Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration.
This time, our picks include a donut locator, a good-looking scheduler and a quick house-hunting app.
Here you go:
I’m kind of obsessed with monitoring and comparing numbers like blog views and podcast downloads. It’s probably a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I made up my own word for it: “metriculous.”
Whether is an app that satisfies that part of your brain, if you have it. It lets you compare today’s temperature, precipitation, wind, and humidity to the same day last year. The temperature panel is free, but you can unlock the rest — and any future ones — for $2.99.
So it’s basically a cool-looking weather app with an extra layer of trivia on top of it for crazy people inquisitive, metriculous types.
It can be stressful when you have way too much stuff to do and it’s hard to keep track of everything.
Candooit is a new app that lets you add your obligations with a few simple gestures and then presents it all in an attractive, easy-to-read infographic. Once you select the type of activity (the app includes eight color-coded categories with numerous sub-items), you drag left and right to set the start time and up and down to set the duration. You can make notes, view by week or month, and even sync with your Google calendar.
And the busier you are, the cooler it looks. So that might actually be kinda dangerous.
Not everything in the App Store has to be a Swiss Army knife. Sometimes, you find an app that does one thing and does the heck out of it.
Doughbot is one such app. It tells you where you can buy donuts.
You can also get directions, read Yelp reviews, and look at pictures from Instagram, but that’s just overkill. I can count on one finger the number of bad donuts I’ve had in my life. Just point me toward the nearest besprinkled blip on the map so that I can start pointing at lumps of fried dough I’d like to cram into my face.
House hunting can be stressful and annoying, especially if you’ve never done it before. But the Doorsteps Swipe app wants to help you out by letting you quickly look through a bunch of listings in your desired location, then reject or save them with a single swipe. It also compiles data (average price, number of beds and baths, etc.) on the ones you’ve liked so you can get some idea what you’re looking for.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any cloud houses or big shells yet. But I haven’t gotten all the way through the list yet.
Look, we all know that Apple makes some of the greatest products around. We use iPhones, iPads and Macs because they work well, and they’re fairly intuitive.
That said, even the most dedicated fanboy has to admit that there are still a few places that just don’t quite work as advertised.
Here are a few of those, along with their fixes, for iOS devices, including the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
Change That Stupid OMW iMessage Shortcut
Some folks like the auto-expand of omw to “On My Way!” Honestly? I’m rarely that enthusiastic when sending a text about my plans to head over to a buddy’s house. Just sayin’. If this bugs you, here’s how to fix it, as well as add others to your texting repertoire.
Hop on over the Settings app. Tap on the General tab, then scroll down to Keyboard and tap through to Shortcuts. The omw! shortcut is built in right there. Tap it, and change it to whatever you want it to say. Be sure to hit the Save button in the upper right, or you’re back to square one.
Want to add your own shortcuts? That’s pretty easy, too. Simple tap the Add New Shortcut…field at the bottom of the Keyboard settings pane, and add one in. Try to keep your shortcut (bottom field) 2-4 letters, or it’s really more of a longcut, right? The top field contains the actual phrase you want the shortcut expanded to. Try not to get them confused, like I did the first one I added. You’ll get an error saying your Shortcut cannot contain spaces. That will be the tip you’ve gotten it backward.
Control Your Data – Turn Off Cellular For Certain Apps
We’re all data hoarders now, what with our iPads and iPhones having the ever-present connection to the cellular and Wi-Fi networks all around us. Unfortunately, unlimited cell data plans are as rare a programmer who doesn’t own a single hoodie, so it’s paramount to keep track of which apps are sucking up the cell bandwidth.
Luckily, iOS 7 lets you control which apps will use cellular, and which apps will only connect to and use the network juice via a stable WiFi connection.
Tap into your Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and then tap on the Cellular icon. Once there, you’ll see the option to toggle Cellular Data OFF completely, disable LTE, or enable Data Roaming, as your heart (and wallet) allows.
Swipe down to the bottom, however, and you’ll see a long list of all the apps on your iOS device that use cellular data. For each app that you want to restrict to using only Wi-Fi networking, tap the toggle next to each app name to OFF.
Now, when you’re strictly on LTE, 4G or 3G, your iOS device won’t let those specific apps connect to the cell network and take up all your precious, metered data. They’ll be able to connect once you’re in range and hooked up to a WiFi signal, so have no fear.
Respond With Funnier Messages When You Get Calls
It’s pretty easy to reply to a phone caller with a text message in iOS 7. When the call comes in, tap on the little phone icon in the lower right and slide up. You’ll get the option to either reply with a message or have your iPhone remind you to call the person back later.
If you choose to reply with a text message, you get a couple of built in replies–Call you later, I’m on my way, What’s up–or you can type a custom message. Ever wanted to change those pre-written messages to be just a little bit funnier? You know you have.
Here’s how: Launch your Settings app, and find and tap on the Phone settings button. Then tap on Reply with Message. You’ll then be able to type in three custom missives. And you’ll still be able to type your own custom message, when the phone rings, too. Interestingly, the typical auto capitalization doesn’t seem to apply here, so maybe the developers wanted you to work at using proper English.
Whatever the case, this is a great way to personalize the way you interact with people when you tell them that you can’t answer the phone right now.
Clear Those Annoying Notifications Without Leaving The Lock Screen
I like some notifications. I try to keep it down to a dull roar, of course, but I want a head’s up when I get a phone call, text message, or email from specific clients or friends. But when I see a flurry of these notifications in my lockscreen, I mentally dismiss them, only to have them appear again the next time I check my iPhone for the time.
I messed around with it and came up with this solution, thanks to iOS 7. While your iPhone is locked but on (just hit the Home button), check out the little horizontal line at the top of your screen. That’s the Notification Center and it can be accessed without unlocking your iPhone.
Slide down from the line with your thumb or finger, and that will activate Notification Center. I tapped to the “Missed” notifications tab at the top to make sure the iPhone thought I saw everything, and then dismissed Notification Center with a swipe up.
Once you’ve done that, and you get to the lock screen again, you shouldn’t see any notifications hanging around in your lock screen. That is, of course, until you get new ones.
Troubles Sending Text Messages On iPhone? Try This Fix
Some users have reported problems with sending text messages to their friends and family after the upgrade to iOS 7. Typically, when iMessage is unavailable, your iPhone should send messages as SMS ones instead, denoted by the green chat bubble as opposed to the regular blue.
If, however, your iPhone won’t send texts automatically, here’s a possible fix.
Tap into the Settings app, and scroll down to tap on Messages. Once there, you’ll see a toggle switch for Send as SMS. Set this to ON with a quick tap and your iPhone will start sending messages as SMS ones without you needing to intervene.
Even with this toggled OFF, you can still send messages when they stall out with iMessage. Simply tap and hold on the message mid-send, and choose Send as Text Message from the popup menu that appears.
Now you can send iMessages to those with an iOS or Mac device, but still communicate with anyone using an Android or feature phone (ugh).
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 10 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new albums, books and movies to come out this week.
Enjoy!
Albums
Marc Demarco – Salad Days
Listening to Mac Demarco’s third solo album Salad Days is a trip to a laid-back 90s guitar-pop. Demarco’s voice dips up and down over tracks with growing maturity that, coupled with subtle production, makes Salad Days the best carefree jam of 2014 to date.
Cloud Nothings might be the best rock band you never heard of. Hailing from Cleveland, the indie-rock trio pushed out their fourth studio album this week, Here and Nowhere Else, that is pumped full of grisly rock singalongs that are thrilling, conflicted and caustic in all the best ways.
Austin’s Pure X debuted the their second album less than a year ago but they’re already back with a third in the form of Angel. Its dreamlike acoustic guitar riffs are paired with tempos that create a mood reminiscent of the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, even though the album artwork looks like something you’d buy from a mall t-shirt kiosk.
If you enjoyed the celebration of vanity and wealth in Wolf of Wall Street, you’ll probably dig Michael Lewis’ new book Flash Boys. The characters are less-cliche than your average Wall Street types which makes the stories more interesting as they discover a new way to make mountains of cash – high-frequency trading. The book made big news this week when a footnote about one of these firms, Virtu, delayed its much-anticipated IPO.
In the same vein as 102 Minutes and Columbine, Long Mile Home is the definitive book about the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, straight from the Boston Globe reporters closest to the scene. It covers the expected ground detailing the horrors of the bombings but also serves as a testament to the resourcefulness and resilience of the Boston community.
Emma Donoghue’s first book, Room secured her reputation as a bestseller, but rather than staying with familiar territory, her second book is a dark murder mystery set in San Francisco in the year 1876. Frog Music mixes literary eloquences with vigorous plotting that really shows Donoghue’s range and talent as writer.
Based on the Tony-award winning play of the same name, August: Osage County is both dark and hilarious thanks to an incredible cast of strong women who step into the roles of the dysfunctional Weston family. Meryl Streep is pitted against Julia Roberts after losing her husband, but others like Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin and Margo Martindale add divergent paths of drama for the family in crisis.
Mistaken for Strangers is about two out-of-orbit siblings hell bent on finding harmony with one another. It pits Matt Berninger, frontman of the almost-famous band The National against his slacker brother Tom, an aspiring filmmaker. Mayhem ensues when Tom is hired to film the band’s breakout tour but eschews his duties in hopes of using the band’s fame to springboard his own troubled career.
Ben Stiller’s latest film sees the comedian jump into the sensible shoes of Walter Mitty, a shy film developer for Life magazine who also has a tendency to slip in and out of daydreams. When his job, and that of his co-worker/crush are endangered, Walter sets out on an extraordinary journey of his own. Some of the gentle humor from the 1947 Danny Kaye classic survives, though greatly enhanced with a giant dose of modern CGI effects.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a network diagnostic tool, some laundry guidance, and a reminder that Reno 911! was a thing.
Here you go:
If your Internet connection is dragging, and you have no idea why, NetHero can offer some helpful tips to get you back up to speed. You just register, and it will check out all the devices on your home network to give you a general idea of whether or not they’re working properly. You can also download the app to your individual devices like your laptop to run speed checks and get alerts and advice that will hopefully get your devices running better and save you some aggrivation.
When it comes to doing laundry, I’m a “just throw it all in, cold wash, walk away” kind of person. And that’s equal parts no time, ignorance, laziness, and the fact that my washer and dryer have coin slots in them. But here’s an app that lays the entire laundry process out for you if you care enough to do it right.
Complete Laundry Care takes you through the entire process starting with sorting and ending with folding, and it offers an abundance of helpful tips along the way. Most of these involve reading the care label, but it also taught me what the hell all those symbols on the label mean. The more you know.
If you have a cool story or a handy travel tip you’d like to share, Grawler will let you. It’s a new app that wikis up the world by having its community add photos, waypoints, and descriptions of their favorite destinations. And if you happen to live in a less-than-popular travel destination *cough*Lincoln*cough*, it comes preloaded with articles from Wikipedia.
And since I’m pretty sure nobody else in the community has this kind of insider information, I think I’ll go ahead and create my definitive guide to private places to sneak naps on the University of Nebraska campus. Worldly travelers need to know that.
If you’re on the go and missed last night’s episode of The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s new official app can hook you up. It offers a wide selection of programming, including talk shows, series, and standalone shorts. All the new stuff is right there for the viewing, but you’ll have to go through a cable-company login to check out everything else.
Just be aware of your surroundings. You don’t want to be another crazy person laughing on the bus.
Maybe you’re walking down the street, and you see a squirrel fighting a feral cat over half of a hot dog. That’s awesome, and you must capture it.
But what if a construction crew is ripping up the sidewalk 50 feet away, and you don’t need that messing up this amazing moment? That’s what Hush does: It captures video without sound. It even preformats your video in an Instagram-friendly square format so that your friends can cheer on that plucky undersquirrel as soon as possible.
Plus, it’ll save them the embarrassment of having the noise of a thousand shrieking metal demons blasting out of their phone in public. They’ll owe you one.
It’s billed as the “Ultimate iFan Event” and definitely doesn’t disappoint.
We spotted some old friends and made some new ones while roaming the floor at Moscone this year.
These two are hardcore Macworld fans. They’ve been attending the shows since 1983 and they’ve both worked at Apple. The gentleman on the left is related to Elmer Baum, the oldest employee at Apple who loaned $5000 to the two Steves to build the Apple I.
https://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/priest.jpg
This is brother Gabriel Mosher, he comes to Macworld to explore the “crossroads where the Catholic nerds and the agnostic nerds meet.” He’s also on Twitter.
I convinced these brothers to pose with the MacKeeper robot. I told them to do the robot dance, but they weren’t very enthusiastic. The robot gets just as much attention as a booth babe — if not more. Plus it’s cheaper.
Seven seconds of fame at the New York Times flipboard booth. Photo David McSpadden.
You’re probably the go-to person in your circle of friends, family and maybe even your company when it comes to cracked iPhone screens, waterlogged iPads and battery-dead iPods.
That’s why the team over at iFixit is planning to launch a section for third-party repair services, which they previewed at Macworld. CEO Kyle Wiens says the project was a natural outgrowth of the numbers: on average, iFixit members have made seven repairs. “We figured if you can do that many, you should be making money from it.”
Don’t be a tool Wiens asked for a show of hands of people who had tried to repair an iPad and broken the screen taking it apart instead: a dozen arms shot up from the 50-or so aspiring repair people at the conference. If you want to go into the repair business, you’re going to need the right kit, so consider which tools you’ll need for the bulk of your repairs and add that to your business plan, Wiens said.
For example, after realizing the iPhone 5 fingerprint sensor is easily busted when pried open, they created the iSclack, which pops it open without damaging it. (Bonus: it also works on other versions of the iPhone 5 , but is not suitable for previous generations.) The new repair biz section of the site will have tool kits aimed at third-party repairs.
The iSclack tool for the iPhone 5.
Follow the money
A good rule of thumb for pricing your services? Half to two-thirds the cost of the device. Keep in mind,
Luke Soules, iFixit COO said, that iPads have higher margins for the repair person since the owner’s perception is that it’s a more expensive device. (The “free” or subsidized iPhones that come with call plans or trade-ins mean most American consumers perceive the phones as costing less.)
Consider the scale
“You could charge $150 to fix an iPad and customers are OK with it,” Weins said. “There’s more potential there, once you get up to scale.” He reiterated that iPhone owners, especially under warranty, will go back to Apple but watch those same customers come crawling back, he said, when it expires.
Pick Your Battles
“Figuring out when to say no is essential to success,” Soules told a breakout group of would-be third party repairers. “You’ll want to pick the repairs where you know what you’re getting into.” A cracked iPhone screen can be a quick turnaround with “instant gratification” for the owner, and a borked home button can also be an easy fix.
Keep in mind “broken” can sometimes be easier to fix than “damaged” (especially when it comes to water damage, he said.) And when a customer brings in a device but doesn’t know why it’s not working, troubleshooting can end up being costly — for the repairer. There are obvious things like the water sensor which turns pink when there’s damage — though pristine sensors can be bought bogus online, he noted. Sometimes, you’re going to want to tell the customer that the device can’t be fixed and offer $50 for parts. That may end up being a much better deal for everyone involved.
iFixit’s Scott Head, Operations Guru, with the mobile repairs unit.
Parts is Parts
On the question of parts, Wiens admitted that iFixit’s parts are more expensive than other options: “We spend more because we want quality.” It’s buyer beware if you’re going through eBay or Amazon, he said, noting that often the reviews don’t accurately reflect the overall quality of the parts on sale. Apple still refuses to offer original equipment manufacturer’s parts (OEM) to third-parties, despite the fact that not every Apple customer lives close to store or certified technician. “Tim Cook has not returned any of my phone calls about OEMs yet, but I will keep calling.”
The preview of the repair info was clean and organized – like you’d expect from iFixit. You’ll have to wait to check it out, though. Soules told us that it will probably debut in a couple of months. “It’s one of our more long-term projects,” he said. Not a quick fix, in other words.
Once again Cult of Mac has waded through this week’s endless list of new releases of books, music and movies to find the very best stuff so you don’t have to.
This week’s selections feature a little bit of pop, emo, gangsta rap, novels set in pre-Hollywood Los Angeles, and greedy dragon guarding one of Middle Earth’s most valuable treasures.
Music
Future Islands – Singles Pop fans will soak up the energy and ambiance that flows along every note from frontman Samuel Herring in the fourth album from Baltimore pop synth band Future Islands. Singles manages to balance pop and melodrama built around a new age beat. The first half is definitely better than the back, but Future Islands indulgence in poppy beats is so fun you’ll probably have the entire album on repeat.
YG’s “My Nigga” and “My Nigga (the remix)” have been on repeat during my jogging runs pretty much nonstop the last two weeks but My Krazy Life is full of great tracks that aren’t super innovative but serve as a beautiful nod to the era of Compton rappers, featuring appearances by SchoolBoy Q, Drake, Lil Wayne, Jeezy, and Comptons new king, Kendrick Lamar.
Owls – Two Tim Kinsella’s work under Owls isn’t really pop and not totally emo despite its cryptic, piecemeal lyrics, but it falls unpleasantly inbetween. Two is the band’s first work in over 13 years, and while the album has been called “highly anticipated” from the best of fans, it’s also the most accessible piece of music Kinsella’s made for new fans as well.
Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II China
by James McMullen
I still think children’s’ books are best enjoyed in print where you can cuddle up with the pages, but James McMullen’s latest work really shines on the iPad. Leaving China depicts the artist’s exodus from China giving kids and adults alike a glimpse into life in China during the tumultuous World War II era.
The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era
by Craig Nelson
Craig Nelson first rose to prominence with his autobiography on Thomas Paine, but rather than tackling another historical figure, for his next book he gives us the first complete history of the Atomic Age, chock full of accounts from people who uncovered the secrets of the nucleus and brought its power to America.
iTunes – $12.99
Mount Terminus
by David Grand
David Grand’s Mount Terminus is one of the best coming-of-age novel this year thanks to its elegant yet dark prose. Set against the backdrop of pre-Hollywood Los Angeles, the novel focuses on a young man named Bloom who is uprooted to California after the death of his mother and chronicles the rise of the film industry.
Smaug finally slithers into life for the second part of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy The Desolation of Smaug. Bilbo and the company of dwarves have slipped through the White Orc’s meaty claws, but now they face an even more potent adversary as they make their way into the depth of the Lonely Mountain in search of the arkenstone.
Just when I started believing Vince Vaughn could no longer carry a comedy by himself, he brings it with Delivery Man. It’s the story of an anonymous sperm donor, Starbuck (Vaughn), whose sauce is so potent he fathered over 500 children. Vaughn’s character finds out the shock of his life might be the best thing to ever happen to him in this feel-good comedy that really delivers the laughs.
I’d love to see Stallone and De Niro go at it in an epic good-guy bad-guy movie, but since they’re both more worried about osteoporosis than adding to their oeuvre of action flicks, we’ll have to settle for the comedy Grudge Match which sees the two actors as long-time rival boxers from the Pittsburg who rekindle their rivalry 30-years after their prime.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include _____, _____, and _____.
Here you go:
Idea Maker Flashcards is a new app that hopes to get your creativity going by showing you different ways to think about and approach your work. It also includes video examples of each of them for you visual learners out there.
It’s intended mostly for marketers and public-relations folks, but even people outside of those industries might be interested in some of the projects. Like the story of the Dortmund Concert Hall, which raised its attendance and membership by selling milk from cows that had listened to the upcoming symphonic program.
Picking the right word can be challenging. Or maybe you’re just trying to make yourself sound smart by using something that would be a formidable figure on a Scrabble board. Either way, Thesaurasize can get you those synonyms but quick. All you do is type in the boring word you’re starting with, and it spits out a list of other candidates.
Just make sure you read the definitions Thesaurasize provides so that you know what the synonyms mean, though. You don’t want come off sounding fatuitous.
I’ve always been interested in origami, but it’s been hard to find directions that consistently make sense. It’s all dashed lines and dotted lines and arrows pointing in vague directions, and it’s supposed to be relaxing, damn it. But Origami Club is here to help you out with video tutorials in which a pair of helping hands walk you through the entire process, even pausing occasionally to point out details on potentially complicated steps.
The videos are also surprisingly calming just to watch even if you don’t end up with a little mouse or whatever. But I think you want to end up with a little mouse.
Your days of endlessly hitting “Refresh” to see if a price has come down may be over (unless you like that sort of thing). Punchr is a new app that will monitor any part of a web page for updates and then let you know when it happens. You just navigate to the site and then select the part of it you want to look out for, and it’ll send you a push notification if something changes.
So now you can spend less time refreshing Twitter when it’s down and more time taking pictures of your lunch to post on Twitter when it returns.
I don’t have a lot of time to read, so it’s always nice to find an app to help me out there. SprintReader employs <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_serial_visual_presentation”rapid serial visual presentation to let you read one of a selection of classic (i.e. public-domain) works with haste.
You get a box, and the words appear one at a time. They always appear in the same place, so you just plunk your eyes there and let the text come to you. The selections are a bit limited right now, but if you’ve never read Pride and Prejudice or The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, now might be a good time.
This week in Review Roundup we look at luxury leathery book-a-like iPhone cases. All three are made to last, with real leather or bookbindery covers. Two are ultra tough, one is a little more low-profile, and all three will probably last you forever. But which one is best?
The Candidates
Pad & Quill’s Luxury Pocket Book, a wood-framed, leather covered wallet case with space for some cash.
Davarg’s Kanam is a simple wraparound flap of leather with a (somewhat reusable) sticky pad that glues the iPhone into place. It’s less bulky than the other two, and very nice looking.
Meison Morgan’s Handmade Case is a lot like the Luxury Pocket Book, only it has a bookbindery cover instead of leather.
Meison Morgan by Meison Morgan Category: Cases Works With: iPhone 5 & iPhone 5s Price: €30/$46
Manufactured in Greece using the same bookbinding process that traditional notebook makers use, this case offers not only good looks, but also all-round protection that promises to withstand the test of time.
It’s available in black and denim (blue), and it’s super affordable at €30 ($46).
On the whole, the Meison Morgan is a fantastic iPhone case that looks great and offers plenty of protection. It’s also relatively inexpensive at €30. But the experience is marred somewhat by a couple of issues that could so easily be fixed.
If its makers can iron out those problems, then I’d have no reservations about recommending this case.
Luxury Pocket Book byPad&Quill Category: cases Works With:iPhone 5/S Price: $85
The Luxury Pocket Book is a leather-bound book with a Baltic beechwood insert, a leather lining and slots inside the front cover for credit cards and cash (bills, not coins). It has cutouts for all your ports and buttons, plus a hole in the back for the camera and flash.
Lastly, there’s an elastic strap to hold it closed, just like on a Moleskine notebook.
Kanam by Davarg Category: Cases Works With: iPhone 5 Price: $45
The Kanam is a book-like wraparound cover which protects the back, the front and one edge. Unlike the SurfacePad, the Kanam protects the right edge, opening backwards (or forwards if you’re one of those manga weirdos). This leaves the mute and volume switches free to be used. There’s also a small cutout over the phone speaker so you can talk with the case closed and still hear the conversation.
The iPhone 5 itself is held in place with a sticky, reusable adhesive pad. You just clean the back of the phone, peel off the protective waxed sheet (setting it aside in case you ever need to take the iPhone out of this case) and stick. It holds just fine.
The winner? The Pad&Quill Luxury Pocket Book. Why? It’s expensive, but it’s made to last. The Meison Case is already falling apart in our review, and the Davarg is bulky without adding any extra features. The P&Q case wins for a combination of craftsmanship and clever design.
Flappy Bird came onto the scene with a bang, ruffling feathers from Hanoi to Hannover. Dong Nguyen, the developer of this seemingly overnight sensation, was as taken aback as the rest of us, evident from his shocking decision to stop offering the game for download as well as his recent decision to bring it back.
Game developers and publishers can only hope to reproduce this kind of crazy success. And each and every one of the people we talked to at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco were eager to share their opinions on how Flappy Bird happened, how it might happen again, and why it was such a runaway hit to begin with.
In case you’ve been holed up for the last few months, Flappy Bird is a one-button game with absurdly simple mechanics: tap the screen to keep a goofy-looking Nintendo-styled bird in the air as he rushes across the world, avoiding hitting randomly placed Super Mario-inspired pipes. The difficulty is brutal; super-low scores are common, even among gamers who love twitch games.
Here are some of the more curious sights spotted at GDC, where legions of developers, journalists and marketing folks from around the globe descended on San Francisco…
Analog In The Mix
Surprise: it wasn’t all digital. Here are some folks playing Tash-Kalar a board game with wizardry from the Czech Republic.
Look To The Skies
A GDC goer tries on the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 for size. It will go head-to-head with the Sony Morpheus Playstation headset, also showed off here in San Francisco. 3D and VR were some of the major themes of the show.
Back To The Future?
Even with all the bells and whistles offered by 3D and VR, it was worth whiling away a few minutes with early interactive game Zork, especially since it was offered up on these vintage Macs!
Tastes Great With Kashkaval
Photo: Rob LeFebvre
Cold War “comedy adventure” game Jazzpunk’s promo swag at the indie games festival was crazy topical, or wildly insensitive given the recent events in Crimea. We’re still not sure, but either way, we’re keeping the box for posterity.
Paper or Plastic?
With dozens of sessions, pressers, conferences and events, keeping track of what to do next required brain power and a lot of planning.
Unless otherwise noted, @all photos courtesy Official GDC, CC-licensed on Flickr.
Once again Cult of Mac has waded through this week’s endless list of new releases of books, music and movies to find the very best stuff so you don’t have to.
This week’s top selections feature a lot of post-rock, some Wall Street debauchery, and a hearty serving of cannibalism.
Enjoy!
Albums
Tycho – Awake
San Francisco-based visual artist and musician, Scott Hansen, aka Tycho, has been making gorgeous techno music for over a decade, but it wasn’t until he released his third album, Dive, that he started generating some traction. Now Hansen’s back with his fourth album, Awake, that feels like luminous dreams floating in space.
Maybe rock is dead, or just dying, but Adam Granduciel isn’t keen to sit idly while it the state of rock deteriorates. His third effort with The War On Drugs has birthed Lost in the Dream, a rock album that draws influence from pretty much every major rockstar in the galaxy, giving it a sound that’s got a little something for everyone without making any concessions on a sound that’s looking to make its own mark on rock-and-roll.
If you like your rock served loud, hard, and predictable check out Going to Hell from The Pretty Reckless, but for a more intense experience pick up Perfect Pussy’s debut album Say Yes. The five-piece band’s sound is a maelstrom of energy, punk, and distortion that is both vulnerable and unapologetic in its rawness.
In 1961 Michael Rockefeller disappeared in New Guinea. As a member of one of the richest, most influential families in the world, his mysterious disappearance was hot news at the time. Rumors surfaced that he’d been killed and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat—a native tribe of warriors whose complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and ritual cannibalism. The Rockefellers and the Dutch government denied the story, so Carl Hoffman has set out 50 years later to New Guinea, chatting with cannibals and other witness to track down what happened to the powerful scion.
At just 35, Dinaw Mengestu has already been showered with accolades including the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award, TheNew Yorker’s 20 Under 40 award, and a 2012 MacArthur Foundation genius grant. Now he’s ready to unleash his third novel, All Our Names, which features an unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America.
Notes from the Internet Apocalypse
by Wayne Gladstone
I sure hope the internet doesn’t randomly collapse someday – mostly because I’ll have to figure out a new form of employment – but if it does, the world will probably look similar to the one envisioned by Wayne Gladstone in Notes From the Internet Apocalypse. Twitter junkies roam the streets speaking in 140 chars to each other or force cats to perform tricks for their amusement. (Which is more gruesome? Up to you.) It’s all pretty funny while at the same time examining the question: “What is life without the internet?”
The Wolf of Wall Street is depraved but glorious. Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t manage to win his first Oscar for his portrayal of real-life goon-investor Jordan Belfort but what with the quaaludes, money, and debauchery that serve as props in Wolf, he sure as hell had a better time filming it than skinny old Matty McConaughey’s did with Dallas Buyers Club.
Backed by one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in history, Veronica Mars the movie is finally here and it’s available in theaters and iTunes at the same time so you can follow all the action right where it left off nine years after the finale of the third season.
The story behind the story: here’s Tom Hanks stars as Walt Disney while Emma Thompson steps into the role of Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, who avoided signing away the rights to make her book into a movie. Armed with his iconic creative vision, Walt pulls out all the stops, but the uncompromising Travers won’t budge, leaving Walt to reach into his own complicated childhood to discover the ghosts that haunt Travers.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a sleep meter, an app that’s all ads, and something to help you get home safely.
Here you go:
I know I don’t get enough sleep, but I’m kinda dumb, so sometimes I need to look at pictures to really put things into perspective. That’s where SleepBattery comes in. You tell it how old you are, and it suggests how much sleep you should be getting every night. When you go to bed, you tap a button, and the screen-sized battery begins to fill. When you wake up, you tap the screen again, and the battery begins to drain.
When it’s completely empty, it tells you to go to bed. And I probably won’t, but it’s nice to know the app cares.
Hey, did you know that the Veronica Mars movie is out now? I didn’t until I saw it listed on HypeDrive. I’m not interested in the Veronica Mars movie, but good looking out, HypeDrive.
It’s an app that lets you keep track of all the movies, TV shows, games, and other projects that interest you. You can add them to a list to stay up-to-date, but that requires a login. If you don’t feel like registering, you can also just look stuff up, but it won’t save. You’ll have to write it down or something. Like a caveman.
Sometimes, I’m standing in the produce section of my local grocery store, and I see fruit I’ve never even heard of before. And while nobody has developed an app that will let me taste them to see if they’re any good, Wholesome gives a pretty good idea of how good it is for me.
The app groups everything, mostly by color, but it also has categories for spices, meat and seafood, dairy, etc. You just pick your group and food, and then the information is all there for your perusal. You can even adjust quantities if you’re working from a recipe.
That fruit-tasting idea is free, by the way. Somebody please get on that.
Bind is kind of a weird idea for an app, but then again, I know people who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials. So if you want big companies to try to sell you things without all that pesky programming getting in the way, here’s where you should go.
It collects ads. Just ads. Do you want to watch ads? Bind has all the ads including movie trailers and those ones people at work were attempting to describe (poorly) the day after the Big Game. And you can rate and share your favorites with your friends.
So at the very least, it’ll save you a trip to YouTube.
So maybe one night you’re stumbling to your car and realize you really shouldn’t be driving. And also you’re so drunk that Siri can’t understand you. And the buttons in your contact list are so small.
Enter Too Drunk To Drive, an app that hopes to keep you from ending up dead in a molten hell of metal and glass. You pre-program it with the numbers of your local cab company or a reliable friend, and then all you have to do is plunk your drunken thumb down on one of the app’s two enormous and clearly labeled buttons.
Giving the other person directions is still up to you, though. So good luck with that.
Apple has approved a number of apps that allow users to save, forward, email and otherwise capture that fleeting moment from Snapchat. This one, Quick Save, is approved for users over age 4, and the preview gives an idea of the kind of person whose photo you might hope to save for posterity.
69 Places – Sex Locations & Fantasies
This one is approved for ages 17+ — but look and feel is so ludicrous it could only appeal to people who have not yet hit the age of consent. Who is up for a fast food drive thru quickie?
iQuarters
Of the gaggle of digital “quarters” drinking games, this one promises to make “corner pubs and frat houses rejoice,” and got the green light from Apple for ages 4+.
Leafly
Think of Yelp, but for pot. This 17+ app provides the low-downon 500+ strains, sorted alphabetically and categorized by indica, sativa, and hybrid and the dispensaries near you.
Down Dating
Apple banned Bang with Friends, but undeterred the company returned with an app called Down that includes the same anonymous pairing feature as before in a slightly more discreet package. You will find out just which of your Facebook pals are up for something more – though beware, in our tests it also suggested family members of the opposite sex.
Adult Frames
Here’s another one that has “adult” in the title but is more likely to appeal to a much younger set – going by the cursive script and exclamation points.
Evil Apples: A Filthy Adult Card and Party Game
A riff on Cards Against Humanity, this one promises filthy fun for ages 17+. One reviewer says it’s keeping them away from “homework” and another says it’s “great fun for the obscene mind” and that you can be “so dirty with complete strangers.”
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 10 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new albums, books and movies to come out this week.
If you have material on your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad that you don’t want anyone to see, there’s a better solution than hiding the app icons, which is currently how Apple allows you to handle that red-hot material.
There are at least a dozen apps — free and paid — in iTunes that serve as kind of a secret locker for the stuff you don’t want prying eyes to see. I checked out the free version of the popular Secret Apps, called Secret Apps Lite, which is so comprehensive that I’m a little ashamed to have nothing worth hiding that carefully.
The settings on the free version include options for a real and decoy passcode. The default security is set to take a picture on login and save it as a security log, providing photographic evidence of the person clever enough to have figured out both your real and decoy pass codes.
The login record – note the option to take automatic photos.
Once in, you can import photos, contacts, files and take notes plus browse Safari in private mode. Of course, there are a few caveats: for example, the photos must be uploaded from your camera roll and once you’re inside (or your expert snoop is inside) they can be emailed or texted outside the “vault.”
And, while the app has an innocent enough sounding name (My Apps Lite) the icon resembles a combo lock. This probably won’t tip off the snoops in your life since it’s barely visible on an iPhone but it does become evident to suspicious minds on an iPad. One more thing for the record: the download shows up on your iTunes account activity as “Secret Apps.” If you’re going stealth, check out our tip in the article on hiding iTunes activity.
We owe at least one dark corner of iTunes to sneaky parents.
Back in 2011, Apple listened to what sounded like a chorus of adults who didn’t want their kids to know what mommy and daddy were doing on the family iPad by allowing users to “hide” purchases.
If you spend any time lurking around the more shadowy parts of the store, you’ll note how many of the reviews of these apps are comments from desperate users who want the traces of their momentary lapse in judgement wiped clean. The ability to hide purchases and downloads changes that, to a point.
Reviews from an adult “Truth or Dare” game.
Like a lot of things in iTunes, the destination may be straightforward but the road is tortuous, making it easy in effect for multiple users (parents, kids, co-workers) to hide what they buy (or download) on iTunes.
The key word here: hide. Apple will not delete a record of anything you download or buy on your devices, unless in the first 90 days you ask for a “refund” or “report a problem.” (More on this below). Note that Apple considers free downloads “purchases,” so those go on your permanent record “purchase history,” too.
This means that you can delete the dubious Kama Sutra app that your co-worker downloaded on the company iPad while at SXSW, but a record of its passing across your device will live on, forever, in the purchase history, even if it was free.
That said, there are two ways to squirrel your not-for-public-viewing materials under the virtual mattress. The first is the one authorized by Apple, the second one we stumbled across researching this story.
Method One: Create a “hidden list” of purchases or downloads
Once signed into your iTunes account, click on the “purchased” link under the Quick Links section on the right.
Remember, this “purchased” also list includes any free media downloaded across any devices linked to this account — music, movies, TV shows, apps and books.
Using apps as an example, inside the purchase list, all the icons will appear with a “x” in the left-hand corner when you mouse over them. Clicking on the “x” hides them across all your devices. (Note: not deleted. I mean it: they will not be deleted from your device or your purchase history. Just hidden from view.)
These records live on in the cloud. To see what may be hidden — or unhide them — head back to your “Account” section. Scroll down to iTunes in the Cloud and select “manage” under Hidden Purchases.
From here, you can “unhide” them for easy access.
Method two: Smokescreen
You may have noticed a problem: while it’s easy to hide questionable music and such, what about in-app purchases? These don’t show up on the previous menu, making, for example, a monthly Grindr Xtra subscription out in the open in your purchase history.
Under account information, click on “purchase history.” Here’s where the smokescreen comes in: Apple lumps all activity for one day together in a tiny, difficult-to-read grid with room for the barest description.
So it’s easy to bury something by downloading a couple of free, innocent-sounding apps at around the same time; without going inside the history for that particular day, you miss the whole picture.
Here’s a concrete example of what looks like account activity for December 12 – note: only two virtuous-looking downloads.
To see the whole enchilada, you have to click on the tiny, left-hand arrow to open up that day’s worth of activity. Here you’ll note that three more downloads — look mom, Angry Birds! — didn’t make it on to the first page.
We’re going to bet that if your iTunes account gets heavy use by multiple people and multiple devices, you’d have to be a determined snoop to a) know Apple doesn’t list everything on the first page and b) open it up to see what else might be there. It’s also from this inside page with the full day’s purchases that you can “report a problem” and lobby to have the purchase removed, though many people have reported getting no satisfaction.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a comparison shopper for books, a route-maker that factors in current traffic, and a couple things to keep your pictures nice and pretty.
Here you go:
It’s not likely that anyone consistently takes pictures that look like one of the supervillains’ hideouts in the old Batman TV show, but even a slight tilt can make a photo look strange. Orient is an app that will eliminate your photography’s chronic case of the skews by using your iPhone’s gyroscope to ensure that every shot you take is level and straight.
You can choose from a bunch of aspect ratios, and then Orient works almost exactly like your regular Camera app, complete with Instagram-style filters.
ETA is all about telling you how far you are from your favorite places. It’ll also point out which direction they’re in, in case you have to know that at all times.
But Maps will do that, too, so to distinguish itself, ETA lets you build up a list of your most-traveled spots, and it’ll tell you at a glance how long it will take to get there in current traffic. And with a couple taps, you can get directions from either your built-in navigator or Google Maps. And that’s really handy because I always like to know how far I am from sandwiches.
I love living in the future, but sometimes I feel a little spoiled. This app wants you to find useful things, but it thinks that your iPhone or iPad keyboards are just too hard to use.
Shot & Find is a visual-search app that lets you quickly search YouTube, Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, or Spotify just by snapping a picture of a movie, video game, or CD cover. It works really well, too. I did a YouTube search from a DVD, and it pulled up the trailer. A Wikipedia search from a 12-year-old video game also worked just fine.
The app’s effectiveness is almost as ridiculous as its premise, but you can’t argue with results.
Now that you know where to find all those DVDs, video games, and CDs with Shot & Find, you might want something to read. All Librarist needs is an ISBN, a keyword, or a quick scan of a barcode, and it’ll let you compare prices from stores all over the world.
The scanning works really well, and it includes an impressive selection of stores to choose from. Now if only it actually had some way to give me more time to read, it would pretty much be the perfect app.
Admit it: You have trouble keeping your camera level when you’re taking a picture of an important document. And then the text looks all weird, and it’s embarrassing.
Alright, maybe it’s not super embarrassing, but it’s nice to avoid skewing anything if you can help it. With Photo Copy Level, you just place your iOS device against the thing you’re shooting and set the level, and then a handy circle tells you when you’re shooting straight. The upgrade unlocks features like an automatic shutter.
Ever since the iPad arrived in 2010, analysts and Apple fans alike have been eagerly awaiting the next “big” Apple product.
With CarPlay, they may have finally found it.
Thanks to a cabal of major car manufacturers opening their doors to Apple, the Cupertino company has the opportunity to revolutionize the way we drive and interact with our cars.
Previously known as iOS in the Car, CarPlay drove most of the media buzz when it debuted at the recent International Geneva Motor Show. Sitting behind the wheel of a Ferrari, a family-friendly FF four-seater with skis in the back, veteran auto journalist Jennifer Clark says that the integration was as smart and seamless as you’d expect from Apple.
Here’s how it works: the iPhone plugs into a jack inside the central armrest, and with the press of a button, the familiar Apple icons appear on the car’s entertainment screen. The driver or passenger can active the phone, messaging, podcasts, music or map icons either my button, by touchscreen or by Siri voice command.
By creating a version of dashboard iOS that allows your iPhone to connect with the existing in-car infotainment systems used by Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and others, Apple can tap into the fast-growing connected car market — predicted to be worth $131.9 billion by 2019.
Much like Apple TV provided a streamlined solution to TV viewers begging for a better interface, so CarPlay represents Apple’s gambit at taking an idea that has been around for years (the in-car infotainment system) and making it better.
CarPlay transfers many of the UI elements of iOS to the dashboard.
There is currently a lot of misinformation about CarPlay — from Apple’s relationship with automakers, to the suggestion that it’s working side-by-side with BlackBerry on the QNX software platform which has been the glue holding various in-car infotainment systems together for years.
CarPlay isn’t a case of Apple licensing a system to manufacturers, but rather an add-on for what is already in your car. It’s not a whole new technology, but a way to better integrate the iPhone into the system currently in place: overriding it only if you have an iPhone, AND this iPhone is plugged in.
“Connectivity to smartphones and other mobile devices is a key strength of QNX Software Systems’ platform for car infotainment systems, and many automakers and tier one automotive suppliers use our platform to implement smartphone/head-unit integration in their vehicles,” a spokesperson for QNX confirmed to Cult of Mac. “We have a long-standing partnership with Apple to ensure high-quality in-car connectivity to their devices, and this partnership extends to compatibility support for Apple CarPlay.”
But while CarPlay could be thought of as a glorified iPhone app, Apple is taking it very seriously indeed.
“Having something in the automobile is very, very important; it’s something that people want and I think that Apple can do this in a unique way better than anyone else,” said Tim Cook during the Q3 earnings call in 2013 — describing it as a “key focus for us.”
Tim Cook called CarPlay a “key focus” for Apple.
Why exactly Apple is so keen is obvious: because as potential users nearly all spend hours in the car in week — valuable hours (both to us and Apple) that we could better use engaging with iOS devices.
The average one-way daily commute for workers across the U.S. is 25.5 minutes, while a 2011 survey carried out by the U.S. Census Bureau claiming that 79.9 percent of workers travel to work alone by car. We’re buying more cars, too — the number of car sales in the U.S. have increased by 1 million vehicles every twelve months.
This isn’t an area that is new to Apple, but one that it has been working toward for at least a decade.
“You have to go back to the iPod,” veteran Apple analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco told Cult of Mac. “By about 2004, its use in the car was very much sought after, because users wanted to get music in their vehicles. We had the standard CD players, but the idea was that if you had a thousand songs in your pocket you should also be able to get them to play in your vehicle. Already by 2003 and 2004 Apple was reaching out to car makers regarding this, and after just a few years, they were making claims that between 70 percent and 90 percent of cars manufactured in the United States had the iPod as a supported product.”
In 2010, while Steve Jobs was still at the helm, Apple launched its iPod Out service with iOS 4.0, which let users pair their iPods with their in-car entertainment systems, and which quickly gained the support of 35 car manufacturers.
Two years later, in 2012, Apple and Mercedes-Benz announced that Siri would be put into the A-Class Mercedes Benz line — giving drivers the ability to use the apps on their iPhones via voice commands. Known as Drive Kit Plus, the program works in conjunction with Mercedes-Benz’s Digital DriveStyle App.
CarPlay was announced during the opening keynote at WWDC last June, under the clunkier moniker iOS in the car, with the idea that it will be coming to a dashboard near you from 2014 onward.
Third-party apps are still lingering question when it comes to how smart your car will become with Apple. So far, the only companies that Apple has provided a private API for include Spotify, Beats Radio, iHeartRadio, and Stitcher. These are all popular streaming music and podcast services, designed to replace old fashioned radio.
Currently CarPlay is very much like current Apple TV, or the iPhone in its early years — offering a select few apps from a smaller number of big companies, but no larger app ecosystem. It is not yet clear whether Apple will pursue this route.
“As a third-party developer we don’t currently have access to CarPlay,” says Michael O’Shea, CEO of Abalta Technologies, and 22 years of experience in the car infotainment field. “But clearly the door has already been opened to some — which suggests that it might be opened a bit wider over time.”
Opening CarPlay to third-party developers could trigger a driving app revolution, just as happened for mobile devices when Steve Jobs opened the App Store to iPhone developers in July 2008.
But it could also create problems: just how much “play” — and the consequences of distracted driving — will be allowed in the system?
For now, CarPlay features Siri-guided apps that don’t require the user to keep looking away from the road at the in-car screen. How would Apple ensure that low distraction factor for all third-party apps? Unlike an iOS app designed to be as attention-grabbing as possible, what obligation does Apple have to ensure the safety of drivers using the system?
“Technically and operationally, Apple has the ability to create a certification process that ensures that apps conform to certain guidelines, but along with that comes potential liability,” O’Shea says.
“I’m not sure this is going to be as open as [current iOS devices] where you can have any app you want on your home screen,” says analyst Horace Dediu. “Apple may want to restrict the type of functionality to maybe just music or navigation. The app opportunity is exciting, but cars are also hazardous environments that can kill you if you don’t do the right thing. I don’t think it’s going to be opened up as much for developers to take real estate on the screen. I think Apple will take a more cautious approach.”
With Google also entering the car infotainment space, we have a repeat of the smartphone war. Photo: Google/Apple
Currently CarPlay is a car accessory. But what happens if Apple is able to switch this around so that the system plays a far more central role in the driving experience — making cars truly smart?
The quantified car could be used not just for navigating, answering messages, and accessing music — but also controlling the extra features in your car and analyzing your driving habits, improving fuel mileage and nudging you to get the brakes checked. These “nudges” are already incorporated in some car systems, like the Toyota Prius.
It’s already possible to make CarPlay a tool for accessing some of the information that is currently reserved for car mechanics — relating to diagnostic info from your engine about metrics like fuel consumption or potential faults you may be experiencing. This is already the functionality of a tool like smart driving assistant Automatic, which plugs into your car’s standard OSB-II data port, and connects your car to your iPhone via Bluetooth.
This would also present Apple a valuable tool for gathering user data.
“The way that we drive can tell companies a lot about us,” says Michael O’Shea. ”Where do you go? What do you do while you’re traveling there? What do purchase along the way, and at what time? All of these are questions that can be invaluable from an analytics perspective. It’s an enticing area for companies for that very reason.” Although this might be more the remit of Google — who have continually exhibited their enthusiasm for gathering and monetizing user data — Apple could use these behavioral insights to help push engagement with the Apple ecosystem and beyond.
Apple isn’t the only A-list tech company working in the in-car infotainment space. Microsoft has been pushing its Windows Embedded Automotive 7 system, designed as a platform for automakers and suppliers to deliver a Microsoft in-car experience aimed at drivers. Google is also a new entrant into this field, but it made a big announcement at this year’s CES regarding the Open Automotive Alliance, which is a partnership with Audi, General Motors, Honda, and Hyundai to put an Android OS in cars this year. This alliance would result in automakers having access to an open ecosystem that would allow programmers to easily create new apps designed specifically tailored to in-car use.
CarPlay also faces competition from companies already working in the infotainment field, such as satellite-radio broadcaster Sirius XM — which has made a number of recent acquisitions showing their determination not to lose their competitive edge. In August 2013, the company acquired connected-vehicle services business Agero Inc. for $530 million, allowing Sirius to provide in-car Web-connected services related to security and real-time navigation.
Apple has the name, reputation, and (from what we’ve seen so far) the goods, to make a major dent in the in-car infotainment area.
Questions about how much control car companies are willing to cede will have to play out, but CarPlay certainly looks a whole lot better than some of the dismal offerings already out there.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a granular finance system, an especially informative compass, and a really complicated camera.
Here you go:
Nobody hopes for a war or a natural disaster or an alien invasion from beyond the stars, but they like to know that if any of those things do happen their family will all be on the same page about where to go and what to do.
Emergency Plan helps out by keeping meeting locations, contacts, and even basic medical information all in one place so nobody has to dig or guess about anything while they’re running in a zigzag fashion down Main Street to throw off the cybertanks’ laser-guided heat rays.
Or if there’s like a tornado or something. Either one.
I don’t know who makes these rules, but apparently, “society” wants men to wear clothes.
But how does one decide which clothes to wear? Dapper wants to help. It’s a shopping app that collects items from several different stores and arranges them into categories like office, casual and active. When you see something you like, you can add it to your “Daplist” or put it in your cart. You can swipe left on items you don’t like and banish them to the Phantom Zone.
You can create an account to purchase right from the app, or you can just be one of “those customers” and nose around with no intention to buy. That’s what I do.
You’ve probably seen the do-it-yourself, social media comics called Bitstrips in your Facebook feed at one time or another, and maybe you want to see more, or you’d like to find some that might actually be funny.
Best Strips for Bitstrips can help: it only posts strips that pass muster with the moderators. You can rate what’s there and even submit your own for consideration, if you’re feeling confident and/or brave.
Or you can just keep taking your chances with the ones in your feed, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
It works a lot like the panorama function on your iPhone’s camera, but you can capture a complete 360-degree image either horizontally or vertically by spinning in a circle or rotating your phone up or down. When you look at the instructions, it all gets very technical, but once you work with it for a little while — and maybe rig something up to keep your phone still — you can get some really good results.
You can also scan in “stereo mode” and make 3D pictures, but that’s just showing off, GyroScan.
Alright, so your iPhone already has a compass built right into it, but if you want a little more information in your orienteering, you might want to look into this app.
In addition to the standard “North is over there” bit, DueNorth will also give you your latitude and longitude, and plunking your finger down anywhere on the screen will tell you which direction and heading you’re prodding. Plus, the display has a Night Mode, so you can figure out how to get out of the woods without every bear in the vicinity knowing that you’re lost.
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 10 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new albums, books and movies to come out this week.
Enjoy!
Albums
Rick Ross – Mastermind
It’s hard to believe that the Teflon Don is already onto his sixth album, but here it is, Mastermind, and it’s Rick Ross at his best. The rap version of the Wolf of Wall Street embodies excess thanks to his obsession with wealth, and while there’s nothing truly groundbreaking about the production of Mastermind, tracks like Devil Is A Lie, Sanctified and Thug Cry feature brutal beats and the albums carries enough starpower to take out Alderaan with guest appearances from Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz and Jeezy.
I’d love to recommend Pharrell’s new album G I R L, but it’s not as stellar as I was hoping – and this is coming from a dude who danced his butt off to Happy, alone, more times than should be legal. However, Eagulls’ debut self-titled album is a spectacular cacophony of punky post-rock tunes that will get you moving just as much as Pharrell’s beats.
While the Eagulls are full of energy, Real Estate’s third full album Atlas features delicate guitar melodies and swaying vocals. Real Estate borrows sounds from The Shins and Yo La Tengo while still maintaining their unique sonic footprint full of songs the capture feelings of separation, uncertainty, but most importantly, exploration.
For her debut novel journalist, Rene Denfeld channels her experience as a death penalty case investigator into a gut-wrenching, spelling binding debut novel. Set deep inside a decaying prison, The Enchanted features the story of York, a death row inmate on the verge of execution and “The Lady,” an investigator who dives into his history in an attempt to get his sentence reduces, but what she finds is an ugly past with parallels to her own awful history.
Many Americans find it hard to connect with the wars half a world away in Afghanistan and Iraq, so Phil Klay’s book of short stories grabs readers into the frontlines of the wars, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. The short stories are interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival as the characters struggling to make meaning out of chaos.
Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
by Leonard Susskind & Art Friedman
Learning quantum mechanics doesn’t register high on most people’s to-do list, but if you’re ever been curious to learn the behavior of subatomic objects through mathematical abstractions, Leonard Susskind’s new book provides a great introduction to the difficult field. Other writers shy away from quantum mechanics’ weirdness, but Susskind and Friedman embrace the utter strangeness of quantum logic but present their understandings in crystal-clear explanations that let you sink into the field at your own pace.
Written and directed with undeniable vitality by Destin Cretton, Short Term 12 depicts the lively yet wounded intersection of messy, broken humanity at a foster-care facility for at-risk teens. Brie Larson stars alongside John Gallagher JR from The Newsroom as a boyfriend-girlfriend duo working at the center, who are tested by two troubled yet fitted residents as the struggle to contemplate their future together.
After being held captive in solitary confinement for 20 years, former advertising executive Josh Brolin is inexplicably released one day without ever getting a glimpse of his captors or their motives. With his newfound freedom, he sets off on a mission to figure out who kidnapped him and how to find salvation.
Steve Jobs and Woz got their start in consumer electronics by hacking together Blue Boxes for cheap, but if it weren’t for Walter Shaw the two might have never gotten the business bug. Who’s Shaw? Genius On Hold tells the story of Shaw, a telecommunications inventor who invented features like call-forwarding, touchtone dialing, speakerphone, voice recognition and many other creations we still use to this day, but he was held back by corporate greed and government monopolies and ended up working for the mob to create the infamous black box.
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 30 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new movies, albums and books to come out this week.
Enjoy!
Music
St. Vincent – St. Vincent
Singer/songwriter/guitar-shredder Annie Clark’s fourth studio album as St. Vincent is full of twists and turns, sonic textures, and balladry, making St. Vincent her best album ever. Beyonce and Gaga may reign supreme among female entertainers, but St. Vincent asserts herself as a pyrotechnic guitarist laying down rhythmic somersaults. Lorde be damned, there’s nothing quite like her mix of vocal range and captivating balance of experimental leanings and pop sensations.
Everyone’s talking about Beck this week and the new album he released after six years of silence, but while Morning Phase is great and definitely worth a listen, I’ve been addicted to SchoolBoy Q’s Oxymoron. The front five tracks are especially hard to escape from a repeat loop. It’s the best rap album so far this year and enlists collaborators such as Kendrick Lamar, 2 Chainz, ASAP Rocky, Jay Rock, Tyler the Creator and Kurupt, among others.
Present Tense, Wild Beasts’, fourth LP, is simply brilliant. After taking a full year off to recoup from a two-year tour for their last album, the band presents their most human musical portrait, even if its a bit less accessible than their other albums.
Not a week passes where we don’t hear of scientist making an incredible new discovery about how the brain works but where is all that info leading us? In his book The Future of the Mind, Michio Kaku surveys the latest findings by scientists to give readers a better idea of how the brain works as well as dancing with future ideas like smart pills to enhance cognition; downloading brains neuron by neuron, or even sending our emotions and consciousness out into space.
Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes
by Svante Pääbo
As fun as it is to celebrate just how damn smart humans have become, it’s also good to see where we’ve come from. Geneticist Svante Pääbo’s book Neanderthal Man analyzes what we can learn from the genomes of our closest evolutionary relatives as he searches for the mysterious answer as to why humans survived while Neanderthals went kaput.
Growing up in New Mexico, I was always aware that the genius scientists who researched energy sources at Los Alamos National Lab were a main fount of state pride. This is where we first built and detonated The Bomb, after all. It’s one of only two laboratories in the U.S. where research is done on nuclear weapons, but Tarashea Nesbit’s book The Wives of Los Alamos focuses on the town’s softer side. As the bomb was being invented, babies were born, friendships were forged, children grew up and Los Alamos gradually transformed from an abandoned school on a hill into a real community.
Based on the novel of the same name by Markus Zusak, Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush star in this inspirational film about a girl named Leslie, whose adoptive German parents hide a Jew from Hitler’s army. As the war effort deepens, Leslie becomes obsessed with books and the escape they provide from the brutal backdrop of World War II.
Indie Oscar flicks get all the attention this time of year, but for kids no movie was bigger this winter than Frozen, Disney’s latest animated journey. This epic ice capade pits Anna, a fearless optimist, against mountain man Kristoff and his loyal reindeer Sven. Of course, things go wrong after Anna’s sister is missing, so the crew sets off on an journey that’s full of mystical trolls, weird-talking snowman and enough snow to keep you cold through the summer.
If you don’t mind reading subtitles, Great Beauty was one of the best films to polish your eyeballs with in 2013 and now it’s finally on iTunes. The movie follows an aging socialite, Jep Gambardella, who wrote a famous novel in his 20s, only to retire into a comfortable life writing cultural columns and throwing parties in Rome. After his 65th birthday party, where he is feted at a disco party straight out of Fellini, he walks through the ruins and city streets, encountering the various characters, reflecting on his life, his first love, and sense of unfulfillment.
Thanks to the Illumanati-like secrecy established by El Jobso, getting a real answer from anyone at Apple is as rare as a rainbow jellybean unicorn.
Even simple questions like “are other customers having this issue?” get averted, dodged and deflected ad nauseum, so six months ago we created the Ask A Genius Anything column to get some real answers for fans on what happens at Apple.
Unfortunately, our brave Genius is hanging up his Apple lanyard for a new career opportunities. Over the past six months he’s dished on everything from Apple policy, to how to fix hardware issues, while also dispensing tips on how to ask a Genius out and whether drinking on the job is a no-no.
We’re still looking for a new secret Genius to fill his shoes (if you’re interested, send us an email), but in the meantime, here are our five favorite answers from Cult of Mac’s Secret Genius #1:
Q: What are you *never* allowed to say to customers?
Employees are taught not to use certain words that might tarnish the image of the brand. We are constantly in a struggle to portray Apple as positively as possible so that our customers return to buy from us again.
Here’s an idea of some of guidance I received when going through training:
Never say “crash,” instead say “quit unexpectedly.”
Your iPhone isn’t “frozen,” it’s “unresponsive.”
Your MacBook did not crash, it “powered off unexpectedly.”
it’s not a “bug,” it’s a “software issue.”
Never say “unfortunately,” use something to portray the situation in a better light like, “as it turns out…”
Instead of saying the iPhone is “incompatible” with something we are supposed to say, “it does not work with…”
Q: Have you ever worked drunk?
The job can be pretty stressful sometimes. Occasionally, I’ll have a drink before work or on a lunch break. It’s not a bad way to relax and most of the managers at the store don’t care unless you’re always coming in sloppy drunk.
There are always a few situations throughout the day where it’d be great to take a short drink break after helping out a particularly horrible customer, but I don’t make it a habit. Fixing people’s iPhones really isn’t any easier after a few drinks, so there are few benefits to being hammered on the job. As for what happens after work, it isn’t uncommon for employees and managers to meet up and toss back a few.
Q: Can you date customers? Any tips on how to ask a Genius out?
Dating customers is against Apple policy. The policy protects both the employee as well as the customer. I have seen customers who come in consistently to get “help” from the same employee multiple times who are definitely interested, but this only makes the employee less likely to actually pursue something.
If you are love struck by your technician at the Genius Bar, I suggest the straightforward approach. Ask for a card and give them your number maybe or ask them if you can have their number. Don’t be surprised if they say they can’t contact you, but tell them to call you outside of work. Don’t let a little Apple policy keep you from your love connection, but don’t make them completely say no by coming on to someone while they are at work.
Q: How much do you get paid, what hours do you work and how much continual study is required?
I get paid about $14 an hour. Pay ranges anywhere from $10-$20 an hour in the retail stores depending on position, hours, and performance. I work about 30 hours a week because I am part-time, usually on the shy side so I can keep my part-time status. My hours vary but they always fit my personal schedule because each employee submits their hours of availability and is scheduled accordingly, after approval.
As far as training goes, Apple actively trains its workforce. We are trained before we begin the job to deliver superior service and we are trained on new systems, products and software as they become available. If you are looking to advance, Apple will help train you to be ready for any future positions. I was surprised by the non-technical nature of training when I started at Apple. Most of the training I received was customer-service oriented and the technical training I needed for the job was either previous experience or was gained as I encountered issues and sought out a solution.
Q: What’s the most common lie you hear at the Genius Bar?
Geniuses and Family Room Specialists alike have to come up with a fair amount of excuses to explain to customers what’s wrong with their device. The worst excuse and the most commonly told lie at the Genius Bar is for known issues to be called “rare.”
I can’t stand it when a Genius tells a customer that a sleep/wake button failing on an iPhone is rare or that a battery needing service before being completely consumed is uncommon. I don’t know any statistics on failure rates, but I know I handle a fair number of these “rare” issues enough to say that they aren’t rare.
It’s a sort of white lie that reassures customers that the problem was a fluke and that they can trust in Apple’s products in the future. I think it’s better to explain common issues as known issues and just to provide the solution rather than lie about it. The lie gets harder to tell to a customer should the replacement product or repaired device have the same issue down the road.
It’s hard to admit, but I know more about decluttering my closet than I do my computer. The last time I took my MacBook Pro to the Apple Store, I was humbled by the Genius who stumbled upon the virtual equivalent of an overstuffed, rat-infested garage.
It was like something out of one of those hoarding reality shows that I’m fond of because they confer a zen-like simplicity to my messy but-not-enough-to-die-buried-alive-under-belongings: there was a ton of dusty, useless, embarrassing crap clogging up my machine. With one raised eyebrow, he made me feel like a basket case for piles of applications that would never run on my current OS (and they were in the dock, too. The shame!) and a desktop so cluttered with screen shots, empty alias folders and .txt files that my actual desk looks pristine in comparison.
Enter Mac RX, Spring Cleaning Edition to the rescue. Cult of Mac readers know our long-running series on how to fix what ails your Apple device; this week we get a special decluttering take from our vintage expert and Apple Certified Consultant, Adam Rosen.
He’ll tell you what you really need to know about getting better performance from your Mac and why the machine gets clogged up in the first place. Hint: most of us don’t follow the basic tidying procedures we should.
So it’s time for a clean-up session: we’ll get you in, out and have your Mac running faster than it has in months. We stopped just short of Feng Shui for your desktop, but I have an expert for that if you’re interested.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include something to help you read that fine print, a handy money-tracker, and a shockingly comprehensive converter.
Here you go:
I’ve covered a few list-makers before, but this one just replaced Notes as my go-to item tracker.
It’s called UpWord Notes, and it is a simple but powerful app that lets you create, manage, and update lists with just a few simple commands. You can swipe left to make bullets and mark things as important, and you cross items off with a swipe to the right. Coolest of all, you can pull down, refresh-style, to remove all crossed-off items at once.
Plus it all syncs to Dropbox, so you can rest assured that you can always get your grocery list anywhere.
It’s enough for some people just to plunk one value into a box and watch the conversion come out the other end, but we’re savvy here, right?
The newly released free version of Aperture Mobile’s Converta app thinks you are, and that’s why it actually bothers showing you what it’s doing. The free version calculates the equivalent values of angles, lengths, mass, temperatures, and volumes, and the $0.99 paid version includes things like illumination, radiation, velocity, and energy. You can also choose between a keypad and a clever gestural interface.
I’m not sure how useful the radiation conversion would be to most people, but it’s nice to know it’s there.
Sometimes, print is too small or your eyes get tired. Or you just want to see what something looks like really close up. Enter Zoomer, a simple-to-use, completely uncluttered app that lets you magnify things up to 10x just by swiping to the left. You can swipe to the right to zoom back out, turn on your LED flash, and even reverse colors to make things look all weird (it’s probably for night-time reading, but it does also make things look totally weird).
You can also use it to look at ants close up without accidentally setting them on fire. And I’m sure the ants appreciate that.
Balance Book is a simple, easy, clean way to track your income and expenses on a daily or monthly level. You set up categories and assign colors to keep them straight, and then you just make entries based on how much money you bring in or spend. It automatically calculates your net values to give you an idea of where you are on any given day.
Now I know that I’m probably spending way too much money on sour bears. But in my defense, they are delicious.
