Cult of Mac

Autism is an epidemic that can’t be overstated. The disorder is really a spectrum of behaviors and needs, and it affects about one in every 50 children in the US alone.

The Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) has developed an app that puts its research-based interventions into an educational iPad app with mini games for reinforcement. The app, titled Autism Learning Games: Camp Discovery, provides children ages two to eight with direct instruction on topics that kids with Autism have trouble sorting out.

“The idea here is that there are so many things a kid needs to learn, to ‘catch up’ with their peers,” CARD’s chief strategy officer, Dennis Dixon told Cult of Mac during a phone call. “Autism has a number of skill deficits. ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) targets those skills one at a time.”

Camp Discovery, then, is like having a behavior intervention teacher on the iPad, presenting lesson after lesson with 100 percent accuracy. But will kids play with it?

While Microsoft and BlackBerry are still trying to piece together a decent mobile user base in the U.S., Apple and Samsung managed to widen their lead against the competition in terms of smartphone marketshare in the U.S. Both companies experienced a significant bump in 2013, but Apple claimed the largest increase despite murmurs that the company is getting out innovated by Google. 

52 Weeks Money Challenge — Finance — Free

If you haven’t heard of the 52 Weeks Money Challenge, you probably don’t have a Facebook account. And I envy you for that.

Anyway, the challenge is a way to help you build up a nest egg through regimented saving. You put away one dollar the first week, two dollars the second, and so on. At the end of 52 weeks, you’ve set aside a total of $1,378. This app tracks your progress and grand total, and it will even send you weekly reminders in case you’re the forgetful type.

52 Weeks Money Challenge

Let’s take a minute to address the fact that I’m not really sure how to pronounce the title of this game. Is it “B-ombs,” or is it, “Buh-buh-buh-bombs”? My money’s on the second one, and now that we’ve sorted that out, the review can begin.

‘Bombs’ with Too Many Letters is a puzzle-ish game that tasks you with clearing a ridiculous lab of the now-sentient explosives that are now buzzing around all willy-nilly. You do this with plain, stupid, regular bombs. You get three blast per level, and you can set up chain reactions to clear a bunch of what science hath wrought in one shot.

Meanwhile, this game is hilarious.

An iOS version has been available since last year, but today sees the official launch of popular email client (and former Kickstarter project) Mail Pilot for Mac.

The team behind CyanogenMod has released a new CyanogenMod Installer tool for Mac that makes it easy to load the latest versions of its custom ROMs with just one click. Compatible with both smartphones and tablets, the installer does not require devices to be rooted or an unlocked bootloader.

Crescent Moon Games has published a string of fantastic iOS games of late, including cute-as-pie Mimpi, deep RPG Ravensword: Shadowlands, first person shooter Neon Shadows, and the unforgettable Space Chicks. Each one approaches controls for touch screens in a unique and fairly successful way.

The publisher’s 2D side-scrolling action platformer Shadow Blade takes things even further, utilizing a complex but ultimately responsive control scheme. The game is made in Unity, giving it fluid, console-quality animations, a lush eastern-flavored soundtrack, and a gorgeous look and feel.

This is a fine effort from first-time iOS developer Dead Mage, for sure.

Copy and Paste has been around for a good long while, obviously, and drag and drop even longer. Moving files from one spot to another in the Finder is a fairly easy, well-rehearsed process that one wonders if we really need another way.

OS X Mavericks has introduced, however, yet another way to move files with the new tabbed Finder feature. It seems like a pretty cool way to move stuff from one folder to another without having to clutter up your Mac screen with a bunch of windows.

We’ve been waiting for Google to bring Google Now to the desktop via Chrome for over a year now, and today the feature finally appeared in a new alpha version of the browser, called Chrome Canary.

Now is baked into Chrome’s new notification center, and functions just like its Android counterpart, providing users with real-time weather updates, sports scores, and travel information. Not all of its Cards are available on the desktop yet, but we expect that to change by the time it is ready for its public release.

If you’re particularly concerned about the security of your passwords, you might want to stay away from Starbucks’ official iOS app: the Seattle-based coffee maker has just confirmed that passwords, credentials and location in the company’s app are stored in plain text, and are not hashed or encrypted at all.

For those of us who live the lives of professional bloggers, here’s a common occurence. You wake up in the morning and load up a bunch of tabs of stories you want to read that day. Soon, you have two or three dozen tabs open, one of which has an auto-playing video. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t bloody find the thing!

Yeah. Chrome just fixed that.

With the next Worldwide Developer Conference a few months away (good luck getting tickets), it seems a little strange that Apple would go through the trouble of updating last year’s WWDC 2013 app with some fixes, but delve a little deeper and it makes sense.

It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here! Long months after it hit the Mac, Beamdog Entertainment’s update of Bioware’s classic RPG set in the Dungeons and Dragons universe, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition, is finally available on the iPad.

Another day, another new iOS game is launched toward the back of the App Store net!

Given a soft launch last week in the Australian App Store last week, Football Kicks: Title Race is now available to download internationally.

Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday — and had a few things to say about the state of the high tech nation.

Isaacson — who is currently crowdsourcing editorial comments for his new book on digital innovators throughout history — claimed that Google is outgunning Apple when it comes to innovation.

Thanks to the release of Chrome 32 for Android and iOS, users of Google’s mobile OS will have the option of reducing their browser’s data usage by up to 50 percent.

If I was trying to sell you this backup battery, I probably wouldn’t need to do much more than tell your its name: The Darth Vader Lightsaber Portable Battery Charger. Because really, who wouldn’t want to juice their iPhone with Vader’s laser sword?

Soon after Tim Cook took over running Apple, we reported that he was following the example of predecessor Steve Jobs in terms of responding to customer emails.

Two-and-a-half years on, it seems nothing has changed.

The trouble with Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects is that they take so damn long to arrive. They need to get funded, they need to get made, and only then will they be shipped. In the meantime, you’ve forgotten about them, or – worse – you bought something and now, six months later, you no longer want or need it.

What if there were a way to browse and buy only successful, shipping products, and buy them as God intended – with immediate shipping? Well, now there is. It’s a web store called Tiny Lightbulbs, and you’ll recognize a lot of what you see there.

Box has updated its iOS apps for iOS 7, and seems to have gotten a little drunk at the celebration party: Box is giving a free 50GB storage to anyone who downloads the new app in the next 30 days. Or 29 days, I guess, as the announcement came yesterday.

It may not be close to what it was in its heyday, but the news that The Simpsons is set to finally be available for legal streaming in the U.S via iOS devices is enough to have most people saying “Mmm… Apple” — followed by a gargling sound.

Bem’s upcoming Wireless Speaker Duo is great in all kinds of ways. First, it looks like an old-timey radio, complete with rounded edges and simple bent-metal handle. Second, it has proper playback control buttons on the top. And third, it contains two speakers which can be popped out and separated to make a stereo pair, before being returned to the base for charging.

Gmail now lets you star contacts in the web app, and if you use an Android phone then those stars will sync across to your mobile address book. They’ll also be added to a special starred section of your contacts list, and sync with your Android Favorites.

Probably the last thing you want to admit in your app’s release notes is that you’ve integrated Appirator, the annoying “please rate me, please please please” popup that makes your paying customers hate your app. But we’ll give NexTiga’s Smart Photo Album a pass, becasue it also adds some great new real features.

Google has finally released its official iOS app for the Movies & TV section of its Play Store. The universal app is available for free in the App Store, but it comes with several severe limitations.

First off, you can’t buy content through the app due to Google not wanting to give Apple a 30 percent cut of all in-app purchases. Another con is the lack of offline playback, meaning you can’t cache a video to watch later when Wi-Fi isn’t available. And for some odd reason, video only plays back in standard def on the iPhone.

The app is pretty barebones, but it is nice for the Chromecast, Google’s little streaming dongle that plugs into the TV. Chromecast users with iOS hardware have previously been limited to Netflix and Hulu Plus, but Google Play offers more recent movie and TV selections.

Source: App Store