I almost never (except when shooting video) wish that I had a wider angle lens – it would just mean that I have to poke my camera even closer into the face of my subject. But I do often reach for the telephoto lens that isn’t there. After all, apart from a long lens’s ability to squish elements together in a picture, sometimes you just can’t walk any closer to your subject.
At those times, you can now reach for the iPad Telephoto lens for Photojojo.
Jailbreaking is great for fine tuning the iOS experience. Abstergo is a new and excellent jailbreak tweak that does just that, and it’s available in Cydia now for $2. Developed by Joshua Tucker and Andrew Richardson, Abstergo improves Notification Center by adding some subtle features. It won’t blow you away, but it will make interacting with notifications less annoying—and sometimes that’s all it takes for a tweak to be great.
We get ca-rayyy-zee on this week’s CultCast, takin’ ’bout iPhone 5S’ rumored new camera; why megapixels don’t matter; Facebook Home coming to iOS; why teens really love Snapchat; and we review the new iSteve mockumentary—it’s either way better or way worse than you heard. Plus more!
Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Be excellent to each other, and party on through for the show notes.
Fans of hit vertical jumper The Incident will be pleased to learn that the game’s makers are about to release a new creation in the App Store called Space Age. Based on early screenshots and demo videos, it has the same delightfully retro charm as its predecessor.
The App Store has a chokehold on mobile gaming, but Apple has yet to set foot into the world of living room consoles. And Apple doesn’t need to worry about competing with the likes of Xbox—the App Store has already created an incredibly vibrant and profitable gaming ecosystem.
You can mirror a game running on your iPhone to the big screen with an Apple TV. It works, but there’s more that could be done. That’s why a gaming startup based in India is bringing Wii-like motion gaming to the Apple TV. Instead of playing on the iPhone, you play with the iPhone.
Perpetual PC chipmaking underdog AMD is having a rough time of it in the mobile age. The stock is in the tank, and they lost $146 million last quarter on $1.09 billion in revenue. AMD needs to figure out a way to make a splash in mobile quick if it intends on surviving.
Over the past year, there’s been some sign that AMD has been taking this threat seriously. Last August, Jim Keller — previously director of Apple’s mobile platform architecture group — was enticed over to AMD, reporting to former Apple hardware chief Mark Papermaster. Reportedly, Keller was focusing on developing high-performance, low-power processor cores at AMD.
Now it looks like AMD is looking to beef up its mobile division even further. It is now being reported that AMD has poached Raja Koduri, Apple’s director of graphics architecture.
Fitbug is a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Fitbit is also a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Their names are similar, and so are their products. It’s kind of like they’re the same company, except they’re totally not, and that’s the problem.
The confusion between the names of the two companies has really started to get under Fitbug’s skin, so it’s decided to sue Fitbit for trademark infringement to decided who gets to be the fittest company in the U.S.
Ah, the iCar. We’ve been waiting for Apple to make a real one for years, ever since they transformed a Porsche into one way back in 1980. And we know Steve Jobs was game.
So the promise that Volkswagen is preparing an iBeetle might, at first, seem of interest to Apple fans and auto enthusiasts. But don’t get too excited, because the iBeetle is lame.
Earlier this week, we wrote about Grabby, a rad little Cydia tweak that let you extend the lockscreen camera launcher into a quickbar for up to five favorite apps.
Here’s a similar idea. Atom is an upcoming Cydia tweak that is set to be released this weekend which allows you to unlock your iPhone directly to up to six different apps, just by dragging the on-screen ‘locked’ icon to one of six positions.
We’re pretty confident the iPhone 5S will look almost identical to the iPhone 5, but its insides are likely to be a little different. Recent rumors have claimed Apple could add a faster processor to the device, along with fingerprint technology and improved cameras. And one of those cameras may have been leaked.
The picture above shows what is believed to be a front-facing camera for the iPhone 5S.
Apple’s share price may be falling quickly at the moment, but company co-founder Steve Wozniak is confident it’ll rise again thanks to future products that will “surprise and shock us all.” Speaking at the Login technology conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, Woz said “the stock price is a little low right now,” but notes that industry profits “are still with Apple.”
Do you think Siri instantly forgot all those strange questions and requests you asked it the moment you pressed your home button, then you’re wrong. Siri remembers. Well, Apple does; the Cupertino company has confirmed this week that it stores every Siri request you make for up to two years.
A new survey conducted by ChangeWave Research has found that 19% of U.S. consumers say they’re likely to purchase Apple’s much-anticipated “iWatch” if and when it becomes available. The demand has been attributed to “Apple’s track record of delivering ultra-convenient, easy to use products with perceived ‘cool factor’.”
Evernote has just updated Skitch for both the Mac and iOS. And what an update! The headline feature is PDF annotation (premium account required, 30-day trial for new users), a feature which could make the app useful to more than just bloggers marking up screenshots.
Ka-chunk, ka-chunk. Ker-Ching! That’s the sound of micro budgeting, and doesn’t it sound like fun? That’s because it is – with Cents, a super-simple new iPhone app for tracking your daily expenses.
Slugline is a new app for screenwriters from Stu Maschwitz (movie maker, visual effects superstar and guy named Stu). It’s a Fountain-based app for writing movies and outputting them in industry-standard Final Draft format, but in use it’s more like a simple plain-text Markdown editor.
Got one of Fujifilm’s shiny new X100S rangefinder-style cameras? Or another of the company’s digicams with the fancy X-Trans sensor inside? Then go hit up your Software Update and install the new Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O70X7JY4re0&feature=youtu.be
It won’t let your kid paint with light in the traditional, photographic sense — using a light source to burn magical images into a photograph.
Instead, Griffin’s new Crayola Light Marker turns an iPad into a canvas that’s transformed with light — a form of light painting, and just as magical.
Personal social networking app, Path, just released a new icon set into its sticker shop today, called “Iconic Bites.” While the stickers are adorable little bite-sized, pixel-chic representations of food and such, what really makes them cool is that they were created by none other than Susan Kare, the designer of the original Macintosh system icons.
The Path blog posted an interesting interview with her, as well, in which she talks about how her long experience in the design industry has influenced her current designs.
About a month ago, Amazon bought Goodreads, a popular social network for reviewing and recommending books. The reason was obvious: Goodreads in the Kindle Store. But what a new report shows is that the buyout was also a move to steal Goodreads away from a potential partnership with Apple.
A lot has been said lately about the iPhone’s demise, and thanks to global smartphone marketshare numbers, you’d think the Apple-hating Negative Nancys are right. But then if you look at the U.S. marketshare numbers, it’s a completely different story.
Benedict Evans created the chart above based on AT&T and Verizon’s recent sales figures. It’s pretty clear that the iPhone has been the only smartphone that is actually increasing sales for the networks, while Android buyers are probably people who just go into the shop and buy whatever looks good.
There’re few photo apps better than MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio for the casual photographer. It’s got a pretty interface, it’s super-simple to use and it’s stuffed with way more filters than any other iPhone app at the App Store (pretty sure this is true; if you think you know of one with more filters, let me know). Normally the app is $2, but today it’s free.
They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, but for a lot of people, Snapchatting promiscuous pics and Skyping just isn’t enough. Condom maker Durex is ready to help you out though by adding a new product for your sexual repertoire.
As its first experiment with wearable tech, Durex has created “Fundawear.” It’s a line of underwear that’s been embedded with tons of tiny little vibrators around your naughty bits region that are then synched up with an iPhone app so your partner can “touch you over the Internet.” There’s a mens and womens pair, and they’re pretty much perfect for couples who are long distance and wanting to get kinky, or creeps that want to masturbate in public using only their iPhone.
Here’s the video Durex created to introduce Fundawear:
Taking pictures with an iPad is a no-no. I don’t care if you’re Spike Lee, just don’t do it. Ever.
The only time it is acceptable to take pictures in a public place with your iPad, is if it’s going to save your life by preventing a softball from ramming through your skull.
That’s exactly what happened to this older gentleman at a University of Northern Iowa softball game. He was trying to capture the fierce action of the game, when an errant foul ball came screaming at his face. The backstop netting couldn’t stop the ball in time, so his iPad stepped up and intercepted the ball to save the man’s life.
Check out the video:
When we’ve grown tired of flinging Angry Birds through space, Hoth, Brazil, and everywhere else, Cut the Rope has always been a great fallback option for a quick, fun iOS game. Now it’s getting even better with time travel.
ZeptoLabs just released the latest installment in its Cut the Rope series called Cut the Rope: Time Travel. The new game adds the dimension of time travel to increase the complexity of ways to get your little Om Nom’s some candy. Now instead of having one Om Nom to feed, you get an ancient ancestor to worry about too while you explore locations like the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, a Pirate Ship, Ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Stone Age.
Here’s a gameplay trailer:
