The NPD Group announced a report today that confirms what many other analysts and data firms have been saying for a while now: Apple and Samsung are the top smartphone brands in terms of growth. Samsung and Apple’s combined unit sales rose 43 percent in the last year, from the second quarter of 2011 to the just finished second quarter of 2012. Other smartphone makers’s unit sales fell 16 percent.
There are lots of apps out there that let you manage your data usage, but My Data Manager amazes. It works on both the iPhone and iPad, and has a feature set that’d make it a great deal even at $5 — let alone at the $0 it actually costs.
Siri will be able to give sports info in iOS 6 this fall.
Apple and Google haven’t exactly been been on the best of terms in recent years. The stock YouTube iOS app disappearing is a more recent example of the bad blood between the two companies. Google tried its best to sherlock Apple’s 3D technology in the iOS 6 Maps app, and many moves Apple and Google make can be seen as direct outcomes of the bad blood Steve Jobs spoke of when he vowed to wage thermonuclear war on Android.
Apple and Google may hate each other, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t compete in the same markets. Today Google lifted the curtain on a major update that’s coming to its iOS Search app. The new version of the app will feature smart, contextual voice recognition that clearly mimics Apple’s own digital assistant, Siri.
Since the beginning of the 2012 London Olympics last month, Apple has been giving away a rotating set of 4 Great Britain-themed lapel pins each day. This isn’t a new thing for Apple, as the company gave out similar Canadian-themed pins during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
For the Olympics this year, the pins are tiny black and white iPhones and iPads. Cult of Mac reader Andrew Wingert sent in some shots of Apple’s full pin set.
You need to read more. It’s just a fact. Everyone could stand to read a few more books a year and watch a few less GIFs on the internet. Isn’t that why you bought your iPad? Because you said you’d read more if you had an “eReader”? No? Well you should anyway.
To inject your life with more literature you’ll need to buy a lot of books. They’re not cheap, and they kind of suck to buy because, depending on which digital store you buy them from, they’re laden with DRM. Don’t let that get you down though because there’s some really great news today on the eBook front. Storybundle.com just launched their cool new website, and it’s pretty much the neatest thing to happen to eBooks this year.
Just a blurb: according to Macrumors, Apple is starting to get ready to seed builds of OS X 10.8.1 to developers. That means it won’t be long until we have it in our hands.
Fingers crossed that 10.8.1 addresses Mountain Lion’s bizarre way of handling “Save As…” functionality as well as the massive battery life hits many users are seeing on their Mac laptops. What bugs do you hope Apple squashes in 10.8.1?
As smartphone shipments surge, the mobile market remains dominated by two operating systems: Android and iOS. Android maintains a commanding lead, with over 68% of all smartphones shipping with the young and robust OS. This, of course, comes at the expense of its elders, such as BlackBerry and Symbian, while iOS keeps its small but steady pattern of growth as it gears up for the release of its next grand iteration.
Stellar's new utility promises a quick and easy transition from Apple's Mail to Outlook for Mac.
Stellar, which produces a number of Mac and Windows utilities has launched a new tool designed to offer a quick and painless transition from OS X’s built-in Mail application to Outlook 2011 for Mac. The new Stellar Apple Mail to Outlook 2011 Converter joins Stellar’s collection of prosumer and business email management, transfer, and recovery tools.
Mike Daisey performing "The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs"
Mike Daisey’s life has been pretty crazy the past 12 months. He shot into fame with his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, which sparked the public’s interest in Chinese working conditions. Woz even saw the show and cried.
Then word came out that many parts of Daisey’s play were fabricated and an unrelenting storm of excrement rained down on Daisey. Now he’s back, and his play The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs has been completely updated to version 2.0 so people will stop accusing him of lying while telling some of the vital truths behind Apple’s manufacturing process.
Looks like the rumors were true: Valve’s Steam digital delivery service is breaking out of being exclusive to games, and will soon be selling apps on the PC and Mac as well. That makes Steam a head-to-head competitor with Apple’s Mac App Store.
Valve will soon be expanding the scope of software on Steam beyond games to app types ranging from “creativity to productivity” including accounting, animation & modeling, utilities, software training, video production, web production, design & illustration and many more besides.
Verizon has some secret shared plans that cater to data-hungry customers.
Both Verizon and AT&T are introducing their shared data plans this summer, and Verizon is forcing all grandfathered unlimited data customers who renew their contracts with a subsidized phone purchase onto a shared plan. Whether you’re a fan of shared data or not, you probably don’t know that Verizon offers 5 extra top-tier data plans. For some reason, Verizon doesn’t list the upper-level plans on its website or in promotional materials.
Verizon’s biggest plan offers 20GB of shared data for $150 per month. AT&T charges $200 per month for 20GB across up to 10 devices. With the extra $40 per month Verizon charges per device (AT&T charges $30 per smartphone or tablet), Verizon’s shared plans end up being slightly cheaper than AT&T’s across the board.
BYOD programs are here to stay, but many companies still don't secure employee devices.
The number of personally-owned iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices that professionals bring into office is expected to more than double between now and 2014. That means the businesses that have so far been lax about considering or planning an official bring your own device (BYOD) program and/or establishing security policies around BYOD are going to need to play catch up – and they’ll need to get started as soon as possible.
The writing is on the wall my friends. Apple is going to announce a sleek and beautiful new iPhone in September, only instead of using the traditional 30-pin connector, it’s going to use something a lot smaller. Like, “maybe only 9-pins” smaller. Apple might sell an adaptor so your old iPod speaker docks can play nice with the new connector, but will that satisfy you?
Does the news make you sad or angry? Or maybe you’re like, “Smaller dock connector? Hells yeah! Now all my iDevices are going to be slimmer and cooler.” I dunno. You tell me. We want to hear how you feel about the smaller dock connector and whether or not you’re worried it will ruin all of your Apple accessories.
Apple's new dock connector will be less than half the size of the current 30-pin dock, if the rumor mill is to be believed.
In Cult of Mac’s feature on the future of Apple’s dock connector, John Brownlee hypothesized that Apple’s next iOS device dock would be significantly smaller because the current 30-pin architecture is severely outdated. Nearly half of the current dock connectors pins are for legacy technology no one uses anymore, and Brownlee’s research matched up perfectly with the general consensus at the time: Apple would introduce a smaller 19-pin dock connector in the next iPhone this fall.
New pictures of an alleged iPhone 5 exterior have surfaced today that compare the new dock connector with the current 30-pin design. The above pic reiterates the significantly smaller design, and also the possibility of a surprise to look forward to when the next iPhone is unveiled in the coming weeks.
Apple’s newest Mac ads have caused quite a stir with people loving and hating them. Whatever your feelings are on the “Mac Guy” we think he has some glorious Meme potential, but we need your help to turn it into an Internet success.
This week we want you to create your own Mac Guy meme. Share the link to it in the comments of this article and you’ll be entered to win one of ten free copies of FieldRunners 2 we’ll be giving out to our readers. Plus, you might see your Mac Guy Meme make onto the Cult of Mac homepage.
Don’t know how to create a meme? It’s easy, and we’ve already set everything up with QuickMeme.com so you can just add the captions. Here’s how to do it:
Have you ever watched your iPhone attempt to load a webpage with a poor Wi-Fi connection, and wondered why it doesn’t just switch to 3G automatically? In currently iOS releases, your device can’t do that. If you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, it will only use the Wi-Fi network. But iOS 6 changes that. You’ll soon be able to use “Wi-Fi Plus Cellular” connections, which allows apps to switch to a cellular data connection automatically when Wi-Fi is poor.
Forget Pentalobe screws, Apple's next-gen screw design could lock DIYers out of their Macs once and for all.
Self-repairability is often an aspect of Apple’s modern product design that gets Cupertino blasted by critics, with the Retina MacBook Pro being deemed “the least repairable laptop yet” by repair experts iFixIt. But if the leaked image above of a next-generation assymetric screw Apple is reportedly working on is to be believed, things are about to get a lot worse for Mac and iDevice owners who like to tinker with their devices.
College football teams follow NFL teams in replacing playbooks with iPads.
Football season is just around the corner and the iPad is set to become a fixture for both college and pro teams. As we noted earlier in the year, a handful of NFL teams made the switch to iPad-based playbooks at the start of last season and more are making the switch this year. In addition to NFL teams, several colleges have announced that they are transitioning to the iPad playbook model as well.
Following its Retina MacBook Pro teardown back in June, iFixit declared Apple’s latest portable “the least repairable laptop” it has ever taken apart. While some components aren’t too difficult to upgrade or replace, others — such as the battery and RAM — are near impossible without professional help. In its new repair guide, published today, iFixit details further repair limitations with the notebook, and estimates that a third-party battery replacement could cost around $500.
If you’re been waiting to get the new iPad from the refurbished section of Apple’s Online Store in an effort to save some cash, then today is your lucky day. The latest device, which is the first and only iPad to get a high-resolution Retina display, is now available with $50 off.
iOS devices will soon be the world's most popular game console.
Apple’s iOS devices have had a huge impact on gaming, and more and more people are choosing to get their kicks on the iPhone and iPad rather than dedicated handheld consoles from the likes of Sony and Nintendo. By the end of this year, analysts expect Game Center accounts on iOS to surpass the 200 million milestone, making it the world’s biggest gaming platform.
Almost two years after making its debut on the iPad, The New Yorker is finally available on the iPhone — and it comes with two free issues from August 13 and August 20. Like the iPad app, it delivers new issues automatically every Monday morning when you subscribe, and each one is packed with videos, audio, infographics, and images that you won’t find in the print edition.
Here’s something to read over your morning cup of joe this morning: amassive 132 page report Apple released into evidence this morning in its trial against Samsung, proving without a doubt that this case is about a lot more than — as the Korean handset maker would have you believe — “patenting the shapes of rectangles.”
The evidence contains a lot of snippets from a 2010 report, translated from Korean, in which Samsung’s engineers went through their phones feature-by-feature and stacked it up against the iPhone. In almost every instance, Samsung’s engineers decided their phones would work better if they were more like the iPhone.
Ouch. That’s damning.
It’s looking undeniable at this point that Samsung systematically and shamelessly ripped-off practically every aspect of the iPhone’s design, right down to the UI. Comparing a Samsung smartphone pre-iPhone and post-iPhone is like comparing a Cambrian trilobyte with a 21st century ballerina.
Does anyone else get the impression that Samsung might not win this one… and that they know it?
Square just announced a huge partnership with Starbucks that will put the hot mobile payment startup in 7,000 Starbucks nationwide this fall. The news means that Square users will be able to use the app to pay at select Starbucks locations and find nearby stores in the Square Directory.
As part of the partnership, Starbucks is investing a cool $25 million in Square and the CEO of Starbucks will be joining Square’s Board of Directors. This is definitely a win-win for Square, Starbucks, and the mobile payment industry as a whole.
