Crypstagram is a neat service for encrypting messages inside your photos. And as an added bonus it also ruins those photos along the way by adding glitches to them. You probably won’t want to actually use it for good (or evil) though, as the images you use are posted right there on the site in a gorgeous glitchy gallery.
Tick is a brand-new ToDo app (yup, another one) that offers one big feature not found in the built-in Reminder app: Color. Actually, that;s not quite true; Tick offers bright, 1980s-style neon color, unlike the tastefully bright hues built into to iOS 7.
Love Pad&Quill’s sweet bookbindery iPhone cases, but don;t love the big Baltic birch frames that bulk them up? You’re in luck! The new Bella Fino is a leather taco for your iPhone 5/S/C that does away with the frame in favor of a reusable, re-stickable 3M “clean release” adhesive panel.
Today Contrast (formerly called App Cubby and maker of Perfect Weather) released Launch Center Pro 2.0 for iPhone with a new interface and app icon for iOS 7. If you aren’t familiar with Launch Center Pro, here’s the basic rundown: it’s a tool for quickly launching common actions in one place.
Ok, still confused? I’ll let Contrast explain it better:
Today Apple released EFI firmware update 2.7 for the 2013 MacBook Air that addresses an issue with installing Windows in Boot Camp. The update is recommended for all MacBook Airs released after Apple’s hardware refresh over the summer at WWDC. Grab it now in the Mac App Store.
This update addresses an issue which may cause a black screen to appear when installing Windows 7 or Windows 8 using Boot Camp Assistant if both an external optical drive and USB thumb drive are connected to the system. This update also ensures that the system will boot by default into OS X after installation of Windows 8.
Source: Apple
Still haven’t been able to get your hands on the iPhone 5s model you want? If you didn’t wait in line on launch day or order online already, chances are you’re going to have trouble finding any 5s for awhile, much less your desired color and capacity.
The same guy who created this handy website for checking 5s stock at nearby Apple Stores has a new service that will email you an alert the moment the iPhone 5s you want is available at your local Apple Store. Eureka!
A couple days ago we showed you a custom Leica camera designed by none other than Jony Ive. The camera will be auctioned to raise money for Bono’s Product (Red), a campaign Apple has partnered with for years to fight the spreading of H.I.V. in Africa (if you’ve ever bought a red iPod, you’ve helped contribute).
Ive and legendary designer Marc Newson have created their own designs of over 40 products for the auction, including a Steinway grand piano. The two men also designed a desk from scratch that looks like an extension of the iMac.
Ive and Newson recently sat down with Vanity Fair for an extensive interview about designing for the Product (Red) charity auction, and as you can imagine, it’s a great read.
Instagram announced new versions of its app on Android and iOS are now available. The Android 4.2 update adds the intelligent photo straightening tool that iOS users have been enjoying for a few months now.
The iOS 4.2.1 update doesn’t contain any major new features, although Instragam did add new settings that let you mute the playback of video with your ringer switch, or leave it always on. You can also choose to preload videos over Wi-Fi only or leave it always on as well. Unfortunately, there’s still no slo-mo support.
The free updates are available for free in the App Store and Google Play.
This is Cult of Mac’s exclusive column written by an actual Apple retail store genius. 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.
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.
This week we cover the perks of being an Apple Store Genius – as far as discounts are concerned – as well what to do if you have a jailbroken device that needs repair and the most facepalm-worthy moments from behind the bar.
1. What was your greatest facepalm moment with a customer?
I hear some pretty interesting stories from people about what happened to their broken product. Recently, someone told me their iPad got thrown from a hotel roof in Las Vegas. I would have liked to hear the rest of that story. He took responsibility for the damage and I let him know his options. The stories that make me facepalm are the ones people make up about their damaged device. While it’s pretty obvious when someone is lying, I can’t just call them out on it.
I had a customer who came in recently irate because his iPhone would not power on. His story was that he woke up one morning and the screen was black and wouldn’t power on. After trying to connect the iPhone to power, I noticed a rice grain in the lightning port (urban legend has it that this household staple can “dry” your waterlogged device) and then saw the liquid contact indicator was tripped. I asked if the iPhone had been damaged by liquid and he insisted nothing happened. Opening the device, it was clear it had been submerged in liquid and I was able to show photos of the corrosion. He insisted it was our fault and we should replace it under the warranty. *facepalm* (We didn’t replace it.)
2. Do you check to see if a phone is jailbroken before you give warranty services — even if it is something as simple as replacing broken headphones? How do you check?
We really aren’t seeing too many jailbroken iPhones these days. If I determine a device is jailbroken, it voids the warranty. However, with some issues there really isn’t a way to tell if a device is jailbroken. If the device won’t power on for whatever reason or users restore it with iTunes and then bring it in for service there’s really no way to tell.
3. What kind of discounts do you get?
I get a personal discount on Apple products and a smaller discount for family and friends with some limitations. We receive varied discounts on third-party products. Every three years we can also buy a Mac for $500 off or an iPhone (device only) or iPad for $250 off including our personal discount. There are also the perks of Apple’s software and many third-party software discounts or freebies. 50 Gigabytes of free iCloud space makes it a little easier to say yes to backing up my iOS devices on iCloud. I wish I used the discounts more often, but when I do I save big.
Apple recently rose above Coca-Cola to become the most valuable brand in the world according to Interbrand, a corporate identity and brand consulting company that ranks companies on criteria including financial performance.
One of the things that stands out about the Cupertino company is its resistance to gamification. Gamification is turning work into play – any activity where you collect points, get a ranking and get something in return. And most of us are all too happy to play along, turning our daily lives into an epic quest for popularity or to get something more (anything!) than what we actually pay for.
You might start your day out putting a latte on your Starbucks Rewards Card, so that in addition to getting caffeinated you’re also on the way to free refills or food. While you’re waiting for the barista, you check your Twitter feed. How many new followers you have you got? Has your Klout score – whatever that really is – gone up? You stop to get gas for the commute to work – the first screen at the pump asks whether you’re a Safeway Club member. Are you? Then your full tank might earn discounts on that ciabatta you buy on the way home. At work, you book your conference tickets with the airlines you have the tallied the most frequent flier miles on, compare “likes” on your Facebook posts and get lunch with a Groupon.
It comes as a relief – to me, at least – that Apple doesn’t do loyalty programs, points schemes or offer fire sales.
Apple wants to sell you insanely great devices, that’s it. They sell on the strength of the product, not something else they throw in for good measure to make it seem more appealing or a better deal. They run very few contests – like the iTunes $10,000 blowout for the 10 billionth download – and have never offered rewards cards. Apple has long offered discounts to schools, but that’s about it. The MacBooks, iPods, iPhones do not ever go “on sale,” in the way that other companies slash prices when products head down the inevitable road to obsolescence.
Compare this to Coke, which topped the brand list for 13 years in a row before falling flat to Apple. Coke has a website, intended to make its product go down better with worried parents, called “My Coke Rewards School Donations” program. If you participate, the Atlanta-based corporation will “donate points to your school, so it can get rewards like art supplies and sports equipment, and support all the ways kids play.” Sounds good right?
But as Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out astutely in “Antifragile,” you only need marketing for things that no one wants or needs. Coke (or Pepsi, he adds) are in the “business of selling you sugary water…causing diabetes and making diabetes vendors rich thanks to their compensatory drugs.” So they must “dress up their companies with a huge marketing apparatus with images that fool the drinker.”
I would add that gamification is only necessary for stuff that no one really wants or needs, too. In the case of the Coke rewards program, for example, you are buying Coke to earn points so that the fizzy drinks company donates sports equipment to your child’s school. It would certainly be easier to buy sports equipment for your school directly than stocking up on Coke, collecting and turning in the points then waiting for the corporation to buy the equipment for you. The “money for nothing” aspect of gamification that we now accept everywhere makes it more difficult to see what we’re actually getting in return for purchases.
Fortunately, Apple doesn’t bother. And it’s probably for our own good. A few years back, an April fool’s joke proposed an Apple loyalty scheme that involved getting a company tattoo in exchange for a lifetime 25% discount. Given the fierce loyalty that the company inspires, they might go bankrupt if they tried to honor it.
I’ve applied dozens of screen protectors to my iPhones over the years, and I’d say less than 10% of them actually went on straight. They almost always go on wonky first time, and that means pulling them away and applying them again.
Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about this anymore, because I have the ALIN from TYLT. The ALIN plastic alignment tool that clips into the side of your iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s and ensures that every single screen protector you apply goes on completely straight first time.
It takes the hassle out of the whole process, and it turns a ten-minute job into a two-minute one. And as you might expect, ALIN is reusable, so you can keep hold of it and put it to work every time you need to apply a new screen protector.
ALIN costs $25, and for that you get the alignment tool, plus four screen protectors — three clear ones, and one anti-glare one. Is it worth your money?
I came home from work to find my sons and their friends killing a prostitute with a baseball bat.
I was horrified. They were laughing their heads off.
But they were right and I was wrong. It was funny. They were just having some taboo fun. Their reaction was super healthy, and I’m not at all worried about what they were doing.
They weren’t supposed to get hold of my copy of Grand Theft Auto. I’d hidden it away; but not very well. They’re in their early teens, and too young, I felt, for the adult pleasures of the GTA franchise.
Not only are there prostitutes in the game. You can kill them. And killing them, for a kid, is a source of amazed amusement that you can do such things. It’s like finding dad’s Playboy’s under the bed, only worse. It’s naughty. Transgressive. I still kinda regret that they played it, but I am relieved by their reaction to it.
The fact that they were squealing with delight and laughing their heads off at the ability to do something so outrageous was a very clear and gratifying affirmation of their emerging humanity. I’d have been worried if they had been silently and grimly killing off the other characters.
Oddly, it’s the non-violent games that turn them into little monsters. They got Rock Band for Christmas, and they were soon attacking each other with the plastic instruments. One of my boys smashed his brother over the head with a guitar in frustration. Wii tennis has resulted in several controllers thrown against the wall. Candy Crush induces epic rages fits. My wife and I concluded that it’s true what say: video games make kids violent.
But it’s not the content of the games that morphs them into little rage monsters. It’s the mechanics of the game. They get frustrated when a sibling screws up a song, or they are killed before the end of a level.
It’s not blasting zombies’ heads off that makes them violent. It’s frustration with the game itself, the inability to complete a task or challenge.
They encounter these same frustrations in every aspect of their lives: with homework and classmates, playing soccer or being told to brush their teeth. Frustration and rage are a normal part of our makeup. I’m consumed by it whenever I drive to Safeway.
I believe that games are an important learning environment. Better that my kids try to deal with their rage while mashing buttons now than behind the wheel of a car in a few years.
As Rob Lefebvre reports in this week’s issue, there’s a new generation of games called “empathy games” designed to help us understand other people better and hopefully make us nicer to be around.
In a roundabout way, I think GTA has a similar effect. GTA’s not Shakespeare, but it incorporates elements of good literature and cinema – complex story-lines, character development, moral choices, atmosphere, and sometimes jaw-dropping beauty.
The moral choices are gleefully the wrong moral choices, but choices they are. My daughter, the eldest of the lot, is a great example of this. When she plays GTA, she drives within the lines and stops for red lights. She gets pleasure from following the rules, not breaking them.
GTA has much more to contribute than the gleeful killing of streetwalkers. It’s a sly and fascinating satire of America, courtesy of its Scottish developers, who are obviously both amused and appalled by this country. My kids are fans of Colbert and Breaking Bad, too. They get it.
GMIC – Silicon Valley’s largest mobile internet conference – is about to get underway in just a few short weeks. Over 10,000 developers, executives, entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world will descend on San Francisco’s Moscone Center on October 21-23 to talk about all the latest changes in mobile. Attendees will get to listen to speakers from Facebook, Qualcomm, Y-Combinator, PopCap, and many more, as well as party as hard as some Silicon Valley nerds can muster.
To hype up the conference GMIC hooked us up with two Golden Tickets (valued at $599) which we can’t wait to send to two lucky readers. But first, we just launched our awesome Cult of Mac Magazine in Newsstand a few weeks ago and would much rather promote it instead, so here’s how to enter our contest to win one of the GMIC tickets:
Note: This article originally appeared in the Newsstand magazine” target=”_blank”>Cult of Mac Newsstand issue, Game On!. Grab yourself a copy or subscribe today.
Michael Frauenhofer is an indie developer who currently lives in Pennsylvania. He and his mom made Demon Chic, a story-based, decidedly indie game available for iPad. The game focuses on three roommates trying to live life while battling monsters, giant babies, and floating heads. It’s an experience that turns the traditional idea of monster battles on its head, as the main characters all are really fighting their own inner demons.
Demon Chic is a hallucinogenic trip through the lives of three ordinary people who must learn to live with their illness, not cure it, and find some sort of fulfilling life while doing so.
This ain’t no Angry Birds sequel, folks, so buckle up.
Waking up, looking at your clock, and seeing that you’re late for work or class is one of the worst feelings in the world. In that heart-stopping instant, you feel your control over your life drop into your stomach, and all you can think about is how annoyed or mad or disappointed the people waiting on you are going to be. It’s an adrenaline-drenched nightmare of a moment in which you realize just how quickly you can put your pants on and brush your teeth, and as you bolt out the door to face your fate, you wonder why you can’t always get ready that quickly.
Gary, the hero of developer Noego’s Level 22, is caught in that situation, and the really bad news is that he’s been late to work so many times that if anyone sees him this morning, he will lose his job. So on top of the already stressful situation of being late, he has to sneak his way up to the 22nd floor without anyone seeing him.
That’s right: This is a stealth game about going to work. And it’s every bit as silly and fun as that sounds.
If you’re in the mood for an old-fashioned computer role-playing game but don’t want to go through the dark rites of hardware emulation, Gurk III is a welcome alternative.
Originally released exclusively on Google Play, the Gurk games are bare-bones RPG adventures that pit a small group of adventurers with generated stats against kobolds, goblins, and all sorts of cave-lurking baddies–kind of like the old DOS Shareware title Castle of the Winds.
Fitbit has today announced its new fitness tracker, the Force, which combines all of the features found in the original Fitbit Flex with some of the more advanced features found in the Fitbit One tracker. It costs $129.95, slightly more than the $99 Flex, and it’s available today.
Readdle has this week updated two of its most popular productivity apps for iOS, adding next-generation image processing to Scanner Pro, and a number of new features to Calendars 5. You can now enjoy much-improved scans with better legibility in the former, as well as task creation and an app icon badge in the latter.
Just like those isolated soldiers that used to be discovered from time to time thinking that WWII was still on, years after it had ended, there’s a designer hidden deep in the offices of Porsche who thinks we still need to use USB thumb drives. Yes, it looks beautiful, just like Hiroo Onoda’s doubtlessly crisply-pressed uniform, but that doesn’t make it right.
This story first appeared in our weekly newsstand publication Cult of Mac Magazine.
Long before Apple’s “Think Different,” ad campaign, before the dot-com boom, before zany became the norm in startup culture, there was Nolan Bushnell, Pong and Atari – the company where Steve Jobs landed his first job.
Bushnell is the godfather of the think different mentality, an unconventional character who ran unconventional companies. He made it a personal mission to attract similarly creative, passionate people to help him to realize some of his ideas, which many people considered wacky at the time.
You’re probably sick of Kickstarter projects that turn your iPad or iPad mini into a giant camera, so here’s something a little different. It’s an iPad mini camera rig, but this one is actually available to buy. Now. From Amazon.
Bitdrop is an interesting new app/service for sending encrypted files to anyone over the internet, with the big advantage that the receiver doesn’t need to install anything. This is pretty good for the paranoid and careful alike, letting you share files using e-mail, but without sending them over the open internet.
Square-Enix has a great habit of porting over their worst Final Fantasy games to iOS without ever giving iPhone or iPad owners the games they really want, like Final Fantasy VI or VII.
That seems to be coming to an end, though: Square-Enix is finally releasing Final Fantasy VI, their best 16-bit Final Fantasy game for the SNES, on iOS.
If you’ve ever traveled internationally and been unlucky or unknowing enough to keep on using your smartphone’s data as if you were still in the fatherland, you’ll know that watching a single YouTube video on a foreign network can result in a few hunded dollars being added to your bill.
International roaming charges are so insane that the European Commission is actually planning to abolish them altogether. But looks like T-Mobile beat them to the punch: the uncarrier is now promising free global data in over 100 different countries, no extra charge.
In a move that’s sure to upset some third-party app developers, Microsoft is planning to launch official Remote Desktop apps for Android and iOS later this month. Like the Remote Desktop solutions for Windows and OS X, the apps will allow you to connect to your PC and control it remotely from your smartphone and tablet.