Cult of Mac

Seeing how far you can go has been a common theme in many games in the App Store. Since the release of hit apps like Temple Run and Subway Surfers, players everywhere have become fans of this “endless runner” genre. The app The Collider is an original endless runner that has players dodge obstacles for as long as possible while in a rocket. Do you think you can handle the increase in speed and climb the high-score charts?

Take a look at The Collider and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application The Collider, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.

If the rumors are indeed true and Apple is planning to release a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone this year, both screen sizes may not arrive at the same time.

Seems like all the kids these days are using YouTube to listen to songs. It used to be trivially easy to play videos in the background, though, by just starting a video in the YouTube app or in Safari, and then just switching out to another app.

These days, however, the latest iOS version has changed that, and switching out of the YouTube app or Safari with a video playing stops the playback. Never fear, though, there are a couple of workarounds.

Google Now notifications can now be seen in your Mac’s menubar thanks to today’s Chrome update. The feature has been in beta for awhile, and now it’s finally available for all.

Wow, is this app fantastic. Even if you’ve never written a lyric or performed music, you’ll be able to create and share a professional-sounding song recording with new music app, Tunedra.

As a musician, I’m simply stunned by the ability to quickly prototype and edit a song right on my iPhone.

Simply plug in some headphones, tap Record, and start singing. Tunedra will tune your voice and add backing tracks in a variety of styles that match the melody you’re singing. Once you’ve recorded your masterpiece, you can play it, edit it to make it sound less–or more–auto-tuned, and then share it with other Tunedra users or on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email.

Need a way to hold your iPhone up in portrait or landscape mode? Hate wrapping it in some bulky case that hides the natural tech-beauty of Apple’s best smartphone design?

The Breffo GumStick aims to solve your problems, friends, with a minimalist iPhone stand that looks–and works–like a stick of gum.

“The Breffo GumStick is deceptively simple to use,” said Breffo CEO Patrick Mathews in a statement. “It feels perfect in your hand and entices you to want to hold it and mold it.”

When iTunes Radio launched last spring, music streaming services like Pandora and Spotify took cover from the impending Apple invasion, but radio streaming apps like TuneIn Radio might be in Apple’s sights now as well.

Starting today iTunes Radio will feature National Public Radio as its first news channel for the audio streaming service. NPR’s channel will feature a 24-hour live stream with news, along with pre-recorded shows, but it won’t be the only news channel in the iTune Radio lineup.

I’ve always been interested in origami, but it’s been hard to find directions that consistently make sense. It’s all dashed lines and dotted lines and arrows pointing in vague directions, and it’s supposed to be relaxing, damn it. But Origami Club is here to help you out with video tutorials in which a pair of helping hands walk you through the entire process, even pausing occasionally to point out details on potentially complicated steps.

The videos are also surprisingly calming just to watch even if you don’t end up with a little mouse or whatever. But I think you want to end up with a little mouse.

Source:Origami Club – Free | Alexey Liger

You know the drill: You’re up against an endless stream of foes moving toward you, and all you can do is move back and forth and shoot. They may be space invaders or enemy fighters or weird … animal things or something, but it’s always up to you and your single dimension of movement to stop them.

And then TriBlaster shows up and is all, “Pssssh, let’s double that.” So the developers added in a jump button, and suddenly things get completely different.

That’s right, people. Two dimensions. Welcome to the future.

Following a change to VAT (value added tax) legislation in the United Kingdom, there have been a lot of reports suggesting that Apple customers in the U.K. may soon have to pay more when buying from iTunes and the App Store.

As it turns out, those reports are likely incorrect.

You see, Apple has been charging Brits 23% VAT on digital content until now — but the U.K. VAT rate is only 20%.

This Cult of Mac Deals promotion is going to do its part to bring your speakers back to life.

The Griffin Twenty is a system that takes your existing speakers and allows you to do something new with them. You don’t need an iPhone speaker dock, or Bluetooth speakers, or cables. Connect your favorite speakers to Twenty, and it acts as your stereo receiver for pure digital sound. And right now you can get The Griffin Twenty for 30% off – just $69.99.

Tim Cook might have claimed that iPhone 5c demand “turned out to be different than we thought” on Apple’s recent quarterly earnings conference call, but there’s one company that doesn’t seem too upset about the 5c’s performance: Apple supplier Pegatron.

This week, our intrepid Games Editor Rob LeFebvre brings readers of Cult of Mac Magazine all the news from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

There were dueling VR 3D headsets, discussions about sexism in the games industry, contests, awards and plenty of action on the show floor.

But the million-dollar question this year was: How do I make the next Flappy Bird?

Essentially the Garage Band of coding, smart iPad coding editor Codea has received a major update.

Adding a new iOS 7 interface and full 64-bit support for the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, Codea 2.0 also includes “a brand new unified asset system that supports sounds, music, images, and more,” according to developer Two Lives Left.

Apple is set to start producing all its iPhone batteries on automated production lines starting later this year, according to a report from DigiTimes.

The decision is reportedly related to minimum wages rising in China — combined with labor shortages and high turnovers of staff, who have to be trained to use the manufacturing machinery.

What if Apple’s iWatch is’t an iWatch at all? What if it’s a spec, like CarPlay, that lets folks like Casio and Rolex put an Apple chip inside their watches to make them talk to your iPhone?

Problems solved:

• Apple doesn’t have to get into the fashion watch game, or make “ladies” and “gents” watches.
• The watch industry gets a shot in the arm (pun intended) as watches get useful again.
• You don’t need a power-sucking display. The iPhone is the display.

The little BOLT Charger Battery is as clever as it is good looking. The USB wall-charger packs a backup battery into its tiny body, as body that leads its maker to call it the “The World’s Smallest Wall Charger + Battery Backup.”

I’m not sure how true that it, but who cares? It fits in your pocket and it’ll juice your iPhone twice, even without a wall to shove it into.

The already-great GeoTagr app has been updated to v4.4. This doesn’t sound like much, but there’s one huge new feature in this update: support for geotagging photos stored in your iPhone or iPad’s local photo library.

Have UK Apple users seen the end of 69p app downloads?

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has closed a tax loophole, which may result in iTunes and App Store prices in the UK rising by as much as 20% from 2015. The loophole meant that international companies including Apple were able to sell digital content in Britain through Luxemburg, where tax is as low as 3% — compared to the 20% it is charged at in the UK.

The Tactivo Mini case for the iPad mini lets you lock down apps so they can only be used when you insert a smart-card into a slot on the back. The idea is that businesses and government agencies can secure software on mobile devices, which sounds like a neat idea.

RoomScan is a crazy app that seems like it should never work. It lets you use your iPhone to measure the rooms in your home and turn them into floor plans, and all you have to do is walk around and tap the iPhone on the walls.

Apple has continued rolling out its 3D Flyover support to Maps users — adding Perth (Australia), Saint-Tropez (France) and Cordova (Spain) to its list of available cities.

Apple and Comcast are in the early stages of negotiating a streaming TV service, according to The Wall Street Journal. The service “would use an Apple set-top box and get special treatment on Comcast’s cables to ensure it bypasses congestion on the Web.”

Rumors have been saying that Apple is working on a TV streaming product for years, and this latest report suggests that Apple is concerned about its customers have enough bandwidth to make the experience worthwhile at home.

Animation and modeling are very tough to learn on your own, so this Cult of Mac Deals offer aims to make the process that much easier.

With The 3DS Max Tutorial, animation and modeling have neever been easier. Designed for the beginner, you do not have to have any prior experience using 3DS Max to get the most out of these video animation or modeling tutorials. You will learn about materials and mapping, lighting, and how to operate cameras within 3DS Max. Finally, you will learn to animate, render and add special F/X to your models. And you’ll get the whole course for just $39 – a savings of 60%!

The announcement of Android Wear, and smartwatches from LG and Motorola, was greeted by the public as: “Oh, look — a new kind of gadget!”

But the wearable revolution in general and Google’s Android Wear initiative in particular, is barely even about gadgets.

The smartwatch revolution is about three things: devices, smartphone apps and cloud services.

You’ll note, however, that these are listed in order from least to most important. Here’s why Google’s total dominance of the third aspect of the smartwatch revolution will make them unbeatable.