and transform Bluetooth speakers into “objects of desire.”

The guys in question? Three gents from Grain Audio, an up-and-coming audio company. And the product they wanted to show me was a prototype of their upcoming Packable Wireless System, or PWS: a walnut-enclosed Bluetooth speaker with some seriously good sound for its class.

The PWS won’t be available for sale for a few months, still, but it’s a speaker worth keeping an eye on. Here’s why.

So you went out to drink with your friends and you forgot to charge your battery. What an idiot. At one point in the evening you know you’re going to get one of those dreaded “20% of battery remaining” notifications, but by that point you’ll probably be too drunk to care about conserving battery.

Maybe if the iPhone’s low battery notifications had a little bit more sass we’d listen to them more? I don’t know. But it sure would be a hell of a lot more fun if they were like these mockups from College Humor.

Source: College Humor

Via: Gizmodo

Apple is hoping to have a group lawsuit alleging it collected data from million of customers while they used approved apps thrown out of court after arguing that the plaintiffs have failed to prove their claims. At a hearing in San Jose, California, on Thursday, lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to give the designate the suit a class action — but Apple says they cannot prove any harm has been done.

Over the last couple of weeks a ‘silly sideshow’ has been playing out between Greenlight Capital and Apple Inc. Greenlight Capital’s CEO, David Einhorn, has been trying to force Apple to offer preferred stock plans by suing Apple in court, while Tim Cook and Apple disagree with his proposals.

Even though Einhorn has won at least one small victory over Apple in court, it’s been reported that Greenlight Capital just dropped their lawsuit against Apple.

Kids love the iPad; download a few children’s games and it’ll keep them entertained for hours. But don’t leave them unsupervised too long, because it could cost you. Sharon and Greg Kitchen from Bristol, England, found that out the hard way when their five-year-old son Danny spent $2,550 on in-app purchases in just 10 minutes.

Apple has a long history of naming its new versions of the OS X operating system after successively larger cats, but after eleven years of this, Cupertino’s got a problem on their hands: they’ve pretty much run out of big Earth cats.

Far beyond the Oort cloud, however, there are even bigger and more ferocious cats on the loose. Feel the magic and hear the roar of OS X Lion-O, Third Earth’s most popular operating system.

Featuring Snarf, your Mac’s cowering new digital sidekick, revolutionary Sight Beyond iSight technology, and i of Thundera compatibility, OS X Lion-O is the best Mac operating system yet.

Think you’ve got a better idea for the next version of OS X? Join our contest for a chance to win a copy of Photoshop Touch and the next version of OS X when it comes out!

PowerSkin has today announced its new silicone battery case for the iPhone 5, which features a 1,500mAh battery that promises to provide you with up to 8 hours of additional usage on Wi-Fi, up to 6.5 hours of additional talk-time, and up to 182 hours of standby time. It’s priced at $80 and it’s available to order now from the PowerSkin website.

If it seems like David Bowie hasn’t released a decent album in years, it’s because he hasn’t: his last album, Reality, came out in 2003. A few weeks ago, though, the heterochromic androgyne began teasing songs from an upcoming album called The Next Day, to be released on March 12.

Can’t wait to hear it, though? You don’t have to. Just load up iTunes and David Bowie and you can stream the entire album for free, up until The Next Day’s March 12 release.

Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust era Bowie fans, or even Labyrinth era Bowie fans, take note: this album is very definitely what one would characterize as “late Bowie.”

Source: iTunes

Robotic technology developed by England’s Oxford University is working alongside the iPad to enable an electric Nissan Leaf to drive itself. Apple’s tablet is built into the vehicle’s dashboard, and can be used to activate the robotic technology that will take over the vehicle for short stretches.

The clever system, which is designed to take the strain off of drivers during busy commutes, uses small cameras and lasers built discretely into the body of the car that allow it to recognize its surroundings and avoid collisions. 

AutoResponder, the popular jailbreak tweak that allows users to set up automatic replies to incoming text messages, has today been updated to introduce support for devices running Apple’s latest iOS 6 firmwares. Now called AutoResponder 2, the tweak also has 50% off for a limited time for those who haven’t yet purchased it.

The latest data from Display Search suggests that the iPad mini is cannibalizing iPad sales, and that Apple won’t sell as many larger iPads this year as it anticipated. Generally speaking, self-cannibalism is something Cupertino’s okay with… but they may not like the taste in their mouths nearly as much this time.

It’s a bad week for app updates. Hot on the heels of an epic Kindle for iOS bug that wiped out users’ e-book libraries comes a bug affecting version 5.2 of Evernote, which causes the app to crash upon startup. Luckily, it’s a simple fix.

Yeah yeah, Vine is all the rage right now. But remember Socialcam, the share-heavy iOS video app from effects-wizard Autodesk? If you don’t, here’s a reminder that the app is a sharp tool for shooting and sharing quick vids on Facebook — and it’s just been spiced up with HDR, new filters and the ability to shoot in 720p.

It’s taken three years, but HeartMath has finally responded, in the form of a major redesign, to the concerns we (and probably other critics) voiced over their original emWave stress-management gadget.

Where the emWave required plugging in to a USB port and cost $300, their new Inner Balance system works with pretty much any 30-pin iDevice and sells for just $99.

I’m sitting here using an amazing pair of headphones while I work: the SteelSeries Flux wired headset. Cult of Mac put these in our Awesome 2012 Advent Calendar this past holiday season, and for good reason. They’re superb headphones, very portable, easy on the ears, and have some great advanced features, like detachable cords and a second headphone jack on the headset itself to share your music with a friend.

Today, then, SteelSeries and EA announced the Real Racing 3 Gaming Headset, which is based on the very same Flux headset, to reproduce the racing sounds and over-the-top dub step soundtrack in Real Racing 3, released in the US App Store today, with much higher fidelity than any standard earbuds you might get from, say, Apple.

According to a newly-posted shareholder document, Apple now requires executive officers to own three times their annual salary. The CEO is still required to hold ten times his own annual salary in stock, as well.

This current move, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes a month after Apple’s board actually opposed a similar measure proposed by a shareholder.

A couple of weeks ago, 11 bit studios (Anomaly Warzone Earth, Anomaly Korea) asked us all to pre-order its next game at half price, sight unseen. Well, the time has come to lift the curtain on that mystery game.

Anomaly 2 is planned for a Q2 2013 release on Mac, PC and Linux, bringing the sci-fi strategy series started on iOS to desktop computers for the first time. Along with the announcement, the development team has released a preview trailer (above) and developer diary, the latter of which is a very honest look at what it takes to make an independent game these days.

Apple is working on a 4.5-inch iPhone with a polycarbonate body, according to a new report from Japanese publication Macotakara. The device has reportedly been “postponed” for a 2014 release.