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Why Google Glass Should Lose the Camera

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I love Google Glass the way it is, and love the camera. But I also want people to understand Google Glass in particular and wearable computing in general. Right now, Glass is widely misunderstood.

The problem is that the existence of Glass’s camera is distracting everyone, and causing the public to completely miss what this technology is all about.

Just look at Glass’s reputation in popular culture.

Apple Retail Stores Celebrate The Mac’s 30th Birthday

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For the 30th Anniversary of the Mac, it’s not just Cupertino that is getting in on the celebration: Apple retail stores have also been marking the occasion with a special 30th anniversay window display, commemorative black t-shirts, and even special name badges for the employees.

Check out some pictures of the t-shirt and name badges below.

Watch Steve Jobs The Master Showman Reveal The Mac To The Public In Rare Footage [Video]

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On January 24, 1984, Steve Jobs unveiled the Mac, a personal computer which changed the world. You’d expect Steve Jobs to have his customary swagger as he unveiled the computer which would change everything: in fact, he seemed kind of nervous. He was, after all, still basically a kid.

In this recently discovered footage of Jobs’ second time showing off the Mac — this time in front of the Boston Computer Society six days later, on January 30, 1984 — things are different. Jobs seems like just as much of a showman as he did when he unveiled the iPhone. It’s impressive stuff, and a fitting way to remember the man on the 30th anniversary of the most famous PC ever.

If you’d like more information about the presentation, check out Techland write-up.

Source: Technland

Art Text 2: Photoshop For The Non-Technical Designer [Deals]

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One of the best-selling apps in the Mac App Store designer category, Art Text 2 is a layer-based design application that will help you turn text into art. Whether it’s for business or personal needs, you can create logos, web graphics, and buttons – all in professional quality – without the steep learning curve of Photoshop or Illustrator.

And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 54% off the regular price – only $9!

The Macintosh 30th Anniversary Celebration Event [Liveblog]

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Some of the original Mac dev team, who are gathering to celebrate the Mac's 30th birthday.
Some of the original Mac dev team, who are gathering to celebrate the Mac's 30th birthday.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — The Cult of Mac team is heading down to Cupertino to cover the special 30th anniversary celebration of the Mac, which promises to feature many of the original members of the Mac dev team.

Hit the jump for our liveblog of the evening’s events. We’ll start posting at about 5.30PM PST, about 30 minutes before the event is scheduled to start.

The Mac 30th Anniversary Celebration is being held at Cupertino’s Flint Center; the same 2,400-seat venue where Steve Jobs first introduced the Mac on January 24, 1984.

It was organized by Steve Jobs’ old friend Daniel Kottke, and filmmaker Gabreal Franklin, an early Mac software developer who is making a video documentary about the era.

There will be music, unreleased photos and video, and a big group photo. The event will feature three panel discussions:

  • Conception — Daniel Kottke, Larry Tesler, Rod Holt, Jerry Manock, Marc LeBrun, and Bill Fernandez will talk about the origins of the Mac.
  • The Birth of the Mac — Bill Atkinson, Randy Wigginton, Andy Hertzfeld, Bruce Horn, George Crow and Caroline Rose will tell their first-hand stories about creating the Macintosh.
  • Coming of Age of Mac — 3rd party software developers including Charlie Jackson, Jim Rea, Heidi Roizen, Ty Roberts, David Bunnell, Marc Canter, Maryline Delbourg Delphis, Adam Hertz and Steve Jasik will talk about the software that gave the Mac critical mass.

During the evening, Apple’s original angel investor and 2nd CEO, Mike Markkula, will gather 100 members of the dev team on stage for a group photo.

If you’re in the area, tickets start at $109.75 each and are available via Ticketmaster. Yeah, it’s pricey, but after expenses, all proceeds will be donated to charity, organizers say.

Apple Is Already Way Ahead In Mobile Payments

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Pundits (including me) have been predicting Apple’s entry into the mobile payment space — using a smartphone instead of a credit card to buy stuff in the real world — for years.

It hasn’t been a hard prediction to make. The financial rewards are enormous, and Apple has filed multiple patents around mobile payments over the years.

Now, it’s finally happening. And although Apple hasn’t really started yet, they’re already way, way ahead of just about every other player.

Remembering 30 Years Of Mac, This Week On The CultCast

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128K of RAM? Who could use it all?! We celebrate 30 years of Mac and remember some vintage models of yore on our newest CultCast. Plus, Google Contacts will make you a cuter nerd; Beats music has a feature others should copy; Jailbreaking is losing its luster; and a trusty iOS app makes watching unsupported video formats a cinch.

Enjoy a few laughs whilst getting caught up on 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.

Thanks to FreshBooks for supporting this episode! FreshBooks is the simple cloud accounting solution that’s helping thousands of new entrepreneurs and small business owners save time billing and get paid faster. Sign up free today.


Get Over 9 Hours Of WordPress Training And Build Your Dream Website [Deals]

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WordPress is a powerful tool that’ll give you the opportunity to unleash the power of the web and now with this concrete and easy-to-follow course you’ll be able to learn everything you need to know to get started. Have an idea that you’d like to take to the web? Want to build a website for someone? Look no further, because Cult of Mac Deals has got you covered with this offer.

In this multi-part WordPress training course from InfiniteSkills, you’ll learn everything you need to know to create a completely custom site from the ground up with no experience needed for just $39 – a savings of 60%!

This Week In Cult of Mac Magazine: Celebrating The Mac

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@Susan Kare. Her four sketches for the Cult of Mac Magazine cover. Which one do you prefer?

This week, we’re all about the Mac. Cult of Mac Magazine fetes the 30 year anniversary of the Macintosh, arguably the first Apple product to gain a large (dare we say cult?) following.

To do it right, we’ve got an exclusive cover created by Mac icon designer Susan Kare; the final version you’ll find in Newsstand was picked from the four sketches above by Cult of Mac readers who voted on Twitter and Facebook.

The issue focuses on the impact of the Mac and includes a Q&A by Cult of Mac publisher Leander Kahney with Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki plus recollections straight from the 80s of Macworld founder Dave Bunnell. Along with the birthday celebrations, we’ll also feature our weekly picks from iTunes and the App store along with advice from an actual Apple store Genius.

This week also marks the debut of latest version of our app, brought to you by the smarties over at XOXCO using Packagr, a multi-platform digital publishing tool. We think it’s pretty great. But if you run into any problems downloading the mag, email me directly or hit the “send” tab top right and we’ll sort it out for ‘ya.

Cult of Mac Magazine

 

It’s Party Time at Apple HQ! Check Out These Photos From Cupertino

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Apple is getting ready for a 30th Mac Anniversary party at the company HQ, according to pictures that have just started showing up on Instagram.

Several pictures from Apple’s Cupertino HQ taken in the last hour or so show giant birthday banners that have been hung off buildings. “Happy Birthday, Mac,” they say.

The photos are accompanied by hashtags mentioning #party and #concert. One picture shows technicians unpacking equipment, possibly for a live music act. In 2011, the British supergroup Coldplay played a set during the tribute to Steve Jobs.

Here are some more pictures of the party preparations. There’s also pictures of the big posters around the campus quad with thousands of employee’s names.

UPDATE: The U.S. pop band One Republic played the gig that was attended by hundreds of employees. Here’s a short clip of the performance.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook even tweeted about it. “Celebrating Mac’s 30th with some of my closest friends in Cupertino with OneRepublic,” he wrote. “Awesome.”

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This iPhone-Controlled SmartPlane Makes Time Fly [Review]

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SmartPlane by TobyRich
Category: Bluetooth airplane
Works With: iOS devices
Price: €69

While there are a whole lot of smartphone-controlled helicopters on the market, there are surprisingly few smartphone controlled planes available. It is this niche that German toy company TobyRich is hoping to fill with its recently launched SmartPlane.

For those of us who grew up on a 1980s diet of Top Gun, this is your chance to “buzz the tower” again and again — all using your iPhone, and done from the comfort of your own home.

Tim Cook Talks Mac, Customer Emails, ‘iRing’, And NSA In ABC Interview

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As part of Apple’s celebration of the Mac’s 30th anniversary, the company invited David Muir of ABC News to its Cupertino headquarters for a rare interview with CEO Tim Cook. A couple teaser clips have already aired, and the full special will premiere tonight on ABC’s World News With Diane Sawyer.

In the interview, Cook was joined by Apple executives Craig Federighi and Bud Tribble. Federighi is in charge of Apple’s software, and Tribble was a member of the original Apple Macintosh design team.

There are several juicy tidbits to be gleaned from the interview excerpts, including the confirmation that Apple’s new factory in Arizona will manufacture sapphire glass. Cook also shared his thoughts on the iWatch rumors, NSA, and more.

Colorfully Crazy TCHOW Rainbow Is Kid APProved

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There are a bunch of apps out on iOS for kids, from educational apps to sports apps and more. Sure, you can get reviews of these games by adults, sometimes even from parents of kids who use them.

We thought it’d be fun, though, to ask the kids themselves.

Welcome to Kid APProved, a series of videos in which we ask our own children what they think of apps on the App Store that they’re using.

This week, it’s a game about bringing rainbows of happiness to sad, grey creatures, TCHOW Rainbow from TCHOW. Here’s what our Kid APProved reporter “Battle” thinks.

Joe Danger Infinity Is Boring And Not Infinite [Review]

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Infinite runners are called infinite because they continue indefinitely. This is a fact, and one completely lost to the developers of Joe Danger Infinity. In this side-scrolling “racing” game, you tap the screen as Joe charges along any of the 100 toy stunt tracks provided.

You can unlock new bikes (or rockets) through the coins you collect in each stage or through micro-transactions, and generally you’re competing against other players to get the highest score.

Joe Danger Infinity by Hello Games
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

That’s if you can figure out how to score more than a few hundred points at any time.

‘Inlight’ Gathers Useful And Entertaining Articles In A Beautiful Package

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Inlight — Lifestyle — Free

If you have a few minutes to stare at your phone, and you don’t really feel like watching a video, you might want to look into Inlight. It’s a really good-looking app that collects articles from the Internet in one place and lets you browse by categories like “Me Time” and “Nourish.”

So that’s a little weird, but I found a lot of interesting stuff in there. For example, now I know, as a man, which 21 compliments I crave. And that’s just news I can use.

Inlight

Zez Provides Short Bouts Of Match-Three Ultraviolence [Review]

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Recently, I was playing my favorite match-three game, and a thought occurred to me.

Zez by Artbit Studios
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: Free

“This is all well and good,” I said to myself. “But it could really use a lot more punching.”

And then, because I am apparently some kind of wizard, I found Zez, an oddly-named puzzle title that has you clearing groups of three (or four) robots in order to propel a cat with a boxing glove farther into the sky so that he can inflict the maximum amount of damage to his opponent in the ring below when he comes crashing back down to Earth.

I had a fever dream once with a similar premise, but it wasn’t nearly as much fun.

Get Awesome Audio Editing Right At Your Fingertips With DSP-Quattro 4 [Deals]

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Pay attention, audiophiles! This Cult of Mac Deals promotion offers an all-in-one audio mastering solution at a price that’ can’t’s tough to beat.

DSP-Quattro is the do-it-all audio editing program for Mac. Simple yet powerful, this program is great for novices and professional musicians alike. This most recent version, DSP-Quattro Version 4, is the best yet. It can handle everything from standard audio editing and recording to more advanced audio mastering. And now you can get it for 54% off the regular price – just $44.99 – thanks to Cult of Mac Deals.

How To Get Your Mac To Tab To Every Field In Web Forms [OS X Tips]

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I know it’s probably a tiny thing, but man, do I hate having to click on the web form fields to fill in stuff in a drop down menu, like those State choosers, or Date choosers.

There I am, tabbing along from form field to form field, blithely filling in the data being requested (Name, Address, Phone Number, etc.), when it’s time to hit the State form. The input skips it, every time! I have to take my hands from the keyboard, drop them to the trackpad, or (even worse) the mouse, and click on the dang thing.

There’s got to be a better way.

Watch Steve Jobs Introduce the Macintosh on January 24, 1984

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On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh.

Back in 1984, the birth of the Macintosh was not a quiet affair. Among his many talents, Steve Jobs was one of the great orators and inspiring speakers of our time. Part sage, part showman, Jobs combined the wizardry of a magician with the skills of a master salesman. The Macintosh was his baby, the intended salvation for Apple, and he wanted it launched with flair.

Many people have heard about, but not seen, one of the most influential demos of all — the actual unveiling of the Macintosh on January 24, 1984. In front of a group of Apple shareholders and VIPs, and giving a hint of Apple keynotes to come, a tuxedo-clad Jobs and his magical child stole the show. Now you can relive that glorious moment.