Cult of Mac

After months of building and testing, Apple has finally taken the wraps off iOS 7’s biggest update ever, so to celebrate they’ve add a new iOS 7.1 section to homepage touting the update.

iOS 7.1 update https://t.co/0IJFsNWa8Z

— Philip Schiller (@pschiller) March 10, 2014

The long awaited update introduces CarPlay to the iPhone along with improved Siri controls, HDR Auto, an improved calendar, and lots of bug fixes

The new promo page gives an overview of some of the changes, but for a deeper look at all the design tweaks, check out our gallery of iOS 7.1’s new features.

Source: Apple

Months of beta testing has finally culminated with the official release of iOS 7.1 to the public, Apple’s biggest update to iOS 7 since its launch last September.

The update doesn’t come with big new features, but Jony Ive and the software team have made a ton of small design tweaks, most notably in areas like the Phone app, shutdown interface, calendar, as well as a number of Accessibility options that tweak the UI further with Button Shapes and darker colors and improved contrast.

Here’s a rundown of all the design tweaks you’ll be getting on your iPhone today:

Apple has just started rolling out its latest iOS 7.1 update with performance improvements, design tweaks, and more. This is the first major update we’ve seen since iOS 7 made its debut last September, and it’s available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

If living next door to Tim Cook is on your bucket list you just missed the narrow window to scoop up the condo next door to the Apple CEO.

After being put on the market just a few weeks ago the four bedroom condo owned by Google Ventures co-founder, Bill Marris has been bought for a little under $3 million.

I love living in the future, but sometimes I feel a little spoiled. This app wants you to find useful things, but it thinks that your iPhone or iPad keyboards are just too hard to use.

Shot & Find is a visual-search app that lets you quickly search YouTube, Amazon, Google, Wikipedia, or Spotify just by snapping a picture of a movie, video game, or CD cover. It works really well, too. I did a YouTube search from a DVD, and it pulled up the trailer. A Wikipedia search from a 12-year-old video game also worked just fine.

The app’s effectiveness is almost as ridiculous as its premise, but you can’t argue with results.

Source:Shot & Find – Free | Arctic Toucans

Sure, it’s Monday, but what better way to blow off your entire day than with some gaming?

See, Cellar Door’s Rogue Legacy is one of them fancy-pants Rogue-like-like action games, and it’s got all the sticky, addictive power of “just one more go” with a whole heap of extra “play me more” sauce.

Typically $14.99, it’s on sale right now for a measly $5.09, so get your feets over to Steam and give it a try. Though you really might want to hook up an Xbox 360 controller, as the keyboard controls are just, well, odd.

I like Angry Birds as much as the next person, but it’s a little too, I don’t know … angry.

Sure, those birds have valid beef with the egg-stealing pigs, and destroying their blocky structures is a lot of fun, but I don’t find any joy in it. Revenge is a rough business, and it takes its toll. Just ask the eponymous villain from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Oh, wait, you can’t — he’s dead. And also fictional, but whatever.

Demolition Crush, however, is a new free-to-play game that brings fun back to rampant and wanton destruction, and it’s worth your download.

Your iPad Mini is slim, clean and beautiful, and we’re sure you want to keep it that way. If you’re looking for extreme protection without the bulk, Spigen’s Tough Armor has changed the game in protective cases.

The iPad Mini Tough Armor Bundle lets your iPhone’s hardware keep up with its shiny new iOS 7 software. This bundle of iPad Mini goodness comes with the Tough Armor case, the Crystal Screen Protector, and the Kuel C10L Sync and Charge Cable to make sure your smartphone is protected and charged at all times. And all for the low price of just $54.99.

Back in the day, I used to care for a couple of labs full of Macs. Invariably, I’d find myself in the lab at the end of the day, shutting them all down for the night. I’d run up and down the rows of eMacs or whatever they were at the time, and hit the power button, then click on the Shut Down button. Or, if I was feeling frisky, I’d just hold down the power button until they shut off.

This took some time, needless to say. I wish I’d known of these useful keyboard commands to shut down or sleep the Macs, saving myself several minutes each day.

Keeping with the times, musician Neil Young is set to launch a storming attack on Apple’s iPhone iPad iWatch iPod with his forthcoming PonoPlayer.

Young is set to exhibit the PonoPlayer, alongside a music download store called PonoMusic, at this year’s SXSW.

Popular (and speedy) Reddit client app AMRC has just received a major update.

Adding a new icon for the app, the update also offers (for a $2.99 in-app purchase) some premium features, including night mode, search, and shortcuts to save subreddits.

The Stubilizer is an accelerometer-and gyroscope-controlled mount for GoPro cameras, and it’s designed to smooth out shaky video shot with the action sports cam. Designed by extreme sports junkie Stuart Smith, the rig is small and light enough to mount ion a helmet, and it uses little motors so it doesn’t’ need giant cantilevers and counterweights.

iPhone users may be “wall huggers” according to BlackBerry CEO John Chen, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not taking a page or two out of the Apple playbook.

Describing his vision for BlackBerry in a recent interview with the New York Times, Chen compared his present situation to that of Steve Jobs returning to a beleaguered Apple in the late-1990s.

Mujjo’s new “Understated & Low-Key” case collection is out, and if you like slick and simple leather sleeves for your devices then you’re in luck. I have my eye on two pieces: the Slim Fit iPhone 5s Wallet and the Slim Fit iPad Air Sleeve , both in tan.

iOS comic book-fans can rest easy with the knowledge that Marvel’s Avengers Alliance app is set to be updated with new missions and content relating to this year’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

The Winter Soldier missions will be available to play later this month, while the Guardians of the Galaxy content will include one-by-one introductions of the film’s characters.

The Miracle Machine is an iOS-connected device that turns bread into fish. Wait, no… It turns water into wine. Only instead of doing it lickety-split to please an angry crowd like that Jesus fella did back in the time of the dinosaurs, it does it with grape juice and yeast, and takes however long it takes for wine to ferment to make.

Arq Backup is like Time Machine for your Mac, only it uses Amazon’s Glacier and S3 for storage instead of a local disk. It also looks dead easy to use.

This is pretty neat – it’s a clutch bag for a lay-dee, and it has a pocket for the iPad, as well as a spot inside for your iphone. If you were to lead it up with your cash and credit cards too, you could get one step closer to losing all of your valuable at once.

I’d say there are enough times you’d need to protect your iPhone whilst using it outside that something like the Surf Sound Play is necessary. I’d also say that Pyle Audio can and has done better. The Surf Sound Play case might work and sound great, but it looks like somebody found it in the dumpster round back of the worst dime store on the block.

Holographic iPhones armed with pico projectors have been a favorite of concept makers since at least 2011, but some things never go out of style, as SET Solution proves with this stunning concept video of the holographic iPhone 6.

The rumors swirl that when Apple unveils the next iPhone in September this year, it will boast a much larger screen. But what would a thinner, 4.7-inch iPhone with a 1080p display, upgraded 10-megapixel camera, and a 9% thinner enclosure look like?

According to this concept by designer Sam Beckett, nearly identical to the current iPhone 5s. Yes, it would be bigger, but it would otherwise have the same proportions, short of shaving a millimeter or two off of the side bezels.

If Apple does release a so-called iPhone Air, I bet this is how they will actually do it. It will look like a natural evolution of the iPhone line so far, not a major design shift.

Despite being a world where one-third of new iOS games are Flappy Bird clones, it’s impossible to say that the App Store doesn’t serve up some genuinely original game fare from time to time.

The eccentrically titled Floyd’s Worthwhile Endeavor is one such title. Resembling one of Terry Gilliam’s surreal animated openings to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, this is a 2-D platformer, that borrows its inspiration (and its graphics) from the the 19th century photography of photo-pioneer Eadward Muybridge.

Three new security phones have come into the spotlight recently: The Geeksphone Blackphone, the Boeing Black, and FreedomPop’s Privacy phone.

These phones take similar routes to security, from what we know so far. They’re loaded with encryption, security apps and other features.

But there are two feature on at least one of these phones that should be a standard part of Android.

The $629 Geeksphone Blackphone, made in partnership with Silent Circle, uses a forked version of Android called the PrivatOS. First, the system confronts you with choices when you install an app, enabling you to choose exactly what personal information is available to each app — individual permissions on each source of data that each app requests. And second, after apps have been installed, a “Security Center” lets users enable or disable specific permissions for each app.

Why aren’t these two features built into standard Android?

Today is Daylight Savings Time in the United States, which is always a hazardous time of year for owners of iOS devices. Why? Because try as Apple might they just can’t seem to release a version of iOS that does not have that are triggered by the switch to Daylight Savings Time.

No joke: Apple has had bugs come up in iOS after the switch to Daylight Savings Time in 2010, 2011, and 2012, while 2013 saw a similar New Year’s Bug screw up Do Not Disturb for device owners. Now here we are in 2014. Does iOS 7 contain a Daylight Savings Time bug?

It does! If you open Calendar on your iOS 7 device, you will notice that while the time of your operating system is set correctly, the line marking the time in Calendar is an hour old. It’s a minor bug, but hey, how would we remember Daylight Savings Time at all if our iOS devices didn’t go wonky once a year because of it?

Thanks: Shane C!

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