Cult of Mac

15 Coins is hard. Alright, that was the shortest review I’ve ever written. I’ll be back Monday.

Apparently, my editor refuses to pay me for three sentences, so I guess I’ll elaborate.

15 Coins is an arcade avoidance game where you’re trying to collect the eponymous pick-ups before you run into a past version of yourself and explode. Probably because of a paradox or whatever happened to Ron Silver at the end of Timecop. Actually, I think the game calls your pursuers “drones,” but they look like you and follow the same path you did, so I’m just going to go ahead and call time travel on this one. The point is that it’s difficult.

Whether you’re presenting a slideshow, reading an ebook or catching up on Facebook, you can sit back and enjoy your content uninterrupted with The TOCCs Feather Mouse.

This wireless alternative to the traditional mouse is ergonomically designed to get rid of finger tension and seamlessly fits in the palm of your hand just like a pen does. It’s faster browsing that you can feel…and all for just $29.99!

Apple finally announced the dates for WWDC 14 and while there won’t be a mad two minute dash to sellout this year, it might be even harder to get in thanks to Apple’s new lottery system.

Only 5,000 developers will be selected to purchase tickets to the Apple event of the year that will packed with everything from new product announcements, hands-on labs, concerts, and code melting out of your eyeballs.

Here are five reasons why WWDC 2014 shouldn’t be missed:

When you walk into an Apple Store — the minimalist design, the Macbook screens tilted just so, the approachable, encyclopedic sales staff — you might be forgiven for being a little bit speechless.

It’s not unlike walking into a Porsche or Mercedes dealership — you don’t expect to find bargain bins full of junk. The presentation is, in fact, as important as the product, and once inside, you’re going to hand over your money to get both.

Even though Apple stores have become tourist attractions in their own right where folks come from countries like Sweden and Brazil to purchase these great products at prices lower than at home, savvy customers might someday shun those stunning glass facades and signature spiral staircases for cheaper prices found elsewhere.

A new report by DealNews shows that Apple products are getting deeper discounts sooner in a product lifecycle than ever before, begging the question: is the Apple Store the best place to buy your gear?

Facebook has updated its Facebook Pages Manager app, adding several notable improvements.

Pages Manager — for those unfamiliar with it — helps admins connect with their audience and keep up with activity on multiple Pages, all in one place. Users can monitor Page activity using Insights, reply to private messages, and post media.

In addition to the usual bug fixes and performance improvements, the app’s latest update adds new pinning and editing features.

Siri can be hit in and miss in terms of quality, but a recent acquisition by Apple may result in the service being greatly improved.

Taking place last year — although only announced now — Apple acquired UK-based automatic speech recognition company Nouvaris Technologies to work on its virtual assistant tool.

When headphones look this good, who cares how they sound? Well, me, for one. After all, unless you carry a mirror everywhere you go, you never see your headphones while you’re using them. Still, Phiaton’s Bridge MS 500 headphones just got a Red Dot award, so there might be something to them other than good looks.

Sound Freaq’s Sound Rise is an old-fashioned concept wedded to new-fangled function. It’s a clock radio (remember those?) that plugs into your iPhone and charges it while sucking the sound out of your music library or favorite streaming apps.

Here’s the Das Keyboard 4, possibly the most bad-ass clacky keyboard in existence. No keycap markings, USB 3.0, Cherry MX switches and a huge knob. All that plus Das’s trademark feature: it’s as big as a boat. A “Das Boat” if you will.

Elgato’s Thunderbolt Dock has a few unique features that are appropriate for a company that makes video accessories for Apple devices. First, there’s an HDMI port around back, and second, the USB ports put out enough juice to charge your iPad at a decent speed.

As the old song goes, “Google Maps and QuizUp, sitting in a tree, now both visible from low-Earth orbit.” It’s not catchy, but it is true – now the super-addictive trivia game has a Google Maps channel.

This little baby launched its Kickstarter on April 1st, but as it’s still there a few days later (and as Brian from Pad&Quill says it’s legit) it’s time for a write-up. The Micro Field Bag is a miniaturized version of the Field Bag, the heavy monster I reviewed a few weeks back. It’s tiny, cute, and built for the iPhone.

Imagine slapping your nightstand to snooze your iPhone’s alarm. Or rapping on the kitchen countertop to flip recipe book pages so your flour-coated hands don’t mess up the iPad’s screen. These scenarios could soon be real: XTouch is a new technology that essentially turns any solid surface into an input device for an iPad or iPhone.

Borderlands 2. BioShock Infinite. Civilization V. Just a few of the AAA titles hit with deep discounts at Aspyr’s GameAgent game store as the platform celebrates reaching 100,000 members. How deep? All the above-mentioned titles can be had at 75 percent off. Even non-Aspyr titles like Napoleon: Total War and XCOM: Enemy Unknown will be discounted, though at only (only!) half-off.

Like Nests’s futuristic thermostat, its iPhone-controlled smoke/carbon monoxide detector looked like the perfect replacement for the antiquated systems used in most homes today. It turns out that the Nest Protect was a little too good to be true.

Since the device went on sale in November of last year, Nest has discovered that one of the Protect’s hallmark features can malfunction. And that happens to create big safety concerns. Until the issue is resolved, Nest Protect sales have halted.

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.

Enjoy!

Albums

Marc Demarco – Salad Days

Listening to Mac Demarco’s third solo album Salad Days is a trip to a laid-back 90s guitar-pop. Demarco’s voice dips up and down over tracks with growing maturity that, coupled with subtle production, makes Salad Days the best carefree jam of 2014 to date.

iTunes – $9.99

Cloud Nothings – Here and Nowhere Else

Cloud Nothings might be the best rock band you never heard of. Hailing from Cleveland, the indie-rock trio pushed out their fourth studio album this week, Here and Nowhere Else, that is pumped full of grisly rock singalongs that are thrilling, conflicted and caustic in all the best ways.

iTunes – $7.99

Pure X – Angel

Austin’s Pure X debuted the their second album less than a year ago but they’re already back with a third in the form of Angel. Its dreamlike acoustic guitar riffs are paired with tempos that create a mood reminiscent of the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, even though the album artwork looks like something you’d buy from a mall t-shirt kiosk.

iTunes – $14.99

Books

Flashboys
by Michael Lewis

If you enjoyed the celebration of vanity and wealth in Wolf of Wall Street, you’ll probably dig Michael Lewis’ new book Flash Boys. The characters are less-cliche than your average Wall Street types which makes the stories more interesting as they discover a new way to make mountains of cash – high-frequency trading. The book made big news this week when a footnote about one of these firms, Virtu, delayed its much-anticipated IPO.

iTunes – $14.99

Long Mile Home
by Scott Hellman & Jenna Russell

In the same vein as 102 Minutes and Columbine, Long Mile Home is the definitive book about the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt for the Tsarnaev brothers, straight from the Boston Globe reporters closest to the scene. It covers the expected ground detailing the horrors of the bombings but also serves as a testament to the resourcefulness and resilience of the Boston community.

iTunes – $14.99

Frog Music
by Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue’s first book, Room secured her reputation as a bestseller, but rather than staying with familiar territory, her second book is a dark murder mystery set in San Francisco in the year 1876. Frog Music mixes literary eloquences with vigorous plotting that really shows Donoghue’s range and talent as writer.

iTunes – $10.99

Movies

August: Osage County

Based on the Tony-award winning play of the same name, August: Osage County is both dark and hilarious thanks to an incredible cast of strong women who step into the roles of the dysfunctional Weston family. Meryl Streep is pitted against Julia Roberts after losing her husband, but others like Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin and Margo Martindale add divergent paths of drama for the family in crisis.

iTunes – $14.99

Mistaken For Strangers

Mistaken for Strangers is about two out-of-orbit siblings hell bent on finding harmony with one another. It pits Matt Berninger, frontman of the almost-famous band The National against his slacker brother Tom, an aspiring filmmaker. Mayhem ensues when Tom is hired to film the band’s breakout tour but eschews his duties in hopes of using the band’s fame to springboard his own troubled career.

iTunes – $14.99

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Ben Stiller’s latest film sees the comedian jump into the sensible shoes of Walter Mitty, a shy film developer for Life magazine who also has a tendency to slip in and out of daydreams. When his job, and that of his co-worker/crush are endangered, Walter sets out on an extraordinary journey of his own. Some of the gentle humor from the 1947 Danny Kaye classic survives, though greatly enhanced with a giant dose of modern CGI effects.

iTunes – $14.99

For those who thought Office for iPad was too late to the party, the numbers tell a different story. Today Microsoft announced that Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote combined have been downloaded a staggering 12 million times in one week.

If you doubt that number, then just take a look at the App Store charts.

Vine has added video messaging. After today’s update, video messages (or VMs) can be sent to friends on Vine or through SMS and email.

A six-second message can be sent to more than one person, but not as cleanly as Instagram Direct works. A new conversation thread will be opened for each person you send to, meaning you have to send the same video multiple times.

Apple’s thermonuclear war on Android has thrown the company into the courtroom more times in the last five years than ever before, so in an effort to make U.S. patent laws bend to its will, Apple has joined forces with some some of its old enemies, IBM and Microsoft to form a U.S. lobbying supergroup to fight patent trolls and push new legislation through congress. 

Today Facebook Messenger was updated with the ability to make free voice calls over WiFi both domestically and internationally. Making calls over a cellular connection uses data. The features works similar to FaceTime Audio, which is natively baked into all iOS devices and Macs.

Facebook Messenger technically added VOIP (voice over IP) calling in January 2013, but the feature has been limited to the US, UK, and Canada until now. Facebook users with the Messenger iOS app installed can be called with a new phone icon at the top right of a conversation thread. The calling interface looks almost identical to Apple’s stock Phone app in iOS 7.1.

Messenger was recently updated with group messaging and forwarding. After WhatsApp was bought by Facebook earlier this year, it was revealed that VOIP calling is coming to that app as well in the coming months.

Source: App Store

Sure, we all love a good game of Civilization V, but we also all know that the epic turn-based strategy can really suck up our time.

That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about Hero Generations, a Rogue-like strategy game with a unique, personal question at its core: what will you do with the limited time you have left?

You’ll have plenty of choices, but your character will age one year for each turn in the game. If you want to truly influence the kingdom, you’ll need to find a mate, settle down, and have a child.

Your offspring, then, becomes the next controllable character in the game, with all the experience and items that you amassed before you died.

If that doesn’t intrigue you, I’m not sure what will.

The TYLT RUGGD is an iPad Air case that makes protection its priority. Its tough outer shell, triple reinforced corners, and “micro energy absorbing cushions” make it ideal for clumsy commuters who want to make sure their beloved tablet doesn’t get damaged on the train to work.

It’s also practical, with a built-in kickstand for watching movies on the go, and its two-tone design aims to provide a striking look that’s “more awesome that any other [iPad] case on the planet.”

The RUGGD is available in gray and green, and it costs $49.99. Let’s find out if it’s worth it.

Amazon finally unveiled Fire TV, its much-anticipated set-top box, at an event in New York City on Wednesday. Priced at $99 and powered by Android, the device will take on rivals like the Apple TV, Google Chromecast, and the Roku 3 — but how does it stack up against these already popular devices?

We’ve put together a handy comparison chart to help you decide which is best for you based on hardware, services, and price.

When in a rush it can be easy to misplace something important. Next thing you know you’re looking everywhere trying to spot what you’ve lost. In the app What’s The Difference the objective is to spot five differences between two like pictures. Can you beat all levels and spot all differences before time runs out?

Take a look at the video and find out what you think.

This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application What’s the Difference? ~ spot the hidden objects in this photo puzzle hunt! – Candywriter, LLC, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

I’m kind of obsessed with monitoring and comparing numbers like blog views and podcast downloads. It’s probably a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I made up my own word for it: “metriculous.”

Whether is an app that satisfies that part of your brain, if you have it. It lets you compare today’s temperature, precipitation, wind, and humidity to the same day last year. The temperature panel is free, but you can unlock the rest — and any future ones — for $2.99.

So it’s basically a cool-looking weather app with an extra layer of trivia on top of it for crazy people inquisitive, metriculous types.

Source:Whether App – Free | Sturmware