iOS 8 is bringing easy time-lapse video to the masses. Photo: Buster Hein/Cult of Mac
Apple poured a ton of love into the iOS 8 Camera and Photos apps, but one feature that did not get enough stage time during last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference was the incredible time-lapse video feature.
The new feature lets you create videos of accelerated sequences of photos over time with stunning simplicity. I finally got around to trying it myself by sweating and wheezing my way to the top of Hayden’s Butte to capture the summer sun setting over Tempe, Arizona, last night.
I only took one run at it, but the results were unbelievably cool:
With all the new features coming to iOS 8 this fall, many Android users have commented that Apple’s upcoming update acts a lot like KitKat. In today’s video, see some of the new features of iOS 8 go head-to-head with similar iterations in Android to see which comes out on top.
One of the videos Apple played during its WWDC keynote last week was a visual tour of the new OS X Yosemite. It’s only a minute long, but it showcases the overall design changes in the new OS quite nicely.
Apple has made the video available on YouTube, where it joins the other keynote video that looks at how developers are changing the world with their apps.
WWDC came and went without a single breath mentioning the split-screen multitasking mode in iOS 8 that was rumored to be on the way, but iPad users hoping for more productivity features might be in luck after all.
Developer Steve Stroughton Smith says he’s been digging around in the iOS 8 beta files and noticed a new “main-screen-canvas-sizes” option that wasn’t in iOS 7, but will add multi-tasking to the iOS 8 SpringBoard, and it’s more advanced that we hoped for.
Starting with iOS 8, Apple is making it impossible for marketers to track you based on your iPhone’s MAC address.
When you walk around a store with your iPhone’s WiFi on, you’re are unknowingly transmitting your MAC address, a unique identifier for your device. Routers need the identifier to join you to a network. Ad agencies and retailers have been tracking these addresses to help offer personalized advertisements to customers based on where they’ve been.
Apple is putting a stop to this practice with MAC address scrambling in iOS 8, which could turn out to be a big win for iBeacon.
Katie Cotton with an Apple executive talking to a reporter
Now that Katie Cotton, Apple’s longtime head of corporate communication, has retired, Tim Cook is on the hunt for a “friendly, more approachable” face to head its PR going forward.
According to Re/code, Apple is looking outside the company for high-profile candidates to fill Cotton’s role. Depending on who replaces her, Apple’s relationship with the media could begin to warm up considerably.
Don't miss a minute of WWDC now that all the sessions are online. Photo: Roberto Baldwin, The Next Web
The code was written. The world (possibly) changed. The banners are gone and Apple is nowhere to be seen at Moscone West after a marathon week of coding and partying with the top software engineers in the world.
If you weren’t lucky enough to make it to this year’s WWDC you can still enjoy all the coding education that came with the show now that all 107 video sessions have been posted on Apple’s developer site. It’s a world class coding education that rivals anything you can pay for at university.
Here are some notable session to get you primed for iOS 8 and Yosemite:
The Skype team at Microsoft has been hard at work on a complete rewrite of their iPhone app, and it’s arriving in the App Store next week.
Version 5.0 of Skype for iPhone looks very similar in some ways to the existing Windows Phone and Android Skype clients, but its developers promise that they have built it to “fit iOS best.”
While smartwatches are currently a niche product, they may not stay that way for long, says USB analyst Steven Milunovich, who predicts that the iWatch could match sales of Apple’s iPad — unloading 21 million units in fiscal 2015 and a further 36 million units the following year.
The iPad, by comparison, sold 19.5 million units in its first year, rising to 47.6 million in its second. (The iPhone moved a relatively paltry 5.4 million units in its first year of sale, since it was still establishing Apple’s mobile platform.)
Let’s be honest, charging your iOS lightning-compatible devices with Apple’s standard 3 foot lightning cable doesn’t cut it. When we charge our devices, we want the freedom to interact with them as well, and this is exactly what you get with this 10 foot (3 meter) MFi-certified charging cable.
Unleash yourself from that standard 3 foot charging cable and feel the freedom to work, play, and talk while you charge – and for just $21.99!
Do not adjust your sets: Despite finishing Friday at $645, Apple stock will open today at around $92. This is the result of a 7-to-1 stock split, which will see the price of the stock divided by seven and shareholders of record awarded six additional shares on top of their existing holdings.
DigiDNA COO Victor Broido is living the dream -- and talking it up at AltConf 2014. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
SAN FRANCISCO — Victor Broido has an enviable lifestyle. He lives and works 200 yards from a sun-kissed beach. He often kitesurfs before work. Sometimes he surfs during work.
“It was my dream, as a kid, to surf for an hour before going to the office,” Broido said. “That’s my life. It’s happening right now.”
You might want to punch Broido in the face upon hearing this, but he’s the nicest, most self-deprecating guy. You can’t begrudge him anything. Plus, he worked to attain this way of life.
Broido and his colleagues run DigiDNA, an eight-person company based in Geneva, Switzerland, with a satellite office in Geraldton, a small city in remote Western Australia with a reputation for world-class water sports.
DigiDNA is one of thousands of small, independent software developers spawned by the mobile revolution. In 2013, Apple’s App Store revenues topped $10 billion, and a lot of that money flowed to small startups. There are small indies in every category, from games to databases. Lots of them flocked to San Francisco last week for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. DigiDNA was a gold sponsor of last week’s AltConf, the alternative conference that ran parallel to Apple’s event. (DigiDNA has also sponsored Cult of Mac’s Cultcast in the past.)
The supermarkets are already full of Brazil-related plastic junk, and even folks who only watch football once every four years are getting excited. Why? It’s World Cup time, of course!
Here we have a selection of apps and gadgets, clothes and toys to help you follow along and enjoy the show. The only thing we haven’t included is streaming app, because broadcast rights vary from country to country. Our workaround is to watch on TV or listen on the radio. Or do it like the Brazilians and head to your local bar.
Stealth survival game République can be pretty intense at times. For players who just want to experience the story and spend time exploring the game’s beautifully rendered environments, however, there’s a new update available which adds an easier “Story Mode” for just that purpose.
Launched in the App Store back in December last year, République features an episodic type of gameplay which sees protagonist Hope fight back against an “an oppressive totalitarian state” (making it pretty appropriate imagery for Apple.) Unlike games such as the tremendous GTA: San Andreas port, République is a console-worthy game especially designed specifically for the touchscreen environment of the iOS platform.
Certainly, it’s an immersive experience, and that doesn’t change with the game’s Story Mode, which simply makes the title more accessible to less experienced players.
All is fair in love, war, and smartphone launch dates!
According to a new report, Samsung is rushing ahead with its Samsung Galaxy F smartphone in order to release it at the same time as Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 6, which is set to debut this September.
The Galaxy F — which will be the premium model of Samsung’s flagship Android phone — will feature major improvements in screen resolution, processing speed and the camera, with 1440 x 2560 QHD resolution on its 5.3-inch screen, a quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor under the hood, and a 16MP rear-facing camera with OIS.
Last week’s WWDC demonstrated how Apple devices can communicate with one another to make life easier for users. Well, the same holds true for games which can take advantage of the interactivity between, say, the built-in motion sensors of an iPhone and the viewing experience offered of Apple TV to replicate the experience of a full-on games consoles like the Nintendo Wii.
That’s the idea behind Rolocule Games’ innovative new game Dance Party, which is powered by something called “rolomotion” — the winner of the Silver Edison Award for best innovation in the Entertainment category at the recent 2014 Edison Awards in San Francisco. Rolomotion is a technology which precisely tracks the various movements made by an iPhone and allows users to play games using natural motion gestures on television using a combination of Apple’s smartphone and the Apple TV.
While iOS 8 has seen tons of improvements — from FaceTime call waiting to the ability to purchase iTunes content using Siri — there’s one area that hasn’t seen a major overhaul: Apple Maps.
Although the new version of Maps does now offer vector maps and other improvements in China, as well as a feature designed to give owners the ability to add more indoor positioning data, this was reportedly nowhere near what Apple originally had planned for the next version of its mobile OS.
Over the past year we’ve reported on various map-related patents which seemed like they would land on iOS before long, related to innovations such as user customizable maps. There’s also been plenty of talk regarding major under-the-hood changes to improve map accuracy; adding more points of interest; overhauling labels to make locations like airports, highways and parks easier to find; changing the overall map interface to make it cleaner; and adding public transit directions.
So why didn’t anything like this happen? According to sources the problems may have been the result of internal politics and generally chaotic project management.
More pictures of what is allegedly a shell for the upcoming iPhone 6 have surfaced, and if legitimate, they show the exterior design of the device in more detail than we’ve seen before.
There have been rumors, leaked design schematics, and more recently a single shot of another shell that was purportedly for the unreleased device. These new photos show not only the back, but the side of the shell in detail. It looks like Apple is making some design changes to accommodate a larger display.
Want proof of just how much app-based solutions can disrupt established businesses? Try the fact that Uber, the Android- and iOS-based alternative to traditional taxi services, has just been valued at $17 billion.
The valuation comes on the back of a new round of venture funding for the 5-year-old company, which saw investors pour in another $1.2 billion. This makes Uber one of the most valuable startups in tech history.
As the week comes to a close (and a new week begins), Cult of Mac Deals wants to shine a spotlight on several of the best deals we’ve offered in the past week.
Scrivener 2
Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from that first, unformed idea all the way through to the final draft. It 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.
The Kickstarter campaign for Hyper’s iStick, which surpassed an original goal of $100,000 in just three hours, is currently racing toward $1,000,000 with only eight days left.
With so much interest in the iStick, a USB flash drive with a Lightning connector, we had to take it for a test drive. Watch our video to see what you think. You can keep an eye on Hyper’s Kickstarter, which ends June 17, here.
A lot of wearable wrist band fitness trackers aren’t great at measuring cycling compared to running, so if you’re putting together a regimen based on exercise that is easy to quantify, you may be tempted to put your bike away. Not so fast! The Wahoo Blue SC attaches to your bicycle and then works with your favorite cycling app to track your cycling speed, cadence, and distance on your iPhone while you ride. Even better, its internal odometer can break down the lifetime mileage ridden on your bike by week, month and even year. So get peddling.
Based on the sheer amount of biotech experts it’s been hiring, the fact that Apple has its eyes set on the health and fitness tracking sector is one for the “Cupertino’s Worst Kept Secrets” file. But after tons of speculation about the iWatch, Monday’s WWDC keynote provided a first glimpse of an actual Apple creation in this category with its upcoming Health app for iOS 8.
Then Apple dropped a brand new ad for the iPhone 5s, adding a sporty spin to the company’s current trend for showing Apple products used in real-life scenarios in its commercials. If you’re anything like us, it makes you think two things. Firstly, that Apple will revolutionize the health tracking field like it did the personal computer, music player, smartphone and tablet market. Secondly, that we need to hurry up and drop the flab for summer.
With that in mind, here are our picks for the best iOS-compatible fitness devices currently on the market — including the skinny on specific gadgets from the latest iPhone ad (which, incidentally, had fitness-tracking watches conspicuous by their absence.)
Let us know in the comments what tracking gear you’re using and what you hope Apple will provide next.
Apple could be looking to make the Maps app more of a social experience. TechCrunch reports that Apple has bought Spotsetter, a service that let users search for places based on recommendations from friends.
Spotsetter worked kind of like Foursquare, expect that it pulled from a host of other social networks, including Twitter and Facebook. The startup allegedly had big plans for wearables as well, which could bode well for an imminent iWatch.
Wow! This year’s WWDC keynote was one of the most important in years, and on this week’s CultCast, we unpack all the new features announced for Yosemite and iOS 8, and tell you which ones we can’t believe we ever lived without. Plus, with so many new developer APIs and a whole new programming language, we think Apple in on the verge of something big, and if you thought they had cool products before… well, hold on to your butts.
Snicker your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the uproarious good time commence.
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