Remember the uber-popular Megaupload?
Kim Dotcom — the controversial entrepreneur behind that site — is soft-launching his long-discussed music service Baboom. Described as a cross between iTunes and Spotify, the site will feature a combination of paid content alongside content available free to those who install an ad substitution browser plugin.
Quantified Selfers in the Apple community have a new app to download, in the form of lifelogging app OptimizeMe, which recently launched in the App Store.
A single iOS app that tracks all of your daily activities, OptimizeMe allows users to log mood, stress level, health status, quality of sleep, weight, and a number of other variables. With the addition of activity tracker Moves installed, it also automatically tracks Running, Cycling, Walking, Steps, Calories and Location (Foursquare).
With season three having come to an end, fans of the BBC’s Sherlock series will be happy to hear that today marks the launch of a new game app — featuring new footage starring actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
Fujifilm, arguably the company that started the current (and very welcome) trend of putting proper manual knobs and dials back on cameras, is currently teasing what looks like an SLR-style model for its outstanding X-Series lineup. Likely to be named the XT–1, the camera might take over the role of the current top-of-the-line X-Pro1.
Apple fans with a penchant for gaming have been able to use their PS3 controllers on the Mac for a while. A new jailbreak tweak now adds that functionality to iOS devices.
Called Controllers for All, the $1.99 jailbreak tweak is available in the Cydia Store, and adds iOS 7 gamepad compatibility to Sony’s PS3 DualShock 3 controller.
The Snap Strap does away with the annoying problem of your earbud cables ending up in your mouth when you’re just trying to enjoy a delicious hamburger and listen to some music at the same time. It’s a clever little strap that clips to the left and right cables of your ’buds and then sits across the back of your neck, keeping the cables away from your gnashing maw.
This lovely retro-style bag is made to carry over your shoulder, or on your bike. Made by the Goodordering Company of Hackney, East London (in England, for those of you who may still be half asleep), the bag can be quickly converted between shoulder bag, pannier (“saddlebag”) or handlebar bag.
Having relaunched the iPhone 4 to help grow market share in India, new reports are now suggesting that Apple is also slashing the price of its 2012 iPad mini in an effort to make inroads in India’s mid-range tablet market.
The iPhone’s LED lamp is a handy as hell. I never, ever use it for photos, but I use it as a flashlight all the time, and I have it set to flash when my iPhone gives me an alert (usually it makes my jeans pocket flash alarmingly).
Now I can use it to light up my iPhone’s whole back, if I choose to put it in the curvy Theo Light, a case that works like the Kindle Paperwhite’s magical light-up screen. And I might even start using it for photos.
This tiny $7 dongle looks essential for anyone who uses a case on their iPhone or iPad. It’s a Lightning to Lightning adapter that does one thing: move your iDevice’s Lightning port a centimeter (0.033 feet) down from the bottom its host.
Lightroom might be coming to the iPad sooner than your think, if this accidental posting of the photo-editing app is anything to go by. Oddly, it shows “Adobe Lightroom for Mobile, Annual” at $99 per year, which would suggest that this is a landing page for a service, not an actual app as one source of the story believes.
I crossed the 3-million Google+ circles line this morning.
It’s weird and thrilling to have so many “followers,” and to be sandwiched in circle counts between Paris Hilton, who has a couple hundred thousand more circles than I do, and Rihanna, who will probably catch up to me and pass me at some point in the future. (One of the great things about Google+ is that the geeks hold their own against entertainers in popularity.)
But mostly, it’s been an eye-opening adventure for me. Here’s what I learned along the way.
There’s very few things worse than running out of power on your smartphone and tablet when you’re on the go. With this Cult of Mac Deals offer, you can charge your iPhone or iPad anywhere, anytime.
The Keychain Power Bank is about the size of a pack of gum and light enough to keep on your keys or in your pocket, purse or backpack. No outlets, walls or computers required. And you can buy it for 75% off the regular price – only $14.99 – through Cult of Mac Deals for a very limited time.
Don’t look now, but here comes India.
While everyone obsessed yesterday over Apple finally launching on the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile — and the Chinese market in general — smart companies are starting to focus on the smartphone market of the future: India.
The country’s 1.2 plus billion people are kinda hard to ignore. Also: India is so much more than the “other China” when you dig into the details of that smartphone market. Everything about India is an opportunity for smartphone companies and providers of mobile anything. And the major companies are each taking radically different approaches.
I think Apple’s strategy is the best one, and I’ll tell you why.
This time on the CultCast: Google buys Nest and their 100 ex-Apple employees, but why? Aaron Sorkin’s Jobs biopic finally gets a script, Kutcher’s Jobs just gets a Razzie nod; plus, iOS finally gets a full-size gaming controller!
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 Ting for sponsoring this episode! Finally, a straight forward wireless carrier who doesn’t overcharge. In fact, did you know 98% of people who switch to Ting save money? See how much you could be saving on your wireless bill at cultcast.ting.com.
Apple revolutionized your iPhone’s camera with the introduction of the 5S, but now you can unlock its full potential with what’s being offered through this Cult of Mac Deals.
With The Ultimate iPhone Lens Kit, smartphone photography has never been this versatile. This package arms you with six different lenses so you can take virtually any kind of photo in any imaginable situation – from microscopic organisms to full-blown landscapes. And you can get it for a limited time at the low price of just $69 – 65% off the regular price!
This week, Cult of Mac Magazine explores how Apple will reboot China, and why you, the aficionado, should care.
2014 is the year of the horse: seen as an auspicious symbol for swift success, it bodes well for Apple. The Cupertino company launches its deal with China mobile around the same time as the year changes over, a deal Tim Cook called a “watershed” moment.
Author and reporter Luke Dormehl delves into the factors that will shift Apple’s strategy there as it hopes to reach over 700 million potential fanatics and why this year we may begin to see the transition into “designed in California, built for Asia.” Hong-Kong based tech reporter Truman Au takes a look at local iPhone culture and why the gold iPhone is the choice of device – and matching cars, bags and shoes — for the country’s new rich.
As always, we’ll have the best in new apps, music, books and movies plus answers to your most pressing Apple-related questions from an actual Genius.
It’s the weekend tomorrow, which for most people means that you can ignore the alarm when it goes off in the morning: hitting the snooze button on your iPhone and treating yourself to a few more hours of well-deserved rest and recuperation. Thanks to designers Distilunion, you can do it in style too — courtesy of their former Kickstarter iPhone alarm dock, the Snooze.
Here’s how it measures up.
Crescent Moon Games and Dead Mage have created a great action platformer here with Shadow Blade, available now in the App Store for an affordable $1.99.
It comes with Game Center Achievements and iOS 7 controller support, and a touch screen capable control scheme that works fairly well. You can read our review of the game after you watch the video below.
You can hit Command-F to find anything on your Mac, or you can hit Command-Space to invoke Spotlight, which took over for Sherlock as the built-in searching system many moons ago. In Windows 8, you can use the Search “charm.”
On the iPhone and iPad, however, some might be a little confused. There’s no keyboard commands in iOS, and Apple has even moved the Search functionality in iOS 7 from the furthermost left icon page.
What’s an iPhone owner to do when she wants to search for that specific app that she’s buried in a folder somewhere on her device, or needs the phone number of her best friend, because she’s always just used Siri to call her and has no idea what her number actually is?
This is Cult of Mac’s exclusive column written by an actual Apple Store Genius who answers all your questions about working at an Apple Store. Our genius must remain anonymous, but other than “Who are you, anyway?” ask anything you want about what goes on behind that slick store facade.
This week our Genius answers why the iPhone screen can be repaired in stores while the iPad has to be shipped away from special care. We also discuss whether working at the Apple Store can be turned into a solid career, plus the top 5 most annoying things customers do at the Apple Store.
Got a question you want the inside scoop on? Send us your questions and the answers will be published first in Cult of Mac’s Magazine on Newsstand. Send your questions to newsATcultofmac.com with “genius” in the subject line.
Q: Do you buy lunch or bring in your own?
I bring in my lunch. Whenever we have leftovers at home from an amazing meal I usually pack some up after for the next day. On the days where I don’t pack something I like to get away from the store for a bit and “reset” as Apple likes to call it. Most the stores are in shopping areas so we have plenty of choices for grub. We either get a half hour or an hour for lunch depending on the length of our shifts. Living on retail wages, I find I do much better financially when I take the time to plan my meals and bring them. Some days you just need a big burger to comfort you from the first world problems of a Genius though.
Q: What’s the most common lie you hear at the Genius Bar?
Geniuses and Family Room Specialists alike have to come up with a fair amount of excuses to explain to customers what’s wrong with their device. The worst excuse and the most commonly told lie at the Genius Bar is for known issues to be called “rare.”
I can’t stand it when a Genius tells a customer that a sleep/wake button failing on an iPhone is rare or that a battery needing service before being completely consumed is uncommon. I don’t know any statistics on failure rates, but I know I handle a fair number of these “rare” issues enough to say that they aren’t rare.
It’s a sort of white lie that reassures customers that the problem was a fluke and that they can trust in Apple’s products in the future. I think it’s better to explain common issues as known issues and just to provide the solution rather than lie about it. The lie gets harder to tell to a customer should the replacement product or repaired device have the same issue down the road.
Q: Why do you think Apple doesn’t release the hardware tests you use to the general public? It would help people out, make your jobs easier and make for shorter lines at the GB.
I would argue that Apple has a lot of tools for consumers to use to troubleshoot their products should they encounter issues. There are many articles and discussions in the support section of Apple’s site which help users find solutions to issues on their own. Should software troubleshooting point to a hardware issue, you can always run Apple Hardware Test on your Mac. Many of the tools we use might not be released because they are only to be used by authorized technicians. Apple only wants authorized technicians to touch most of their stuff anyway. My second opinion on the matter is that in the end, Apple wants you to come into the store. The Genius Bar is another way to get you to buy another product or upgrade you current setup. We have to keep some kind of edge to keep the stores alive and well.
Relaxatron — Entertainment — Free
People keep telling me I’m too highly strung, which is probably why I keep finding relaxation apps to write up. It might also be why I just yelled at my TV for 15 minutes for refusing to contain any episodes of Quantum Leap.
Anyway, Relaxatron has two things going for it: a badass name and a little more interaction than some of those other calming apps. You create a “seed shape” by placing dots into a grid, and then you just tap the screen and watch calming patterns emerge, and …
That was two hours ago.
1981’s Qix is one of those games that just won’t die. It’s come out in its original form no fewer than four times, most recently in the Nintendo 3DS handheld’s retro-game marketplace Virtual Console in 2011 (in Japan, anyway). I’ve also seen versions of it as minigames in titles like Bully. It’s a long-lived game with a lot of versions.
And here’s another one.
Line Knight Fortix is a new variation on the old territory-capturing game with a medieval skin including dragons, ogres, and castles. The same basic idea of carving out and capturing territory before enemies cross your path and kill you remains, but you can also unlock weapons and generally just run around being all knightly and cool.
It has a couple playability issues, but it’s mostly decent.
For the musician on the go, in the studio, or on the stage, this Cult of Mac Deals offer is designed to meet all your mobile sound needs.
iLoud is the first portable Bluetooth speaker designed with musicians and audiophiles in mind. It allows you to reproduce your music – in every possible mobile situation – as accurately as you would in the comfort of your studio. Plus, it offers a ¼” microphone/guitar input for use with iOS music creation apps, so you can record, edit, and perform all on-the-go. And Cult of Mac Deals has the iLoud for just $239 during this limited time offer.
BlackBerry and Windows Phone might be having a hard time trying to break up the monopoly on mobile software held by Android and iOS, but that hasn’t stopped the Chinese government from having a go with a platform of its own.
Built by a company called Shanghai Liantong in conjunction with ISCAS (Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences), COS — which stands for China Operating System — aims to take on Android and iOS by providing better localization for things like language input and cloud services.