Cult of Mac

Picks of the Week

Best Albums

Glitch Mob – Love Death Immortality

Los Angeles-based three-piece the Glitch Mob drift even further from their name on their second album Love Death Immortality, an album that suggests they be renamed the EDM Mob, the Big Room Mob, the Bass Drop Mob, or maybe even the Totally Accessible Yet Utterly Awesome Mob. Whatever they choose, fans will drink up this meaty and chaotic album.

iTunes – $8.99

Speedy Ortiz – Real Hair

Following up on last year’s well-received LP Major Arcana, Speedy Ortiz is kicking off the year by releasing four new songs on their Real Hair EP. You’ll find the same introspective exuberance and deep lyrics that highlighted the last album, in a more snackable size.

iTunes – $2.99

Sun Kil Moon – Benji

Despite having released six albums as an outfit already, some music critics are calling Benji Sun Kil Moon’s best album to date thanks to Mark Kozelek’s raw, heartbreaking lyrics. Each song focuses around a central character or theme combined with tightly woven narratives and sparse musical arrangements to form a masterpiece of reflection.

iTunes – $9.99

Best Books

The Book of Jonah
by Joshua Max Feldman

For his literary debut Joshua Max Feldman chose to reimagine the biblical tale of Jonah in a modern setting. As a young Manhattan lawyer, Jonah Jacobstein is a lucky, healthy, and handsome man with two beautiful women ready to spend the rest of their lives with him, but just as he’s celebrating a deal that will make him partner, a bizarre biblical vision at a party changes everything in this funny novel that moves from New York to Amsterdam to Vegas.

iTunes – $14.99

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway
by Doug Most

Before the convenience of modern mass transportation, the cities of Boston and NYC were suffering from congestion problems at the turn of the 19th century, so two brothers from one of the nation’s great families—Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York— set off on a race to dig America’s first subway. Doug Most’s new book, The Race Underground, relives the competition between Boston and New York played out in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval, life-changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and the question of America’s place in the world

iTunes – $14.99

The Martian
by Andy Weir

Sci-fi doesn’t get featured as prominently in our picks, but Andy Weir is here to bust through with his excellent debut novel about a mission to Mars that goes wrong as a dust storm leaves astronaut Mark Watney stranded. Injured, carrying limited supplies and presumed dead, Watney has to use his intelligence and grit to work to stay alive.

iTunes – $11.99

Best Movies

Gravity

Gravity was without a doubt the most visually spectacular movie to watch in 2013. Now that its available to view on your TV screen the enormity of space might not feel quite as vast as in the theater, but Sandra Bullock’s plight from the space shuttle back to Earth is no less captivating. And don’t forget about George Clooney ready to smother you with charm.

iTunes – $19.99

The Summit

On August 1st 2008, 18 mountain climbers reached the summit of K2. Just 48 hours later, all but 7 were dead. The Summit documents the deadliest day on the world’s second tallest mountain, but it’s not all doom and gloom. Expect some incredible mountain cinematography and jaw dropping reenactments based on testimonies from those that survived the horrific climb.

iTunes – $14.99

The Counselor

The Counselor didn’t blow up the box office quite as expected last year, despite boasting a cast that includes Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, but now can judge it for yourself as Fassbender plays a savvy lawyer who gets entangled in a treacherous drug.

iTunes – $14.99

Kitchen Utensil. Mobile Office. Study Stand.

Sure, those don’t all go together, but Twelve South’s new iPad Air and iPad mini stand looks like nothing you’ve seen before. It might as well find a place in a kitchen drawer, next to all the Pampered Chef gizmos you’ve got in there.

This new iPad stand — made for the iPad Air and iPad mini — is foldable, easy to use, and just plain sweet looking.

This poor soul on the Apple discussion forums has just lost his iPhone, in Bangladesh of all places. He’s asking how to block the thieves from accessing his personal data.

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have Find My Phone enabled on the device. He’s out of luck, in Bangladesh of all places.

You, though, you’re lucky and now have warning: iPhones are among the most stolen items in urban areas. Here’s how to keep your personal data safe on a stolen iPhone or iPad.

How many times have you had to replace an iPod because you dropped it in water? Almost all of us have suffered the agony of liquid damaged devices at least once — but this is something you never have to worry about if you buy your iPod shuffle from Underwater Audio.

Every unit the company sells is protected by an invisible coating that allows you to get your iPod shuffle wet. And we’re not talking about a few splashes here; you can literally take it swimming, wear it in the shower, and forget about having to keep it covered up when you’re out jogging in the rain — and it will continue to work just as it should.

“Our waterproof iPod shuffle will go with you from land to sea and everywhere in between,” Underwater Audio says — so of course, I jumped at the chance to put those claims to the test.

Jelly King ambitiously introduces himself as the king of all jellies…but that’s not quite true. Before he can take his rightful place as gelatinous royalty, he has to bounce his way through a harrowing adventure to collect diamond shards. No problem, right?

Jelly King is the kind of platformer that works well on mobile devices. In his excitement, the jelly you control is constantly bouncing. All you have to do is guide him left or right as you clear obstacles or pick up powerups. Jelly King bounces a certain distance each time you move, so the challenge is to anticipate future moves based off of where you start. If you’re too far away from the edge when Jelly jumps over a gap he might clear the first obstacle, but swiftly fall off the next.

While the smash-hit app Flappy Bird has been removed from the App Store, developer Dong Nguyen has still found success with a few of his other games. Consistently ranking at the top of the app charts how will Nguyen’s new game Shuriken Block rank in your interests?

Take a look at Shuriken Block and see how it compares to the hype and popularity of the late Flappy Bird.

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

Hypersleep — Health & Fitness — Free ($0.99 for additional sounds)

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 – Fixdit

Heroes went and got themselves in a big damn hurry.

It’s not enough anymore that they just get through the dungeon and fight the terrifying monster at the end. These days, they feel some strange need to do it all without stopping. It’s escalation, I guess; the new guys want to show off, so they run. Endlessly.

Dungeon Highway is the story of one such valiant champion who runs and shoots and dies a lot. And then you start over, and he runs and shoots and dies some more.

See that? That’s the excellent looking retro action platform from Levels or Lives, Super Fun Games, and Crescent Moon Games. It’s called Crystal Catacombs, and was successfully funded on Kickstarter in July of 2012.

To continue the process, the developers want to get Crystal Catacombs on Steam, which is perhaps the most well-known gaming distribution platform for Mac, Windows, and Linux games. The process there is known as Project Greenlight, and Steam members all vote on the games they’d like to see on Steam.

The first thing you notice about OUYA is that, unlike everything else stacked under your TV, it’s not a massive box that just sits there collecting dust. Rather, the Yves Behar-designed OUYA is a small and elegant piece of hardware that deserves to be on display.

Don’t let OUYA’s small size fool you, though – it was built using technology similar to what powers our smartphones and tablets, (with a bit of tweaking to the quad-core 1.7ghz processor) and is driven by Google’s open-source Android 4.1 Jellybean operating system. And Cult of Mac Deals has the OUYA for 32% off the regular price – only $85.

BlackBerry today announced the arrival of BBM 2.0 for Android and iOS, which brings BBM Channels, BBM Voice, and other new features to the popular cross-platform messaging app. The Canadian company first teased this update back in December, and now it is finally rolling out through the App Store and Google Play.

A patent application published Thursday reveals how Apple could incorporate flexible OLED displays into future devices to improve their function without sacrificing strength. The technology could get Apple closer to producing bezel-less devices in existing product lines such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook as well as speculative product categories like the iWatch.

The patent refers to a technique for reducing a display border by bending the sides of a display surface in such a way that electrode materials used in the device could be made to stretch rather than break when bent or folded. The application, titled “Flexible Displays” and filed in July 2013, means that future Apple devices need not be limited in size by the requirement that they include metal or plastic housings.

Rovio began teasing its latest Angry Birds spinoff on Wednesday — without actually revealing the name of the new game. But based on the promotional poster above, which was posted on the studio’s new blog this morning, we now know the title will be based around the lovable Stella and her feathered friends.

There are quite a few web sites these days that will send you notifications when you visit them via Safari. Sites like NBA.com and the New York Times will drop you a dialog box when you visit them for the first time to ask you if you would like to receive the push notifications.

If you allow them, all hope is not lost should you reconsider your decision. You can drop right into System Preferences and disable them on a site by site basis.

Comcast, the number one cable provider in the U.S., has announced that it plans to acquire Time Warner Cable, the second largest cable firm in the U.S., for a reported $45 billion.

The deal — set to be officially announced later today — will see Comcast offer $158.82 per share in an all-stock deal.

Around half of U.S. consumers are hoarding their old iPhones in cupboards and sock drawers — representing an inventory worth around $13.4 billion in total.

According to the annual “Mobile Mountain Study” conducted by research group OnePoll for resale site SellCell.com, this figure is down from the 55% of people who admitted to holding onto their old smartphones last year — although the total amount of money being left on the table is up from last year’s sum of $9 billion, thanks to the growing smartphone market.

“Americans are still unaware of the money they can make by trading in their old mobile,” says SellCell founder Keir McConomy.

A new survey of 2,000 iPhone users saw 3/5ths of respondents admit to having a “blind loyalty” to the Apple brand.

78% percent claimed they “couldn’t imagine having a different type of phone now,”  while 52% said they had been “really impressed” with the iPhone.

Tivoli has long made great-looking, full-toned radios and speakers with a distinctly classic style, and the new Model Three doesn’t change any of that. But there’s one addition which is distinctly modern. The nine-year old design now comes with Bluetooth.

Ahead of the 86th Academy Awards show, the Heads Up! app dreamed up by this year’s host Ellen DeGeneres has received a timely update — offering questions related to the Oscars.

Joining existing game categories including Celebrities, Animals, Accents, and Characters, the new time-limited Oscars game deck offers users a chance to brush up on their movie trivia knowledge in the most time-pressured setting imaginable. “It’s perfect perfect for your viewing party, or preparing for the big night starring Ellen,” the app’s developers state.

Apple has released its eighth annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report.

The forty-page document focuses on Apple’s progress in providing the 1 million+ people working in its supply chain with “safe and ethical working conditions,” as well as the company’s efforts to ethically source minerals.

The Togo Dock is a new pocket-sized iPhone dock from the makers of the Une Bobine, the super-successful “handy bendy iPhone-holding snake.” The new gadget is as simple as can be: it’s a little plastic reel with a magnet on the back, which turns a lightning cable into an iPhone dock that can be stuck to anything – as long as it’s made of ferrous metal.

Musx is like Instagram for music. Post tracks you like, add a few words and your followers can check out the same tunes. Why the hell didn’t anyone think of this before?

Pixite’s fantastic Tangent app gets a big update with v1.5, adding in a new “Urban Decay” pack that lets you point your iPhone camera at a building and have it crumble into rubble and dust, and then snap pictures as zombies and wild animals reclaim what us evil humans were only ever borrowing.

Wait, no. Urban Decay is a new set of fancy filters for grungifying your pictures. Just make sure you get the right Tangent app, as the developer has been plagued by a copycat who keeps putting fake versions of the app up on the store.

Here’s a neat take on the small pocket strobe or flash. Instead of forcing you to buy and manage the charging of a ton of AA batteries to use it, the Neewer TT850 is a hot-shoe strobe that uses a 12-volt li-ion battery. This not only makes charging easier, but also means you get a lot more pops per second thanks to the fact that the battery can dump 12V instead the flash instead of the paltry 6V that 4xAAs can manage.