One of the biggest announcements coming out of Cupertino today is the creation of a completely new programming language called Swift – a programming language for the App Age.
Apple is wasting no time getting developers educated on the new tools available to them by making the Swift Programming Language guide book immediately available on iTunes.
After months of anticipation and countless rumors, Tim Cook and his merry band of Apple fellows are about to take the stage at San Francisco’s Moscone West to reveal the latest offerings coming out of Cupertino. It’s time for the Worldwide Developers Conference.
We’ll be covering the WWDC action here all morning with news and analysis on everything like iOS 8, OS X 10.10, Healthbook and whatever other goodies the mothership has prepared. The keynote starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, so bookmark this page and keep it open for a tidal wave of Apple news and insights.
Today we’ve got a couple of great offers courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals that will keep your data safe and secure…and give you some gear to play with in your leisure time.
We’ve lined up one year of unlimited cloud storage with Backblaze, the worldwide leader in online backup storage, for just $24.99. Plus, we’ve got RoboMe for only $69.99, an iOS-controlled toy that takes playtime to a whole new level.
Cult of Mac Magazine June 2 Edition, Free on iTunes
Every week, we serve up the best of the Cult of Mac website as a magazine so you can download and read it at your leisure on your iPhone or iPad.
I love big glass and I cannot lie. I loved the manual-focus Nikkor 180 f2.8 of my youth. A Canon f1.2 II mounted to any box is a true delight. And I have lusted after a Leica Noctulux for as long as I can remember. Now Sigma is doing some amazing things with fast glass, including the new 50mm f1.4 DG HSM, which is big on heft but comparatively light on the wallet ($949 list). Being able to mount this extraordinary picture-making machine to your digital camera for less than a grand is a real treat.
The Sigma and my black lab Cody get along better than just about any dog/lens combination I have ever used. Cody is notoriously difficult to photograph, but the whippy-fast f1.4 lens I was able to capture the little bugger in the best and worst lighting situations I could put him in, with the autofocus working near silently and grabbing about as well as can be expected, considering the subject matter.
The 50mm lens is sometimes referred to as a portrait lens, but I find using a 50mm like a “normal” lens for street photography, product photography and as a general all-arounder is much more satisfying. The Sigma lens is a delight to stalk subjects in near darkness, which is what you really should be doing with this lens. It is most satisfying when you find yourself on the edge, wondering if anything is going to work out at all. Sure, the percentage of useable frames decreases, but the frames you land are worth the risk. Long live the big glass. – Jim Merithew
The nerdgasm is strong with this one!
TMZ has somehow managed to get hold of an epic 45 image gallery of pictures from Star Wars Episode VII, that will make long time Star Wars fans very, very happy indeed.
For those of us who will be giddily watching WWDC from the comfort of our own homes (read: those who weren’t lucky enough to get golden tickets), Apple has added its promised WWDC channel to Apple TV for viewing the live stream of the conference’s keynote later today.
The keynote can additionally be streamed from Apple’s website by way of Safari on OS X or iOS, or QuickTime 7 on Windows.
Amazon may have let the cat out of the bag regarding a new Mortal Kombat sequel by listing Mortal Kombat 10 on its UK website, available for PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360.
The listing — which has since been removed — suggests that the release would come some time in 2015, although it didn’t mention a specific month or quarter. Since the listing appears to have been premature, it’s not known whether this date could change.
Hours before WWDC kicks off, a series of blurry leaked photos appear to show Apple’s next generation operating system, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, in action.
Two different sources of photos have been posted online: the first on the Reddit Mac community by a poster using a throwaway account, who claimed to have taken the photos himself at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. These images have since been deleted.
Shortly after Twitter user UI designer Doney den Ouden posted another image, citing a “reliable anonymous source.”
Assuming that the photos are genuine, they reveal several interesting changes in the look and feel of the OS — making it far closer resemble iOS. For instance, there is now a Control Center, along with a slightly rejigged Safari, with larger buttons for bookmarks and frequently visited sites, similar to the version of Safari found on the iPad.
It’s the eve of the Worldwide Developers Conference kickoff, and tomorrow morning Apple will hold its first media event of 2014. Like always, there’s a ton of speculation on what will and won’t be announced.
Some last-minute reports share new information on what to expect from the stage tomorrow in more areas than just iOS 8 and OS X 10.10.
There’s an ongoing question in hit comedy show Silicon Valley: do you have to be a jerk to succeed? For the entire first season of Mike Judge’s HBO comedy about the new economy gold rush, it’s been Steve vs. Steve 2.0.
Part of what makes the show a resounding success – it’s already confirmed for season two – is how realistic it is. The startup lads at Pied Piper have been under the gun preparing for a big demo: they have a spot at the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield. Yeah, that’s an actual thing. The show is set where TCD takes place, in the barn-like San Francisco Design Center Concourse, and some 400 companies have duked it out in demos that raised over $2.4 billion in funding.
Nota bene: teensy spoilers follow.
Apple’s first keynote of the year is taking place tomorrow morning to kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.
App Store developers from around the world started arriving in San Francisco over the weekend for the week-long conference. At event registration today in the Moscone Center, Apple gave each dev with a ticket some special swag. Excitement appears to be in the air. Before it was barely dinnertime, a line for tomorrow’s keynote started forming.
After reports of iPads, iPhones and Macs being hacked and held ransom in the U.K. and Australia, we put together this video to show you how to avoid the problem — and what to do if it’s already happened.
Related Apple resources:
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Writing a novel, research paper, script or any long-form text involves more than hammering away at the keys. There’s research to collect, fragmented ideas to group, and index cards to shuffle around until you lock down that elusive structure – needless to say most writing software is fired up only after much of the hard work is done. Enter Scrivener – a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from that first, unformed idea all the way through to the final draft.
Scrivener lets you outline and structure your ideas, take notes, view research alongside your writing and compose the pieces of your text in isolation or in context. Scrivener won’t tell you how to write — it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. And Cult of Mac Deals has Scrivener for only $20 during this limited time offer.
For any Apple coder, attending the annual Worldwide Developers Conference is a coveted opportunity. But for the young recipients of WWDC 2014 Student Scholarships, a free ticket to the event means more than an adventure in geekery; it’s the crowning achievement of their blossoming careers.
Take Shaan Singh, a 14-year-old developer and designer whose iPhone finance app Budgetize helped him bag a scholarship to WWDC, a prize that’s something like winning a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
“It’s a big honor for me to be selected because I made an app that I feel was creative and smart, and Apple thinks so too,” he told Cult of Mac. “I’ve always admired Apple’s design, and I’m excited that they like mine too.”
Nearly three years after Steve Jobs’ death, Apple’s keynotes have become pale imitations of their former glory. The last major keynote — November’s introduction of the iPad Air and Retina mini — was a major international snoozefest.
Utterly devoid of excitement, it served only to stoke the pervasive rumors of Apple’s lack of innovation after Jobs (which aren’t true, but nonetheless).
It’s time for Jony Ive to take over.
It’s all happening! WWDC 2014 is right around the corner, and if recent rumors prove true, Apple’s about to make major moves into your home with iOS 8 — we’ll fill you in. Plus, the Apple/Beats deal is now a reality, and the news hits right as we’re recording.
And don’t miss our all new CultCast 2nd Hour, this time with popular musician and YouTuber Jonathan Mann, who, for the last five years, has written a brand new song every. single. day. We talk to Jonathan about the inspiration, perspiration and agony of making art, and what it was like to have his song unexpectedly featured by Steve Jobs at one of Apple’s most infamous press conferences.
Our thanks to Slingbox for supporting this episode! Slingbox, the best way to watch your TV anywhere, and brings your cable set-top box, satellite receiver or DVR, right to your favorite mobile device, wherever you are in the world. With no monthly fees. Check it out at Slingbox.com/cult, and get $50 off plus free shipping on a new Slingbox.
Click on for the show notes.
The weekend is upon us — and we’ve got some great deals lined up for you courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals.
If you’re looking for a new wallet that is as slim and simple as they come, then we’ve got the Simple Wallet for just $14.99. If a more advanced wallet is your preference, then the A3 Aluminum Plate Wallet, priced at only $33.99, will fit the bill. And if you’re looking for a great deal on reliable batteries, then The Duracell Battery Bundle can be yours for just $56.
Welcome to Part 2 of our series on note-taking for writers (or anyone who takes lots of notes). In three posts we’re looking at ways to take notes on paper, on your iPhone or Mac, and collected from the web, and combine them all (optionally) into Evernote for easy browsing and retrieval. In theory you can do all of this just by launching Evernote, but that app is pretty terrible at capturing notes.
Part 1 dealt with paper notes. This part is all about grabbing quick text notes on your iPhone and Mac, and then using Hazel to send them to Evernote. Have fun!
Gaze into our ball to see past the rumors and into the future...
We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
WWDC kept the Apple universe incredibly busy with a slew of new operating systems, thousands of APIs and an entirely new coding language to boot, but that hasn't stopped the rumor mill from churning out a delicious lineup of juicy rumors.
This week we've heard everything from the typical "Apple really is making a big iPhone" to the more insane ideas like "Apple is killing the headphone jack on all products." Step right up and dive into the details with us as we figure out which rumors to trust and which belong on the Island of Misfits.
We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
No matter which way you swing, this week’s gadgets have you covered. iPhoneographers can enjoy the Shoulderpod hand grip or slip the new iPad Olloclip onto their Mini or Air, and film nuts can get instant satisfaction with the new Lomo Instant Camera.
Camping? Take it easy in the giant Meriwether tent or go survivalist with the Blastmatch fire-starter. You can even choose how to arrive at the site, with accessories for your car or your bike. Happy traveling!
OS X 10.10, which Apple is expected to show at its Worldwide Developers Conference Monday morning, could very well be named after one of California’s most well-known national parks. While setting up for WWDC at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Apple has put up a banner for the next version of OS X that features Yosemite in the background.
As another week full of news passes, your host Joshua Smith is here to give you a wrap-up on some of the latest and biggest features. iOS devices held for ransom, Apple’s big Beats acquisition and a rumored Apple iWatch are among just some of the featured stories in today’s rundown.
Take a look at the video and be sure to return next week for another. Subscribe to CultOfMacTV on youtube.com to catch new episodes of the roundup and other great video reviews, how-to’s and more.
In case you somehow doubted that Apple would reveal iOS 8 next week at its Worldwide Developers Conference, here’s the confirmation. Apple has started putting up iOS 8 banners along with giant signage and logos outside the conference’s venue in downtown San Francisco.
How much C4 can you stuff in a Mac Pro?
That not a question most Mac Pro owners grapple with but the guys at RatedRR aren’t your average Apple fanboys. In their latest series of Apple destruction videos they’ve decided to pack an ungodly amount of C4 into Apple’s powerhouse machine just to see how big the explosion is.
Catch all the gory action in the video below: