Cult of Mac

We’re only two weeks away from the official unveiling of the iPhone 5C, but some eBay geniuses scammers are trying to make some quick Gs off desperate Apple fans hungry for a prototype scoop.

An eBay listing for a genuine iPhone 5C Rear Shell started out at $20 but has quickly received 70 bids, with the latest totaling over $13,600. With the insane amount of iPhone 5C leaks dropping over the past few months, we imagine it’s probably real. But what those clueless fanboys don’t know is they could save $13,584 and get one for $16.

Update: The listing has been removed, citing “the item is no longer available.”

Source: eBay

When the paid version of the very fine Feedly RSS aggregation service, Feedly Pro, was announced at the beginning of this month, the only option available was the Life Membership, at a fairly affordable $99.00.

Today, though, we just noticed that Feedly Pro’s monthly and annual subscriptions are available for purchase, at $5.00 and $45.00, respectively.

Following up on the Department of Justice’s revised proposed punishment from Apple’s e-book antitrust case, Apple’s lawyers filed a response this morning claiming the DOJ is trying to give Amazon an unfair advantage on e-books.

Defense attorney Orin Synder said that the DOJ’s 12-page proposal is just trying to find a remedy that will give Amazon a competitive advantage again. Synder had the following to say regarding the DOJ’s proposal that Apple allow App Store developers  to sell e-books through their apps without Apple taking a cut:

Apple is currently testing its own iPhone trade-in program in select Apple stores ahead of a September launch, according to multiple reports. Rumors of an Apple trade-in program first started earlier this summer with a public launch expected in late June, but Apple decided to delay the date to sometime next month.

The launch of the program will likely be tied to the unveiling of the new iPhone hardware Apple plans to show off on September 10th.

During Apple’s last earnings call, Tim Cook said that “our activations in Russia set a record last quarter as the highest-ever quarter.” Like China and other countries where the normal methods of selling phones are different than here in the states, Russia is full of growth potential for Apple.

A new report from TechCrunch claims that Apple executives are visiting the country this week to meet with retailers. One can only assume that the main topic of discussion will be how to market and sell the iPhone more effectively. Apple is expected to ship a cheaper iPhone 5C this fall, which would be hugely attractive in markets like Russia that don’t operate under carrier subsidies.

Russia is the largest internet market in Europe right now, and it is also the fastest growing European country for mobile usage. It makes sense for Apple to be focusing on expansion there. Visit the source link below to read more about the hurdles Apple faces in the Russian market.

Source: TechCrunch

Image: Vedomosti

If you’re a fan of famous action director John Woo, you’ll be as excited as we were when we heard that he’s working on an iOS game, Bloodstroke, in development with Moonshark Games (Stan Lee’s Verticus, Neil Gaiman’s Wayward Manor) and to be published by Chillingo.

AppAdvice reports that the game will be an on-rails top-down action game that tasks players with protecting and escorting their in-game employer through hazardous level after level.

Next-gen iPhone parts have been leaking like crazy this summer. There’s a new component or shell leak nearly every day now. Two new iPhone models, the 5C and 5S, are expected to come out this fall, and a new hands-on video compares the devices side by side.

AppAdvice is claiming its video shows “what may be Apple’s iPhone 5S and 5C,” but at this point it’s a pretty safe bet that what is shown is legit. The iPhone 5 is also included for comparison’s sake. We’ve seen the blue iPhone 5C shell before, and the gold champagne 5C has been the most annoying relentless Apple rumor for the past few weeks.

Every once in a while, I’m listening to a song via the Music app on my iPhone, or (lately) listening to iTunes Radio on my iPad through a bluetooth speaker in the house, when I want to quickly figure out what’s playing, or maybe mess with the controls, skip a song, or something like that.

Typically, I’d double click the Home button to get a basic controller to pause or skip a song, or click into the home screen, find the Music app, launch it, then tap the Now Playing button, and then make any adjustments.

Now, however, with iOS 7 beta’s new Control Center, you can tap right through to the Now Playing song with a swipe and a tap. Here’s how.

An iPhone or iPad dock is a very nice thing to have for keeping one’s desktop regimented and tidy, but they have drawbacks.

For one, a dock that you buy for one generation of iPhone might not work if Apple changes the handset design in the next generation. In addition, iPhone and iPad docks tend not to be cross-compatible, so if you have a dock that fits your iPhone, you usually can’t force an iPad into it, and vice versa. And then, of course, there’s the case problem. Docks and cases tend not to play well together, but most of us like to use a case to protect our devices. That means we usually go without a dock.

Twelve South’s latest product, the HiRise for iPhone and iPad mini, is a combination dock and stand that very cleverly finds a way around all of these problems. We love using it, but putting it together? That’s another story.

This morning we were treated to some leaked images of an alleged graphite-colored iPhone 5S, but now Sonny Dickson has a new set of leaked next-generation iPad mini back housings to feast our eyes on.

The shells looks similar to ones we posted earlier this month. Based on the cases it looks like the iPad mini 2 will predictably have the same form factor as the original iPad mini with the option for 4G service or Wi-Fi only. The rear shell also sports the new embedded Apple logo, but is void of any other info, like whether it will really have a Retina display.

Here are some close-ups:

Glu Games (Gun Bros, Contract Killer, Death Dome) has a certain reputation for violent free to play games, but the San Francisco-based developer has quite a variety of game genres to its credit, including fantasy and city-building games.

Zombies Ate My Friends is another free to play game, sure, but it has a charm about it that helps cynics like me look the other way when it comes to the typical mechanics associated with the business model. The artwork is pleasing to the eye and there is a sense of whimsy to every aspect of the game, from dialog to undead-smashing weaponry (there’s a ukulele!), that elevates Zombies Ate My Friends from “yet another cash grab” to “worth a download and your valuable time.”

Google may have won a lot of new admirers thanks to its fancy Glass headwear, but Siri isn’t impressed one bit. In fact, if you try to talk to Siri about Google Glass she will just give you the cold shoulder.

A recently discovered easter egg in Siri spits back frustrated responses when you use the Glass prompt, “Okay Glass.”

Here are some of Siri’s other responses:

48,000 people are about to descend on Black Rock City, Nevada to join in the Burning Man festival experiment. There’s going to be art galore, crazy events, weird costumes for days, and the brutal Black Rock Desert meting out its hellish punishments on each and every Burner.

Making the trip to BRC is easy, but surviving is entirely different, so we’ve found eight great apps that will help you get out of the desert alive:

Every time I see someone wearing over-ear headphones out in public, I can’t help but think of the scene in the “Starsky & Hutch” film where Ben Stiller is running along the beach listening to “Old Days” by Chicago. There’s something odd about over-ear headphones being worn not only in that situation – but really in any public situation. To me, earbuds or in-ear headphones work best in public. And that’s not because of sound quality. It’s because they are a lot more discreet.

That said, if you’re up to wearing over-ear headphones anytime and anywhere, then Cult of Mac Deals is offering Hammo Stereo Headphones for 43% off the regular price for a limited time.

When last we heard about Apple’s 64-bit aspirations, a notable CPU designer was saying that Apple couldn’t outrun Moore’s Law, and that the earliest Cupertino would manage to swing a 64-bit A7 processor was by 2014.

According to a new report by Fox News reporter Clayton Morris, though, Cupertino might have been juicing. A 64-bit A7 processor could be included in the iPhone 5S.

It used to be a no-brainer to enable the Apache web server included with Mac OS X. You’d hop into the System Preferences, fire up the Sharing preference pane, and then you’d be good to go.

Starting in Mountain Lion, however, Apple hasn’t given a user-friendly checkbox as in previous OS X releases. Instead you need a little bit of Terminal magic.

Here’s how to enable and start the Web Service in OS X Mountain Lion.

You know what everyone should do if they have an Apple TV? Install Plex, the incredible media server that can stream any digital media file on your Mac to your Apple TV, no jailbreak required.

I’m dead serious: Plex is awesome, and installing it on my Mac has been a total game changer in regards to the way I watch media in my own house. From my Apple TV, my MacBook Air, my iPad or my iPhone, I can stream my entire video library anywhere with no hassle.

It’s actually pretty easy to shoot sneaky pictures of people using the iPhone. You can pretend you’re doing something else as you point the camera at your unwitting/unwilling subject, or you can just hold the iPhone up to your ear, walk past them and snap a picture using the volume button.

Now there’s a third way: the Smartphone Spy Lens, an add-on that lets you shoot sneaky shots at 90-degrees to the camera’s own axis.

Right now, the iPhone 5 comes in white-and-silver and black-and-slate. When the iPhone 5S debuts on September 10th, there’s every reason to believe that Apple will supplement the traditional two color choices with a third option, a golden color (champagne gold, rather than ingot).

Is that it, though? Not according to new leaked images suggesting that the iPhone 5S will actually come in four colors. The last one? Graphite.

In every country, there’s the holdouts, the also-ran carriers that haven’t inked a deal with Apple and so soldier valiantly on, selling Android and (gasp) Blackberries to their sad clientele. In Japan, this also-ran carrier happens to be the nation’s largest, NTT DoCoMo. But eventually, even the holdouts come around, and shares of NTT DoCoMo are up this morning following reports that Apple is in talks to bring the iPhone to the network.

You know how it’s almost impossible to keep track of all the photos you take with your iPhone, iPad, and your regular camera? Imagine if you had another device that clipped to your clothes and captured video and stills all day long. It would be a nightmare of organization, right?

Then again, if you’re, say, a photographer who regualarly gets harrassed by police and “security” “guards,” then having an always-on camera capturing the 65-degree slice of life in front of you might actually turn out to be rather useful.

San Francisco, CA — Steve Jobs revered Pixar for its blend of artistry and technology, as Walter Isaacson detailed in his 2011 biography, so perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that he actually apologized to one of the artists working on the 2004 film “The Incredibles” after he criticized some of the design in the film after a screening.

RayFlash’s new ringflash adapter is called the Universal, and it is. Well, almost. There are actually two different sizes, so you’ll have to choose the “Universal” model that fits your camera.

I kid. Kinda. The Universal part of the name actually refers to the flash-hole, which can now accommodate pretty much any flashgun, not just the handful of Canon and Nikon strobes that the old RayFlash supported.

A plain text adventure for the iPhone? That’s right. A plain text adventure with a bunch of the words covered up with black censorship bars? ██████ A!

It’s called ████████, and it comes from Neven Mrgan and James Moore.

In my tireless efforts to inform and entertain you, I find myself wrangling a lot of pictures for posts here on CoM. And now that many people are coming at us from Retina-screened devices, we try to use big pictures whenever we can. But how big is a picture?

Clicking the image and tapping the spacebar will give you a preview, but it won’t give you the image’s pixel dimensions. Not unless you install QuickLook plugin qlImageSize.