Cult of Mac

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.

Apple is taking on “hundreds” of new engineers and supply-chain managers in China and Taiwan in an effort to speed up product development and offer a greater range of devices, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Cupertino company has reportedly poached staff from HTC and other rival firms to create new teams in Shanghai and Taipei.

In the quiet foothills of Kentucky, a massive supercomputer is churning through data. It is hunting for new drugs to fight cancer.

Every week, the DataseamGrid processes 300 man-years worth of calculations. Yeah, that’s 300 years of calculations every week. Drug discovery usually takes 10 to 15 years, but the DataseamGrid blazes through that work in a fraction of the usual time. It is one of the largest pipelines of potential new cancer drugs in the country. Researchers here are about to start human trials this year of a new drug discovered by the supercomputer, which, if successful, may lead to an entirely new class of cancer drugs.

Is your iPhone app, awesome iPad case, or other Apple-related service so insanely great you know it’ll be the next big thing? Show it off to thousands of potential customers, journalists and investors at Macworld/iWorld by winning a spot in SF New Tech’s awesome “6 About to Break” event.

Cult of Mac is chuffed to be a media partner for the contest — we’ll be helping judge the best new apps, accessories, software and utilities tied to the Cupertino company, in the eternal quest for the next big thing.

Get a move on, though: The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. PST on Monday, March 3.

It’s free to enter and qualified entries include any newly released software, iOS applications, iPhone or iPad accessories, or Apple utilities launched in the past year. Winners will be announced Wednesday, March 12.

The six-pack stars of startup goodness get to showcase their wares at Macworld/iWorld 2014 with a 5-minute live demo plus a 5-minute Q&A in front of a live audience. Winners also receive a free kiosk at Macworld, free hosting from Rackspace and Kendo UI and Icenium full product licenses plus support from Telerik.

Bring it on!

6 About To Break contest by SF New Tech

Samsung may have flashed a bit of cash to get Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres to appear on-stage with a Galaxy Note, but it seems that DeGeneres ditched the device backstage, as she was spotted tweeting out selfies using an iPhone.

@parislemon she’s using an iPhone backstage. pic.twitter.com/eRZlAVwq3S

— Sammy (@sbanawan) March 3, 2014

Yukari Kane’s new book about Apple post-Steve Jobs, Haunted Empire, is still a few weeks away, but it’s already beginning to pick up press coverage.

A recent video interview with Kane for the Wall Street Journal sheds a bit of light on her research methods as she describes her efforts to find out more about Tim Cook.

Referring to Apple’s CEO as “still an enigma to me,” Kane describes visiting Cook’s hometown and speaking with friends and former teachers to try and find out more about Apple’s soft-spoken CEO.

Last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, a curious, unexpected thing happened: I used an Eye-Fi Mobi card to shoot and share photos from my camera to my iPhone and it worked – almost flawlessly.

As regular readers will know, I have tried Eye-Fi’s cards over and over, both here and when I wrote for Wired’s Gadget Lab, and I could never get on with them. The problems ran from annoyances to plain bad design and broken functionality.

This time, though, the card came through. In fact, I couldn’t have covered the show so well without it. Read on to see how we covered the show.

Yesterday marked Dr. Seuss’s birthday and — in honor of him and Read Across America Day — developers Oceanhouse Media have launched a massive sale on more than 60 of its Dr. Seuss apps.

As expected, Apple today announced that it is finally ready to launch its “iOS in the Car” iPhone integration setup for car infotainment systems.

Called CarPlay, Apple claims that it is “designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car.”

CarPlay is built primarily around Siri interactions, with voice commands and prompts giving users an “eyes-free” means of responding to incoming calls, dictating text messages, and accessing their music library. Apple’s Maps service is also an integral part of the system.

Tim Cook lashed out at shortsighted, bottom line-driven investors during Friday’s annual shareholders meeting — telling them to “get out of [Apple] stock.”

The exchange concerned the conservative think tank National Center for Public Policy Research, which was pushing Apple to disclose the cost of its sustainability programs, and the impact this had on the company’s earning power.

Cook was asked about Apple’s plans to have 100 percent of its power come from green sources — and whether this was the case only because of government subsidies on green energy.

Asked to commit point-blank to only pursuing moves immediately profitable to Apple, Cook responded with anger — noting that Apple does many things because they are right and just, and not simply about making a return on investment (ROI).

Castello Davarg’s latest hot leather case is the Heming for iPad, an upgraded, redesigned version of its excellent iPhone case. It comes in iPad mini and iPad Air flavors, and is surprisingly full-featured for what looks at fist glance like a plain folio sleeve.

If you have a nerd in your life, and you need to get him/her a gift anytime soon, then your search is over. Go buy them the new Lomo Konstruktor Super Kit, the “directors cut” of the original build-it-yourself plastic film camera kit that now contains not one, not two but three lenses, plus a proper viewfinder.

Did you ever try to write a blog post on your iPad? It’s easy, right? But did you ever try to add an image to that post? It’s a major pain in the ass. Plink is here to fix that. It’s an iOS app that will upload a photo to its own storage cloud, and generate a URL that is automatically copied to your clipboard. All you need to do is switch back to your writing app and paste it in.

And of course this isn’t just for bloggers. Anywhere you need to link an image – forum posts for example – you can use Plink.

I saw the Oaxis InkCase at the Mobile World Congress last week, and it looks pretty neat. The v2 “case” is actually an e-ink panel that connects to the iPhone (or other device) via Bluetooth and can show anything on its e-ink screen. The new version is modular, so you can slip in into any case for any device, and even mount it, say, on the handlebars of a bike for a sunlight-friendly readout.

A dark cloud hangs over the future of mobile communication: the spectre of Facebook controlling it all.

It’s not likely, actually. But Facebook’s intention to purchase WhatsApp for $16 billion or $19 billion dollars (depending on whether you factor in the stock-based bonuses for WhatsApp employees) involved some scary-big numbers.

The biggest of these numbers happens when you add Facebook’s current user count plus WhatsApp’s projected user count (how many users Facebook believes the service will have if current growth rates continue). The number is: 2.3 billion users.

Of course, the number is pure B.S.

WhatsApp’s current growth probably won’t continue. Facebook’s current numbers are padded with duplicate users, fake users and non-active users. And there’s always going to be big overlap between WhatsApp and Facebook users — a dude who uses both is still just one dude.

Still, when I ponder the number of people likely to be using Facebook-owned services (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger) for messaging compared to those using Google-owned Hangouts, I find myself astonished and confused. How did this happen? And what can be done about it?

Who doesn’t love jammin’ out in the shower?

Well, The Bluetooth Shower Speaker syncs up with your iPhone, Android device, iPad, or home computer – and can be played up to 10 meters away from your device. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for only $39!

The Telegraph newspaper brought to light this week an apparently widespread practice in China in which broken old iPhones are stripped for parts, and functioning iPhones are built with those parts.

The newspaper called it a “scam,” because the sellers of such phones often lie and say they’re new. And in fact that is a scam.

Our own Buster Heine calls them “Frankenstein iPhones,” and that’s a monstrously good name for it.

But I call the general idea of a large-scale refurb effort one of the best ways to improve the environmental impact of a dangerously irresponsible industry.

Teenage developer Ryan Orbuch already has an Apple Design Award under his belt thanks to Finish, his popular to-do app that’s billed as an anti-procrastination tool. Today Finish is going free in the App Store for good, but there’s a catch.

That’s right, here comes the “f” word: freemium. Users will be limited to 10 tasks and certain times can’t be associated with tasks until a $0.99 in-app upgrade is made to unlock Finish More. Calling it Finish Pro is “boring and sounds way too fancy,” according to Orbuch. Existing users won’t have to pay for the in-app upgrade.

This past week Readdle released Documents 5, the big iOS 7 redesign of their popular document manager. The download is a free update to existing users, and it brings a much-needed design refresh and several feature additions.

Apple has been in talks with record labels about releasing more albums exclusively through the iTunes Store, similarly to how Beyonce released her self-titled album in December.

According to Billboard, Apple’s VP of the iTunes Store, Robert Kondrk, had “tense” talks with label executives in January during Grammy Week in Los Angeles. Kondrk used the success of the BEYONCÉ album as evidence when arguing for the new iTunes Store model.

This time on The CultCast: hipsters have beards installed; the mysterious life of Timothy Cook; exciting rumors around the new Jobs movie; Mavericks 10.9.2’s features and fixes; why you should install iOS 7.0.6 like, right now; Netflix pays off Comcast; and we’re too sexy for this podcast.

Laugh your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin.

And thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode. Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.

Finding that close shave while traveling can be frustrating.

The battery on your electric razor will run out and you won’t have the ability to charge it unless you pack up the entire thing – cords, cradle, and all. The ShaveTech Electric Razor is USB-chargeable and is as small as the average smart phone. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for only $19.99 for a limited time.

Apple will launch “iOS in the Car” with Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo as partners at the Geneva Motor Show next week, according to the Financial Times.

While Apple has said that it has more than a dozen automobile manufacturers on board, the company is reportedly choosing to launch with the three aforementioned brands only. Apple executive Eddy Cue is a member of Ferrari’s board of directors.

Originally unveiled alongside iOS 7 at WWDC last summer, iOS in the Car is Apple’s interface for dash displays in vehicles. The extension of iOS lets the user navigate using Maps, make phone calls, control music, and use Siri without needing to touch an iPhone in the car.

Apple has said that iOS in the Car is a “key focus” for the company in 2014. A redesigned interface for iOS in the Car was discovered in iOS 7 last month. Automobile makers like Honda have been preparing their newer cars for the software with large touchscreens.

Source: Financial Times

Steve Jobs famously argued that if five million people used the Mac, cutting its boot time down by 10 seconds would save the equivalent of at least 100 lifetimes per year.

Taken on an individual basis, it’s difficult to know how many minutes of your life will be saved by using the KoolPuck Wireless Charger — but it’s almost certainly less than an hour over the lifespan of your typical iPhone.

That doesn’t really matter, though. In an age of convenience, the idea that you can charge your iPhone by simply placing it down on a massively wireless charger is a tempting one. Straightforward, attractive, and tiny, FoneSalesman’s iQi solution seems to tick all the boxes.

So how does it measure up?

If you buy an Apple TV by March 5th, you will receive a $25 iTunes gift card from Apple. The promotion began today and only works at Apple retail stores or through the company’s online store.

Apple rarely does deals like this, and the timing is interesting. A new Apple TV is rumored to come out as soon as March, and this time of year is when Apple has updated its set-top box in the past. But that doesn’t mean you should expect a new one in the near future.