Having gone without a refresh since 2009, the iPod classic is one of the oldest products still on sale in the Apple Store. Will Apple finally update it this fall to add flash storage and a Lightning connector? Probably not. In fact, some expect the Cupertino company to finally kill it off.
Having access to a dictionary is one way to really improve your vocabulary. When my teacher in eighth grade English class told me that, I ignored it, because who has time to stop reading, grab the dictionary from the shelf (or under my seat, in middle school), and look up that word. By the time I was done with that, I’d have lost any meaning in the reading I was doing, anyway. Ugh.
Flash forward to now, and almost every device has a dictionary attached to it. The same is true for Mac OS X, at least the Mountain Lion variety, and it’s super easy to bring up.
We have heard a lot of rumors and leaks over the last year that Apple would install a fingerprint sensor underneath the home button of the iPhone 5S this year, but what does the leaked hardware actually say?
Earlier this week, a number of images were posted showing the part for a new iPhone 5S home button and associated flex cable… and it was radically different than previous home button configurations.
But does it confirm the iPhone 5S has a fingerprint sensor? iFixIt CEO Kyle Wiens sure thinks so.
One of the problems that Apple has launching new iPhones in late September is that even though every iPhone release sells more than the release before it, they don’t actually bump Apple’s quarterly numbers as much as they could.
Why? Let’s take this year as an example. All signs point to the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C launching on September 20th, but Apple’s financial quarter ends on September 30th. That gives Apple just ten days to sell as many iPhones as possible to bump up their quarterly results. It’s the October – December quarter where Apple sees the most iPhone sales.
So how many iPhones can Apple sell in just ten days? According to Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves, a lot. He thinks Apple can sell up to 13 million iPhones before the quarter closes.
Earlier this week, we posted evidence that even after Apple unveils its new mid-range iPhone 5C device, it could keep the 16GB iPhone 5 around for customers who want a classier, more solid phone at a discounted price. Here’s some more confirmation.
Late last night, a verified account for China Telecom popped up on Weibo and posted an advertisement for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C… and it seems to imply that iPhone 5C is a much different design than we think.
Monokrom is a pretty neat B&W conversion app for the iPhone. I uses colored filters to do the converting, so you can get some dramatic effects, just like if you were to use colored filters on your lens whilst shooting B&W film. Unlike most iPhone B&W apps, though, the range of available filters is unlimited – it uses the colors of the image itself.
From the department of “One Thing Well” comes KeyCam, an iPhone app which takes photos with a timer. Or a clap, which I guess makes that “Two Things Well,” but still.
There’s something beautifully absurd about the Hasselnuts Kickstarter project, which mounts your iPhone on the back of a Hasselblad 500-series film camera and uses it as an 8MP sensor for a camera that – in analog form – was considered hi-resolution enough to take photos on the moon.
Then again, if you do have an old Hassy lying around, then why not drop $250 just to get it working again?
Remember Federico Viticci’s review of the amazing new iPad “text editor” Editorial? Of course you do – it’s the one you pushed to your read-later service and never read later, because it was just too damn long for a single post on a website. Hell, the thing even had a table of contents. A blog post with a table of contents.
Now, though, you can enjoy Viticci’s opus in a form much better suited to a long text with multiple sections: a book. And being an Apple nerd, Viticci made it into an iBook.
The news from Sony this week was dominated by its stunning new iDevice-compatible QX lenses (and the blogger leaks that revealed the lenses before Sony wanted the lenses revealed).
But there’s also news from Sony’s audio corner; it’s evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but still exciting: Three new models have been added to the company’s midrange MDR-10 line of headphones, including one with what looks like class-busting noise-canceling abilities and another equipped with Bluetooth and NFC.
Despite the fact that Brother’s new, top-of-the-line all-in-one inkjet printer looks like a swarthy behemoth, Brother says the MFC-J6920dw is actually 35 percent smaller than comparable competitor’s models.
Brother achieves this through something they call “Landscape Print Technology,” a feature it introduced last year that lets the printers output to large pages from printers with relatively small footprints.
Apple just sent out an email to developers, notifying them that three new downloads are now available: OS X Server Preview 7 for OS X Mavericks, OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5, and Windows Migration Assistant.
One of the downsides of being the world’s most successful company is that you’re the target of a ton of parody ads. Or is that the upside?
YouTube parody video creator, Matthias, has come up with a great one this time. Here’s the latest from the video creators: “Introducing the iPhone 5S.”
Think your messages are private? Think again!
A Cult of Mac reader, asking to remain anonymous, sent in a tip about how he caught his girlfriend reading Messages on his iPhone.
Privacy is important to this fellow, but he suspected that his love was sneaking peeks at his text and iMessages.
So he took a couple of steps to catch her in the act.
The latest from The Wall Street Journal is that Apple is working on bigger screens for the iPhone, with experiments ranging from 4.8 to 6 inches. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard such claims; the Journal itself said Apple was testing larger iPhones and iPads in July.
It sounds like Apple is still in the experimentation stage “with screens ranging from 4.8 inches to as high as six inches.” But the Journal says “people familiar with the company’s internal deliberations and plans indicate it [Apple] appears more willing to move ahead than in years past.”
Google’s mobile apps share a common and easily distinguishable design language, for the most part. The iOS app for Google Drive has been in desperate need of a redesign, and a revamped version has been released today in the App Store.
Google Drive now includes the card-like interface seen in other apps, which Google calls “thumbnail view.” You can quickly toggle between viewing thumbnails of files and the traditional list view. There are a number of other additions, including simpler file sharing and the ability to edit in landscape mode.
Fans across the globe have already embraced the idea that Apple will most likely release a smartwatch, but the biggest question everyone has is, what will it look like?
Artists and designers have been trying to imagine the design of the iWatch for a few years now and while no one has really blown us away with a perfect concept, we have seen some timely ideas that Apple will probably implement. To get a better idea of how the iWatch will look, function and feel, take a look at these six concepts.
When design engineer Esben Oxholm created his iWatch concept he decided to make it as simple as possible. It features a black metal and rubber wristband. The display is shiny while the body is matte. And it has the rumored curved display. Apple’s iWatch probably won’t be as circular, but the minimalist look that Oxholm achieves will also be Apple’s aim as everything about the watch will defer to the screen.
Oxholm’s concept is probably the closest to what the iWatch will actually look like, though we imagine that Apple’s watch will be more oval in shape rather than a perfect circle. This concept almost looks like a bulked-up Nike Fuelband, which isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Tim Cook sits on Nike’s board, after all.
Created by Dutch 3D modeler Martin Hajek, this MacUser iWatch concept tries to embrace traditional elements of watches while updating the technology of the watchface. In truth, Martin’s concept looks like a miniaturized iPhone strapped to some leather, but it gets a time out because of the UI.
The iWatch will have a touchscreen display, however, no one is going to want to interact with the display for extended periods of time. Our fingers are too tiny to hit the small X’s on this iWatch’s screen. The iWatch will be used to display information, but it won’t be used to interact with that info. Your iPhone will do all of the heavy lifting, while the iWatch acts as a secondary display to alert you of the most important information throughout the day.
ADR Studios has made a couple of iWatch concepts, but this is their best one yet. The size of this concept iWatch is pretty small so it won’t feel like you’re wearing a computer on your wrist. Apple’s design team is obsessed with having the thinnest, lightest and smallest devices on the planet, so even though Apple will try to cram as many features into the iWatch as possible, it will also want to make a very small device. The actual face of the iWatch will probably be somewhere around this size unless Apple works out a curved display for it.
The UI for ADR Studios’ concept is one of the most on point we’ve seen so far. Notice that there is a small icon indicating that the iWatch is tethered to an iPhone. The ‘Slide to Unlock’ feature probably won’t be as big as it’s portrayed here, where it eats up half the screen. The iWatch display will take advantage of all available screen real estate even when it’s locked, so expect there to be bigger font for the time and a more elegant solution for unlocking.
One thing that a lot of iWatch concept artists haven’t taken into account is the user interface. Most assume that the UI will be a watered-down version of iOS, but Nikolai Lamm offers a different take. Rather than interacting with your iWatch the same way you do an iPhone, it might actually be closer to the controls of the iPod classic.
Lamm’s spiral interface is based off an Apple UI patent for iTunes and would appeal to people who want the look of a classic watch that interacts with an iPhone. The circular finger movements required to interact with Lamm’s iWatch would compliment the design of the hardware and you would only need to touch your device when you want to adjust notification settings for certain apps, while everything else is controlled from your iPhone.
The display of the real Apple iWatch probably won’t be circular like this, but you should expect some new UI from Apple as the iWatch will be a completely new device with new functions not yet in iOS.
With the sixth-generation iPod Nano, Apple embraced the idea of the iWatch and offered multiple clock faces and wrist bands to convert your iPod Nano into a watch. Expect the real iWatch to come with similar features.
The concept from Just Design Things for the iWatch has swappable wristbands and clock faces so that users can customize their look. Even if the iWatch doesn’t offer changeable Swatch-like wristbands, Apple will at least offer it in multiple colors. The display of this concept looks too heavy and bulky to be worn comfortably as a wristwatch though, so we think it’s more likely that the display will be built right into the band to make it more comfortable for everyday use.
For this iWatch concept, artist itswithaKay modeled the watch after Nike’s Amp watch and added some iOS elements. It sounds too simple to be plausible, but we already know that Jony Ive and his design team requested a number of sport watches from Nike to study.
The iWatch has to have a durable design. Unlike the iPhone or iPad, the iWatch must take a licking and keep on ticking, so a thick rubberized band will help resist some of the wear and tear. Also take note of the tapered band on this concept. It allows enough width for a display while also being comfortable for the wearer. The display will probably be a bit bigger than in this concept, the UI will be different along with the clasp in the back too, but the physical outline of the iWatch will be pretty similar to what you see here.
2K Drive, the highly anticipated racing game from the creators of titles like Project Gotham Racing, has launched as an iOS-exlusive title in the App Store. We’ve been covering the story of 2K Drive for awhile, and Cult of Mac Games Editor Rob LeFebvre got to play it over the weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo.
Yeah, that Call of Duty.
Activision today announced the exclusive to iOS launch of Call of Duty: Strike Team.
This is the first time Activision has released a mobile title in the incredibly popular and well-selling military first-person shooter franchise that breaks all kinds of records on consoles, Mac, and PC.
You’ll be able to play with a squad of four in the new iOS game, customizing the loadouts and skills of each team member, then switch between first-person action to a top-down, third-person viewpoint, giving you a more strategic take on the battles. Here’s a great video that explains more.
This morning a report from China Labor Watch accused a factory in Apple’s supply chain for a number of worker abuse violations. Instead of Foxconn or Pegatron, the factory in question was Jabil, a smaller Apple supplier in the Wuxi province. The undercover investigation found that Jabil was enforcing mandatory overtime beyond the legal limit, poor training, and hiring discrimination.
Since the whole Foxconn scandal blew up last year, Apple has been much more public about its commitment to workers’ rights. In response to this most recent allegation against Jabil, Apple has said it is investigating the accusations.
Ever play Lemmings? If so, you know the thrill of guiding little figures through ever-increasingly hazardous environments, using each character’s unique skill to avoid and overcome the devious level designer’s clever traps and obstacles.
Wobbles, a new universal game app from developer Play Nimbus, takes its cue from Lemmings in two ways. One, players need to guide their wobbles from start to finish, as they all follow each other in unvarying obedience to the march. Two, the little sounds the Wobbles make come close to the cuteness of the sounds in Lemmings–when players fail a level, an adorable Wobble voice says, “wobble wobble wobble!” It’s adorable. Seriously.
The iPhone is headed to Japan’s largest wireless provider, DoCoMo, this fall, according to a new report from Japanese business publication Nikkei. Apple and DoCoMo recently agreed on the terms of the partnership, and the iPhone will likely be officially announced on DoCoMo the same day as Apple’s September 10th unveiling of the iPhone 5S and 5C. Japan’s other carriers, KDDI and SoftBank, already sell the iPhone.
We’re just a few days away from learning all the details (and price) of the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S, which means retailers like Best Buy are scrambling to clear all their old iPhone 5 inventory off shelves. Best Buy is taking $50 off the price of the iPhone 5, in an effort to lure new customers in.
This isn’t the first time the retailer has sold the iPhone 5 for $149, but T-Mobile customers are still out of luck, as the offer is only available to Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon customers. However, considering Apple’s about to release a newer, more colorful and cheaper variant of the iPhone 5, we’d recommend sitting out on this deal, no matter how desperate for a new iPhone you are, and wait to see what Apple announces Tuesday.
Source: Best Buy
PayPal announced a major update for its iOS app today that includes a new iOS 7-styled redesign focused on giving users more options to use digital payments at brick and mortar locations.
The update allows customers to pay for items in-store, transfer money to friends, split bills, check-in to locations, and even open up a line of credit with the new Bill Me Later feature. PayPal is also working with restaurants to allow users to order and pay for items within the PayPal app, rather than having to download a separate app for all your favorite restaurants.
The new update will be available for free on Google Play and the App Store later today.
Here’s an intro video PayPal released for the redesign: :