There are some great gaming machines out there and some of the most cutting edge systems are slated to be released very soon. This offer from Cult of Mac Deals will let you bring back the good ol’ days of the Nintendo Entertainment System…and at a fraction of the price of any of the new systems that are (or will be) on the market.
The Retro Nintendo Gamer Bundle combines the RetroN console, 3 controllers, Zapp Gun and 2 NES games for just $59. And this offer also includes free shipping!
Tweetbot 3.1 for iOS just hit the App Store, and it comes packing a whole bunch of new features — some of which a being brought back from its predecessor. You can now view lists as timelines again, set square avatars instead of circular ones, and resize text within the app — plus lots more.
Forget 3-D printing. The future of personal manufacturing is now 2-D printing – when you’re making iPhone keyboards that it. Using nothing but a keyboard printed onto a sheet of regular paper, along with Gyorgyi Kerekes’s new Paper Keyboard app, you can type and play games as if you’d dropped cash money on a real 3-D metal and plastic keyboard.
I haven’t spent time on a construction site for some time, so I don’t know if it’s still true that every builder has a transistor radio. I do know that we had our kitchen remodeled a few months back and the guy our landlord sent to do it had the same kind of plaster and dirt-caked mains-powered radio you have been able to see for decades the world over.
He also seemed to spend a lot of time texting instead of working, so maybe he could have done with one of these iPhone chargers that uses a DeWalt battery pack for power.
Can an iPhone 5s film itself being burned alive?
The answer, it turns out, is no, but that didn’t stop the wasteful doofuses at TechRax lit an iPhone 5s on fire with a combination of gasoline and Axe body spray anyway. They set the iPhone to record, lit it aflame, then dunked it in a bucket of water to cool it off. Incredibly, they then seemed disappointed they could not retrieve the video from the iPhone 5s — perhaps dropping it in a bucket of water had something to do with that? — so they then start smashing it with a hammer.
Ladies and gentlemen, all hail the gadget dork’s moronic, mindlessly destructive id!
Everpix users can now achieve some emotional closure to help with the stress caused by the shutdown of everyone’s favorite online photo-wrangling service. You’ll be getting an e-mail soon (or already) with a link to let you get a raw (but not RAW) dump of your stored images.
BitTorrent Sync is one of the best Dropbox alternatives out there. Drawing upon the power of BitTorrent, BitTorrent Sync allows you to keep folders synced between multiple Macs easily, but without storing them in the cloud or having to pay for things like storage.
If you’re a BitTorrent Sync user — and you really should at least consider being one — great news. BitTorrent Sync just got an iPad app.
What do you think of Siri? Laughable gimmick, or revolutionary interface of the future? Your answer to that question may well determine how excited you get about this: the engineer who oversaw Siri is now at Samsung, building their own Internet of Things API.
A judge has advised Samsung to prepare its defense after determining that the South Korean company probably violated a court order by leaking confidential Apple documents.
Apple provided Samsung with copies of its patent agreements with Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp, and Philips as part of the massive patent battle between the two that started last summer, but it seems the company ignored the protective order that said the information could only be used in the context of that case.
ThisLife is a new(ly resurrected) online photo-storage service from Shutterfly, the photo-book-printing people. It’s similar to other services like Picturelife and the now-dead Everpix, letting you pull in your photos from other popular photo sites like Flickr and Instagram. But it comes with one unique feature: face recognition.
Good news for lovers of extremely light, slim and functional iPad cases: Lioncase’s Folio Shield has been updated to fit the extremely light, slim and functional iPad Air. Regular readers will recall that the Lioncase cases are some of my favorite iPad cases of all.
Twitterrific 5 for iOS has received a nice new update that adds a number of new features and user interface improvements. In addition to a redesigned profile layout, there’s a new pull-to-refresh animation, and users now have the ability to view profile banners by tapping on them.
Before I got lazy and did everything in Snapseed and Instagram, Filterstorm was one of my favorite iOS apps, and now it’s back, bigger, faster and, uh, neuer than before. Developer Tai Shimizu started over and came up with a whole new take on his powerful photo-editing app, which is appropriately called Filterstorm Neue.
Here comes wearable computing, and Android and the Googleverse have a huge head start. But will the Android devices lose the lead because they fail to target the women’s market?
If you’ve been hunting for a flawless solution to mirror your gameplay, videos, photos, presentations, and so much more right to your Mac then the application Cult of Mac Deals is currently offering will bring value to your life.
With X-Mirage you can wirelessly mirror your iOS device’s display to your Mac to take advantage of the big screen, and record everything onscreen with one click. This is a simple solution for showing off your iOS devices on a bigger screen. And the price is one that simply can’t beat – just $8.99 for a limited time.
Apple is currently developing multiple iPhone models with larger screens and curved displays for release later in 2014, according to a new report from Bloomberg. While reports from other publications have previously said that Apple is working on larger screen sizes, this is the first report that says Apple is working on curved glass displays for the iPhone.
Not only are new display designs in the works, but the company is developing “enhanced sensors that can detect different levels of pressure,” according to the report.
In the past three years, Apple has dared to be dull.
During Apple’s best years, between 2007 and 2010, Apple introduced the first iPhone and the first iPad, two world-changing products that now define the company (and bring in most of its revenue). These products, along with their touch interfaces and apps stores, were a shock to the industry.
That’s great, Apple. But what have you done for me lately?
Here’s one theory about how Apple works: The company finds a horrible content consumption experience. They figure out how the experience can be made wonderful. They work on the products until they’re ready, both from product quality and price perspectives. Then they ship it and spend the next few years refining and perfecting the original vision.
If that oversimplification about how Apple works is accurate, then Apple isn’t really in full control of when its groundbreaking new products ship. They have to wait for technology, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), or for various industries to come around to making a critical mass of content deals.
In the past three years, every Apple announcement has been preceded by speculation and rumor that Apple would at long last announce an iWatch, an iTV set and other products that would signal a radical new product category for Apple. And every announcement ended in disappointment. Every announcement was about refinement of old products, rather than bold launches of new products.
Will Apple ever enter new markets again, including the ones perennially rumored?
I say they will. The fact that they haven’t shipped the long-rumored iWatch or iTV, for example, makes perfect sense from a readiness perspective.
In fact, I think the next three years will be twice as awesome as the iPhone-iPad years, in the sense that Apple will break into four new businesses. Why? Because the technology and content deals will fall into place during this time.
Here’s what I think is going to happen.
Jony Ive. He’s the private man who some say is Apple’s own heart… and on our newest CultCast, our own Leander Kahney, with his new book Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products hitting stores Nov. 14th, reveals inside information about the design icon, and how he and his teams create the world-renowned products we all use every day. Plus, J.D. Power says, for the first time ever, Samsung tabs are better than iPads… we’ll debunk!
Have a few laughs and get 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 baseline roll!
Nothing gets us through a day at the office quite like some brand-spankin’ new music. And Grooveshark is one of the best places to discover what’s on the cutting edge.
Cult of Mac Deals has teamed up with Grooveshark to bring you a premium one-year subscription to Grooveshark Anywhere. This gives you unlimited commercial-free streaming of their on-demand music service on your desktop, tablet, and smartphone browsers. Enjoy over 15 million tunes, easy music curation, and online radio from the largest community of music lovers on the web. And do so for 50% off the regular price – just $49.
Apple’s new proposal for the giant spaceship campus, originally envisioned by co-founder and rockstar, Steve Jobs, has gotten the go ahead from the Cupertino City Council. It’s on track to get built by 2016, and we’ve got a ton of inside info on the new building.
In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, reporter Luke Dormehl talks to a few architectural experts to fully understand how this new building is really just the largest Apple product ever built.
Rob LeFebvre looks at some area residents’ complaints about the construction and impact of the new campus, while also talking to an expert who thinks that the impact will be more good than bad, and we’ve got a pretty slick 3D video render of what the campus will look like.
Our exclusive Ask a Genius column lets you in on how those intrepid Apple employees deal with customer temper tantrums, a bit about the recent AppleCare+ price hikes, and how folks might have to act to get fired from the retailer’s employ.
Of course we’ll also have our signature roundups of all the best iTunes books, movies, music, and app, ready for your perusal.
The latest issue is available in the App Store.
We hope you’ll dig it – and keep in touch with comments, questions, shout-outs.
This is one of Cult of Mac Deals’ biggest bundles yet.
This one is a little less consumer focused, as the emphasis is on entrepreneurs, designers, and developers. But it’s stacked with apps, web services, and design elements that are worth over $3000. And this bundle – aptly named The SuperStacked Mac Bundle – is just $49!
One of the better ways to compose better pictures when taking them with your iPhone is to turn on the grid lines built into the iOS camera.
Back in iOS 6, you could tap on the options button at the top, and toggle the grid lines on or off. Simple, right? That ease of use is no longer in iOS 7.
Where did the grid lines go?
I have one of Doxie’s neat candybar-shaped paper scanners, and it’s great for getting through piles of paper. I can scan bills, flyers, photos and even whole books – I ripped all the pages from a beloved but falling-apart cookbook and scanned the pages one at a time to make a PDF.
But for anything less sheet-shaped, it’s useless. And often the next best option – your iPhone’s camera – isn’t much better. You have to focus it, hold it steady, and somehow wedge the pages of your Moleskine notebook open with one hand while lining up your scanning app with the other
That’s the slot that Doxie’s Flip wants to fill. It anything that’s not a big sheet of paper. Although it can kinda do that too.
If you’ve ever wanted to make viruses fight, Pathogen will help you realize your dreams. Pathogen is a board game that has you infecting tiles to eventually take over the entire playing field. You can play versus the computer in an increasingly difficult campaign mode or challenge your friends.
Perhaps I’m not quite as good at “Go” as I thought I was, but Pathogen’s difficulty is undoubtedly the first thing you’ll notice. The computer in the campaign is prepared to take advantage of your mistakes at every turn.
I’ve frequently been so close to winning a match only to have the computer claim victory because I forgot to take over one of its pieces butting up against my wall of viruses.
I’ve been to Apple’s current campus a few times, mostly for product presentations at a modest theater Apple calls the Town Hall.
When I went down to see the introduction of the iPod Hi-Fi, Apple’s attempt at a boombox, Steve Jobs had had a warren of nearby offices transformed into an Ideal Home exhibition.
It was February 2006, a couple of years after Jobs’ first treatment for cancer but before his liver transplant. He tried his best to get through the presentation with his characteristic charisma and energy, but he seemed to tire quickly and towards the end he obviously just wanted to get it over.
However, after introducing the iPod Hi-Fi and some other products, everyone was herded across the hall. Jobs wanted to showcase the iPod Hi-Fi in its “natural” surroundings and some offices had been dressed up to look like your typical living room, bedroom and den.
The iPod Hi-Fi was a $350 white plastic boombox — Apple’s attempt at replacing customer’s home stereos. During his presentation, Jobs said he’d spent small fortunes over the years on audiophile gear, but the iPod Hi-Fi sounded so good, he was now he was replacing his home stereo with one.
As we trooped from one room to the next, I found myself beside him. Ever the intrepid reporter, I introduced myself, thrust out my hand and asked him if really had replaced his Marantz stereo with a boombox? As he towered over me, he just looked down contemptuously at my outstretched hand, and said one word: “Yes!”
Of course, there was no way to use this in my story. But I was impressed with his antisocial nerve. Many people buckle in the face of social niceties like shaking hands: not Jobs.
Apple’s HQ isn’t exactly Grand Central Station, open to all. I’ve never eaten at Caffè Macs or played foosball on the grass in the middle of campus. I did get a walkthrough once, when I visited someone’s office, but was told to keep looking straight ahead and not snoop into anything.
You can drive around the campus on Infinite Loop, the ring road surrounding the nerve center of Apple operations, but the only place for the public to visit is the Company Store in the first building: One Infinite Loop.
Here you can pick up Apple-branded pens, mouse pads and T-Shirts. I bought a shirt that said, “I visited the Mothership.” Apparently, the most popular shirt says “I visited the Apple campus. But that’s all I’m allowed to say.”
It’s unclear what public access anyone will have to the new spaceship Apple Campus 2. The theater, where Tim Cook will presumably preside over future product presentations, is outside the main donut (and underground to boot!).
Let’s hope there are opportunities to visit, even if it’s only to shop at a small company store.
Before he died, Steve Jobs said architecture students would be able to marvel at the huge headquarters, which he envisioned as the best in the world.
Let’s hope Apple honors this, and doesn’t close off access to outsiders like a glass prison you can’t break into. We all deserve to spend some time in the fantastic space that Jobs envisioned.
Leander’s new book about Jony Ive and the Apple design studio is out in November. Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products is available for pre-order on Amazon.