We’ve seen waterproof Bluetooth speaker that replace your Jambox when you go to the beach, bit what about a waterproof case that lets you take your actual Jambox to the beach? That’s the Vault, a rugged, water-shrugging case which will keep any small, candy-bar-shaped speaker safe and dry wherever you take it.
Following the supply problems Apple has faced with the iPhone 5, the Cupertino company is reportedly woking to ensure that it is better prepared for the iPhone 5S by trialling production way ahead of the handset’s public release. According to one Chinese newspaper, it will begin production of up to 100,000 iPhone 5S units this December.
Apple has released two additional iPad mini TV spots following the release of its first “Piano” ad for the mini. “Photos” (shown above) focuses on viewing photography and editing pics in iPhoto on the mini next to the 10-inch Retina iPad. At the very end of the ad, the larger iPad slides out of frame so that the mini can be featured as its replacement.
The second spot, called “Books,” demonstrates reading in iBooks on the mini compared with the larger iPad:
With the absence of Steve Jobs looming in the background, Tim Cook and his team faced a mountain of questions as they marched into 2012. Who would be the visionary now? Would the iPhone continue to be successful? What’s going to happen to the Mac now that the iPad has become a beast of its own?
The most important question Apple faced going into 2012 was whether they could maintain their supremacy. With competitors closing the gap, Apple doesn’t have Steve Jobs’s vision, charisma, or negotiating prowess anymore, and 2012 has been the year to prove that Apple can endure. The challenges and adversaries Apple is facing in 2012 has made this single year the most important one ever for Apple, and yet they’ve been able to come through in the clutch and blow us away with an army of incredible products and strategic moves.
Microsoft’s awesome Xbox app for iOS got a major update this week, and it’s kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup. It’s accompanied by another great update to Clear, a terrific list-management tool; plus a nifty counting app for iPhone, and a new photography app that lets you apply awesome effects to your photos.
After years of battling in courtrooms around the world, Apple and HTC have reached an agreement over patent licensing that will be in effect for the next 10 years. Both companies have spent millions of dollars in ongoing lawsuits relating specifically to smartphone patents for the iPhone and HTC’s Android devices.
HTC was sued first by Apple back in 2010 with more than a dozen iPhone-related patents, and HTC then sued Apple a year later with infringement claims relating to not only the iPhone, but also the iPad and Mac.
Apple’s joint press release with HTC today announces the end of a long and tedious battle over patent litigation:
As you might have guessed, Rovio’s latest App Store release, Angry Birds Star Wars, kicks off this week’s must-have games roundup. It’s accompanied by a gorgeous action RPG called Wraithborne, a new word game from EA, and a great side-scrolling platformer called Storm the Train.
Apple’s current “hobby” — also known as Apple TV — doesn’t tell us much about Apple’s future plans for the living room.
It’s a good product under the right circumstances. But five years from now, living rooms are going to be transformed by all-encompassing systems that turn TVs into video phones, gaming systems, home automation control centers and artificial intelligence assistants.
Does Apple have what it takes to compete in the living room?
Lucky Frame made one of my favorite games on iOS ever, Pugs Luv Beats. It’s no surprise, given the game’s focus on my favorite dogs of all time and a wicked-cool beat-making mechanic, adorable graphics, and a spin-off app, Pug Synth. They put out Bad Hotel, next, a quirky and innovative take on the castle defense genre that has the games studio’s signature graphic style and musical theme.
Now they’re taking a similar electronica vibe and marrying it with a two-button, arcade-style side-scrolling game on iOS called Wave Trip. And it looks a beaut.
A couple of days ago, Cult of Mac reported that Apple had been successfully sued by an internet security software company, resulting in a $368.2 million damages award due the patent holders. Apparently, that award sum just wasn’t enough, as VirnetX has filed another complaint, claiming that Apple willfully infringed four patents.
As if another suit isn’t enough of a craziness, these are the same exact patents that were involved in the first suit. This time, the suing company says, they complaint includes the iPhone 5, the iPad mini, and the latest iPod touch, products that were not yet released when the initial complaint was filed.
Mike Schramm writes about technology and games for Joystiq and TUAW during the week. He’s also a pretty decent guy. He also finds it fun to code on the weekends. I know, it makes no sense to me, either.
Schramm has just released his second iOS game to the iTunes app store, and it’s called Benediction. Actually, the full name is Benediction – a game by Mike Schramm, a name most likely necessitated by the many other apps out there with a version of the word ‘benediction’ in the title.
Benediction has three things going for it. Those three things got me to download the game, then play the game, then continue playing the game until I was forced to set my iPhone down and actually do some work. This is a great game, and you’ll be sad if you don’t check it out for yourself.
We don’t hand out five stars here at Cult of Mac just for any old thing. In fact, out of hundreds of reviews, I can count on my fingers the number of gadgets and apps that have received a five-star rating. But the 2Do iOS app was handed five stars, and it was well-deserved. Now Guided Ways Technologies has released a Mac version of its superb task manager — are you excited yet?
Advertisements are a vital part of what makes the Internet tick. Even though a lot of them are annoying and intrusive and ugly as hell, they provide websites (like us) with the cash flow needed to give you all the infotainment you can eat for free.
Sometimes those ads are just freaking horrific, and solutions like AdBlock make the web a better, more visually appealing place. Now you can get the hardware equivalent of ad-blocking software in a super portable box called AdTrap.
What is it with Thailand, Apple and Buddhist temples lately? First, an abbott of the Wat Phra Dhammakaya said that Steve Jobs was kickin’ it in the afterlife as a mid-level angel with his own celestial palace. Now, a temple in Thailand’s Chom Phra district has decided that Buddha carries around an iPad with him wherever he goes.
Fact: Kids love Lego.
Fact: Kids love cameras.
Fact: Kids love to choke on teeny, tiny sharp plastic bricks.
Fuuvi’s special edition Nanoblock camera satisfies all of these passions: It’s a tiny little kit made of even tinier little nano-Legos, and any child, even a stupid one, can use it to make all kinds of neat working digital cameras.
When you order an iPhone 5 from Apple’s website the current shipment timeline is 3-4 weeks. Foxconn’s chairman Terry Gou recently said that they’re having a hardtime keeping up with the demand because the iPhone 5 is the most complex gadget they’ve ever assembled.
It doesn’t sound like Apple is able to catch up with the demand for the iPhone 5 in a timely manner, but one analyst at BTIG Research says that supply of the iPhone 5 is “almost in balance.”
Anytime you think you’re scoring a super hot deal on Apple’s latest amazing device, you really should make sure everything’s 100% legit before forking over $200 to some shady dude at a gas station. That’s the lesson Jalonta Freeman learned when she found out the “$800 iPad” she purchased was really just a mirror.
Freeman was fueling her car at a gas station when a man pulled up beside her saying he had a bunch of gadgets he was selling for cheap. Thinking it would make a great Christmas present, Jalonta decided to purchase the man’s “brand new” iPad that he claimed was worth $800. He sold it to Freeman for $200 and quickly drove away.
It seems to me that the least vulnerable part of your iPhone 5 is the rear panel: The glass windows at the top and the bottom are tucked away, and the rest is aluminum, which might scratch or dent but it will never shatter (unless you freeze it in nitrogen first).
But if you think covering the tough rear panel with a thick plywood coating is a good idea, then the SkateBack might be just what you’re looking for. It’s a candy-colored cover refashioned from old skateboard decks.
Apple’s new 4-inch iOS devices — namely the iPhone 5 and the fifth-generation iPod touch — appear to be suffering from a strange glitch that means they struggle to keep up with rapid touch inputs, particularly when scrolling at a 45-degree angle. The problem, which isn’t present on older iOS device like the iPhone 4S, is demonstrated in the two-minute clip below.
Judge Lucy Koh has agreed to re-examine the role of jury foreman Velvin Hogan, who found Samsung guilty of patent infringement and awarded Apple more than $1 billion in damages earlier this year. Samsung requested a retrial back in October after it became apparent that Hogan failed to disclose details of a lawsuit against Seagate that he was involved in 20 years ago.
Adobe has made available a new RC (release candidate) version of Lightroom, numbered v.4.3. On its own, this is clearly not worth an entire blog post, or even a tweet. But there’s one new feature that you Retina MacBook Pro owners might be interested in: HiDPI support.
Apple’s Find My iPhone service is often used to locate thieves who have stolen iOS devices, but it can also be a life saver. A 17-year-old was air lifted to hospital on Friday, November 2, following a car accident in Santa Barbara, California. But if it wasn’t for Find My iPhone, paramedics would have struggled to find him.
Have you ever purchased an iPad from Walmart, then got it home and found its box was battered, or worse, the device itself was smashed? It probably happens a lot in Pikeville, Kentucky, where employees at one Walmart store have fun with Apple’s latest tablet by throwing new units around the stock room.
And if that wasn’t stupid enough, they also recorded themselves doing it for a video that explains “why you don’t buy an iPad from Walmart.”
It is becoming clear that some case styles are better suited to the iPad Mini than others. And it seems that Pad&Quill’s bookbindery cases are clearly way more appropriate for the little mini than they ever were for the bigger iPad.
Not that the regular-sized cases aren’t great — they are. But the whole bundle always seemed a little big. Now, though, the match looks to be ideal.
Oh man. I’m trying so hard not to buy an iPad Mini, and this new Skech case isn;t helping any. It’s a variation on one of my favorite iPad cases ever, and now it has been made tinier and cuter.
It’s called the SkechBook, and it looks good enough to make me buy a new iPad.