Cult of Mac

Cult animated faves the Powerpuff Girls are back in a new iOS game, published by Cartoon Network in association with JoyJoy and Fluid SE developers RadianGames.

Called Powerpuff Girls: Defenders of Townsville, the game sees the Powerpuff Girls blasted with evil simian nemesis Mojo Jojo’s Disremember Gun, which leads to them forgetting how to use their superpowers. In a Metroidvania/Castleroid-style adventure shooter, you start out playing as Buttercup, before rescuing Blossom and Bubbles. Once the heroic trio is united, you get to use each of their superpowers to battle Mojo Jojo’s evil robots, and unlock and discover new areas.

There are plenty of stories about iPhone thefts causing spikes in crime statistics, but according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Apple’s introduction of an iPhone kill switch may be starting to turn around.

Measuring crime after the iPhone’s Activation Lock was first introduced in iOS 7, police in  San Francisco, London, and New York claim that San Francisco robberies fell by 38 percent, London robberies by 24 percent, and New York robberies by 19 percent — while grand larcenies in NYC including the iPhone dropped 29 percent in the first five months of 2014, compared to the same time period last year.

Looking for a little extra summer cash? It might be time to dust off your old iPhone.

Some hopeful eBay seller is hawking their “rare” mint-condition, first-generation iPhone with only 4GB of storage — and all they’re asking for is enough money for a down payment on a house.

Amazon introduced its first smartphone to the world this morning and while the jury is still out on whether its incredible Dynamic Perspective feature is a UI revolution or just another 3-D gimmick, Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team have pumped Fire Phone full of features that could make it more than just the world’s best buying machine.

From Firefly’s compulsive-purchasing features to Mayday’s instant tech-support tether, Fire Phone has a few tricks up its sleeve that we weren’t expecting. But will that be enough to convince consumers to buy one of the AT&T-exclusive phones?

Check out these six things your iPhone and Android can’t do, but Fire Phone can:

The second beta of iOS 8 upgrades Apple’s mobile platform visually as well as functionally. Along with plenty of bug fixes, iOS 8 Beta 2 delivers a number of neat tweaks that make the upcoming mobile OS even better than before. See some of the new enhancements in action in today’s quick-look video.

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Years of speculation are finally over: Amazon is taking on the iPhone with a handset of its own that offers advanced features and a tight integration with Amazon Prime.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos triumphantly pulled the new Fire Phone from his pocket this morning in front of a Seattle crowd of 300 reporters and Prime fanatics, revealing a new handset that looks like an iPhone but houses tons of Amazon special features to set it apart from Apple’s and Samsung’s top wares.

To do battle with the iPhone and Apple’s enormous ecosystem, Bezos says Amazon chose a 4.7-inch screen for the device after testing models between 4.3 inches and 5.5 inches. Like the iPhone 5s, the Fire Phone uses Gorilla Glass 3 for the front display, but Amazon has wrapped the enclosure in an injection-molded rubber frame.

I’ve been using a USB 3 external hard drive to backup my Macbook Pro for a while now, and have been pleased with its reliability and fast data transfer speed. I also love that it powers itself via the USB port, letting me live a little more power cord free.

When I received the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt SSD drive for review, I thought, “well, it’s pretty, but how much better can it be?” It’s just as small, powers itself via Thunderbolt (or USB) and has plenty of space on it, just like my current drive.

Then I ran a few tests and pulled up a drive speed test app on my Mac. I was blown away by the speed difference. This is one blazing fast hard drive. And, yeah, it still looks great.

Apple is on a price-slashing spree this morning after taking down its online store for a few hours last night. Not only did Cupertino just release a cheaper low-end iMac, but it’s also dropping prices on the Apple TV and Mac mini across the UK and Europe.

Apple’s new headphone company has been spewing its love for the World Cup all over the internet with huge cinematic ads and exclusive Jay Z tracks, but there’s one place you won’t see a pair of Beats headphones – inside the actual stadiums.

FIFA has banned Beats headphones from the football pitch and official media events thanks to a licensing agreement with rival Sony.

Ben Heine is a magician.

Like David Blaine and Criss Angel before him, he has a special talent for blurring the line between reality and fiction. But instead of utilizing sleight of hand or his indomitable will to delight his audience, Heine keeps it simple by using just a pencil and camera to create his illusions.

Heine’s incredible art series Pencil vs Camera combines gorgeous landscapes and city scenes with hand-sketched drawings. The otherworldly images that result are both whimsical and intriguing, with a bit of mind-bending magic thrown in for perspective.

“I always try to express what I’m feeling,” Heine told Cult of Mac, noting that most of his inspiration for drawings come “mainly from people around me — friends, family, even strangers — and from every experience I live.”

As a gamer, I want a controller with buttons. I lust after this new product category like I do any new gadget that I think will improve my gaming experience. I think that if you play games with any frequency, you’ll want them too.

Unfortunately, I also think the majority of mobile gamers are making do just fine with touch interfaces, thank you very much, and that these lust-worthy devices will soon find their way to the dustbin for most who buy them. Not because the controllers, including one that straps to the sides of your iPad mini like the loving embrace of an alien face-hugger, aren’t any good. On the contrary, these are solid, high-quality gaming peripherals that will make certain types of console-like games (platformers, open-world sandbox games, first-person shooters) much easier to play.

Like warring divorcees who are trying to make it work “for the kids” Apple and Samsung are reportedly attempting to find “common ground” that will let them end their ongoing legal battles.

The report comes from the Korea Times, which cites sources “familiar with the negotiations.” According to the newspaper, both sides are trying to be “more practical” about finding a solution, since Apple would ideally like to continue using Samsung as one of its main parts suppliers — possibly for the long-awaited iWatch.

Cult of Mac readers came through again: after our nominees, here are your semi-serious and sometimes outrageous picks for who should be coming up with the next big ideas at Apple.

One small footnote: Apple tweaked the job title on us. Now they are looking for a “business intelligence thought leader” rather than just a plain old “thought leader,” but the party game is still a fun one.

The online Apple Store is back up and, as many suspected, there’s a new low-end 21.5-inch iMac for sale.

Featuring a 1.4Ghz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8 GB memory, a 500GB hard drive, and integrated Intel HD Graphics 5000, the iMac is available for shipping within 24 hours at $1,099. The specs were leaked earlier today when French Apple website Macplus posted the below image of a box for the new iMac.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes even a great idea falls flat at first. Take Pump-Hub, a self-inflating bike tire gizmo. It was rolling along at trade shows and getting lots of good press before the financial crisis of 2008 sidelined the project.

Now its creator, engineer Kevin Manning, is getting back on track with a new team behind him and plans to expand his original idea — an automatic, adjustable, tire-inflation system housed in the hub of a bike wheel.

For cyclists, the Pump-Hub means no remembering to check the tire pressure or pack a pump, no fiddling around with the valve and then racing to put the cap back on before the air wheezes out and your aching arms have to start all over again. It inflates the tires to the proper pressure while you ride, making a gentle clickety-clack sound reminiscent of spoke cards from childhood days. When the tire hits the designated pressure, the fluttering sounds stop. If you get a flat, just upend your bike and spin the wheel until pressure is restored.

“It’s like how using a Macintosh is easier than using a command-line interface,” Manning says, turning his Gunnar bike upside down on the Embarcadero to show me how the Pump-Hub works. If you really boil down all the technology behind his invention, he adds, the main advantage basically ends up being “it’s easier.”

One week ago, the Taiwanese actor and racing car driver Jimmy Lin posted pictures of what looked to be a legit 4.7-inch iPhone 6. Today, he’s followed up by sharing a picture on his Weibo account depicting Lin sitting next to what appears to be the 5.5-inch iPhone 6.

While this could possibly be a dummy unit, Lin has a history of teasing images of future iPhone models — starting with last year’s image of him with an iPhone 5c. A recent report seemed to confirm that last week’s 4.7-inch iPhone 6 was, in fact, a beta unit that had been sent out for testing purposes.

eBay has expanded its Sell For Me service — in which valets will sell your stuff on eBay in exchange for a 30% commission — with the launch of a great new app called eBay Valet.

The process of using the app is very straightforward. Simply snap a picture of the item you want to sell, then enter (or speak) a description of it. Within 30 minutes, your “valet” will then respond with a valuation range. If you have a box to hand, eBay will then send you a shipping label. If not, the company will mail you out a free, prepaid box instead.

You’re then able to log onto eBay.com to watch the sale take place under your valet’s account. Once this process is finished, you get to keep 70% of the profits — which are deposited to your PayPal account.

From telling Tim Cook not to be dumb, to proclaiming himself the next Steve Jobs, Kanye West can always be trusted to chime in with a nuanced take on Apple business. Now the newly-married creative genius has offered his two cents on the reason behind Apple’s still-unexplained $3 billion acquisition of Beats Music.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions festival, West says that last year’s collaboration between Jay Z and Samsung — in which 1 million Galaxy owners were able to pick up free copies of the rapper’s Magna Carta Holy Grail album — pushed Apple to acqui-hire Beats cofounders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. Claiming that Apple has lost touch with its culture since Jobs’ death in 2011, West thinks that the Beats deal allowed Apple to buy back some of the cultural relevance it has lost.

And lo did news of the yonder Age of Empires game for iOS continue to flow!

Known as Age of Empires: World Domination, this is the forthcoming expansion of the award-winning (and much loved) Age of Empires series, which allows players to create an empire by pitting civilizations against one another. Developed by KLabGames, we’re promised a game that maintains the focus on strategy and tactics but is designed specifically for the touch gestures of an iOS device.

Facebook’s new Slingshot app takes aim at Snapchat by putting a new spin on photo-messaging. Instead of simply relying on disappearing pictures and videos, Slingshot promotes back-and-forth conversations.

How does it work? You must unlock “slings” you receive before you can look at them. You do this by sending your own sling to the sender. See how the just-released Slingshot app works in today’s quick-look video.

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While Amazon’s locked in an ongoing dispute with publishing house Hachette — which has resulted in the publisher’s books being pulled from Amazon’s shelves — Apple’s more than happy to take advantage of the situation.

Apple’s iTunes store is currently promoting a sale on digital versions of popular Hachette titles, which includes upcoming books from the likes of James Patterson and J.K. Rowling.

Halfbrick Studios, the folks behind massively popular endless-runner Jetpack Joyride have decided that the best way to get you to play their games is to give them away for a grand total of nothing.

The Brisbane-based game development studio was founded in 2001, and has gone on to make a ton of popular games across iOS and other platforms, including fruit-slashing hit Fruit Ninja and tongue-in-cheek giant robot game Colossatron.

There’s also Fruit Ninja Puss in Boots, the endless-runner Monster Dash, the song-creation game Band Stars, dual-stick shooter favorite Age of Zombies, and the wacky Fish Out of Water, where you get to flick various marine creatures across the top of the ocean for distance and style-based high scores.

All of these games will work on your iPhone or iPad, and — since you’re buying them at the free price now — you will own them into perpetuity.

You can grab any one of Halfbrick’s premium games for nothing right now, so head on over.

Source: iTunes

Apple’s new beta for iOS 8 is stuffed full of bug fixes after most of the new features were unveiled at WWDC two weeks ago, but Cupertino still managed to surprise us today with a number of neat tweaks to iOS 8 beta 2 that make some of apps better than what was revealed at the Moscone Center.

We’re still combing through the beta for new features, but additions like QuickType for iPad, iBooks displayed as series and improvements to Photos are welcome additions before iOS 8 lands this fall.

Take a look at all the tweaks Apple added to the iOS 8 beta today:

Jose Torres, CEO of Boogio, wants you to track your fitness with the most obvious part of your body: your feet.

“We’ve got 60,000 layers of sensitivity in the Boogio,” he told Cult of Mac at last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, “so we can track gravitational force, inner balance, and three different acceleration forces of your feet.”

The new trailer for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, starring Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana, has us chomping at the galactic bit for the full movie, due out in theaters August 1. There’s plenty of action in this new preview, along with some fantastic moments between our protagonists.

With Bradley Cooper as wisecracking badass raccoon Rocket and Vin Diesel as giant, flower-giving tree-thug Groot, the upcoming flick from the makers of Thor, Iron Man and The Avengers is promising a lot to moviegoers; let’s hope it’s worth the wait.