As expected, Apple has introduced its refreshed line of MacBook Air models this morning. The updates don’t bring any major changes, but sport faster versions of Intel’s Haswell processors, and are $100 cheaper than their predecessors.
In preparation for Mark Zuckerberg’s evil plan of making us all download Messenger in order to carry on our Facebook conversations, Facebook Messenger has just received a spit-shine of an update.
Version 5.0 of the app adds several new features and improvements. Among these is a slightly revamped interface which makes sending photos and voice messages easier than before. In addition, users can now send videos directly from their device’s Camera Roll to friends, with these videos playing directly in the app itself.
Our friend Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy has another video examining the alleged iPhone 6 case he got from sources overseas.
This time, he got the inclination to compare the case to the current iPod touch. And what he found is pretty interesting.
It has been a long time coming. Today Skype finally made group video calling a free feature for users on the Mac, Windows, and Xbox One. iOS is left out of the initial mix, but Skype says that it will be adding free group video to more platforms in the future.
In the underground world of iPhone trafficking, someone has to take the fall. Unfortunately, it appears to be the homeless and others in desperate need of some quick cash.
9News in Denver, Colorado has shone light on how traffickers who sell unlocked iPhones for a premium outside of the U.S. take advantage of the uninformed.
You have to understand the way carrier contracts work in the states before this system, which 9News has dubbed “iScheme,” makes sense.
Elusive Apple CEO Tim Cook will skip his annual sit-down interview with tech journalists Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Instead, Apple is sending two of Cook’s top lieutenants to sit in the hot seat during the Code Conference this May.
Wall Street is lining up to stuff its pockets with cash from Apple’s money printing empire, but rather than dipping into its massive offshore cash pile to pay for its expanded buyback program, Apple is once again planning to raise an enormous amount of debt to pay off investors.
Full disclosure up front: I was a huge fan of the Sonic series back in the day. As a result, sitting down to play Sonic the Hedgehog 2 I was of two minds: one part of me happy to be replaying a game I had enjoyed so much in childhood; the other part worried that this would be a lazy cash-in on the part of Sega.
Was I right to be concerned? Yes, is the short answer. Ever since the late 1990s, Sonic games have been the model of inconsistency: good efforts at reviving Sega’s flagship character quickly brought back down to earth by frankly shocking attempts at new installments.
I didn’t play the first stab at bringing Sonic 2 to iOS, but reportedly it was pretty uninspiring stuff — featuring sound problems, rubbish virtual controls, a windowed play area and (perhaps worst of all for our speedy hedgehog friend) slowdown issues.
So how has the game fared this time for the re-release?
With this Cult of Mac Deals offer, you can take great selfies, group photos and videos from as far as 30 feet away! The Muku Shuttr is a genius remote shutter button that keeps you from getting stuck behind the camera.
Cult of Mac has reviewied the Muku Shuttr, and now we’ve got this slee, portable, and study apparatus available for just $39 during this limited time offer!
With such a large music library on YouTube it’s an ideal way of listening to your favorite artists. Playing music videos in the native YouTube app is convenient, but playing and leaving the app to still listen to your video’s audio isn’t possible. Luckily thanks to iOS 7 there’s a simple way around this, allowing you to enjoy your music in no time.
Take a look at the video to see what to do.
Last night the app waltzed into my life, a stylish-looking game with head-sure confidence and whip-smart intellect. It didn’t waste any time getting down to business. It needed a thief with nimble fingers, and I was just the gamer for the job.
There are over a million apps in the naked App Store, and Third Eye Crime is one of the stylish ones. It’s a noir-themed stealth action game where you play as a detective with a passion for thievery and a touch of psychic ability.
Awareness is an App I’ve been using for the past week to remind me to take a break from writing once in a while. It’s simple and un-intrusive (except when it’s not, of course) and it’s had an unexpected side-effect: the reduction of achy wrists and other painful RSI symptoms.
We like Moshi’s Verso covers, which fold – origami-like – into a variety of handy stands. And we (actually probably just me – nobody else here uses one) love the InCase Origami, which covers the Apple aluminum keyboard with a case that folds out into an iPad stand.
So how could I resist Moshi’s VersaKeyboard, which kind of does both?
Ever lose something? Of course you have. How would like to keep your belongings found, not lost? With StickR TrackR you can do just that.
StickR TrackR is a coin-sized device that can be attached onto or stuck to any item – keys, remotes, bikes, luggage, etc – and works with the corresponding TrackR app to help you locate your missing goods. And Cult of Mac Deals has StickR TrackR available for a limited time for only $19.95!
These new flexible wooden sleeves from Grovemade are amazing. Look at them. Just look.
They’re made from veneers of maple or walnut, lined with felted wool and have leather and brass straps to pull out the MacBook or iPad within in one easy yank.
At just $15, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Amzer Shellster fell apart after a couple of weeks, but what a couple of weeks that would be. The iPhone 5 case comes in pretty much any too-bright color you can think of, and features an integrated clip and kickstand.
A lot of apps will let you turn your iPhone into a scanner, but Scantilly lets you turn your snapshots into PDFs quickly and easily. All you do is take a picture of the thing you want to preserve, crop it down using a very simple tool, and then you can e-mail it to whomever you want. You can even add extra pages with a single tap, which is pretty handy if you have things to scan other than crudely drawn cartoons of dubious quality.
Not that I know anything about that.
Magic squares have always vexed me. I understand the concept — arrange a grid of numbers so that the rows and columns add up to predefined values — but actually doing them is beyond me.
So maybe I’m not the best person to review Equilibrium, a new iOS game that is nothing but magic squares for days, but I think I can put my own incompetence aside to recommend it. It has great presentation, a good challenge and is as accessible as can be.
I’m still awful at it, but hey.
Logitech’s new Hinge is an iPad case with – what do you think? Yup, a hinge. To be honest, it’s really no different from all the other cases that have a vertical crease in the back so that the front flap can fold away and around to make a multi-angle stand, but the Hinge looks better than most of them while it does it.
This week we look at docking stations for the MacBook. Docks let you stow your laptop out of the way. With its lid closed, and yet still use its brain to power a monitor and hook up to a mouse and keyboard.
Some docks are simple dumb stands, others offer hookups that the modern MacBook lacks, like HDMI and Ethernet ports.
Let’s take a look at three of the best.
Straight outta Leipzig comes the latest update to Soulmen’s Ulysses III, the writers’ text editor for the Mac. As ever with Soulmen updates, the fact that this is a “mere” point update shouldn’t fool you. Ulysses III 1.2 is the kind of thing many folks would ship as a v2.0.
The Power Mac G4 Cube, introduced in July 2000, delivered a fair amount of Apple computing power in a unique see-through enclosure made of acrylic glass. Designed by Jony Ive, the futuristic-looking Cube offered a glimpse of the sleek industrial design that would come to epitomize Apple’s upscale take on consumer technology.
“I just remember it being this incredibly elegant, sexy machine that looked nothing like a computer,” said Randall Greenwell, director of photography at The Virginian-Pilot and a longtime Apple aficionado, in an email to Cult of Mac.
The greening of Apple: it took almost 10 years for the Cupertino company to turn around its dismal eco-scorecard.
But that worm has truly turned: in this week’s edition of Cult of Mac Magazine, author Luke Dormehl talks to former Apple exec John Sculley and other insiders about why this change is all about current Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple’s green day means a better future and even better products, they say.
Also this week, we’ve got reviews editor Charlie Sorrel taking a deep dive into underwater iPhoneography, plus his reviews for the best in Apple-related paraphernalia — including a mullet-style notebook (you know: business up front, party in the back.) Our tastemaker Buster Hein has once again sifted through all the offerings in the iTunes store to serve up the most scrumptious offerings in music, books and movies and Evan Killham rounds up what you need in apps.
Image: Wikipedia
When Tim Cook takes the stage at WWDC in a couple months, everyone is expecting him to unveil the latest iteration of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 8… the first major update to the OS since Jony Ive drastically overhauled it.
Most of us at this point have come around to iOS 7 being an improvement on iOS 6, but even so, there’s lots of room for improvement. And if iOS 8 ends up looking anything nearly as good as this concept video from TechRadar, I think we’ll all be very pleased indeed.
Remember that original Apple Lisa computer you’ve got in the basement, boxed next to your old VHS player and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots toys? It may be time to dust it off and take it an auction house.
That’s based on the news that a Lisa 1 (a.k.a. Apple’s first computer to come with a graphical interface and a mouse) is expected to fetch $42,000 when it goes under the hammer in Germany late next month.
