It took nearly 6 months, but former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts has officially joined Apple as its new Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores. Her bio has been added to Apple’s executive leadership website, making her transition from Burberry complete.
Wahoo’s first heart-rate sensor was of the pedestrian ANT+ variety, and connected to the iPhone through a 30-pin ANT+ dongle. Around a year later, the Atlanta-based outfit introduced the first heart-rate sensor that connected to a smartphone through Bluetooth; specifically and only to the iPhone 4s, since that was the only phone at the time with Bluetooth 4.0 under the hood.
Wahoo upped the ante again in January at CES, when they revealed a radical departure from traditional heart-rate based fitness tracking: Their new highly sophisticated, three-model TICKR sensor squad, combined with an all-new app that turns conventional fitness-tracking on its head. Now the first of the TICKR trio, the TICKR Run, is hitting the street.
Ever since Disney revealed its grand Infinity gaming universe, we’ve been wondering when Marvel-themed playsets would arrive — or even if they would. Disney bought Marvel in 2009, and it made sense the characters would show up: Infinity would be the perfect setting to flaunt the newly subsumed superheroes. Problem was, nary a whiff of Marvel could be found at Infinity’s January 2013 launch.
Nevertheless, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow and the gang are coming to Disney Infinity — and boy do they look awesome.
The data-hungry tentacles of the NSA have managed to choke America’s top tech firms into silent submission on data requests, but after months of demanding more transparency, Apple is ready to defy authorities and let you know when the NSA wants your data.
Prosecutors warn that such a move will undermine investigations by tipping off criminals and allowing them to destroy sensitive data, but according to the Washington Post, Apple and others have already changed their policies.
While the hit app Snapchat has had great success at keeping users well connected, the developers behind the app have recently released a major update to add to the mix. Chat with your friends with instant messaging like chat and live video, all in the very same application. Will Snapchat become your favorite app thanks to its new features?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a place to keep your timers, some flirty pics, and the most extensive color app we’ve ever seen.
Here you go:
Emoji are versatile and cute, but if you want to get a little … direct with your significant other, you have to get pretty creative. SinkFoot wants to help with its small fleet of increasingly specific pictures that you can send via text or e-mail directly from the app. No nudity in here, but if you have a thing for cheerleaders, nurses, doctors, or members of SWAT, SinkFoot will help you communicate that.
Yep. SWAT. I guess that’s a thing.
Anyway, it has some other options, too. Although I’m not sure what this one means. I don’t really see what someone would do with an–Ooooooh. Alright, I get it.
Huh.
SinkFoot – $0.99 | SinkFoot LLC
Snoozing is great, but oversleeping isn’t. That’s why Alarm Clock Reboot approaches rousing you from your slumber in a different way. Instead of waking you up when you tell it to, it starts the process with a series of smaller alarms spread out before your wake time. You tell it when you want to wake up, and it starts the process before that with a series of snooze alarms that build in intensity until they reach your desired alarm time.
It’s a cool idea. The lens flares may be a bit much, but they are pretty sweet.
Alarm Clock Reboot – $0.99 | Every Penny Apps
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.
This timer app might not be super useful for everyone, but if you have certain things that you time regularly, you might want to check it out. Scooby lets you build up a list of items and timers that you can easily access anytime you want to save yourself the slight inconvenience of setting the one on your iPhone.
I’m going to use it for the shared washer and dryer in my apartment building because neighbors appreciate it when people don’t leave their clothes in there forever, Steve.
Color Suite is a ridiculously comprehensive color-identification app with an easy sampling tool and a wealth of information. Just point the little dot at the color you want to identify, and it’ll tell you pretty much everything about it, including its complementary color, how it appears to eight different kinds of color-blindness, and even which Crayola is most similar.
It actually has an insanely long list of products you can match, like several brands of house paints, colored pencils, and make-up.
So basically, if you see a color, you can use that color for everything. This app really, really wants you to do that.
Of course you have the Nintendo 3DS in your bag — it’s an outstanding handheld gaming system with a bevy of first- and third-party game titles that range from the strategic to the evocative.
You know the device is capable of some brilliant gaming for adults, but good lord, Nintendo, could you maybe bypass the primary colors? Maybe offer, say, a black version? Something in gold, maybe? The sophisticated folks at Waterfield know that you’re a grownup now, so they’ve created the City Slicker, a lush cocoon of a 3DS and 3DS XL case with a proper leather flap that ages along with you.
Chatting on Facebook has become rather de rigueur for many of us these days, as the social networking giant makes it easier and easier to stay in touch via its blue and white website and dedicated mobile apps.
If you’re anything like me, chances are that your buddies chat you up as often on Facebook Messenger as they do on iMessage. This multiple platform chatting solution is all fine and dandy when you’re just dealing with your friends, but what about the boss? Your mother in law? That friend who is trolling your Facebook page to see why you’re not at her party?
You need a way to hide the fact that you’re online and chatting from these folks, and we’re going to tell you how.
Cult of Mac Deals has unveiled some great offers today, keeping aligned with our goal of delivering phenomenal deals every single day!
If you’re looking for something on the leisure side, then Romo the iOS Robot companion is worth exploring. At only $129, you’ll get a personal robot that uses your smartphone as its brain. And we’ve also got the productivity-boosting app Keyboard Maestro, a powerful macro program for Mac OS X, for just $19.99!
Please note: The offer for Romo the iOS Robot is only available to customers in the continental United States. The sale price includes shipping and all sales are final. To review all terms and condition surrounding that particular offer, visit the Deals page.
You probably have a few improvements you’d like to make to your home, but it’s possible you have no idea how to do them yourself. Or maybe you do, but you’d like some handy tips on how to store and maintain your paintbrushes or something. This app has you covered either way; it comes from Skil Power Tools, and it contains a wealth of information including tips on removing broken spade handles, tips about proper tool usage, and step-by-step directions on a ridiculous number of projects.
So now I can finally build that deck for my apartment. The landlord will love that.
I like words. I like writing them, I like spelling them, and I like picking the perfect one for the sentence I’m creating. And I like playing with them, too, if you couldn’t tell from all the word games I choose for reviews.
But even if you aren’t a Word Nerd like I am, you’ll probably enjoy Fiasco. It’s a moderately paced competitive spelling game in which you create as many words of three or more letters as you can by dropping tiles, Tetris-style, onto a board.
You can get time and point bonuses for longer words, which is basically the only way to win. Because this game is pretty challenging.
Thanks to your iPhone you can couch surf, catch a ride downtown, find a date or maybe even source a freebie for dinner.
The sharing economy has gone mainstream, filling our smartphones with apps that run counter to your mother’s admonitions. You know, those common sense “Stranger Danger” rules we’ve all had drilled into our heads about talking to strangers, letting them in our houses or accepting stuff from them.
But it’s one thing to talk about these apps and another to actually use them.
So we did. Cult of Mac staffers jumped into cars with strangers, let them stay in our houses, took random jobs and put out free treats for the taking. The results were, uh, mixed.
Let us know in the comments what your experience has been!
Although it looks like a vanilla PC in a boxy case, the machine pictured above is a high-performance, custom-built Hackintosh.
This thing is hot! Known as the P280, after its Antec case, this Hackintosh is equivalent in performance to Apple’s latest Mac Pro workstation, but costs significantly less.
Roughly comparable to a Mac Pro costing $3,500, the P280 was assembled from off-the-shelf PC parts costing just over $2,000, including a water-cooling system to chill its chips. The Hackintosh runs Apple’s OS X Mavericks and, according to its builder, bests a similarly configured Pro on many benchmarks.
It has none of Jony Ive’s industrial design magic, of course, but that’s not the point. This is a DIY rig that’s as badass as it gets.
Less than a decade ago, Apple was singled out by Greenpeace as one of the least environmentally friendly tech companies on the planet.
Apple has since turned over a new leaf, embracing environmentalism as something every bit as central to the company as the latest iPhone.
Just how important became evident a few months ago, when, during a routine earnings call, Cook spoke of his dream for Apple as a “force for good in the world beyond our products.” The recent global celebrations for Earth Day for the first time in nearly a decade mean that his dream is closer to becoming a reality.
So what changed exactly?
Apple’s FaceTime service is getting another rival — courtesy of an update from disappearing messages service Snachat.
The update will introduce instant messaging and video call functions — opening up more possibilities for users wanting to have private conversations.
As with existing Snapchat messages, conversations won’t be stored on users’ phones by default. Since some conversations are worth saving, however, the update will allow users to manually save them.
As we creep closer to the expected September release date of the iPhone 6, more mockups and reported leaks are showing up on what seems like a daily basis.
This latest one, which surfaced on the Chinese technology blog 86Digi, is a physical mockup claimed to be based on real iPhone 6 machine schematics from sources in the supply chain.
It shows the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 as a 6mm thin devices, featuring rounded edges and various other changes — including a relocated power button, rectangular volume controls on the left hand side of the device, and the camera and circular LED flash on the rear.
Do you remember the classic Simpsons skit from the episode “Homer Bad Man?” When Homer walks past a salesman, they try to catch his attention by yelling, “Hey, sir! Try our wax lips: the candy of 1000 uses.” Homer is skeptical. “Like what?” he asks. “One, a humorous substitute for your own lips,” the salesman responds, before immediately running out of other possible other uses.
Well, Logitech’s new modular case+ promises to be the “wax lips” of the iPhone 5 and 5s — albeit with more actual applications. Using magnets to switch between a variety of interchangeable accessories — including power supply, car mount, kickstand and wallet modules — the case+ hopes to be the most versatile iPhone case yet.
Okay, so pinball maybe isn’t the first thing you think of when hear the two words Star Wars, but this actually looks pretty great.
Developers Zen Studios are veritable Jedi masters at bringing out both the video game quality you need in a digital pinball table, and also at utilizing licenses in a way that doesn’t feel money-grubbing and superficial.
Apple has made another interesting hire in the form of Bobby Hollis, a former vice president of NV Energy who will serve as the company’s new Senior Renewable Energy Manager.
The appointment took place earlier this year, while Hollis took his post back in April.
At NV Energy in Nevada, Hollis worked as the Vice President of Renewable Energy and Origination. He also served on the board of the Solar Electric Power Association, and was recently named one of Las Vegas’s 40 Under Forty business leaders.
Could iBeacons help improve the air travel experience? Sir Richard Branson thinks they could.
Branson’s majority-owned Virgin Atlantic is the latest company to hop aboard the iBeacon bandwagon — announcing plans to use the technology to send customized messages to passenger’s iPhones in London’s Heathrow airport in the UK.
The program, which is being created in conjunction with beacon startup Estimote, will use Apple’s iBeacons technology in conjunction with the Passbook iOS app.
Until today, you had to use the Dropbox-like Google Drive app or web interface to access Google Docs on iOS. But now Google has official apps to work on documents and spreadsheets, called Google Docs and Google Sheets. An app for presentations called Slides is coming soon.
You can view, edit, and share any documents or spreadsheets stored in your Google account through the apps. And unlike Office for iPad, everything is free.
Hulu is finally unleashing its video library to the mobile masses this summer and you won’t even need a Hulu Plus subscription to access it.
Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins announced today that starting this summer you’ll be able to stream Hulu’s shows to your iPhone, iPad, or Android device for free, as long as you’re cool sitting through some ads during your TV show binge-sessions.
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 10 minutes, Cult of Mac has once again waded through the iTunes store to compile a list of the best new albums, books and movies to come out this week.
We’ve some hard-rocking Flamenco (!), a love story that stars Siri, and a moving book about the Civil Rights Act.
Enjoy!
Rodrigo y Gabriela – 9 Dead Alive
Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero had trouble launching their careers as heavy metal rockers in Mexico, so they turned to something more traditional: Flamenco. Your eardrums will be shocked how well the heavy guitar licks from metal translate into traditional Spanish folk music. No dueling guitar duo is more entertaining than Rodrigo y Gabriela, especially as they opt for a more minimalist production on their fifth studio album 9 Dead Alive, giving it the feeling of an intimate conversation between two virtuosos.
iTunes – $9.99
Ought – More Than Any Other Day
Montreal-based Ought hit the music scene this week with their debut album, More Than Any Other Day, that is electrifying, endearing, and bubbling with thoughts on disaffection and dislocation. The band’s talkative brand of art-punk is full of anxious energy thanks to singer Tim Beeler’s lyrics that flip between panic and ecstasy over the band’s gritty grooves.
iTunes – $7.92
Damon Albarn – Everyday Robots
After serving as the frontman of Blur for 20 years, Damon Albarn has perfected the art of writing sad songs, so why should his first solo album be any different? Albarn combines dub-oriented elements with a dazed electronic ambience that’s rich in emotional depth. Albarn’s experimental rock simplicity provides the perfect notes of melancholy as he reflects on the album’s theme of isolation in the digital age.
iTunes – $14.99
Her
What happens when you fall in love with Siri? That’s pretty much the plot for Spike Jonze’s acclaimed film, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching letters. Heartbroken after the end of long relationship, he is intrigued with an advanced new operating system called “Samantha” (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) to which he finds himself developing an unconventional love for.
iTunes – $19.99
Blue Ruin
Blue Ruin follows Dwight, a gentle Southern drifter who embarks on a mission of vengeance once he learns of a convict’s release from prison. Extracting revenge proves more difficult than imagined, and Dwight finds himself on the run from an escalating cycle of bloodshed that threatens to consume him in this darkly entertaining indie thriller.
iTunes – $19.99
The Legend of Hercules
Hollywood loves making the same movie twice, so before you go watch Dwayne Johnson don the mantle of Ancient Greece’s most epic hero this summer in Hercules, you should catch Kellan Lutz in the titular role of The Legend of Hercules on iTunes to see who wins the title of most bad ass dude in a loincloth.
iTunes – $14.99
Natchez Burning
by Greg Iles
Greg Iles returns with an explosive crime thriller set in his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. The novel weaves the legacy of the Deep South’s disturbing racial violence of the 60’s, into the narrative of Penn Cage (the mayor of Natchez in 2005) and small-town doctor father who was accused of murdering a black nurse.
iTunes – $12.99
The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act
by Clay Risen
After being submitted to the racist bile of Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy, we could all probably use a little reminder on the battles America has been through just to pass the Civil Rights act, as well as the obstacles still ahead, which is exactly what Clay Risen offers in his new book The Bill of the Century.
iTunes – $14.99
Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace
by Nikil Saval
Cubed reveals the unexplored yet surprising story of the places where most of the world’s work gets done. From open farm cubicle plans to The Office, Cubed gives readers the fascinating story of how the white-collar work world came to be the way it is, and what might lay ahead.
iTunes – $11.99
Sid Meier’s Civilization V is the best “4X” (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) game out there, and it can be yours for 67 percent off the regular price of thirty bucks right now in this exclusive to Cult of Mac offer from publisher Aspyr.
Civ 5, as it’s colloquially known, is the distillation of all that is good about the $x genre, which is why the game received universal acclaim and a score of 90/100 on review aggregator site Metacritic.
Aspyr wanted to find a way to acknowledge the support of Cult of Mac readers.
“It’s an exclusive deal for Cult of Mac readers on one of our most beloved titles,” said Aspyr’s Michael Blair. “This is a big ‘thank you’ to the Cult of Mac readers and to Cult of Mac for covering Mac gaming!”
