If you’ve owned an Apple device for any extended period of time — whether it’s a Mac or iOS device — you’ve most likely encountered the Genius Bar at the back of every Apple retail store, where friendly, fresh-faced youths in blue t-shirts diagnose your problems and quickly provide a fix. Apple is one of a small few companies that offers such a terrific service, and according to a recent study, 90% of its customers love it.
When I was a cub scout, I made my own backyard weather station. It was to get my science badge, or weather nerd badge, or whatever, and it mainly consisted of counting the millimeters of rain in a jamjar with an oversized plastic funnel perched on the top. And there was always rain: This was England.
If I’d had access to the wonderful technology of today, though, I could have stayed in watching TV and let the Netatmo do the work for me. The Netatmo is a weather station for both indoors and outdoors, and is sold as something that will stop you from worrying about your children and — therefore — the future.
If you’re a T-Mobile customer who was hoping that the iPhone 5 would be the first iPhone to gain official support for your carrier, then look away now. A leaked T-Mobile memo reveals the company is instructing its staff to sell “against the iPhone” from September 21, and it looks like they’ll be trained to help customers choose alternative smartphones instead.
Dolphin is one of the best third-party browsers you’ll find on iOS, and it just got even better on the iPhone, thanks to a new design and user interface, new features, and lots of improvements in version 6.0.
Spotify’s official iOS app has received a new update that introduces a number of new features and improvements. In addition to playlist sorting on the iPad, Spotify promises “friendlier” login for first-time users on iPhone, a new settings menu that’s now arranged by category, faster radio, and more.
Apple has seeded a new OS X Lion build to registered developers this morning, less than two weeks after the previous build was seeded through the Apple Dev Center. This one comes with build number 11G45.
You’ve read plenty of rumors surrounding the iPhone 5 on Cult of Mac by now, but what about the big picture?
Our friends at Nowhereelse.fr have put together a handy infographic detailing all of the marquee iPhone 5 rumors and the likelihood of each one actually making its way into the phone next month. Some big tech and Apple blogs were consulted for the making of this graphic, including Cult of Mac. Here’s the results:
There’s a new icon on the Apple TV tonight, and it’s kind of a sweet surprise. The 2012 iTunes Festival will be in London, with apps available on iPhones, iPads and Macs for free streaming of the event.
Looks like Apple decided to get an app onto the Apple TV as well, ahead of the September 1st launch date.
Fan favorite (and BAFTA award-winning) point and click adventure game series Broken Sword is getting a sequel, called The Serpent’s Curse, and it’s being funded in part via Kickstarter. It’s a new adventure for Mac (and PC) starring series regulars George and Nico being developed by series creator, Charles Cecil, and his company Revolution Software.
Mac gaming portal, GameAgent, today announced a new version of its web portal. The new update will launch in September of this year and include information on over 150 Mac games, as well as some new game discovery features.
Popular cloud storage service Dropbox has introduced two-step verification in order to provide greater security for its users. After the ‘epic’ hacking of Wired’s Mat Honan digital life, online security has become a hot topic once again in the tech community.
Like Google, Dropbox now allows all of its users to login with a password and additional code sent via text. An authenticator app can also be used on the web or mobile devices like the iPhone for the second step.
Like many federal agencies, the Department of Veterans Affairs has embarked on the journey of integrating iPhones and iPads as mobile solutions. The agency currently has 20,000 mobile devices that includes iPhones and iPads along with some BlackBerries and a small number of Android devices. Despite the range of devices, the VA has been very active in trying to eliminate mobile data breaches and, according to the VA’s director of Mobile and Security Assurance Donald Kachman, the agency’s campaign has been extremely successful.
Kachman credits encryption technologies with as a major factor in that success – 99% of all VA data is now secured around the clock on mobile devices and desktop PCs. The security approach is one that can be a model for any organization.
Secure enterprise file sharing and file management vendor Accellion has added Mac support to its file sync system for mobile workers known as kitedrive. As we noted earlier this year in covering the launch of kitedrive for iOS, Accellion describes kitedrive as “Dropbox for the enterprise.” That’s a pretty good description. kitedrive syncs content for offline access to business documents, which are securely encrypted during transmission and while stored on the a mobile device, PC, or Mac.
Apple has announced a restructuring of its executive lineup today. Craig Federighi and Dan Riccio have both been promoted to the level of senior vice president.
Bob Mansfield, who had planned to retire back in June, will remain at Apple and report directly to Tim Cook and work on “future products.” Mansfield has been an instrumental part of Apple’s success since he joined the company in 1999. He has led the hardware engineering for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac since 2005.
Tapbots, the company behind Tweetbot for iOS and Mac, has announced that the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha is no longer available as a public download. Tweetbot for Mac has been gearing up to enter the public beta stage before its official release in the Mac App Store, but Twitter’s new restrictions have forced Tapbots to remove the download link for the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha.
Several updates have been pushed out to Mac users running Tweetbot since Tapbots released the alpha on July 11th. Existing users can keep using the app, but everyone else will be left out in the cold until the app goes on sale in the Mac App Store.
Over the weekend I noticed that the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha was no longer working on the Tapbots website, and today’s news reveals the reason.
This weekend saw Palo Alto, California once again hosting its annual Festival of the Arts. The festival is known, amongst other things, for its yearly Italian Street Painting Expo, in which over sixty street artists take to the pavement to make elaborate paintings in chalk.
This year, to honor Palo Alto’s most famous adopted son, street artist Lawrence Viariseo did this amazing technicolor Steve Jobs portrait. Steve looks, perhaps, a little bit leonine in the painting, but that just makes it better: Apple’s founder always did have a thing for lions.
Check out the Vlariseo drawing the portrait below, courtesy of Flickr user Tim Roper. It’s a thing of beauty.
What do you do if you’re a medical technology startup while waiting for the FDA to approve your flagship iPhone-based product?
If you’re AliveCor, you launch a veterinary version of it.
The product in question is AliveCor’s iPhone ECG heart monitor, which the company showed off nearly two years ago, at the CES in 2011. The device allows a medical professional to assess a patient’s heart rhythm, providing more data than a stethoscope or manual check of their pulse. Although the device has broad potential, it has yet to be approved by the FDA.
When people think computer gaming, they may not think Macintosh right away. However, there are a host of games both new and old, expensive and cheap, indie and triple-A for the Macintosh platform. The following list, then, is of the best strategy games the Mac platform has to offer; all of these received an over 80 score on Metacritic, a gaming review aggregation site. Most of them are playable on modern Macs, with a few exceptions as noted.
Apple just won their trial against Samsung on Friday, but they aren’t wasting any time listing the Samsung products that they will seek to have banned in the US. It looks like Apple is only going after eight phones, including the popular Galaxy S II.
Here are all the phones currently on the list:
Apple just laid a royal beat down on Samsung in the U.S. court system over patent infringement. You’d easily think that the two companies are huge enemies that would gladly rip out each other’s hearts and drive over them with a steamroller.
Truth is, even though they’re enemies in the smartphone market, Apple needs Samsung’s components to build iPhones and iPads, and Samsung needs Apple to keep buying their parts to make money. Samsung products comprise 26 percent of the component cost of the iPhone, so to keep their smartphone and component manufacturing businesses separate, Samsung has created a strict ‘Internal Firewall’ to try to avoid conflicts.
Every morning, I scrape myself off of the bottom of my hangover’s hobnailed boot and try to make it down to the gym. About two-out-of-five times, I’ll oogily succeed and manage to douse myself in the pool until I’ve either done fifty laps or turned the water fifty proof, whichever comes first.
If only there was a way to be better motivated, I’ll often think to myself. Which is why I’m intrigued by a partnership between GymPack and RunKeeper, that will not only award me real money when I successfully drag my carcass to the gym, and actually penalize me money when I don’t.
There are a ton of ways to get fit and lose weight. And there are even more stupid books and fad diets that may or may not help you to slim down and get healthier. But there are really only two things you need to do: eat less and do more.
Of course, it isn’t easy. Luckily, those of a certain nerdy bent will find all the motivation they need in gadgets and apps. I have been doing just that for the past few months, and I thought I’d write a little about how to get thinner and fitter by using your iPhone.
We’ve already seen Tim Cook’s memo to Apple employees following the company’s landmark victory over Samsung last Friday. As expected, Samsung’s isn’t quite as upbeat or as celebratory. Released today, the Korean company’s announcement insists that it tried to settle with Apple out of court, but that Apple “pressed on with a lawsuit.” It also notes that the verdict “starkly contrasts” those recently made by courts in a number of other countries.
While bring your own device (BYOD) programs that encourage employees to use their personal iPhones, iPads, and other devices in the office increases productivity and employee satisfaction, the trend is also turning those employees into workaholics. That’s not entirely a new realization – we’ve covered the potential impact of the BYOD trend on the work/life balance before (including a recent study that showed that BYOD programs actually improve that balance for IT professionals).
The latest research on BYOD’s impact on workers shows two additional insights – a significant number of employees are footing the bill (sometimes a very big bill) for mobile data service while on the road for work.