News - page 1858

We can all surmise that urinating upon your Mac will not be covered by your AppleCare, but here’s an interesting question: if you stand up right this second, unzip your fly and hose off all over your MacBook, can you even pay Apple to service the machines?

The answer is no, because Apple looks at micturated-upon MacBooks as a biohazard. Along with an obnoxious 11-year-old’s full bladder, the obscure fact above is what ended up costing a Pennsylvanian school district upwards of thirty-six thousand dollars to replace a cart full of thoroughly soaked MacBooks.

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran another in its series of exposes about Apple. This one focused on Apple’s complex mix of offices and subsidiaries located throughout the world and the U.S. that allow the company to keep large portions of its more than $100 billion in low-tax states and countries.

The report comes after the paper’s expose on working conditions within Foxconn, the contractor that Apple uses to assemble most of its products and calls by politicians and members of the media for Apple to move more of its manufacturing and money to American soil.

Apple’s mythical, standalone TV set has been the subject of much speculation over the past several months. Rumors have been saying that we’ll see an Apple-branded TV set (dubbed ‘iTV’ in most cases) by the end of this year at the earliest. The TV is expected to feature Siri integration, IP-based streaming and even a gaming element.

On the streaming side of things, a new report claims that Apple has been in talks to secure the rights to stream Hollywood movies for its upcoming TV set.

When Windows 8 debuts as a tablet OS later this year, it will have one major advantage over the iPad for people who want to use a Windows 8 slate as a laptop replacement: you can run apps side-by-side, consulting a document in one pane while writing up an email, say, in another.

I’ve been saying since last year that this is a killer feature Apple should try to lift in iOS 6, but up until now, all we’ve seen are jailbreak hacks sloppily emulate the functionality. No longer. A hack has finally come along that does it right.

Microsoft has teamed up with Barnes & Noble with a $300 million investment that will create a new subsidiary focused on accelerating “the transition to e-reading.” Microsoft will take a 17.6% equity stake in a subsidiary, which is yet to be named, while Barnes & Noble will own the remaining 82.4%.

The move will provide Microsoft with its own answer to iBooks, with plans for a NOOK application that will run on Windows 8, and it’ll give users an alternative to the Kindle Store.

Alternative desktop browser fans(*), your attention please. Opera’s released its next thing, and it’s a feature-packed beta of Opera 12.

Despite his love for the iPhone and its iOS operating system, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak surprisingly feels that Windows Phone apps are “more beautiful” than their counterparts on Android and iOS, and jokes that Steve Jobs may have been reincarnated inside Microsoft.

Woz also revealed that he favours Windows Phone over Android, but that iOS is still his number one choice.

The new Apple TV has made its debut in Brazil today, but it picked up a pretty hefty price tag on the way. Although the set-top box sells for just $99 in the U.S., in Brazil it costs 399 Reals — roughly $211.

We’re excited to announce new promotional opportunities on The CultCast, Cult of Mac’s new technology podcast.

Since our launch on February 24th, The CultCast has been consistently positioned as a top-five technology podcast on iTunes, and has had multiple appearances as iTunes’ #1 most popular tech podcast. We’re off to an amazing start!

If you visited the site yesterday, you’ll already be aware that Cult of Mac’s weekly must-have apps and games roundups are now back. This is where we choose our pick of the best new releases and updates to hit the App Store in the past week.

This week’s feature includes the official Klout app, which has finally made its way to iOS; a great service for storing and syncing your passwords from security specialists Norton; a beautiful weather app, and more.

Everybody and their mother is trying to cash in on Apple’s success, or dictate the evolution of media and technology through the courts.

Shameless gold diggers, grand-standing government attorneys, vindictive rivals, patent trolls and, well, good old-fashioned morons are dragging the world’s most valuable company into court to try and get their piece of Apple’s $110 billion pile of cash.

You won’t believe some of the crazy lawsuits Apple is currently defending itself against.

If you’re a fan of Steve Jobs, or if you’ve ever pondered what makes Apple so different from every other company out there, you’re not going to want to miss our fascinating CultCast interview with ex Apple Ad guy and long time Steve Jobs collaborator, Ken Segall.

In his 12 years as an advertising executive working with Apple, Ken Segall put that little “i” in front of the iMac, helped develop Apple’s famous Think Different ad campaign, and spent countless hours creating and working closely with one Mr. Steven P. Jobs — he even got yelled at a few times.

Now Mr. Segall has a new book out, titled, Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success. And in this episode of The CultCast, Ken regales us with stories of what it was really like working with Steve Jobs, and what makes Apple so different from every other company on earth.

Apple’s iPhone dock looks good, but has a couple of big problems. It doesn’t accommodate cases and it hangs onto your iPhone and won’t let go. The ODOC stand fixes both these issues, and looks great too.

Incase, the company that produced the first iPod case for Apple, has gained a reputation for making well-designed and well-made Apple accessories utilizing advanced construction techniques and innovative materials. The company has just updated its lineup of iPad cases for the new iPad.

Following a short hiatus, Cult of Mac’s weekly must-have apps and games features are back! Here we’ll roundup our pick of the week’s best iOS titles, including our favorite new releases and updates worth writing home about.

This week’s picks feature what is quite possibly the best arcade fighter yet to hit the App Store, awesome updates to Angry Birds Space and Jetpack Joyride, plus a fantastic platformer that I just can’t put down.

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Games have held a remarkable 40 month lead over all other categories when it comes to mobile apps. Mobile games have become so popular that even powerhouse console gaming companies such as Nintendo have seen their profits plummet because of them. They’ve given developers the highest ad revenue and have consumed more of a consumer’s time than any other app category. Unfortunately, like all good things, mobile gaming’s reign has come to an end. There’s a new head honcho in app land and its name is social networking.

How quickly WWDC sold out this week – less than two hours and before many developers on the west coast were even out of bed – raises some interesting questions for Apple. Could the company have handled the announcement better? Should Apple allow more than 5,000 developers to attend? Is the current model for WWDC, which was adopted years ago, still viable given the stratospheric success that Apple has experienced over the past few years?

AT&T today announced it would be adding Salt Lake City to its list of markets expected to get 4G LTE later in the year. AT&T continues expanding other areas, with Austin, TX seeing additional coverage just the other day. It’s going to be a slow and steady pace with AT&T so if you’re looking for 4G LTE right away, you may want to consider Verizon, otherwise sit tight and be happy you’re not on Sprint.

High Fidelity, Say Anything and Brat Pack star John Cusack not only met with Steve Jobs to discuss starring in the very first iPod commercial, he got to play around with an early iPod prototype and got an early look at the iPod and iTunes rollout plan, according to a new interview.

This week featured a handful of announcements relating to using your iPhone as a virtual wallet including news of Boston’s smartphone-based commuter rail payment system and CVS integrating its loyalty card system into its iPhone app.

Capping the week is news that restaurant chain T.G.I. Fridays announcement that more than of its franchises in the U.S. will begin offering patrons the ability to settle their restaurant or bar tab using an app. The move comes as part of partnership with startup Tabbedout – a mobile payment company that aims to bring iPhone (and Android phone)  payments into the mainstream with a focus on bars and restaurants.

Apple launched the Mac App Store with over 1,000 apps back in January of 2011, and the digital storefront has been rapidly growing ever since. Thanks to warm reception from the developer community and the exclusive distribution of software like Final Cut Pro X and OS X Lion, Apple controls the largest and most vibrant PC software storefront in the world.

15 months in and the Mac App Store is home to more than 10,000 apps. While not as big a number as the iOS App Store’s 500,000+ titles, the success of the Mac App Store heralds the future of software distribution.

Earlier in the year, Apple acquired app discovery engine Chomp in an effort to improve app discoverability in their App Store. As we all know, discovering apps among the hundreds of thousands that populate popular app stores can sometimes be a chore, so it would make sense for Apple to acquire such a company as Chomp. However, Chomp also improved app discoverability of Android apps and since Apple’s acquisition we’ve wondered if this would one day change. Well, guess what? That day has come and it looks like Apple has chomped out Android app discoverability completely.

Some combinations are so obviously good when you see/hear/taste them that you wonder why they haven’t existed forever. Of course, some *have* been around for that long.

Just 6,000 years ago, when the universe winked into existence, the Lord blessed us with such holy wonders as apple pie (or apple crumble in the King James bible) and vanilla ice-cream; Dungeons *and* dragons; and of course hurtling, death-dealing two-ton automobiles and chronically distracted drivers.

Now we can add another devine device to that list: the solar-powered hands-free speakerphone.

Benedit Cumberbatch may look like a Reptilian straight out of David Icke’s worst nightmares, but he’s an incredible actor who not only plays the world’s greatest detective in the BBC’s surprisingly watchable series Sherlock, but will also play the dragon Smaug in Peter Jackson’s upcoming The Hobbit. He also happens, just happens, to be The Most British Man Alive. Oh, and the kind of cool guy who films his audition tapes on an iPhone too, as it turns out.

I hate jogging, but if popular culture has taught me anything, it’s that come the inevitable zombie apocalypse, a trim physique, muscular calves and a five minute mile might be the only thing between me and having my guts stuffed into the rotting maws of some reanimated ghouls. Maybe you won’t run to lose weight, but will you run to save your life?

That’s the idea behind the awesome looking “fitness” app Zombies, Run!. It’s like Runkeeper with a twist: you’re not jogging to burn calories, but running to escape the undead.