Sometimes it seems like there have been a lot of plane crashes lately. Between Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/a>, and Transasia Airways Flight 235, it sometimes feels like there’s never been a worse time to fly.
Of course, that’s not true at all. There’s statistically almost zero chance at all of you dying in a plane crash, no matter how often you fly. And now there’s an app, specifically dedicated to assuaging your fears of dying in an aircraft.
It’s no secret that iPad sales are stalling. After an incredible start, iPad sales have continued to decline, year over year. Tim Cook has characterized it as just a speed bump, a statistical aberration more to do with how fast the iPad grew than customers losing interest in the line, even as Cupertino otherwise readies a stylus-boasting 12.9-inch iPad Pro to help boost sales.
But will the iPad Pro be enough? Not according to reputable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who says we can expect iPad sales to decline by as much as 30% in 2015.
It's the weekend -- and have we ever got some great apps to help you fill up the next two days!
From nuclear bunkers to photo-editing suites, and Apple Music playlist importers to run-and-gun actioners, check out our picks for the week's most newsworthy apps. You won't regret it!
What me, worry? Not Corning. The Gorilla Glass maker has just unveiled a new type of glass which they say is just as hard (and therefore unscratchable) as sapphire. They’re calling it Project Phire. Go figure.
This week: A curiously equipped mystery van has us wondering if Apple’s working on self-driving autos. Plus, we review everything that Apple Watch apps can’t do, Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic gets a cast and not everyone is thrilled, Apple’s plans for a global “data command center,” and Macho Man Randy Savage helps us answer listener questions in an all-new Get to Know Your Cultist.
Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.
Full show notes ahead!
Mobile devices, such as the iPhone and iPad, hold tremendous value: They keep us productive, informed, and entertained. One of the best things about owning an iOS device is the huge variety of accessories available for them that increase their versatility.
There’s a wide array of accessories for your iOS device available at Cult of Mac Deals right now, including the ChargeTech Portable Power Outlet, which makes it easy to charge and power electrical devices on the go.
Dish’s new Sling TV service has been dubbed as a cord-cutters dream. It finally gives non-cable subscribers the ability to tune into ESPN and other premium channels for just $20 a monthly, but the company just revealed its new channel packages that will nearly double your monthly deal.
Sling TV opened up early access to users today and announced that along with the channels that come in the standard $20 Sling TV package, Sling TV will also offer three other additional channel packages priced at an extra $5 per month a piece. The extras include more channels for sports fans, kids, and the news.
Sling TV is offering the first subscribers a free 7-day trial period with access to the $20 per month “Best of Live TV” package that includes ESPN, ESPN 2, TNT, TBS, the Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, ABC Family, and CNN.
For an extra $15 here’s what else you can get:
Silicon Valley, HBO’s half-hour comedy series about a bunch of nerds trying to change the world with code, is headed back to your television screen in April. HBO posted a trailer for the hotly anticipated Season 2 premiere on its Facebook page Friday to let everyone know.
Check it out below for a ton of slow-motion shots of all your favorite characters with the whole geeky gang back for another run.
Jimmy Fallon is backed by the best band on late night TV, but when it came time for the Tonight Show host to get funky performing a hip-hop classic with Will Smith, Jimmy ditched The Roots and busted out his iPad once again.
Fallon has been no stranger to kicking out tasty jams with music legends on an iPad. He created an phenomenal doo-wop number last year with Billy Joel, but with the Fresh Prince in his guest chair, Jimmy decided to kick it old school and created an beatbox version of “It Takes Too” on the spot.
Check out the duo’s awesome beatboxing in the video below:
Apple’s promise to bring more racially diverse emojis to iOS and OS X has been nearly a year in the making, but in yesterday’s OS X 10.10.3 beta the company snuck in some code that finally paves the way for the emojis of the future.
While everyone else was playing with the new Photos beta, Sachin Patel noticed Apple made some big changes to the “Emoji & Symbols” palette that can be accessed from the Edit menu in most apps or by pressing Control + Command + Space. Along with renaming the Special Characters menu option Apple also added a new drop down arrow on all the human emojis that lets you select between five different skin tones.
The Rumor: Apple is negotiating with networks on a Sling-TV type of service.
The Verdict: Definitely. In fact, we've been hearing this same rumor for about two years now. It looks like the biggest hurdle for an Apple TV update is the company just doesn't have the relationships with content providers, like Dish and others do.
One of the most anticipated products of the year is set to hit store shelves soon. The Apple Watch, when it debuts, will feature a cool new interface with apps that are designed specifically for it.
Apple Watch apps are developed in a unique way so that they can provide an unmatched user experience. Right now is a great opportunity to learn to develop apps for the Apple Watch with the Mammoth Interactive ‘Apple Watch’ App Builder Course, available at Cult of Mac Deals for a special price.
When I reviewed the first-generation JBL Charge back in 2013, I called it a “colorful pill of a speaker that looks almost like, as an accessory, it leaped out of a new iPod touch commercial.” I loved it for its clear, crisp sound that was loud enough to shake most rooms: It delivered the sound volume of the Big Jambox in the original Jambox’s form factor.
If it’s not plenty clear, I loved the JBL Charge. It ended up being my go-to kitchen speaker for over a year, until I accidentally knocked it into the sink while doing my dishes. As a sign of its quality, it actually kept working, but never sounded quite the same.
Now I’ve tried out the JBL Charge 2. And I’ve got to say, if the JBL Charge was good, the Charge 2 is even better, fixing some of the first model’s oversights. It’s a solid choice if you’re looking for a portable Bluetooth speaker that can do more than just play music.
Devilishly bonkers new game Saints Row: Gat out of Hell features a final boss fight against the Prince of Darkness himself. That’s pretty satisfying, despite the fact that this version of Satan possesses a beautiful singing voice.
But not all video-game devils have redeeming qualities. Here are four demonic bad guys so devious, difficult and/or annoying that it’s not enough to defeat them in the game — you will wish you could rip them out of your screen and smack them until they can’t damn straight.
In my experience, Apple Store employees are some of the hardest-working, most reasonable and (despite the fact they’re employed to sell you things) trustworthy people in retail. According to Manhattan district attorney, however, that description isn’t universal.
The DA is indicting four former Apple Store employees, plus a dental office receptionist, for an Apple-related scam that ultimately defrauded Barclays Bank of $700,000, using ill-gotten Apple gift cards.
Here’s how it happened.
It’s time for another weekly dose of all the great stuff from our intrepid news hounds and reporters within the digital confines of Cult of Mac Magazine.
Buster has the lowdown on eight of the hot new features in Apple’s upcoming Photos for Mac, and he also takes a good long look at the mysterious vans owned by Apple that have been spotted around the San Francisco area. If you need to protect your precious new iPhone, Stephen drops a video spotlight on five cases you’ll want to consider for your fancy Apple smartphone. Rob digs deep into a new digital comic — companion to the Midnight Star video game — and how the award-winning team brings the game world to life. Jim drops in on a hip retro gaming shop in Portland, too, coming back with some stunning pictures of this old boys (and girls!) club.
All that and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine – check out our top stories below, and then click on through to get your own copy for free.
Chris Toy was an Everquest geek in the early days, playing the addictive open-world video game somewhat obsessively.
It wasn’t slaying the monsters or leveling up that really motivated Toy, but the social aspects of the game.
“I was honestly pretty isolated,” the Hong Kong native told Cult of Mac by phone, “and talking to people via Everquest or World of Warcraft felt better than talking to real people.”
That’s when he realized that being able to text chat with other people wherever they were was the future of messaging, and perhaps even communication itself. Fast-forward to now, and Toy and a high-tech team living in San Francisco have created Bindle, a new group-messaging app designed to create this very same future.
Move over Xiaomi! While it’s easy to claim that China’s biggest smartphone upstart holds the crown for boldest Apple ripoff artist, Xiaomi has nothing on the Suwen University of Hong Kong.
If you haven’t heard of Suwen University, don’t worry: You’re not alone. It’s a fake, selling false diplomas and bachelor’s degrees online through China’s largest shopping website, the Alibaba-owned Taobao.
So what makes this a story about Apple? Well, take a look at the university’s impressive computer science lab, as it appeared in photos posted to the fictitious university’s Facebook page. For those unfamiliar with Hong Kong, it’s a photo of the city’s flagship Apple Store — albeit with a dodgy, Photoshopped logo to replace the instantly recognizable Apple one.
Apple needs to go a long way before it thinks about launching its own search engine. Smartphones? Sure. Tablets? Absolutely. Search? Fuggetaboutit!
As much as we all love Apple, nobody can deny that its search products are oddly bargain basement in quality. iTunes discovery is horrible, the App Store is abysmal and Siri’s painful.
Could Apple fix it? Sure it could, but it’s going to take a lot more than one poor new employee to do it. Here are the worst offenders when it comes to all things Apple Search:
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m excited about upcoming movie Steve Jobs, written by one my favorite writers, Aaron Sorkin.
Early photos suggest lead actor Michael Fassbender doesn’t look that much like Steve Jobs, and I’d be a bit more psyched if David Fincher was directing, but I firmly believe this is the theatrical movie about Jobs that could finally do justice to its main character.
Ahead of the movie’s October 9 release (which should put it squarely between the iPhone 6s release and the next iPad announcement), we have a few more details about the movie that shed some extra light on how we can expect things to play out onscreen.
Apple and Tesla are in the midst of an intense bidding war for each other’s employees, according to Bloomberg. Tesla has so far poached more Apple staffers than any other company at 150, and Apple has tried to unsuccessfully lure Tesla’s people with big paychecks.
Tesla’s obsession with stealing Apple’s talent is mainly due to one man: Elon Musk.
Twitter announced its fourth quarter earnings today, and while the social network beat its revenue estimates, it failed to meet Wall Street’s expectations for monthly active users.
The company only added an extra 4 million users in the quarter, bringing the total number of monthly active users to only 288 million. That figure was much lower than analysts’ predictions of 292 million, but according to CEO Dick Costello, Twitter’s slower-than-expected growth was mostly because of a bug in iOS 8.
Apple is finally letting developers get their hands on Photos, the long-awaited successor to iPhoto. Revealed at Worldwide Developers Conference 2014, the new app is a complete revamp of iPhoto, allowing Mac users to organize, edit, share and print their favorite photos. It packs powerful new tools into a gorgeous, OS X Yosemite-style user interface.
The public launch of Photos isn’t expected until spring, but we took the beta for a spin today to get acquainted with the future of Apple photo software. We found eight new features you’re going to love.
Take a look:
When Apple killed development of iPhoto and Aperture last summer, it promised a replacement that would blend the best of the two apps into one solution: Photos for Mac.
Originally promised to arrive in “early 2015,” Photos for Mac is available for the first time in a new developer-only beta of OS X Yosemite. Unfortunately, everyone else will have to wait a little longer to get their hands on it.
One of the biggest shockers of Super Bowl 2015, other than Malcolm Butler’s phenomenal interception, was the number of app companies willing to shell out $4.5 million for 30-second ad slots.
Clash of Clans, Game of War and Heroes Charge all paid up to get their games in front of the estimated 112 million live viewers during Sunday night’s game, but was it actually worth it?