News - page 1632

Jonathan Berg, aka “Dremel Junkie,” shares our love for the iMac G4. Rather than letting his old G4 waste away in some landfill, he decided to resurrect it by putting an Intel Ivy Bridge processor inside and using some hackery to get it running OS X Mountain Lion.

Even though there’s not much space inside the G4’s base, Jonathan was able to squeeze in a DVD burner, a Core i3 processor, and some other new internal upgrades without compromising the original design. If you’re not afraid of a soldering iron and a Dremel Moto tool, Jonathan made a video explaining how to create your own Ivy Bridge iMac G4 that you can watch below.

No one tell former Vice President Al Gore that it’s a bad time to buy AAPL. He just exercised a big chunk of his Apple stock options, walking off with $29 million worth of shares at a steep discount.

Although the iSpy Tank may not end up in James Bond’s gadget collection, it’s more than ideal for amateur espionage missions. The device is controlled by your iPhone and has a built-in camera relays real-time video directly to your iPhone’s display, so you can see exactly where it’s going even if you’re in another room.

The iOS lock screen is a boring place. It displays the time, any notifications you’ve received since you last unlocked your device, and a shortcut to the Camera app. But that’s it. When you compare it to Android’s lock screen, which now has support for all kinds of cool widgets, it’s clear there’s room for improvement.

One way Apple could start improving it for iOS 7 is with this awesome concept from Jean-Marc Denis.

Apple CEO Tim Cook must provide a deposition in a lawsuit that claims the Cupertino company, along with other major firms in Silicon Valley, violated antitrust rules by entering into an agreement not to recruit each other’s employees. Apple’s lawyer, George Riley, had objected to the order handed out by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, on Thursday.

If you’ve pre-ordered a Pebble smartwatch, the first thing you’ll want to do when it arrives is connect it to your smartphone. After all, that’s the whole idea, right? Then you’ll be pleased to know that Pebble’s official apps for Android and iOS will be available before the device arrives on your doorstep.

Penny Arcade The Game: Gamers vs. Evil and other iOS games from Playdek have been reduced to just $0.99 this weekend. The popular card game only hit the App Store a month ago, and this reduction sees $4 off its regular price tag. Check out our list of other titles in the sale below.

Sharp has “nearly halted” its production of 9.7-inch iPad displays as consumers shift their demand towards the smaller iPad mini, Reuters reports. Sources familiar with Sharp’s plans have claimed that production of the larger panels at Sharp’s Kameyama plant in central Japan has fallen to the “minimal level” this month following a gradual slowdown that began at the end of 2012.

The news follows speculation that the iPad mini has been “cannibalizing” sales of the larger model since its debut last November.

If you believe recent reports and predictions from analysts, Apple must make its iPhone cheaper or introduce a low-cost model if it wants to compete with Samsung going forward. The Korean company currently boasts the largest smartphone market share in the United States, and its lead is expected to increase throughout 2013. But did you know that Apple has actually sold more devices? 88 million more, in fact.

Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt has been comparing Apple’s cumulative smartphone sales with Samsung’s, and it appears the Cupertino company’s iPhone outsold the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines 219 million to 131 million.

Back in September, British carrier O2 teamed up with HTC and started an initiative to reduce the number of unwanted smartphone chargers in the United Kingdom. The carrier estimated that around 70% of handset buyers already had a charger that would be compatible with their new device, and so it started selling certain HTC devices without them.

O2 is now reporting that the initiative has been a big success. 82% of customers didn’t need to purchase a charger with their smartphone, the company claims, which surpasses its initial expectations for the effort.

Team Cult is back from Vegas, baby! Yes, we’re still a little, um, foggy minded, but with plenty of new Apple news to discuss, the show must go on.

On this episode of The CultCast, we discuss rumors of iPhone 5S, and ponder how some recent Apple acquisitions means the mystery phone could have some very radical new features.

Then, has Apple lost its mojo? And what about all those rampant rumors that iPhone 5 just isn’t selling? Bollocks! On our newest episode, we sort it all out for you.

Eager to listen but not sure how? Easy! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Click on through for the full show notes.

According to Google engineer, Frank Petterson, on his own Google+ profile page, the search giant’s social network iOS apps just got a little more international, as the app just became available in 48 new countries and territories.

iOS contact aggregation app, Brewster, updated today and added a feature that might make you wonder why it wasn’t there in the first place: the contacts on your iPhone itself. While Brewster already pulled contact info from your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn profile, Gmail account, and Foursquare contacts, this is the first time its connected directly to the native iPhone contacts you carry around with you every day.

Siri is already pretty smart, but Apple wants to take her to the next level. An Apple job listing out of Cupertino calls for a “uniquely creative individual to help us evolve and enrich Siri, our virtual personal assistant.”

“Siri’s known for ‘her’ wit, cultural knowledge, and zeal to explain things in engaging, funny, and practical ways,” says Apple. “The ideal candidate is someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.”

LOS ANGELES — It felt like a wrap party for a big-budget Hollywood flick at Disney’s El Capitan Theatre, complete with fancy food and big names like Pixar chief John Lasseter in attendance. But Disney’s Infinity announcement on Tuesday was a massive project in which Pixar, the Disney-owned digital animation studio that once belonged to Steve Jobs, played only one of the major roles.

As it was revealed, Infinity is an amazing, massive, cross-platform, multiplayer game system based on figurines from the Disney catalog of movies — right now most of them specifically from Pixar titles.

“It will be global, and it will live across all platforms: console, mobile and online,” Lasseter said on Tuesday.

All platforms? Unfortunately not. Perhaps Disney has forgotten that Steve helped build Pixar into the powerhouse it is today; because while a Windows version will be present along with versions for all the major console systems at Ininity’s June launch, there won’t be a Mac version — at least, not at first.

Everybody wants to be Jony Ive’s friend, so he probably gets invited to a lot of the dinners where Silicon Valley’s elite just hangout, scarf down pizza, and get blitzed on wine. We rarely see pictures of such events, but last night a picture was posted of Sir Jony himself hanging out with 11 of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley.

The dinner was hosted by Nirav Tolia – a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur – and featured the CEOs of Twitter, Yelp, Path, Dropbox, Yahoo, and other companies. What’d they do besides eat pizza? Did a wild night of karaoke follow over at Marrisa Mayer’s manor? Who knows? Who cares? But we’re glad Jony gets to hangout with people outside the mothership from time to time.

Here’s a list of everyone that was present at the dinner:

Several months ago Black Pixel released the Kaleidoscope 2 for Mac beta. Today the app has been officially released in the Mac App Store and on the web.

Kaleidoscope 2 is a powerful app that compares text, images, and folders in OS X. It’s intended to improve your workflow by helping you quickly review and merge changes between files and folders.

Hearst and Apple have partnered in Newsstand to bring 22 of Hearst’s magazines exclusively to the iPad before any other digital or retail channels. This means that new issues of magazines like Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Elle, Popular Mechanics, Seventeen, and more will be available in Newsstand days before anywhere else.

Instagram has generated quite a bit of negative press in recent weeks since the Facebook-owned photography app updated its terms and conditions with some hairy verbiage regarding content ownership. Things have died down more recently since Instagram clarified its policies regarding how users’ photos can be used in advertisements.

Many assumed that legions of disgruntled Instagram users had jumped ship over the past month, but the social network has released its usage statistics for the first time to squash any concerns.

For a game that’s been downloaded over 170 million times and spawned countless ripoffs, the sequel to Temple Run came as a complete shock. The smash-hit endless runner started sneaking into App Stores around the world yesterday, and it went live in the U.S. late last night. Imangi Studios, the small company behind Temple Run, had no promotional material or teasers leading up to the release.

But now that Temple Run 2 is here, fans of the original can sprint, jump, slide, and fall through a new and improved world. With zip lines, new power-ups, characters, and a mine cart, Temple Run is better than ever.

Steve Jobs used to like Larry Page and the guys at Google, until they went and made their own smartphone operating system by copying iOS. Steve Jobs was livid. He threatened “to go thermonuclear war” on Google over Android, and the relationship obviously soured.

Now that Larry Page is the CEO of Google, he’s got a lot to worry about, but Steve Jobs’ thermonuclear threats haven’t seemed to bother him. In an interview with Wired’s Steven Levy, Page was asked about competition, and Jobs’ threats of war, but rather than going on an anti-Apple rant, Page’s answer was pretty calm, cool, and collected.

If you don’t like to pay for games on your iPhone or iPad then you’ll want to hurry up and take advantage of the promo Rovio is having on their Angry Birds Rio game. You can download Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Rio HD from the App Store for free right now.

Even though it doesn’t have all the crazy new action of Angry Birds Star Wars, or Angry Birds In Space, there’s still a lot of fun to be had in Angry Birds Rio. The app has been made the “Free App of the Week,” so you have a few days to take advantage of the special before it goes back to costing $0.99 and $2.99.

Source: iTunes

It’s been said about 120,386 times now, but holy crap, Ashton Kutcher really does look like Steve Jobs. This latest comparison almost got me excited about his movie. Like, Ashton looks impeccable as Steve Jobs, and because he’s got all those years of modeling under his belt, I’m gonna go ahead and say yes, Ashton is wearing that vest and tie combo better than El Jobso himself did.

I don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but maybe this really is the role he was born to play. Maybe jOBS won’t suck as badly as I claimed it will. If looks alone win you the Grand Jury Prize at Sundace (they don’t), then I think Ashton’s on his way. As for Woz, well, Josh Gad’s portrayal is embarrassing so far. The costume director couldn’t find him a denim shirt so they dressed him up in paisleys?

Here are some other Jobs vs Ashton comparison photos for good measure:

No one likes typing on a touchscreen keyboard. Even after using an iPhone for five years, I avoid writing anything more than a short text message or email on it whenever possible. We know Apple’s been working hard to bring tactile feedback to touchscreen devices from previous patents, but this particular invention is one of its weirder ideas.

It’s a clip-on accessory that fits onto a an iPod, iPhone, or iPad and provides tactile buttons for typing.

Even though we’ve seen some positive news over the past few months regarding Apple’s smartphone marketshare, there’s no denying that Android is the most dominant mobile platform in the world right now.

Apple may continue to grow its marketshare of the world smartphone market for another year or so, but according to one analyst, Apple’s marketshare will peak sometime in 2013 unless Samsung does something really stupid.