Have you been following all the rumors and saving up your pennies for a new MacBook Pro or iMac the second Apple releases them? Well, looks like you might not have to wait, as two reports this morning suggest new models will be dropped imminently.
Right now, every Mac fan is looking forward to the major next revision of OS X, Mountain Lion, which will continue what Lion started and keep on blurring the line between Apple’s Mac and iOS ecosystems. But what’s the end goal here?
Cult of Mac reader Cameron Leask put his design chops to the test to imagine what a completely unified OS X / iOS experience would look like. The result: OS XI, an operating system that merges OS X and iOS’s best features while finally ditching the Mac filesystem and embracing an iOS-like approach to data and apps.
It certainly looks sleek, but we’ll let you be the judge of that. After the jump, take an imagination-fueled tour through the future of the Mac with OS XI. Let us know what you think in the comments.
We’re a big fan of BareBones Software here and endorse their incredible BBEdit app whenever we have the chance, but if you don’t want to parcel out fifty bones for it, BareBones has just done everyone a solid and brought over many of the new features from BBEdit 4.0 to their free, powerful text editing software, TextWrangler.
Following in the footsteps of his former boss and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Tim Cook will be speaking at the 10th D: All Things Digital conference next month in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. This is the first time Cook has appeared at D. He is officially the headlining speaker for the opening-night of D10.
Apple has been accused of avoiding paying a proper amount of taxes in the U.K. after making an incredible £6 billion in the last financial year, but paying only £10 million in tax. The Cupertino company runs what is described as a “significant operation” in Cork, Ireland, where tax rates are almost half those paid in the U.K.
2012 hasn’t been shaping up to be a good year for RIM. The company has already lost some major enterprise customers, developers have publicly announced they’re shuttering BlackBerry support, and the new iPad sales beat the total number of BlackBerry PlayBook shipments three times over in one weekend.
The one bright moment, if you can call it that, came during the company’s recent quarterly financials call when RIM’s newly minted CEO Thorsten Heins told investors that his first action on the job was to seriously evaluate RIM’s business. After months of delusional pep talks, his very sober assessment was like a burst of lucid thinking. Unfortunately, the company’s executives seem to be covering that lucid moment with more of the delusional spin that’s become typical of RIM
The latest bout of RIM denying its situation involve comments by executives on the state of the BlackBerry in government.
This is the iPhone Shutter Grip. Can you guess what it does? That’s right: It adds a handgrip and a shutter release to your iPhone, letting you snap pictures one handed, and generally take photos without dropping the iPhone.
It even has a built-in tripod mount, and a secret second button.
An SEC filing from computer security specialists Symantec reveals its former Chief Accounting Officer Phillip Bullock has joined Apple to head up the Cupertino company’s tax department.
Everyone knows the iPad’s speaker is, well, weedy. To compensate, Big Blue Audio has just released two new Bluetooth speakers to give a lift to music, movies and game-playing on your iPad.
Available from Brookstone, the Big Blue and Big Blue Live resemble kitschy white kitchen appliances. The $149.99 Big Blue packs 30-watts of aural pleasure for music lovers, while the speaker’s little sis, the $99.99 battery-powered Big Blue Live, is designed more as a portable companion for amplifying phone calls and apps. These new speakers are introduced to compete favorably both bang wise and buck wise versus other popular wireless speakers of similar specs / dimensions, for example the Logitech Boombox and the Jawbone Jambox, respectively.
With their sci-fi looks and packaging, they are certainly noticeable — but do they sound good too? Read on….
The infamous Flashback trojan has now infected more than 600,000 Macs worldwide. Apple has issues two Java updates in an effort to patch the vulnerability in Mac OS X, but unfortunately for some, it was just too late.
We’ve already published instructions on how to see if you’re Mac’s infected by using Terminal commands, but there is an easier way. FlashbackChecker is a simple piece of software that will quickly tell you whether or not your Mac is infected.
We firmly believe that Wacom’s Bamboo stylus is one of the best styluses money can buy for the iPad, but that was until this thing came along. The Wacom Bamboo Stylus Duo mixes a traditional ballpoint pen with Wacom’s famous iPad stylus to bring you the best of both worlds, whether you’re sketching a hobbit in Draw Something, or jotting down a phone number on an old envelope.
AT&T finally began unlocking iPhones for customers whose contracts had now expired over the weekend, allowing the device to be used with other SIM-cards from GSM carriers. But for deployed military personnel, the carrier will unlock iPhones still tied to a contract so that they can be used with others carriers abroad.
What. A. Day. The single most important mobile app acquisition to date has sent the internet into a flurry of disarray. In case you haven’t heard from everyone except your aged grandmother, Facebook has bought Instagram for a mouth-dropping $1 billion.
There will be (and already have been) thousands of articles written on the internet about this news today, and for good reason — it deserves discussion. But what exactly does this all mean for our beloved Instagram?
We reported last month on the legal and licensing issues surrounding OnLive and its OnLive Desktop for iPad, a freemium offering from the cloud gaming company that offered iPad users a full Windows 7 desktop experience complete with Office and the ability to watch Flash content. The company made a big entrance into the Windows/Office on iPad space in January and announced its premium and business plans the following month.
More recently, however, Microsoft announced that OnLive was violating its licensing agreements. Microsoft even went so far as to accuse OnLive and any OnLive Desktop users of illegally pirating Windows 7.
OnLive appears to have learned the error of its ways. Over the weekend, the company quietly adjusted its service to be compatible with Windows licensing.
Conventional wisdom on Wall Street has it that eventually (and possibly as soon as the end of this year) Apple’s stock price will reach over $1000 a share, largely fueled by the iPhone. But one Wall Street analyst isn’t nearly so optimistic. In fact, BTIG Research analyst Walter Piecyck is downgrading his recommendation on Apple stock from “Buy” to “Neutral…” and his reasons actually make a lot of sense.
The after effects of the Flashback Trojan are going to be felt for a long time to come. Although there’s been the occasional Mac malware announcement over the past few years, none was ever found to be rampant in the wilds of the Internet. Most were easily avoided by Apple’s basic security elements or by simple user actions like telling Safari not to immediately open so-called “safe” files after downloading them.
As a result, the Flashback Trojan caught a lot of people off guard – including individual Mac owners and some IT professionals who ought to have known better. It also highlighted deficiencies on the part of Apple when it comes to security.
In what is being called the largest mobile app acquisition in history, Facebook’s $1 billion buyout of Instagram is landing the iPhone app’s founders in a boatload of cash. Instagram’s two co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, will cash in $500 million combined as a result of getting in bed with the social network behemoth. Quite the pay day for an app that’s been in the App Store for barley two years.
Now that Mark Zuckerberg controls your hipster, vintage-inspired photos that you took with Instagram, you might be feeling weighed down with the fear that your favorite photography app will see some major changes. I cried for a few minutes, then I realized that I never used Instagram to edit photos because its filters were actually very limited and pretty crappy. There’s tons of better apps out there. If for whatever reason you’re scared to stick with the new Instagram controlled by Facebook, there are plenty of alternatives to Instagram… and in many ways most of them are better. Take a look at these five awesome Instagram alternatives.
Remember those funny animated videos from Taiwan, one of which depicted Steve Jobs as a throwing-star toting ninja? The videos were always silly yet slightly informative, but recent news about the company behind them says they might be a thing of the past. Next Media Ltd is trying to sell off their animation division for $500million after suffering heavy cash losses over the past year or so, which may spell an end to funny animated news.
Banjo is an iPhone app that aggregates pretty much all of your social networks’ data in one place. And a new update has just added Instagram, making it pretty much the most comprehensive option yet. There is a problem, however: While the app itself is dead easy to set up, and even works with iOS 5’s own Twitter integration, it is a complete mess in use.
Did you just hear the news that Facebook paid a BILLION dollars for Instagram? Yeah, it’s crazy. I’m still dumbfounded by the news and mourning the loss of one of my favorite social networks. Sure, Zuck says that Instagram is going to operate as an independent entity and that they’re not going to make any changes. But I’m not buying it. How long will it be til Instagram is pressured to start monetizing their 30million+ users? And how are they gonna make that cheddar? Convert it in to a Facebook esque interface with recommendations and pop-up ads?
My friends, the world is a changing, and Instagram as we know it might not ever be the same again. Maybe I’m panicking worse than the First Class passengers on the Titanic. Maybe everything’s fine. Maybe it’s not. If you’re not certain about the future of Instagram but you want to keep all your sexy faux-vintage photos in your digital safe, there’s an easy-to-use service that will export all of your photos from Instagram. It’s called Instaport.me, and it’s actually pretty awesome.
Apple’s e-textbook initiative, which the company launched in January along with iBooks Author and a revamped iTunes U service is aimed at K-12 schools rather than higher education. Higher education has a different set of needs when it comes to textbooks, study, and reference materials. There are also big differences in device/platform selection between K-12 and the college market.
In fact, these differences are probably a big part of why Apple decided to focus the majority of its e-textbook (and, by extension its iPad in education) effort on the K-12 market. It’s a market that yields Apple more growth opportunities now and down the road.
On Friday AT&T made an announcement that surprised many of us who had given up waiting: customers with an out-of-contract iPhone can unlock it to work with any other GSM SIM — like from T-Mobile. Now the official unlock is here, and the process is actually pretty simple.
Before you attempt to unlock you need to make sure your account isn’t in a longterm contract, your iPhone isn’t on a contract, and that your account is in good standing with AT&T. After that, the process is pretty straightforward.
Ever since Apple integrated Twitter into iOS 5, many have been clamoring to also have Facebook integration for posting status updates and photos anywhere in the OS. There was reportedly some drama between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs over the Ping debacle and iOS 5 integration. The two companies just can’t seem to get along.
Whether Facebook ever makes its way to iOS or not, a new jailbreak tweak brings integration with the social network giant right now. Fusion lets you simultaneously post to Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and even MySpace.
Apple is expected to announce its new iPhone later this year, most likely sometime this fall. Some expect it to be a drastic redesign compared to the iPhone 4/4S, with a larger screen and new unibody design.
Analyst Brian White from Topeka Capital Markets has dropped a note this morning, confirming these reports based upon a recent trip to China and saying that the iPhone 5 will be “the most significant iPhone upgrade” yet. He also expects that with the excitement it will bring, the iPhone 5 will push Apple’s stock to a crazy price $1,001 per-share by year’s end.