Cult of Mac

This post is brought to you by IdeaSolutions, creator of AirBrowser.

Would you like to surf the web, watch streaming videos, read newspapers and do everything else you normally do on your Mac browser, in full screen on your TV? Pinch to zoom, swipe, bookmark pages — all using your iOS device as a remote control?

AirBrowser let’s you do all these things. You can get the full desktop browsing experience on your television, with all the sites you visit optimally scaled to fit your TV’s screen size. Read on and watch the AirBrowser video for more info on this easy-to-use app.

Apple fans in Russia can no longer buy new iPhones or Macs, reports Bloomberg. The company has stopped all sales in the country due to ‘extreme’ Ruble fluctuations.

All Apple products were pulled temporarily from the online store in Russia this morning, and Apple’s not saying when they’ll be coming back.

Instagram is today rolling out new updates on Android and iOS that bring an updated design, new features, and five new filters that Instagram says are its best yet. Inspired by the global community, the new filter set is the first Instagram has added in two years, and it’s designed to compliment the capabilities of modern smartphone cameras.

Huawei today announced its new Honor 6 Plus smartphone at an event in Beijing, and the device is already getting a lot of attention for having almost exactly the same name as Apple’s latest flagship.

Despite what you may think, however, this isn’t just another iPhone clone. Instead, it’s a flagship Android phablet with some impressive specifications, including an integrated coprocessor for fitness tracking, a massive battery, and two 8-megapixel rear-facing cameras that promise sharper images and some incredible features.

The verdict is in, and after nearly a decade of legal wrangling, Apple has prevailed in the class-action lawsuit seeking over $1 billion in damages by iPod owners who claimed the company conspired to kill competing music services by adding restrictions to iTunes.

The eight-person jury found Apple not liable of adding DRM restrictions as an anti-competitive move toward rival players like RealNetworks from 2006 to 2009. The Verge reports that the jury unanimously delivered the verdict this morning and said that iTunes 7.0 is a “genuine product improvement” that increased security for consumers.

You’ve collected all the coins, you’ve beaten all the enemies, and you’ve finally gotten to the right castle and saved the princess.

Now, in order to avoid a nasty time paradox, you’ll have to do it all again. In reverse.

Spoiler Alert, from developer MegaFuzz and publisher tinyBuild Games, is the first platforming game you’ll play backwards, un-collecting every coin and un-killing every monster to make it back to the beginning. This is the first time the game is on iOS, as well.

Check out the trailer below for a quick taste of gameplay.

Samsung is preparing to launch its own Apple Pay competitor in 2015, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans — and it could be teaming up with LoopPay to make it even more successful. Just like Apple’s offering, Samsung’s will allow the owners of its smartphone to pay for goods simply by waving their devices at a machine, but it may not rely on NFC.

T-Mobile revealed the next stage of its ‘Un-carrier’ plan this morning with the introduction of a new feature called ‘Data Stash’ that’s pretty much just like AT&T’s old rollover minutes, expect for your data plan.

The new plans automatically roll any data you don’t use for the month into your Data Stash. You can then tap into the saved gigabites anytime you need some extra data to keep you out of those nasty overage fees. To make the new feature even more alluring, T-Mobile says its tossing in 10GB of free data for every line on your family plan.

Apple Pay’s list of supporters is continuing to grow this week, as Apple announced this morning that dozens of new banks, retailers, and start-ups have signed up to bring Apple’s mobile wallet to their customers.

The company’s new e-commerce product hasn’t even been out for two full months, but thanks to its aggressive launch, Apple Pay now supports so many credit cards and banks that it covers about 90% of the US credit card purchase volume.

The New York Times reports that Apple Pay is coming to ten new banks today, and starting on Friday, Orlando Magic basketball fans will be able to use Apple Pay at any of the Amway Center retailers and food and beverage stands.

Google’s ‘Year in Search’ report was released this morning providing an insight into what’s on the mind of world’s internet users, and when it comes to technology, the iPhone 6 was the most popular tech search of 2014.

The Apple Watch also appeared on the top 10 list, taking the number 8 spot followed by the iPad Air as number 10 in the Consumer Electronic category. The Nexus 6 managed to pull in to third place, while Samsung had two devices in the top 5.

Here’s the full top 10:

If there’s one thing we humans like to do, it’s make music. Seriously, we’ve been doing it since prehistoric times, so it’s no big surprise that we’d find many ways to bring music to our latest tool: the iPhone and iPad.

While there are a ton of different ways to play or make music on your iOS device of choice, here are nine rather weird ones, plus some fantastic videos to hear and see just how its done.

Maci Peterson made a Christian man blush with a text message she sent to plan a first date.

“I wanted to know where to meet, D.C. or Maryland,” she told Cult of Mac. “So I typed, ‘Are you in DC or MD?’ and AutoCorrect changed it to, ‘Are you in D.C. or Me?’ I was so embarrassed.”

Peterson recovered and hopes she is on the verge of saving us all from stumbling fingers, drunken texts and the bewildering algorithms of AutoCorrect. Her new app, On Second Thought, launches this week for Android devices with a version for iPhone users due out early next year.

Third-party developers are already making apps for the Apple Watch, but they’re doing so with one hand tied behind their backs.

Coders that Cult of Mac spoke with are pleasantly surprised by the opportunity to bring apps to the Watch so early, but many note they must abide by severe limitations to get their apps ready for the Apple wearable’s launch next spring.

We don’t know when Apple Watch will hit stores, but if you can’t wait to strap your wrist with the most luxurious Apple product ever created, Mervis Diamonds has the perfect band to match the 18k gold Apple Watch you’ve been lusting after. And it’ll only set you back $30,150.

It’s almost time for a new year. With a new year comes new beginnings. Why not take that as an opportunity to learn a new skill, such as web design, or enhance the skills you already have by learning something about web security?

Today we feature four educational bundles surrounding the topic of web design and web security that we know you’ll love. Each is available at low low prices and for a limited time only at Cult of Mac Deals.

The battle for your eardrums is about to heat up in 2015, as a new report suggests Bose is planning to take on Beats with its own music streaming service next year.

Bose is quickly trying to transition into a media company, according to Hypebot which reports the company is readying its own “next generation streaming music platform” to take on Apple, Pandora, and Spotify. Details of Bose’s music streamer have been kept secret, but it isn’t being shy about its ambitions to poach some of Apple’s top designers.

The latest App Store rejection controversy has surrounded a critically acclaimed game called Papers, Please. When developer Lucas Pope finally brought the title to iPad, he was forced by Apple to remove all nudity, no matter how pixelated.

Never mind that the nudity in question was not “pornographic content” as Apple billed it, since it only showed when people went through body scanners in the game. After talking with Apple, Pope said the decision was chalked up to a “misunderstanding,” and he’s been allowed to add nudity back to Papers Please in the App Store.

If only we could float above the noise, the dirt and the concrete. What we would see is something peaceful and beautiful.

A graphic designer from Brazil is serving up that kind of serene macro view of the world as wallpaper for our smartphones. His Tumblr blog, Aerial Wallpapers, is loaded with a wonderfully curated collection of satellite photography images.

Joao Paulo Bernades looks for colorful, graphic, Creative Commons-licensed images of Earth from NASA and Airbus Defense and Space, then crops and scales them to fit the iPhone 6. The images appear to be scalable for other devices.

Apple was found guilty last year of colluding with publishers to raise ebook prices, but now that the antitrust case is being heard by the Second U.S. Court of Appeals, two out of the three appellate judges are starting to see things Apple’s way.

The appeals case kicked off this morning with Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart attempting to compare Apple to a driver taking a narcotics dealer to a drug pick up. The analogy was supposed to make the point that if Apple knew publishers were conspiring to fix ebook prices, it was just as guilty as them for facilitating the conspiracy. However, Fortune reports that Judge Denis Jacobs laughed off the analogy, pointing out that drug trafficking is one of the few “industries in which the law does not look with favor or new entrants.”

The comment drew a chorus of laughs in the courtroom, but Judge Jacob’s concerns went even further, as the the judge questioned whether the government should have even brought the case to court.

Can you hit your targets when playing an Xbox shooting game? If so, the Navy might just want to put a video-game-like controller in your hands. Except this version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare will have you aiming a ship-mounted laser at real enemies.

A Navy video shows a new laser weapon system successfully zapping a small target on a moving ship, shooting an unmanned aircraft out of the sky and picking off other targets at sea.

Star Trek Captains Picard and Kirk could talk to any alien, no matter how different it was from humanity, thanks to the universal translator, a magical sci-fi device that explained away why strange civilizations in far-away solar systems all spoke English.

That future just got a little less far-fetched, thanks to Skype Translator, a new preview service that uses technology from Microsoft Research to translate two different languages back and forth in real time.

This is heady stuff, as school kids in Seattle and Mexico City seem to instantly recognize when they chat back and forth in English and Spanish via the Skype service in the video below.

Xiaomi has quickly become the world’s third most popular smartphone maker, but according to a 2013 financial filing released by the privately held company, it doesn’t pay to copy your way to the top.

In 2013 Xiaomi made a meager $51 million in profit even though it’s valued at more than $10 billion by investors.  The filing reveals Xiaomi’s low profits are on account of the No. 3 smartphone maker’s razor-thin margins. It brought in about $4.2 billion in revenue in 2013, giving the company an operating margin of just 1.8 percent.

Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak revolutionized the computer world with the invention of the Apple II, but back in 1977 when they created the unbelievably simple home PC, few people realized the enormous impact it would have on the “small computer field.”

Case in point, look at this article from the Homestead High School newspaper talking about its alumnus’ new company Apple Computers, in a ‘aww isn’t that cute, they sold 200 computers’ sort of way. The article above was published in the The Epitaph on May 20th, 1977, just a few weeks before the first Apple II units went on sale, and went on to become the first computer to sell 1 million units.

At the time of publication Apple had just moved out of the garage and into an office in Cupertino with eight total employees. One of Apple’s first employees, Chris Espinosa was still in high school at the time and was interviewed by the paper for the article on Jobs and Woz’s new company. Along with revealing that you used to be able to get Apple’s top software engineer to build you a custom app to do whatever you want, the high school junior presaged the idea of a Genius Bar, decades before the first Apple Store opened.

You can read the full article below:

What do you get for the Apple nut in your life? You know the type. They live and breathe Apple — but they already have every Apple product under the sun. Plus all the accessories.

iPod? Got it. iPhone wallet case? Got it. Steve Jobs bobblehead? Got it.

Well, I’ll bet a testicle they don’t have some of this stuff.

How to become the highest paid musician of the year: profit from a multi-billion dollar buyout of your company.

That’s the lesson to be learned from Forbes Magazine’s tally of the top paid musicians of 2014. Dr. Dre, or just “Dre” as he’s affectionately referred to by Tim Cook, amassed a whopping $620 million before taxes this year, giving him “the biggest single-year payday of any musician in history.”