Cult of Mac

It’s not likely that anyone consistently takes pictures that look like one of the supervillains’ hideouts in the old Batman TV show, but even a slight tilt can make a photo look strange. Orient is an app that will eliminate your photography’s chronic case of the skews by using your iPhone’s gyroscope to ensure that every shot you take is level and straight.

You can choose from a bunch of aspect ratios, and then Orient works almost exactly like your regular Camera app, complete with Instagram-style filters.

Just, you know. Straighter.

Source:Orient: The Self Aligning Camera – Free | Ajit Katti

Sometimes, you just gotta break something.

But you probably don’t want to break your own stuff, and people get mad when you smash up their things. This is where gaming often enters the picture: It’s an environment in which you can demolish the crap out of things with no consequences. And it’s even more satisfying when the things break realistically.

Smash Hit is a game about literally that, and it’s incredibly satisfying.

Compact Bluetooth speakers are one of the most useful electronic inventions since the MP3 player. Though smaller, more portable speakers are great on the go, but they lack the power often needed around the house or in the backyard. Cult of Mac Deals has a special edition Bluetooth speaker that doesn’t just sound great…it looks great, too.

Freaq n’ Fabulous is a re-envisioned version of Soundfreaq’s highly-praised, compact Bluetooth speaker, the Sound Step. This hi-fi speaker delivers crystal clear audio with its signature sound profile, crafted for natural bass response and vocal clarity. And you can get it for only $99 – 34% off the regular price – during this limited time offer from Cult of Mac Deals.

One of the lesser known functions of the Keychain on OS X is its ability to add Secure Notes, notes that require you to enter your Keychain login password to view them.

There are a ton of third-party apps out there that allow you to password protect your notes, but Keychain is built right in to Mac OS X, and has been for a while; it’s a pretty nifty thing to have when you need it.

Better yet? The current version of Keychain will let you put images and video into your notes, making it a snap to secure your media files to your password.

Apple has today had its request for a permanent injunction on Samsung’s patent-infringing products denied. The Cupertino company was awarded $929 million in damages, but it argued that the monetary sum was insufficient, and that a number of Samsung products should be banned.

Unu’s new Enerpak Extreme is an update to my favorite battery backup brick. In fact, I have one here on my desk ready to review, but I thought I’d tell you about it first.

The Enerpak Extreme is a 14,000mAh battery pack that can charge an iPhone or an iPad, or both at the same time. It has two full-sized USB ports, one 1-Amp and one 2.1-Amp, plus a microUSB port for charging the device itself.

A new patent, published Thursday, describes a method for carrying out wireless pairing and communication between Apple devices using biometric data.

The patent was filed August 31, 2012, and features several possible implementations of the technology, designed to increase security on Apple products.

Amid a slew of weird design and censorship choices, Pictorl for iOS, Android and PC (!) has one standout feature that sits above the sea of confusion: a fantastic non-destructive editor that uses your online images as its source.

It’s also a rather beautiful app, presenting photos with almost no chrome or clutter.

AtmoBar is Mac app that works with the NetAtmo weather station you have in your back yard (or on your balcony, for city dwellers). It sits in your menubar and gives readouts and graphs with just a click.

It sure beats just looking out the window.

It’s only been available for a couple of weeks, but iOS 7.0.6 already represents just over half of all iOS traffic.

The data was provided by Onswipe, a mobile publishing and monetization platform, and reveals that as of March 3, iOS 7.0.6 makes up 50.06% of traffic on all iOS platforms.

I won’t lie. The main reason I checked out Upword Notes is that it sounds like Upstream Color, Shane Carruth’s amazing movie about pigs (some are calling it Babe 3).

But underneath this strange coincidence (surely just another of Carruth’s crazy web of mystery) lies a solid note-taking app, one with some genuinely clever features.

Former Apple CEO John Sculley is one of the principal investors behind a new smartphone brand set to launch in India.

The as-yet-unnamed brand is being funded by the investment and acquisition company, Inflexionpoint, for which Sculley serves as a founding partner.

The brand is set to be led by Ajay Sharma, who was previously head of HTC’s India operation. The company will launch a series of smartphones, which will debut in April this year.

Apple has been accused of shifting close to $8.1 billion in untaxed profits from its Australian operations to Ireland over the past ten years.

An investigation by the Australian Financial Review got hold of a decade’s worth of financial accounts for the Irish-based “Apple Sales International” — which supposedly show how Apple shifted untaxed profits from Australia to Ireland, where the company pays just 0.7% tax on its turnover.

If non-clicky keyboards are what you’re after, and you don’t like the free one that came with your Mac, then Logitech offers some of the best options around. I own two, that I’ve bought with my own cash money, and if I had an Apple TV or Media Center setup, I’d be seriously considering the new Harmony keyboard and hub, which doesn’t work quite how you think.

Any technology maker — let alone one the size of Apple — is going to have various moral predicaments to deal with.

Recently Apple was accused of showing an “utter lack of understanding and discretion” after refusing to unlock a dead woman’s iPad for her two grieving sons.

Use Google’s Chrome on your Mac but Safari on your iPad? Do you wish you could use iCloud tabs to open that browser tab that’s open on your iPhone? You need CloudyTabs, a Mac app that puts iCloud Tabs in your menubar, and opens them in your default browser.

Mines of Mars is a fantastic mining and crafting game with a mysterious story, developed by WickeyWare and published by Crescent Moon Games. It’s along the lines of Super Motherload or SteamWorld Dig, in that you must manage your fuel and cargo space while you dig deep into the crust of the Martian planet to find ores, gems, and other secrets.

You’ll come up to the surface to fuel up, exchange ores for ingots, play some fun mini-games based on arcade classics like Berzerk.

It’s a game full of mystery and atmosphere, mostly due to the creepy storyline and amazingly atmospheric soundtrack by composer Evan Gipson. Check out the trailer below to see what it looks like.

Apple is working on a smarter version of Siri that can interact more closely with third-party apps and services, according to The Information. Right now, Apple has struck deals with partners like Yelp and OpenTable for Siri, but the goal is for the person assistant to work with just about any app.

The report mentions how Siri can’t do things like call a cab or book a hotel room, both of which are common duties of real, personal assistants.

What Apple is allegedly working on would allow Siri to send a message through an app other than iMessage, or look up weather from a different source than Yahoo. The improvements Apple is making to Siri would also work well alongside the rumored iWatch:

Those devils at Oscar Mayer have found a way to wake you up in the morning and torment you at the same time. They have created an iPhone alarm clock that plays sounds of bacon sizzling and emits the associated smell of deliciousness.

You got hungry by just reading that didn’t you.

Popcorn Time is an open source app for Mac, Windows, and Linux that acts essentially like Netflix for streaming video torrents. The project is “the result of many developers and designers putting a bunch of APIs together to make the experience of watching torrent movies as simple as possible.”

Yes, it really works. Is it legal? That depends.

Apple is planning to bring fullscreen video iAds to iOS, according to a new report from AdAge. The ads will be interstitials, meaning that they will interrupt whatever you’re doing to briefly take over the screen.

In the past, iAds have only been displayed as small banners that can be tapped to bring up fullscreen adverts. Newsstand publications can already do this on the iPad, but in the future fullscreen interstitials could be in any kind of app, including games.

AdAge has previously reported that Apple is hiring executives left and right from the advertising industry to beef up its iAds division. The same site also recently reported that Apple is building its own ad exchange to sell iAds to the highest bidder. When you put the pieces together, it looks like Apple is gearing up for a heavy iAds push for developers.

Source: AdAge

I’ve had my eye on Celsius Game Studios since I first heard about their in-development space simulator game, Drifter, back in 2012. Since then, developer Colin Walsh has continued to pour on the awesomesauce to create a game that–while still in active beta–impresses on every level.

Drifter takes place in a procedurally-generated galaxy that contains 100,000 light years worth of star systems to explore (that’s a lot of star systems–tens of thousands). The soundtrack is by indie-darling composer Danny Baranowsky (Super Meat Boy, The Blinding of Isaac) and it will thrill you in all the right places. Take a look at the trailer below to get a sense of how it looks and sounds.

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

Rick Ross – Mastermind

It’s hard to believe that the Teflon Don is already onto his sixth album, but here it is, Mastermind, and it’s Rick Ross at his best. The rap version of the Wolf of Wall Street embodies excess thanks to his obsession with wealth, and while there’s nothing truly groundbreaking about the production of Mastermind, tracks like Devil Is A Lie, Sanctified and Thug Cry feature brutal beats and the albums carries enough starpower to take out Alderaan with guest appearances from Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz and Jeezy.

iTunes – $13.99

Eagulls – Eagulls

I’d love to recommend Pharrell’s new album G I R L, but it’s not as stellar as I was hoping – and this is coming from a dude who danced his butt off to Happy, alone, more times than should be legal. However, Eagulls’ debut self-titled album is a spectacular cacophony of punky post-rock tunes that will get you moving just as much as Pharrell’s beats.

iTunes – $8.99

Real Estate – Atlas

While the Eagulls are full of energy, Real Estate’s third full album Atlas features delicate guitar melodies and swaying vocals. Real Estate borrows sounds from The Shins and Yo La Tengo while still maintaining their unique sonic footprint full of songs the capture feelings of separation, uncertainty, but most importantly, exploration.

iTunes – $13.99

Books

The Enchanted
by Rene Denfeld

For her debut novel journalist, Rene Denfeld channels her experience as a death penalty case investigator into a gut-wrenching, spelling binding debut novel. Set deep inside a decaying prison, The Enchanted features the story of York, a death row inmate on the verge of execution and “The Lady,” an investigator who dives into his history in an attempt to get his sentence reduces, but what she finds is an ugly past with parallels to her own awful history.

iTunes – $10.99

Redeployment
by Phil Klay

Many Americans find it hard to connect with the wars half a world away in Afghanistan and Iraq, so Phil Klay’s book of short stories grabs readers into the frontlines of the wars, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. The short stories are interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival as the characters struggling to make meaning out of chaos.

iTunes – $10.99

Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
by Leonard Susskind & Art Friedman

Learning quantum mechanics doesn’t register high on most people’s to-do list, but if you’re ever been curious to learn the behavior of subatomic objects through mathematical abstractions, Leonard Susskind’s new book provides a great introduction to the difficult field. Other writers shy away from quantum mechanics’ weirdness, but Susskind and Friedman embrace the utter strangeness of quantum logic but present their understandings in crystal-clear explanations that let you sink into the field at your own pace.

iTunes – $9.99

Movies

Short Term 12

Written and directed with undeniable vitality by Destin Cretton, Short Term 12 depicts the lively yet wounded intersection of messy, broken humanity at a foster-care facility for at-risk teens. Brie Larson stars alongside John Gallagher JR from The Newsroom as a boyfriend-girlfriend duo working at the center, who are tested by two troubled yet fitted residents as the struggle to contemplate their future together.

iTunes – $12.99

Oldboy

After being held captive in solitary confinement for 20 years, former advertising executive Josh Brolin is inexplicably released one day without ever getting a glimpse of his captors or their motives. With his newfound freedom, he sets off on a mission to figure out who kidnapped him and how to find salvation.

iTunes – $14.99

Genius On Hold

Steve Jobs and Woz got their start in consumer electronics by hacking together Blue Boxes for cheap, but if it weren’t for Walter Shaw the two might have never gotten the business bug. Who’s Shaw? Genius On Hold tells the story of Shaw, a telecommunications inventor who invented features like call-forwarding, touchtone dialing, speakerphone, voice recognition and many other creations we still use to this day, but he was held back by corporate greed and government monopolies and ended up working for the mob to create the infamous black box.

iTunes – $19.99

When going into the App Store it’s inevitable to find clone applications everywhere based off of the late “Flappy Bird”. While many clones can feel exactly like the original experience, the new app Jumpy Jack has taken a new twist on the gameplay genre. Are you up for the challenge in this fast paced game?

Take a look at Jumpy Jack and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Jumpy Jack brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Google released a new update for its Gmail iOS that makes it getting email faster than ever thanks to a new background refresh feature.

The Gmail 3.0 update will now retrieve your mail while the app is not open so you don’t have to keep refreshing to see if your boss finally replied to that important email in the last 5 minutes.

Also included in the update is a new simplified sign-in feature that automatically signs you into all of your Google apps once your login to just one. The free update requires iOS 7.0 or greater and is available now in the App Store.

Here are the release notes: