Cult of Mac

Americans reportedly spend more than $5 billion upgrading their iPhones — or switching to Apple from a competing brand — each year.

She may have the fastest selling album in iTunes history, but not everyone is happy with Beyoncé’s success — and it’s not just limited to brick-and-mortar stores either.

Responding to Beyoncé’s iTunes exclusive, Amazon has joined Target in announcing that it will not stock physical copies of the Beyoncé album (although the album is available from Amazon’s online US MP3 store if a customer searches for it).

Nokia has taken aim at the iPad before. Just last month, we reported on a somewhat Freudian ad for the Lumia 2520 which showed a male iPad user unable to connect with the fairer sex because of the “shortcomings” of his chosen tablet.

If that wasn’t enough to get you to drop your Apple products immediately, Nokia now returns with an even more searing indictment against the iPad: it will make you ignore your dog.

It may have recently fallen out with Beyoncé over her decision to debut her new album on iTunes rather than in brick-and-mortar stores, but Target isn’t above going down the Apple route to grab a pre-Christmas buck either.

Customers searching for perfect last-minute holiday gift ideas can head to Target, which is offering deals on the iPhone 5c, 5s, and iPad Air between now and December 24.

Apple investors got their Christmas wish: The China Mobile deal, which could add billions of dollars to Apple’s revenue, has finally materialized.

The iPhone will be available to China Mobile customers beginning January 17, Apple announced Sunday, with pricing and availability to be released at a later date.

A new book called Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Fred Vogelstein revealed the mechanism by which Apple influenced the direction of Android — shock and awe.

Yes, the introduction of the iPhone changed the direction of smartphones. But I don’t think it’s going to happen again in the wearables market. Here’s why.

 Kanto’s YU2s seem to come from a time when speakers were solid, simple structures; proud temples to sound that said of their owners, Hey, I’m serious about music, and I know what I’m doing. Aesthetics were important, of course, but unquestioningly took a backseat to sound. Sound was king.

If you haven’t heard of Kanto before, that’s OK — the Canadian outfit just sprouted up in the Vancouver suburbs around five years ago. The YU2s are Kanto’s latest speakers, the smallest of their lineup of a half-dozen or so, and they’re designed to fit unobtrusively on a bookshelf or desk and play music from your computer or mobile device.

The YU2’s performance during our review, however, was nothing short of astonishing — and they could very capably substitute for larger speakers in a variety of roles. For those looking to elevate their desktop setup even further, pairing these speakers with a NuPhy Air75 V2 could create a seamless and high-quality workspace.

Christmas came early this morning for jailbreakers who have been waiting for iOS 7 to be cracked. Today the Evad3rs, the same group of hackers behind the iOS 6 jailbreak, released the full iOS 7 untethered jailbreak to everyone’s surprise.

Evasi0n7 is available now for free, but here’s why you should wait to jailbreak your iOS 7 device:

This article first appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand magazine

Lumen Bluetooth Lightbulb

$70 — Home — Anything

Wi-Fi lightbulbs are either the greatest thing ever, or final proof that our society is about to collapse form absurd decadence into fully-deserved chaos and misery. But as long as we’re buying into the convenience of the modern-day Clapper, why not make it even more useful by adding Bluetooth?

That’s the idea of the Lumen, which can be controlled by your iPhone from even where there’s no Wi-Fi network. It changes color, turns on and off and — if the accompanying video is anything to go by — it can help you get laid. All this, and the incorporation of “automatic manners” too. Who wouldn’t want one?

This article first appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand magazine

Alubolt

$50 — Docks & Stands — iPhone

The Lightning connector has made the iPhone and iPad dock a pretty tricky thing to get right: the plug is so happy and snug in its little Lightning hole that it just won’t come out without a good tug, and this means that the dock usually comes with the iPhone when you lift it up.

The Alubolt doesn’t help with this, but it does at least come with its own Lightning cable, so you won’t have to pony up another $20 just to use it — which is kind of a downer on Christmas day.

Alubolt

Dodocase Durables iPhone Wallet

$50 — Cases — iPhone

This article first appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand magazine

Versacover for iPad

$60 — Cases — iPad

The Versacover has two uses. One is to protect and support your iPad Air, offering many, many different ways to prop it up thanks to the origami-like folding front cover, which can be flipped into a large-but-limited number of iPad-bracing shapes.

The other use is to make work for idle hands, in the same way that a Rubik’s Cube used to do back when I was a child. All this and a microfiber lining to keep the screen clean: it’s the perfect Christmas Day accessory.

I like to travel light, bringing as few chargers and cables as possible. This Cult of Mac Deals offer is one I also like – because it helps me in my quest to travel as light as possible.

The Backup Battery Bundle features a high-end portable battery and a car charger that make for the ideal package for someone like me. And the price is right as well: just $59.99.

Please note: This offer is only available to customers in the continental United States. The sale price includes shipping and all sales are final.

This bundle includes Gum™, an ultra-compact (thumb-sized), super-stylish backup battery for smartphones and USB devices. Clad in high-quality aluminum, the Gum has enough juice to recharge an iPhone. recharge via micro USB, three green LEDs showing the remaining power.

Here are the top features fo this device:

Apple, Google and Microsoft all want to be your phone company. But with both competitors’ communication offerings in disarray, Apple has an opportunity to offer the best, most elegant and integrated communication platform.

All they have to do is keep moving in their current direction, make a couple of key rumors come true and keep Steve Jobs’ promise about FaceTime.

On our all-new CultCast: Apple has a new Christmas commercial and some are hailing it as their best ad yet; Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever; Beyonce’s iTunes-only album release breaks all the records; an alarming new study shows pervs can use your Mac’s camera to peep your naked bod; and we choose on our favorite Christmas movies of all time!

Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Download new and past episodes of The CultCast on iTunes or hit play below and let the audio enjoyment commence.

Thanks to DigiDNA and MacUpdate for sponsoring this episode. Need an easy way to wirelessly transfer movies, music, and data to and from your iDevice? You need DiskAid. Plus check out Macupdate’s new holiday app bundle and get $400 worth great apps for only $40.

If converting video files is for you, then this Cult of Mac Deals offer is for you…and all for the price of a movie ticket.

Tenorshare Video Converter for Mac is the all-in-one and fastest video converter software for Mac users. It supports more than 100 video and audio formats conversion, and the output video can be played on QuickTime Player, iMovie, iPhone, iPad, and many more platforms. And now you can get Tenorshare for just $9.99 – a savings of 83%!

Cult of Mac Magazine’s Unboxing Issue is a super-sized, mega edition packed full of good advice for your new device, whether you’re giving or getting.

We’ve got guides on how to set up your brand new iPhone and iPad, what apps and games you need as well as the accessories Cult of Mac reviewers won’t leave home without.

There is something unimportant and yet oh-so-important about choosing the right way to carry around your laptop.

Apple purists likely hate anything which covers up their beloved machines for even the shortest amount of time. For the rest of us, however, it’s about finding the most attractive way possible to transport your laptop without being mugged in the process.

The famous Square Enix tax, defined as the premium price the Japanese video game company has always charged for its ports of classic and new RPG games on the iTunes App Store, seems to be up–for a while, at least.

We’re talking huge discounts, like recently released Deus Ex: The Fall, originally debuting at seven bucks, now only $0.99, and The World Ends With You (perhaps my favorite Square Enix game of all time) at half the regular $20 price.

How about Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II, classics in the role playing game genre, at half off, each going for $3.99 on the App Store? There are eight other Final Fantasy titles on sale, as well. Yeah, I thought you’d like that.

One of the most phenomenal — and frankly, underrated — aspects of the handheld computing revolution ushered in by the iPhone and its ilk is how much power, in the form of knowledge, has been placed, literally, in people’s hands.

Case in point: iCitizen is a new, free app that clearly and elegantly places pretty much all the information you need to know in order to make informed voting decisions — right in the palm of your hand. There you go: Direct democracy in the palm of your hand, courtesy of the iPhone (and the app’s developer).

Sure, The Room Two is a sequel to Fireproof Games’ original effort, The Room, but more of the same, with bigger and better puzzles is most definitely not the worst thing in the world.

Check out our video of the tutorial level of The Room Two below to get a sense of the game, and decide whether you’ll want to purchase the game right away.

Wait, what am I saying? Of course you’re going to want to.

Aspyr has figured out how to shrink an entire galaxy (one far, far away, of course) onto the iPhone and iPod; all the Wookies, Jawas, Jedis, Tusken Raiders and bounty hunters — all now made tinier as Aspyr updates the previously iPad-only Knights of the Old Republic as a Universal App.

To celebrate this feat of quantum mechanics (or simple coding, your pick) Aspyr has slashed the app’s price in half, from $10 to $5.

Helped along by a sci-fi-style concept video, a new Google Glass competitor called the Atheer One shot halfway to its $100,000 crowd-funding goal in just a day.

“In a few years, the digital world with all its rich information will be completely merged with the real one,” says Atheer Labs in its Indiegogo campaign for the Atheer One, which has already raised more than $54,000. “Let’s get the future started today!”

What does that future look like, according to Atheer? Take a look at the video below and see for yourself.

Surprise: These cans aren’t quite the flashy, youthful boombasts their outward appearance suggest (yes, that’s a good thing). And, surprise: There’s much more here than simply a nod at the term “active noise cancellation.”

SMS, which is helmed by Rapper 50 Cent, jumped into the headphone game just shy of three years ago. At that time the lion’s share of attention was directed toward their wireless Sync cans, which stream music via the somewhat uncommon Kleer technology. But that doesn’t mean the rest of SMS’s broad, diverse lineup should be ignored, and that assertion is well-supported by the performance — and, yes, dash of flash – of the wired, active noise-canceling Street by 50 ANC headphones.

There isn’t a built-in way to add extensions to mobile Safari or Chrome on your iOS device, so it’s not possible to add the amazing (and free) Evernote web clip extension like you can on the Mac.

There are third-party apps that will add anything in your clipboard to Evernote, but the best one (Everclip) cost money, and you need to copy the web URL to your clipboard, and then launch the app.

If you want a quick way to add webpage clips to your Evernote file system from within your mobile browser, all you need to do is use Javascript. This works really well on the iPad, but the iPhone 5 I tested it with had some sizing and formatting issues, so your mileage may vary.

New Years resolutions are just around the corner and if running if your go-to method for shedding the holiday pounds, Nike+ just added a coaching feature to its running app that promises to whip you into shape.

The free app allows users to create running goals like taking on your first 5k, 10k, half-marathon, or marathon, and then lays out a running regiment for you up until the big day of the race. Nike+ Coach trains users by mixing in various distances and running paces throughout you jog and can setup running reminds for you to help get you off the couch.

Here’s what’s new: