Cult of Mac

This week Apple announced CarPlay, a rebranding of ‘iOS in the Car’ from WWDC last summer. The software is an extension of iOS that is designed for hands-free use of Siri, Apple Maps, Phone, Messages, and services like iTunes Radio.

While Apple’s focus with CarPlay is clearly on its own apps and services, the company has chosen to launch with four “select third-party audio apps.” It’s good news for the chosen four, but how Apple plans to work with other developers on CarPlay integration in the future remains unclear.

God of Light has a simple, fun concept. It has pretty graphics and some cool music by British electronica outfit Unkle. And it has realistic light physics. And all of these are great, but a lot of games look and sound good.

But God of Light is special because in addition to all of these good qualities, it also offers something else: a meditation on what puzzle games are, what they do, and how and why we play them.

And the best part is that the developer accomplishes this not by telling us, but by building all of these qualities into the gameplay and mechanics.

Assassin’s Creed has become a successful game franchise for good reason. It features a free-flowing, ninja-style parkour and open-world environment that is exectued expertly and privdes hours of gaming fun for players. And Cult of Mac Deals has an offer that’s going to satisy the most ardent of fans.

The Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood Mac Bundle gives you two installmetns of the popular franchise, sporting the incredible graphics and free-flowing gameplay you know and love…and all for just $14.99!

Apple has today announced that Peter Oppenheimer Apple, its senior vice president and chief financial officer, will retire at the end of September after 18 years with the Cupertino company. Oppenheimer will transition the role of CFO to Luca Maestri, Apple’s current vice president of finance and corporate controller. If you’re wondering about Peter Oppenheimer now, you can learn more about his career and contributions to Apple.

Flappy Bird may be gone from the App Store, but that’s not to say it’s been forgotten.

French urban artist Invader — whose work appropriates the pixelated look of 8-bit video games — just unveiled a giant piece of street art in Paris depicting the iconic pipe-dodging avian itself.

For readers in France, the piece can be checked out at 81 Rue De La Boetie.

Are people not buying the iPhone 5c because its colorful exterior selling point is rendered useless by the fact that most people keep their iPhones in cases?

That’s one of two theories put forward by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who is the latest person to suggest that the iPhone 5c isn’t doing too well in the marketplace.

According to 1,003 consumers polled last week by Munster, just 6% of smartphone buyers plan to pick up an iPhone 5c — down from 9% in December.

Developers Tabasco Interactive have released the trailer to their new game Star Horizon.

A gorgeous on-rails shooter, with a $3.99 asking price and no IAP, Tabasco has submitted the game to Apple, and is hoping to launch it on March 20.

You play as John, a disenfranchised human pilot whose ship is controlled by Ellie, an Artificial Intelligence which is programmed to help pilots stay mentally strong throughout combat and and which cannot kill human beings. After being placed into hibernation for 1,000 years John must discover what has happened to the galaxy and try his best to save it.

Intel has reportedly acquired wristwatch health tracking company Basis Science for between $100 – $150 million.

Basis — which was allegedly shopping itself around to potential buyers including Apple, Google, and Microsoft —  currently occupies around 7% of the market with its Basis Health Tracker Watch, versus competitor Jawbone’s 21%.

Brett Terpstra’s Marked app started out as a quick way to preview any Markdown file as it would appear when rendered into rich text or HTML. It still does that as well as any of the apps that have their own built-in Markdown preview, but Marked is now arguably something else entirely. It analyzes your text and gives detailed statistics, as well as suggestions on how to improve your prose.

The latest version detects the passive voice.

One month after being launched, Paper – stories from Facebook has received its first significant update.

The addition allows users to share articles via Facebook Messages, text message, or email, as well as create stories in languages that use multi-stage input, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

There’s also the possibility of turning off sound effects to “enjoy the silence,” alongside a variety of other improvements designed to make Paper more reliable.

Back in the 1980s, and probably continuing into the 1990s, every neat gadget was shoehorned into a credit-card-shaped form factor. Magnifying glass? Credit-card-sized. Vinyl record de-duster? Credit-card-sized. And so on.

The Jumper Card continues this excellent heritage by putting a Lightning charger, a 30-pin dock connector and a microUSB charger into the same credit-card-sized package, ready to be slipped into your pocket. But not your wallet, because, like all “credit-card-sized” gadgets, this one is way too thick.

Arguably the App Store needs another ninja game like it needs another Flappy Bird clone. So what does the boldly-titled Epic Ninja Game offer that you don’t get from, say, Clumsy Ninja or Ninja Chaos?

This very clever trick from Poor Signal lets you add anything you like to your Mac’s Day One journal app using IFTTT (It This Then That), Hazel and – of course – Day one. And becasue Day One syncs with your iPad, it’s available there, too.

What can you do with this? You could automatically add all your Instagram photos to your journal, pipe in a weather forecast (although Day One does that by itself these days), items from an RSS feed, your heart rate (via Withings’s IFTTT channel), or anything else.

What? Yes. AnyFont is a proper, available-in-the-App-Store iOS app that lets you install fonts system-wide, for use by any app that allows access to the full list of iOS system fonts. How does it manage this sandbox-skipping magic? Installation profiles.

What comes first, the iOS or the car? It’ll be a toss up to see what turns more heads when Ferrari debuts Apple’s new CarPlay system tomorrow at the Geneva motor show.

The drool-worthy demo of the new iOS pairs it with the Italian carmaker’s much-anticipated California T, a 3.9-liter, direct-injected V8 convertible. Apple’s new Siri-controlled system will also be in play on the Ferrari FF, aka  the Ferrari Four, a four-wheel drive, four seater, pictured above.

Maranello announced as of tomorrow, March 4, Ferrari drivers can benefit from a “simpler and safer” system to use their iPhones behind the wheel.

Stay tuned!

Via Ferrari

Months of iOS in the Car leaks finally culminated this morning with Apple revealing its new CarPlay system. It’s not quite the name we were expecting, but automakers like Ferrari, Volvo and Mercedes have already integrated Apple’s system into future cars.

Volvo showcased CarPlay in its new XC90 SUV this morning, but here’s what CarPlay will like like for those rolling in a Benz:

Jony Ive takes extra pains to keep his personal life private, but Leander’s book Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products shines a light in corners of Jony’s life and at Apple HQ that few have ever seen, especially when it comes to Apple’s design processes.

The book garnered praise from readers during its release last Fall, but we were super-giddy this afternoon to see that the world’s leading Apple analyst, Horace Dediu, just plowed through all 320 pages and says it’s the best book about Apple so far.

Jony Ive by Leander Kahney @lkahney The best book about Apple so far.

— Horace Dediu (@asymco) March 3, 2014

Over the last few years we’ve devoured Dediu’s insightful and intriguing Apple analysis on his site Asymco, but here’s what he had to say about the book:

Ridiculous Fishing had a good 2013. The breakout game from the Dutch developers at Vlambeer was Apple’s best iOS game of the year. It also won a coveted Apple Design Award. We called it “stellar” and “addictive” in our roundup of the best iOS games of the year, and it spawned countless clones in the App Store.

Now the same two-man studio is at it again with a new game that’s coming out on March 18th, Luftrausers.

 Peter Oppenheimer doesn’t get a lot of the spotlight at Apple – unless you’re tuning into a quarterly earnings report – but the Apple CFO plays a huge role in Apple’s profitability and now he’ll be lending his talents to Wall Street by joining Goldman Sachs Board of Directors. If you’d like to know more about his career and impact at Apple, check out this article.

Goldman Sachs announced this morning that Oppenheimer will join the board immediately as an independent director of the firm:

We use our devices everyday tapping and swiping to perform the actions we need to. Effortlessly doing these things time after time, it’s only natural for us to become quite good at doing them. In the new fast-paced app Teggle you can put your gesture skills to the test. Do you think you have what it takes to get a high score?

Take a look at Teggle and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Teggle brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Thanks to this Cult of Mac Deals offer, the days of lugging around a clunky wallet are over.

That’s a good thing. Clunky wallets are unorganized, unnecessary, and can even mess up your back. Anyone familiar with Kickstarter knows how prominent minimal wallets are, and that’s because there is a need. Meet the HuMn Wallet 2, the most successful minimal wallet on Kickstarter to date. This is the ultimate minimalist wallet that is built to last a lifetime. And Cult of Mac Deals has this exceptional wallet for just $49.99 for a limited time.

You’ve probably seen the do-it-yourself, social media comics called Bitstrips in your Facebook feed at one time or another, and maybe you want to see more, or you’d like to find some that might actually be funny.

Best Strips for Bitstrips might help; it’s an app that only posts strips that pass muster with the moderators. You can rate what’s there and even submit your own for consideration if you’re feeling confident and/or brave.

Or you can just keep taking your chances with the ones in your feed, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Source:Best Strips for Bitstrips – Free | Echo Bay Apps

Monkeys are cute.

They’re fuzzy, they make little noises, and they act like tiny people if you train them well enough. And they’re mostly cool to hang out with once you factor out bad seeds like that one in Raiders of the Lost Ark that was a Nazi. And the ones who attack humans. And those other ones who attack other monkeys and steal their food for no reason.

Actually, you know what? Monkeys are awful. Here’s Monkey Boots, a fun game about getting one killed repeatedly.

Volvo today confirmed that it will be one of the first to support Apple’s new CarPlay platform in its upcoming XC90 SUV, and it has released a new video that demonstrates how the technology will be used on the road to send messages, view maps, and control apps like Spotify.

Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform for creative projects, hit a major milestone today, when it officially racked up $1 billion in pledges.

According to the company’s statistics page, its $1 billion in total funds represents $859 million backing successful projects — with the $1 billion total referring to all projects, including those that are still in progress, or else which failed to reach their funding goal.

To date, there have been 57,121 successful Kickstarter projects — earning the company just under $43 million in the 5% cut that it takes of all successful projects.