BlackBerry has announced that it will not renew the T-Mobile (U.S.) license to sell its products when it expires on April 25 — ending a decade-plus relationship between the two companies.
“BlackBerry has had a positive relationship with T-Mobile for many years. Regretfully, at this time, our strategies are not complementary and we must act in the best interest of our BlackBerry customers,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen in a statement.
The Google-owned Nest thermostat arrives in the U.K. today.
Created by “Podfather” Tony Fadell and former Apple colleague Matt Rogers, the Nest thermostat is an iOS-connected device which allows users to control and automate their indoor heating.
It can be purchased from Nest’s online store, alongside Amazon, Apple, and B&Q — priced at £179, or £249 with the recommended professional installation included.
Apple has released its latest weekly list of the most downloaded games in the App Store.
Unlike a near-realtime list like the iTunes chart, this list reflects cumulative total downloads over a 7-day period — in this case March 24 to March 30.
Perhaps the most notable inclusions are the success of Papa’s Freezeria To Go and Backflip Madness in the paid charts, and the Threes!-inspired 2048 and Boom Beach in the free charts. Here’s the whole list:
Phil Schiller took to the stand yesterday for the second day of Apple’s latest patent trial with Samsung.
Schiller mostly rehashed the same defense he used when the two companies met in court last November, also over a patent dispute — namely that Apple was the company which took the risk developing the iPhone, and that Samsung’s copying has hurt the company.
“I believe it has caused damage for Apple in the marketplace,” Schiller said. “It has caused people to question some of the innovations we’ve created and Apple’s role as the innovator. That challenge is made harder in the copying.”
Spotify will today rollout a stunning redesign of its entire app catalog. The company has overhauled its desktop, web, and mobile offerings with entirely new user interfaces that make the content the key focus — and you can take a sneak peak at them now ahead of their release.
iWork’s web apps have lagged behind Apple’s iOS and Mac apps in terms of design and functionality, but no more! Apple has redesigned the iWork for iCloud suite to make it look more like its iOS 7 counterpart.
Available to use now on iCloud.com, today’s updates to Pages, Numbers, and Keynote brings a unified look and feel to the iWork suite across all platforms.
Apple has rolled out what is perhaps the most important update ever to its mobile advertising platform, giving anybody with an Apple ID the ability to create iAds for free.
Using the updated iAd Workbench tool, anyone can make their own iAd campaign in a simple, Apple-style interface. It just got a whole lot easier to make iAds for iOS devices.
And that’s not all Apple has added.
I have a kind of standing checklist of things I like and things that annoy me in bag design. Booq’s Python Mirrorless Bag flags just one of my “annoyances,” and that’s a purely aesthetic matter. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but it’s pretty damn good at what it does.
Apple is considering a buyout of a division of Renesas Electronics that specializes in display chips for smartphones. The buyout would give Apple engineering expertise to help improve the iPhone’s display “sharpness and battery life,” according to Japanese business site Nikkei.
Apple already orders all of its liquid crystal display chips from Renesas, and the Japanese company is responsible for powering about a third of the world’s small to midsize LCDs. Instead of using the chip division of Renesas like an outside contractor, Apple wants to bring it in-house.
While the app store is updated every week, many new addicting games come with it. With so many developers creating their own versions of popular apps, only some succeed at adding their own original twists. The new app Tiny Frog is an arcade game that takes a familiar popular style of gameplay and adapts it into a new form. Help the frog reach as many lily pads as possible in 15 seconds. Do you think you can tap quick enough to get the highest score of all your friends?
Take a look at the video and find out what you think.
This is a Cult of Mac video review of the iOS application Tiny Frog – redBit games, brought to you by Joshua Smith of TechBytes W/ Jsmith.
There are times when you just need to clear off the icons on your Desktop, like when you’re giving an important presentation at work. No one wants to see all the images you’ve saved from the internet, right?
I used to solve this problem with a Sort Me folder on the Desktop, just select all in a Finder window focused on the Desktop, and drag it all to the Sort Me folder.
There’s an even faster and easier way to hide all the icons on your Desktop, though, using the Terminal.
If you’re on the go and missed last night’s episode of The Daily Show, Comedy Central’s new official app can hook you up. It offers a wide selection of programming, including talk shows, series, and standalone shorts. All the new stuff is right there for the viewing, but you’ll have to go through a cable-company login to check out everything else.
Just be aware of your surroundings. You don’t want to be another crazy person laughing on the bus.
What are you doing?
You would tell yourself, “I am reading a review for Sometimes You Die.” You take it for granted that I am going somewhere with this. My opinion is just a shadow. A number.
Alright, I can’t keep that up, but before you leap into the Internet and punch me in the face, know two things: First, that was a taste of the narration for the oddball minimalist platformer Sometimes You Die. And second, I’m still recovering from my last face punch, so don’t be a jerk.
As for the game, it’s brilliant. You don’t even need to read the rest of this. Just go buy it and get it in your brain-hole.
Note: This article previously appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine, available in the App Store.
Godus is the upcoming game from god-game specialist designer Peter Molyneux. The game will play on Mac and iOS seamlessly, letting you create and nurture your own little island paradise on one platform and then watch it develop on the other.
“We want to reinvent the genre of god-games,” Molyneux told Cult of Mac from his vantage point in a suite at the swanky Intercontinental Hotel.
Anything that keeps you juiced up and ready to go is a good thing, and with this Cult of Mac Deals offer you’ll never be stranded without power.
The Dark Energy Reservoir is the world’s most powerful, compact, and stylish portable charger. Be free, have fun, and stop worrying about your battery life, this charger has you covered for the long haul. And at only $114.99 through this exclusive offer, it won’t take all the power out of your wallet either!
Remember that slick-looking Diablo-style hack and slash game we raved about, KingsRoad? We were astonished that such a full-on console-level action RPG game was available on Facebook when we saw it demoed at the Game Developers Conference a couple of weeks back.
Well, now we can finally come clean and share the news: KingsRoad is coming to iPad. You’ll be able to play with all your Facebook buddies, too, as the game will use the very same servers across all platforms.
Loot and raid on my Mac, and then take it on the go? Yes, please.
BlackBerry today announced its latest BBM update for Android and iOS. In addition to adding stickers, the release supports larger file attachments, and the ability to share photos in group chat.
Head on over to the Hyper Light Drifter Kickstarter page and you’ll immediately get a sense of just how hot this new bame from Heart Machine is going to be. With a modest goal of $25,000, the project garnered over $645,000 before it finished, and it looks to be well worth every pledge.
Just check out the moody, atmospheric video below, and you’ll see why we’re hyper-excited for this new indie adventure game.
Future iPhones may feature Olloclip-style interchangeable lenses — according to a patent published Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The newly-published patent describes a mechanism by which an iOS devices could be fitted with a bayonet mount, onto which various different types of lens could be attached.
The bayonet mount would allow lenses to be securely fastened to the body of an iPhone, while also keeping a relatively inconspicuous profile when not being used.
Apple is leading the way when it comes to U.S. companies stockpiling cash, according to a note from Moody’s Investors Service.
Holding $158.8 billion, Apple’s cash pile is close to 30x what it was in 2004, when Apple has cash reserves of “just” $5.46 billion. This means that Apple holds 9.7% of total corporate cash outside the financial sector.
Think sport should be less about good sportsmanship and complex rules, and more about violence?
Clearly developer HooAh agrees on some level, because its upcoming iOS game Bench Clearing re-imagines baseball (a.k.a. “America’s favorite pastime”) as a massive free-for-all battle.
Thinking about grabbing that sweet HTC One M8 to use as a camera? Forget it – while HTC was spending all its time adding that second, depth-measuring camera, it forgot to make the main camera good enough to take decent pictures.
iMore has tested the M8 and the iPhone 5S side by side, and the iPhone wins in every round (strictly speaking the M8 wins one, but if you look a the pictures you’ll see that it was the iPhone that took the better photos).
While most of the iBeacon applications so far have involved making retail and entertainment more pleasant to consume, a new exhibition at a New York museum aims to use Apple’s beacon technology to demonstrate the horror of landmines.
Taking place between 11am and 3pm on April 4 at the New Museum, the event lets members of the public experience a “digital minefield” by downloading a smartphone app called Sweeper and putting on a set of headphones.
Visitors then move through the exhibit space, potentially triggering iBeacons if they get too close. If this happens, visitors hear the sound of an explosion through their headphones, followed by a short audio excerpt telling the story of a person affected by landmines.
Apple may be moving ahead with its larger 5.5 inch iPhone, but according to a new report it’s running into a few problems along the way.
Reuters reports that while Apple is set to begin mass producing displays for its 4.7-inch iPhone as early as May, the eagerly anticipated 5.5-inch version is suffering supply chain issues relating to the production of in-cell technology for the larger screens.
