This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.
To the surprise of many, Apple added a very un-Apple-like color choice for the iPhone 5s – gold. The glimmering device seems to clash with Apple’s modern, subtle style and was immediately hated by many fans around the world, who called it downright gaudy.
Yet the gold iPhone is tailor-made for a particular group of people in China, where it has become a beacon for the nouveau riche as well as a way to deride them.
This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.
“Adapt or die” is the rallying call of business strategists and evolutionary biologists everywhere. But when it comes to a U.S. tech company expanding its reaches into a new country, things aren’t always that simple.
History is littered with examples of American businesses that have tried and failed to crack the Chinese market — either because they attempted to adapt too much to local markets (thereby losing what made them unique), or else not changing enough.
While Apple’s success in China and other Asian countries is only of direct concern to shareholders, there is a very real reason for your average Apple watcher to be interested.
When Jony Ive ousted Scott Forstall as Design King of iOS, he made a lot of changes, most of them for the better. One of the tinier — and for the worse — changes, though, was removing the ‘Now Playing’ icon from the iOS 7 status bar. Now a new jailbreak tweaks brings it back.
The Retina MacBook Pro comes in both 13-inch and 15-inch varieties, but when will the MacBook Air go Retina? Analyst Daniel Matte speculates that it could happen soon, and when it does, there will be three MacBooks with Retina Displays: the 13-inch and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, and a 12-inch MacBook Air with Retina Display. Twelve?
If you’re a skier or a snowboarder, there’s nothing better than hitting the slopes before anyone else does, being the first one to lay down your tracks on the freshly-fallen snow.
There’s an app for that. Called First Tracks, it’s an alarm app that will wake you up earlier if it snows. And it’s useful even if you don’t like to ski too!
Steve Jobs was as difficult a photographic subject as he was an iconic one.
One of Jobs’ most famous photos ever graced the cover of the very first issue of Macworld. In it, Jobs stood in front of three newly unveiled Macintosh computers in a pinstriped suit. Is anyone surprised that the photograph was almost impossible to get?
Russia’s second-largest mobile carrier MegaFon will start selling iPhones again in its retail stores — for the first time since 2010.
MegaFon’s new three-year contract with Apple comes after the Cupertino company relaxed its sales policy in Russia.
There are very few computers in history more famous than the Macintosh 128K. As a result, it’s pretty hard to unearth any new information about it.
Fortunately, that is exactly what Time.com has managed to do, having discovered a video of Steve Jobs and the Mac team discussing the Macintosh shortly after its 1984 launch.
A new Kickstarter project is aiming to build minimal charging docks designed to hold Apple’s 8-pin Lightning Cable. The underside of each “MikroDok” features a Mikro-suction adhesive backing, which allows the doc to be securely positioned and also moved multiple times.
Google has beaten out Facebook to acquire London-based Artificial Intelligence company DeepMind — for an amount alleged to be in excess of $500 million.
DeepMind was founded by neuroscientist and chess prodigy Demis Hassabis, as well as Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin, and researcher Shane Legg. While it is unknown exactly what the company is working on, it describes itself as a “a cutting edge artificial intelligence company” to build general-purpose learning algorithms for simulations, e-commerce, and games.
While Tweetbot has added a feature that allows timelines to stream to iPhone and iPad, this is currently limited to Wi-Fi only.
Thanks to a new jailbreak tweak called Tweetbot 3 Stream 3G/LTE, however, the ultra-useful feature can now be carried over to 4G LTE and 3G cellular data networks.
Readability, the oft-overlooked but competent rival to Instapaper and Pocket, has reached v2.0, and added an iOS 7 makeover, plus a few neat new features.
This must be just about the worst gadget ever, which of course makes it the most fun to write about gadget ever. It’s a love-detecting bra, which will only open its front clasp if “true love” is detected. Where “true love” means “iPhone” and “detected” means Bluetooth.
Virgin Mobile has been competitive with its iPhone pricing ever since it came out of the gate, and that trend doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
In the U.S., Virgin Mobile has reduced its unsubsidized iPhone prices by 10 percent in a time-limited, Web exclusive offer — meaning that you can pick up a 16gB iPhone 5s for $494.99: representing $154 less than the unsubsidized handset cost from Apple’s Online Store.
In Germany, bank cards come with NFC chips that let you make small payments just by tapping your wallet onto the POS machine. You pre-load the chip with money from your bank account (only small amounts are allowed, because if you lose the card you lose the money) and spend it as cash.
So I finally see the point of NFC in a phone. And now I can have NFC in my iPhone, thanks to Incipio’s Cashwrap case.
Cortex Camera fixes one big deficiency with the iPhone’s camera: low-light noise. Or more specifically, the iPhone has no way to avoid cranking the ISO when shooting in low light. With a regular camera, you can just choose a longer shutter speed to keep the ISO low, steady the camera on a tripod or other sturdy base, and enjoy noise-free pictures taken in the dark.
And now you can (kinda) do this with your iPhone, using this sweet and simple app.
Today brings a big update for users of Pushpin, the already-excellent Pinboard bookmarking client for iOS. V 3.0 brings a sweet iOS-friendly look (it really does look great), plus a proper iPad interface, plus… well, a lot. Let’s taker a quick look.
Macminicolo has been around for nine years, plugging Mac Minis into its data center and letting you use them as your own. Thy can work as servers, or just as 24/7 automation machines. Now, the folks at Macminicolo have launched Macprocolo (Mac Pro Co-location). You can probably guess what it is.
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.
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.
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
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!
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:
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.
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.
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.
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