Cult of Mac

In OS X, all file types have a default application that opens when you double click on them. If you double click on a PDF file or a PNG file, chances are that your Mac will open it in Preview, Apple’s default PDF and image file app. If you’ve given an app like Adobe Reader, for example, permission to set itself as the default PDF app, then all PDFs will open in Reader.

Over time, you may have set apps as default that you no longer want to open your files. Conversely, you might want all JPG files to open in Preview, except one specific JPG file, which you’d like to open in Photoshop. Here’s how to make both of these situations work for you.

The most you can charge for an app on the iOS App Store is $999.99. In the early days of the App Store, a number of novelty apps came out, trying to make a quick buck by convincing gullible plutocrats to part with their money in the form of a $1,000 app download. The most notable example is I Am Rich, an iPhone app that literally did nothing except proclaim your affluence.

These days, though, the $999.99 club is made up of legitimate apps. Well, mostly.

If you bought an iMac between late 2011 and mid 2012 and your graphics have been acting up, you’re not alone… and Apple just might fix your iMac for free.

Remember Gameloft’s $80 Duo Gamer Controller? It was launched in October 2012 and it brought physical controls to our favorite Gameloft games on iOS — but it had a number of major flaws. The biggest one was that it was only compatible with Gameloft games, and that made its $80 price tag all the more bemusing.

But it’s not such a bad purchase at $6.36, which is all you’ll pay for it on Amazon right now.

Hey, did you see Jobs this weekend? If so, you probably saw it alone, in a theater completely empty except for yourself, a single loquacious cricket, and a theater usher sleeping one off. Why? Because Jobs absolutely tanked this weekend.

This post is as much for our Dear Leader Leander Kahney as much as it is for you, our wonderful and ever-curious reader. It solves a problem Leander struggled with for a full thirty seconds before tossing it to us minions in the Cult of Mac HipChat room.

The problem: How to get all the photos snapped by Leander’s twelve or so children into the same Photo Stream on the main family iMac.

For the solution, read on. Hint: it doesn’t need Photo Stream, and it uses a great feature of PhotoSync v2.0.

Can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for us with the iPad 5? Here’s what it will likely look like… face down!

Bulk editing photos? There are a few ways to do it. You could rent Photoshop every month and create some automated Actions (actually a totally sweet and powerful way to do things); you could use the command-line tool ImageMagick and wrap it in various OS X System Services; or you could just spend $10 and buy PhotoBulk.

Having been teased and tempted by so many similar gadgets in the past, I can’t quite believe that the DigiPod could ever be real. But the folks at Indiegogo at least seem to have some faith in the new pitch on their site. The DigiPod is a little insert which slips into your film SLR and turns it digital.

Mind Maps are a great way to brainstorm and visualize ideas. And plain text is a great way to hammer out lists. And Markdown is a perfect tool for quickly adding hierarchy to those lists as you write them. If only there were a way to combine these three things…

And guess what? The fairy godfather of Internet tinkering, Brett Terpstra, has already done it for you. It’s an OS X System Service that takes the messiest of Markdown lists and turns them into a format suitable for most mind-mapping apps.

Y’all know Serious Eats, right? It’s the one place on the Internet where you can go to be entertained, educated and properly fed. I’m a fan of cooking, but I generally avoid recipes on the web because it’s hard to gauge their quality until it’s too late. Serious Eats is solid every single time.

And now there’s a Newsstand magazine, and — again — it stands out above the rest.

I’m always interested to see a new iPad stand, and I’m especially interested if it can do the job of both my two favorite stands in one neat package. The stand is the Nimblstand, and it wants to replace the Origami keyboard case and stand, plus the PadPivot, or similar.

There are a couple of offers going on at Cult of Mac Deals right now that you might want to check out as your weekend comes to a close.

The good people at Motorola will probably clock me in the head with a Droid Maxx battery for saying this, but shouldn’t Google open-source Moto X technology?

This week on The CultCast: Jobs! We’ve seen it, and now the question is — is it any good? We’ll discuss the much-hyped movie (100 percent spoiler-free), Ashton Kutcher’s performance and love for the man, plus examine if the real Jobs fits the fictional portrayal.

Then, an all new Yay & Nay: September 10th edition. We’ll yes and no our way through the rumors and what we expect at the all-but-confirmed Apple iPhone event.

Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on this 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. Show notes up next!

The most vocal and active iPhone and Android fans scoff at the notion that Moto X is the new iPhone. But it’s true.

The iPhone used to represent the most elegant, innovative and fun-to-use smartphone for everybody. That status has now been taken by Motorola’s new “Google phone,” the Moto X.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” – Proverb

I’m looking forward to school starting up again. But I’m coming from a different perspective. You see, I’ve got school-aged kids and while I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve had together this summer, it’s safe to say that all of us are ready for some time away from each other. School does that…and a lot more.

The weather also won’t be cooperating with us as much as summer ends, meaning that more time inside is bound to happen. That means more time to focus on school work and less time to be distracted by the great outdoors. But just because summer is over doesn’t mean playtime has to be – which is where The Back To School Gamer Bundle comes in. In this Cult of Mac Deals offer, you’ll get 2 games at a price you name and if you pay more than the average price you’ll get an additional 4 games as well!

Google updated its flagship social network app for Google+ on iOS today, bringing it up to par with the recently released Android Google+ app update. The new features includes integration with Google Drive, the loss of Google Messenger in favor of Google Hangouts, and some new stuff for Apps for Business users.

Apple just released a new update for iTunes, saying, “This update corrects an issue with iTunes in the Cloud, where some purchases may download or play unexpected items.”

What does that mean, exactly? Apple didn’t say much more, but I’m guessing that some users were clicking on the button to download a previous purchase that was stored in iCloud, but ending up with something totally different.

This update should totally fix that. You can download the new 11.0.5 update directly from the Apple support site linked below, or use the Mac App Store via Software Update to get it.

Source: Apple Support

There’s a bewildering array of iPhone 5 cases to choose from — waterproof cases, cases that double as stands and even cases that carry business cards. But how many can double as a business card?

Findables Flex cases can, because they have QR codes stamped on the back that link to your contact or social media details.

At this point in the rumor cycle, it would be easier to list things we don’t know about the iPhone 5C. Apple’s lower-cost model will likely be announced alongside the 5S on September 10, and it will probably look a lot like the iPhone 5. The main difference is the plastic shell, which will reportedly come in several colors.

We’ve seen leaked parts for just about every 5C color already, and now some closeup images have surfaced of a blue shell.

What you see above comes from Tactus, a reliable parts leaker that was one of the first to go hands-on with 5C parts earlier this year. The company’s sources are saying Apple will offer the 5C in white, black, red, yellow, blue and green. The iPod touch currently sells in black, white, pink, yellow, blue and red.

Source: Tactus

Designs from California bag outfitter Booq tend toward the highly unorthodox and original; the last time I wrote about one of their bags I even made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the company’s gear was designed by folks from outer space.

But with its square-jawed, establishment lines and pockets that open conventionally, Booq’s new $150 Boa brief laptop bag seems like it would look much more at home on the set of Mad Men than it would on the set of Battlestar Galactica.

Gone Home, developed by The Fullbright Company, is a newly released indie adventure game that’s getting quite a bit of buzz across the interwebs. Here’s the setup.

It’s June 7th, 1995. 1:15 AM

You arrive home after a year abroad. You expect your family to greet you, but the house is empty. Something’s not right. Where is everyone? And what’s happened here?

How do you not want this game? Even better? It’s on sale right now through the 21st of August for $17.99 on Steam.

When I received the UE Boom in the mail and opened the mailing box, I thought maybe the PR rep had secretly slipped me a bottle of Scotch. Not that I would have minded, of course.

It turns out that this ruggedized little portable Bluetooth speaker by Logitech-owned Ultimate Ears (UE) comes in some slick packaging that I’m loathe to get rid of, it’s that cool. The cylindrical speaker fits snugly in the center portion of the box, and each side has a cute little compartment where the bright yellow power plug and flat premium micro USB cable fit in, each with its respective symbol printed on a little flag. It’s striking packaging, which should go over well with consumers.

Luckily, the actual speaker here, a smallish cylinder made to be set on end vertically as well as on its side horizontally, is a fantastic sounding Bluetooth speaker, with a full, clear tonal spectrum that’s surprising in something so small. The bass response could be a bit punchier, but I don’t find that to be an issue at all, and actually prefer the more balanced tonal approach.

It seems hard to believe that Apple would come out with a gaudy-looking iPhone, but according to the rumor mill, Apple is set to release the iPhone 5S in black, white and gold. We haven’t seen any convincing evidence of the gold iPhone yet, but if MacBoutic is to believed, these are the first leaked photographs of the golden iPhone 5S shells.

The Apple logo and the word “iPhone” have been deliberately blurred out, but it looks like the anodized coloring has been applied to all metallic parts — something that’s not possible in a post-production paint job, but doesn’t rule out the possibility of Photoshop.

Even though we can’t verify the authenticity of the photos, they’re the best evidence we’ve seen so far. We’ll have to wait until the iPhone event on September 10 to see how real it is.

Source: MacBoutic

Via: Engadget