Cult of Mac

I remember when the Apple Quicktake was a revolutionary new product. It was an odd, squarish thing that you held up to your eyes like a strange pair of binoculars and it took photos at a then-astonishing 640 by 480 pixels. It was bulky, though, and quickly replaced.

No one took pictures with their phones.

As soon as June of 2007 rolled around, the iPhone debuted with a 2 megapixel camera. It wasn’t as good as the point and shoot I still favored, so it stayed in my pocket (at first). More and more, though, the iPhone was with me when I wanted to take a picture, and my Minolta was not.

Each successive iPhone model increased not only the megapixel count, but the iPhone camera itself, from the lenses to the internal sensors, received update after update, until–honestly, who carries around a point-and-shoot anymore?

This week’s issue of Cult of Mac Magazine celebrates that fact with an entire volume dedicated to tips and tricks befitting the one camera we all have in our pockets at all times, giving you practical, technical tricks on all things iPhoneography. Cult of Mac’s own photography guru, Charlie Sorrel, weighs in with some choice technical advice on photography that applies across all cameras, iPhone or not, while Olloclip’s Michele Baker and Camera+’s Lisa Bettany drops some wisdom on how she got her best iPhone pictures.

Of course, we’ll have the usual Genius column and Best Apps and Media from the past week to share with you to, so head on in and enjoy the issue.

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include a sleeping aid for nerds, a clever alarm, and a way to avoid looking at other people’s lunches.

Here you go:

Developer Fixdit sees no reason why your nerd love should have to stop just because you’re unconscious. So now we have Hypersleep, a space-themed sleep aid that includes white-noise-ified versions of the engine noises of various science-fiction vehicles. You can nod off to the engine idle of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D or the background hum of the 10th Doctor’s TARDIS. Or some other equally dweeby drones.

And that’s where the Nerd Tax comes in: The default noise is free, but additional (read: recognizable) sounds cost $0.99 each. But I’m pretty sure that if the sound of Serenity’s engine will help you nod off, you’re willing to pay that dollar.

Hypersleep – Free ($0.99 for additional sounds) | Fixdit

My Smart Alarm wants you to be on time, but it also knows that you can’t just walk out the door looking like that. So it lets you build up a list of things you need to do to get ready (showering, shaving, impromptu Nerf-gun battles) as well as travel time. You tell the app when your event/appointment is and check off your pre-game tasks, and it will alert you when you need to start getting ready.

It won’t tell you if that outfit looks dumb, though; you’re on your own there.

My Smart Alarm – Free | Aliyu Odumosu

An official Metacritic app exists, but it’s pretty basic; it only shows you new movies. Metascore is also basic, but in a completely different way. It allows you to look up the Metacritic aggregate number for anything on the site, including movies, video games, TV shows, and music. You just type in what you’re looking for, and it gives you the number.

And when I say it gives you the number, I mean that it only gives you the number. You’ll have to go somewhere else if you want to read the reviews, but this is still a handy app if you’re just looking for a general rating.

Metascore – Free | Pinxit

Photo-sharing social apps like Instagram are fine and all, but most of them have one flaw: You can’t tell them not to show you pictures of people’s lunch if you don’t want to see them. Enter Just…, a quick-and-easy place to post and look at photos that asks you upfront what you want to look at. So far, it includes 11 categories including Automobiles, Cats, Dogs, and, yes, Food, if you’re into that.

It’s easy to put up your own work and like and share others’, and the feeds already have some beautiful pictures for your enjoyment.

(Apologies to Mr. Albano for the crop job up there.)

Just… – Free | FiveIron Software

We’ve already covered multimedia platform Narr8’s transition from iPad to iPhone, but this week, the company released a standalone app just for biographical comics about some of history’s great thinkers and doers. Biographics offers 13 “episodes” that offer tons of information about some fascinating figures. The first two episodes, which cover Nikola Tesla and Sigmund Freud, are free, and the rest are available for $0.99 each. Subjects include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Vlad Dracula, and Martin Luther King.

That’s a lot of ground they’re covering, there.

Biographics – Free | Narr8 Limited

Whether you’re an illustrator, concept artist, traditional artist, professional photographer, or designer, Corel® Painter® X3 will give you all the tools you need to unlock new artistic possibilities.

As digital art continues to make its way into the mainstream, Painter is about as realistic as it gets, and an invaluable resource for any artist. If you are making the move from traditional to digital, Painter will make the transition as painless as possible. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 30% off for a limited time — just $299!

To aid in its uphill battle against Apple and Android, Microsoft is adding a voice assistant of its own to Windows Phone 8.1 and according to the latest details she could pass as Siri’s sister.

Inspired by AI character from the Halo series, Cortana will replace Bing-search in the update and act as a mix between Siri and Google Now, according to the Verge, but the UI and personality will be pretty similar to Siri:

If you’ve used iTunes for a while now, you know how to set the Equalizer to a variety of pre-set and custom settings to make your music sound the way you want it, right? You simply head up to the Window menu, and choose Equalizer, or hit Option-Command-Two. The Equalizer window will show up, and you can click on the pop up menu at the top there to pick a setting you’re happy with.

But what if you want to set your Equalizer differently for different tracks? It’s pretty easy to do, but you’ll probably have to hop into the View options in the list view to make this work.

The first Macintosh clone in the world was not one of the Apple sanctioned systems released in 1995, such as those from companies like PowerComputing, Radius, Umax or Daystar Digital. Nor was it the Outbound laptop in 1989, a hybrid system produced using Mac ROMs taken from working Mac Plus systems.

No, the first Macintosh clone was the Unitron Mac 512, a unauthorized copy of the 512k “Fat Mac” produced by a Brazilian company in 1986. And it was a pretty darn impressive copy. The fallout from that effort nearly help start a trade war between Brazil and the United States; to prevent theft of Intellectual Property, Apple and other companies lobbied Congress to hike import taxes on Brazilian goods like oranges and shoes as a response.

And as we know, nobody messes with Tropicana …

It’s not a widely known story. Pieces of this long-forgotten chapter in Mac history can be found scattered on websites around the world. Here is the fascinating tale of the first Macintosh clone in the world.

Apple began rolling out its two-step verification system for your Apple ID last year, adding an extra layer of protection for users. Now it is making the security feature available in more countries — including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Spain.

The concept of the two-step verification system, for those unfamiliar with it, is to make you enter a code (sent to a single trusted device) each time you make changes to your account, or make a new iTunes or App Store purchase using a new device.

The world’s leading online survey platform SurveyMonkey finally has an app available in the App Store — letting iOS users on the move create surveys and polls, send them to out, and then monitor the result as they come back in.

It’s one thing for Samsung to diss Apple in an ad campaign, but apparently another entirely for filmmakers to diss Samsung.

That’s according to a new report, stating that Samsung allegedly pressurized a Korean online newspaper to kill coverage of an anti-Samsung movie. The president of NewDaily Biz supposedly ordered editors to take down an article about the film Another Promise, which offers a fictionalized criticism of working conditions for people working in Samsung’s factories.

Apple is reportedly planning to open a new Apple Store in Eastwood Towne Center, in Lansing Township, Michigan, according to new documents.

A contractor working for Apple recently filed an application with town officials to begin work on an almost 6,000-square-foot retail store at a shopping center at 3025 Preyde Boulevard.

Apple’s already “big-ass” North Carolina data center is about to get even bigger.

Based on an erosion permit filed with Catawba County on Wednesday, Apple is looking to build an additional structure onto the side of its existing already enormous complex. Made of precast concrete wall panels, along with steel columns, this add-on is set to add 14,246 square feet, and be around 25 ft tall.

Google was willing to trump Facebook’s $19 billion offer to buy mobile messaging service WhatsApp, new reports suggest.

While it is well known that Google was interested in acquiring WhatsApp, it was previously thought that the company was only willing to offer $10 billion. Not so, according to The Information, which claims to have spoken with three people involved in the negotiations between the two parties.

Ever wonder how your iMac stays so silent, despite being equipped with three separate fans?

A new patent application, published Thursday, details the innovative computer fan used in present generation Macs and MacBooks.

The U.S. Postal Service will sell a collectable stamp of Steve Jobs in 2015, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. The design of the stamp is still being developed, and the exact date of availability is not yet known.

The late Apple co-founder has become even more of a cultural icon since his passing,. His memory and legacy continues to be honored in everything from Smithsonian exhibits to the Grammys.

Other notable figures to appear on postage stamps next year include Johnny Carson, Ingrid Bergman, Elvis Presley, and James Brown.

Source: The Washington Post

Via: Engadget

Control Center was one of the top touted features added to iOS 7, but while the new swipe up gesture to toggle it is great, you might find yourself using multitask function more, so Bill Labus created a gorgeous iOS 8 concept that merges multitasking with control center to give you quicker access to your most used controls.

“Flicking up from the bottom of the edge allows the multitasking app views to be tied directly to the gesture, which allows for direct manipulation and avoids having to wait for a passive animation to complete before interacting with them.”

Developers can grab the Xcode project and take it for a spin or you can get your fill from the video teaser below:

If you have a soft spot for beautiful book bound notebooks like the famous Oxford Black n’ Red, then you’re going to love the SLIMS for iPad mini from BUKcase. Made using traditional book binding techniques, it’s almost identical at first glance — but when you open it up you find its pages have been replaced by a handmade wooden frame that lovingly cradles your iPad mini.

Born in the U.K., and also available for the iPad Air, SLIMS isn’t just a protective case, but also a stand for typing and watching movies. It accommodates all of your iPad’s buttons, ports, and cameras — so you never need to take it out — and it has built-in magnets that automatically wake your device up and put it to sleep.

SLIMS comes in black with a grey, blue, or red interior, and BUKcase will even emboss your name on the front.

The story of WhatsApp — the messaging app just purchased by Facebook for an insane $19 billion — is pretty fascinating.

Seems that the app’s founders did everything right by doing everything wrong. They flouted Silicon Valley rules like getting press and adding features, and instead focused on making the app do one thing well: send messages. It all sounds very Apple-like, and it’s been well covered in fascinating features from Forbes and Wired that are currently doing the rounds.

One detail in the Forbes piece flew out at me in particular — detailing how Apple accidentally created the core element of WhatsApp by adding a new iOS feature.

Here at Cult of Mac, we take quite a few screenshots. Our current favorite for taking and annotating them is Share Bucket, and of course you can always use Preview or Grab to take your screenshots, but what about the basics? Not everyone needs fancy screenshot capabilities. Aren’t the built-in tools in OS X good enough for most of us?

They sure are, and while we’ve covered a couple of them before, we haven’t just put them all in one tip to rule them all. Or something like that.

I’ve covered a few list-makers before, but this one just replaced Notes as my go-to item tracker.

It’s called UpWord Notes, and it is a simple but powerful app that lets you create, manage, and update lists with just a few simple commands. You can swipe left to make bullets and mark things as important, and you cross items off with a swipe to the right. Coolest of all, you can pull down, refresh-style, to remove all crossed-off items at once.

Plus it all syncs to Dropbox, so you can rest assured that you can always get your grocery list anywhere.

Source:UpWord Notes – $0.99 | Lau Brothers LLC

Tengami has gathered a bit of a following during its development due to its beautiful, pop-up-book art style and zen-like demeanor. It has relaxing music, a dialogue-free narrative, and puzzles that are clever and occasionally very tricky.

The game is out now as a universal app for iOS devices, and it has a lot of expectations to live up to. Can it live up to the excitement?

It absolutely does, delivering an endlessly fascinating experience in one of the most beautiful packages you have ever seen.

https://youtu.be/kCQUbkt68T0

Fleksy, the alternative keyboard for iOS and Android, has just been updated to allow any developer of iOS apps to easily implement its streamlined features for free. The software development kit (SDK) will allow any app that needs a keyboard effortlessly include Fleksy’s system without making any changes to the app itself.

“We’re very excited to finally make our SDK available to hundreds of thousands of developers around the world. We learned a lot from the private beta and today’s release brings the most beautiful, streamlined 3rd-party keyboard experience yet for iOS” said Ioannis Verdelis, COO of Fleksy.

If you made a New Year’s Resolution to get in shape, it’s never too late to start, and this Cult of Mac Deals promotion offers a device that will definitely help ease you into a consistent exercise routine.

With a hi-res, color touchscreen and built-in apps, the Striiv Smart Pedometer is way more than a step counter. Striiv features a proprietary “activity motivation system”, designed by leading experts in game design and behavior change with one goal in mind: to get you to walk a lot more. And now you can get Striiv for the lowest price ever offered: just $59.99 courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals!

Like many of us, Travis Jensen spends his lunch hour taking iPhone pics.

Unlike most of us, however, his moody urban landscapes and punchy black-and-white portraits have been the object of two photo books, shot with fellow street photography veteran Brad Evans, Tenderloin U.S.A. and the #iSnapSF Field Journal.

When T-Mobile sent out an email to BlackBerry-using customers suggesting that they switch to an iPhone 5s, the response from the BB faithful was loud and angry.

Even BlackBerry CEO John Chen said that he was “outraged” by T-Mobile’s behavior.

As a make-good, the network operator has now said that it will offer any customer who wants to upgrade to a new device $250 for a BlackBerry phone — or $200 for any other smartphone, including the iPhone.

By now I’m sure you’ve heard that Facebook has acquired WhatsApp for a ridiculous $19 billion, but it wasn’t the only Silicon Valley giant that was willing to stump up silly stacks of cash for the cross-platform messaging service. Sources say Google was also interested, but it only offered $10 billion.