Sometimes it’s difficult to fall asleep, even after a long day. While listening to music can help some, they wake only to find their device’s battery dead from playing all night. In this episode of Cult of Mac’s how-to, find out how to use your iPhone’s hidden sleep timer, thanks to our quick and easy steps.
Take a look at the video to see what to do.
You may not need a mouse much these days if you’re rocking a Macbook or Magic Trackpad, but if you do any kind of gaming on your computer, you know a mouse is essential kit.
Pro gamers rely on lag-free, incredibly high-tech controllers and gaming mice, and Steel Series is one of the top contenders in the field. Their series of gaming mice and keyboards are precision engineered to provide whip-fast response to any twitchy input a gamer needs in their chosen gaming environment.
The Steel Series Sensei wireless gaming mouse is an ergonomic marvel with ten buttons, its own software control app and some scary-quick response times.
Despite all that high-tech nonsense, it’s super easy to use and feels good in the hand. Which is important when I’m jacked into an all-night MMO session with 12 of my besties, raiding the lair of whatever monster it is that we’re all trying to kill.
I love this damn mouse more than I can say.
High-school senior Omar Martin Del Campo and his small team of developers have found a way to make text messaging even more secure. Peek lets you chat with friends via the app and your messages are erased as you read them.
The app asks you to authenticate with Twitter or Facebook to ensure your identity to your friends, and then you can chat away in the fairly clean, purple-themed interface on offer.
“Our focus,” said Del Campo in an email with Cult of Mac, “is a great user experience, beautiful design, simplicity and safe and secure messaging.”
The deals keep on coming at Cult of Mac Deals!
This time around we’re offering an iOS 7 Dev Bundle that will teach you to build and monetize your own apps for 79% off the regular price – just $79 – and a portable, lightweight Handheld Luggage Scale that keeps you from second-guessing the weight for your cargo for only $19!
Facetune is a great iOS Photo app to have laying around on your iPad or iPhone. It’s a photo-retouching app that will very quickly let you fix up funky faces. Not only does it take care of old foes like red-eye, but it’ll whiten teeth, smooth over the cruelest spray of acne, and even fix up folks whose eyes are too close together.
There’s a reason T-Mobile’s offer to pay off new customers’ early termination fees sounds too good to be true. In certain cases, it’s a rotten deal compared to just paying the fee yourself.
However, with a little hackery, you can flip T-Mobile’s deal from bad to fantastic — and save hundreds on a new iPhone (or any smartphone).
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.
When Google announced the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge for April Fools’ Day, I immediately opened the app on my phone and began my hunt for little pocket monsters. Unfortunately, the novelty was short-lived, and I only found about 15 before I got bored and stopped looking.
But I’m pretty sure I would have stuck at it and found all 151 if I’d have known a surprise gift from Google was the reward.
That’s right — the search giant is sending free mystery gifts to users who found all 151 Pokémon in Google Maps.
Every once in a while, something drops into the App Store that makes my Grinch heart grow three sizes. So after I take the pills my doctor gave me to keep me from dying when that happens, I spend some time with the game and see if it’s any good. And this one, which a 7-year-old boy designed, is actually pretty fun.
Greedy Ladder is a new free-to-play game in which you play as one of eight boys or girls (the differences are cosmetic) climbing a ridiculously tall ladder in one of six major cities. It’s a racing game: The goal is to reach the top as quickly as possible while eating healthy foods that will speed you up and avoiding junk food and inedible objects that slow you down.
All proceeds from the game go to charity, apparently, so that’s pretty cute, too.
We knew Apple had improved Touch ID recognition in iOS 7.1.1, but now – thanks to Redditor iOSecure – we know how and why.
Apparently, the reason that accuracy would decay over time was down to users screwing up their first scans, when the auto-correction feature needed a perfect start to work properly going forward.
A decade after Burger King choked out Subservient Chicken, the bizarre fast food mascot is poised for a comeback. The wacky dude in a chicken suit, who magically submitted to the Internet’s commands in one of the weirdest and most successful viral-marketing campaigns ever, will return with a clucking vengeance Wednesday with a short film “chronicling the rise and fall of internet celebrities,” according to Advertising Age.
In some ways, it’s perfect timing: Sequels and viral magic have become staples of marketing and pop culture. But can the burger chain recapture the glory of its 2004 campaign, which racked up more than a billion views with its camgirl-inspired creepiness? While we’re waiting to find out, here are 15 bizarre brand mascots that demand a reboot.
CNBC has named Steve Jobs the most influential person of the last 25 years. On a list entitled “First 25: Rebels, Icons & Leaders,” Jobs ranks above the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffet — along with the founders of Google, Amazon, and other tech giants.
The organization claims Jobs deserves the spot because, “his vision spurred changes far beyond his industry and put an indelible stamp on the wider culture.”
If you don’t have several hundred million in the bank, and a massive company to lord over, it’s hard for us normal folk to emulate Steve Jobs.
But you could build a sound system like Steve’s.
Based on an iconic portrait of Jobs in his almost empty Woodside, California home in 1982, Wired pieced together the various stereo components needed to build a hi-fi system, endorsed by the man with a taste for nothing less than excellence.
Just as I thought I was close to curing my Reddit addiction — I’ve been “clean” for almost three days — confirmation that official Reddit apps are incoming for Android and iOS means I’m almost certainly destined for a relapse.
Job listings have revealed that Reddit is on the hunt for app developers with skills in Java (for Android) and Objective C (for iOS) who can make it “easier for people to find great content” on Reddit using mobile devices. The ads appeared this week in the company’s “for hire” subreddit.
Details about Gameloft’s delayed FPS Modern Combat 5 have been in short supply, but we finally have a full name at least: Modern Combat: Blackout.
If you ever want to see the difference between Apple and Google as companies, look no further than the fact that Google’s latest Chrome update for the simply-named iOS 7.0 is the bafflingly-titled version 34.0.1847.18.
That minor irritation aside, the mobile update does add some nifty new features — including a new “feature tour” that shows off the browser and its new enhancements to first time users.
There’s also an included tweak to Chrome’s omnibox, which means that the omnibox now supports right-to-left languages: something that should prove useful to some international users.
Each week we pull the best Apple-related gadgets from the Cult of Mac and collect them here for your perusing pleasure.
I’ve always hated running. When I’m asked, I jokingly say that the ten years of life I probably lose by not focusing on cardio-vascular exercise, I make up for by not feeling compelled to jog in a big circle each day after work, or talk about running shoes at dinner parties.
But if there’s one thing that could get me running it’s a zombie apocalypse — in which members of the once-dead rise again to try and feast on my brain and internal organs. And I’m definitely not the only one.
Gamified fitness app Zombies, Run! was launched a couple of years ago, but has just been updated with a number of new features.
For those unfamiliar with it, Zombies, Run! replaces your regular running soundtrack with a zombie story in which you are the main character — with your level of physical exertion playing a part as you outrun zombie hordes, collect supplies, and eventually return (brain intact) to base camp.
Clear, everyone’s favorite swipe-based to-do list app, now integrates with the native Reminders app on the Mac and iOS. Originally planned for February, the latest update lets you get reminded to do things on that list.
Next time some jerk mimes playing the world’s smallest violin at something you said, just whip out the miniscule Fretpen guitar, bellow something defiantly rock-themed at them, and relish in their stunned silence as you headbang triumphantly while shredding your way through Van Halen’s Eruption!
Yes, I see how it may seem as if I’ve let my rock fantasy get a little out of hand. But I strenuously maintain it’s completely appropriate when introduced to the FretPen, a tiny-yet-playable guitar that connects to an accompanying app on the iPhone via low-energy Bluetooth, then rocks out with customizable effects.
We know the iPhone emits radiation, but how much? The answer: Apparently enough to light up luminous glyphs on the back of an iPhone case. A bunch of inventive Ukranians — the same ones who brought us the iBlazr LED phone flash — figured out this little trick, and created the Lunecase, an iPhone 5/c/s case with symbols on the back that light up when you receive a text or phone call.
We’ve seen no shortage of iPhone 6 part leaks recently, and now an alleged mold of the unreleased device has surfaced. French site Nowwhereelse.fr has shared pictures of what it’s claiming is a “physical model” of the iPhone 6.
The source of the model is unknown other than it came from a Chinese forum, so we’re filing this one under very sketchy. But based on existing rumors, the design could be close to what Apple is planning.
While many are sure to remember the old hit-game Fruit Ninja, not many are still playing it. Though the slicing mania may be on halt in one app, Apple’s current app of the week KingHunt aims to keep you going at it. Claiming to be the next generation of the slicing game genre, slice your way through crazy objects and plenty of fun-filled levels. Do you think you can become the ultimate hunter?
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
A funny thing happened on the way to the iPod’s funeral. When we laid out the reasons we think the music player is nearing the end of the line, we clearly struck a nerve.
A lengthy and fascinating conversation broke out in the page’s comments section, on Facebook and on Twitter as Cult of Mac readers articulated all the reasons Apple shouldn’t kick the iPod to the curb. Reasons ranged from forward-looking strategies for expanding the iPod’s appeal to old-fashioned love for a perennial favorite product.
Here are highlights from eight of the best:
Who’d have thought that four tiny stick-on plastic corners could make such a great iPhone “case?” Yet the Bezl, a case so minimal it doesn’t even have room for vowels, is one of my favorites. That might not be surprising for someone who avoids cases altogether, but they’re pretty useful for something so tiny.