Cult of Mac

Thanks to Samsung and the International Trade Commission, Apple will be banned from importing the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2 into the United States from Sunday, August 4. The Cupertino company has been trying to fight the ban since it was confirmed last October, but it’s had little success.

Now it is seeing unlikely support from Microsoft, Intel, and Oracle, which all agree that the use of standards-essential patents to ban products should not be allowed.

In case you had any doubt that iOS 7 Beta 4 was dropping today (probably around 10AM Pacific time), Apple has already uploaded at least one build of Beta 4 to the Developer Center: specifically, for the AT&T iPhone 5 with a build number of 11a4435d. The Verizon iPhone 5 also has a related download.

You can’t download these betas yet — instead, you just get a “session expired” message — but all that means is Apple hasn’t “turned on” the download yet. So start your engines, gentlemen: iOS 7 Beta 4 is coming.

Via: Redmond Pie

There was always a good chance that that image showing a bin of empty iPhone 5C packaging was bogus, and now Steve over at Nowhereelse.fr is positing just that, saying there’s a lot of noise around the iPhone 5C logo that might be consistent with Photoshopping.

Apple’s under fire again for labor abuses by one of its manufacturing partners again, this time Pegatron. Bizarrely, though, the report incriminating them also confirms the plastic “budget” iPhone, the so-called iPhone 5C.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s a popular academic quiz show called Quiz Kids that airs on local public-access television. In each show, local high school teams of three players each compete for a $1,000 per-student scholarship based upon who can answer the most quiz questions correctly.

It’s a cute show, but of special interest to Cult of Mac’s readers is Episode 1110, in which the Mercy High School Crusaders competed against the Crystal Springs Griffins. The captain of the latter team? No less than Steve Jobs’s son, Reed, who talks about some of his extracurricular work helping out at Stanford, trying to assist finding new gene therapies for colon cancer. And Steve himself can be seen in the back at around the 2:53 mark, cheering Reed on.

That Reed Powell kid sure seems like a chip off the block, huh?

Source: Vimeo
Via: Reddit

It’s hard to make a buck, especially in China. It’s also hard to get an appointment at the Genius Bar. It’s hard, then, to know where our sympathies should lie in this story: Chinese scalpers are apparently booking up all of the Genius Bar appointments in China and then selling them online at huge premiums. Oh wait, no, it’s not. Those scalpers are scumbags.

I routinely hide the Dock on my Macbook Air, since it takes up a significant portion of my screen. While I use Alfred most of the time to launch apps and such, I still like to use the Dock; call it a hold over from the last ten years or so.

Sometimes, though, when I move the mouse cursor over to the side of the screen I keep the Dock on (the left, if you’re curious), it pops up even when I don’t want it to.

Then I found this Terminal command which lets me set the time delay between when my cursor hits the edge of my screen and when the Dock actually appears. Now I have the delay period set to a larger number, making it much slower to respond and unhide.

Apple’s “pinch to zoom” patent, which features prominently in a patent dispute against Samsung, has been dismissed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to documents filed by Samsung in a U.S. federal court, all 21 claims of the patent have been rejected in a “final office action.”

One of the many big, tattery holes in Apple’s Maps app is the lack of transit data. At launch, Apple wisely allowed third-party transit apps to plug into Maps to supplement their own subway and bus directions — perhaps the first bonafide example of Apple allowing iOS users to set their default app for anything — but it was obviously just a stopgap, because just last week, Apple scooped up Hopstop, one of the biggest transit apps around.

Unlike other Apple acquisitions, though, Cupertino hasn’t shut Hopstop down. In fact, the app was just updated with a beefy 2.6 update that makes it even better, including real time delay and incident reporting.

Loom is yet another app that promises to organize your photos for you, just like the amazing Everpix. Unlike Everpix, though, which shows the Apple heritage of its engineers in its oversimplified and sometimes frustratingly opaque user interface, Loom looks to be a little more accessible. And controllable.

Windows Phone has been struggling to catch up to Android and iOS ever since its release, and most would blame the platform’s lack of apps and Microsoft’s leisurely approach to adopting the latest technologies. And it’s not just consumers that are becoming frustrated with the situation.

Even Nokia, Microsoft’s biggest Windows Phone partner, wants the software giant to get a move on and make the mobile platform more of a priority.

The Toffee Cases Fold Wallet takes a different approach to iPhone wallets that most others. Instead of trying to squeeze your cards and cash into a few tiny slots stuck onto the back of the iPhone, Toffee’s Fold Wallet is more like a regular billfold, only with an extra pocket inside for your iPhone.

Ever wonder what your iPhone might look like if Apple decided to add a zoom lens? Then take a look at Thanko’s Appollo 2, a crapware camera with a massive 30x schnozz on the front.

Despite their slim and delicate appearance, Apple’s iDevices are pretty tough. I have dropped my iPad mini from the top of the fridge onto a tiled floor with no real damage – just a dented corner. In fact, in the five years that I have owned iDevices, I have broken one screen, and that was an iPod touch in a front jeans pocket which got completely wrecked in a drunken bike crash (I think that’s what happened, anyway – I don’t really remember).

Which is to say, the majority of mollycoddling we bestow on our iPhones and iPads is unnecessary. The only thing which really needs protection is the screen.

Back at the end of May I wrote about a great Kickstarter project which updated the Camera Lucida. The Neo Lucida is a prism on a bendy stick that you can use to superimpose the scene in front of you onto a sheet of paper so you can “trace” around real objects.

In the post I wondered if there was an app that would use your iPhone’s camera to do the same thing, but then – as usual – I didn’t read any comments. Reader Golan pointed out that the app is called Camera Lucida, and as of this weekend it has updated to v7.0.

Wunderlist v2.2 adds two big new features to the rather beautiful cross-platform todo app; one great improvement and a slew of fixes. And it might even change how you use the app.

Veteran Apple executive Bob Mansfield is no longer a member of the company’s executive team. But that doesn’t mean he has left altogether. Mansfield is still working in an unknown capacity on “special projects” for Tim Cook. He was previously responsible for leading the new Technologies group that was formed during the big executive shakeup last year.

The above photo shows what is allegedly Apple packaging for an unreleased “iPhone 5C.” The packaging comes from the supply chain overseas and was first posted on the Chinese forum WeiPhone. It’s important to note up front that there is no way of confirming the packaging’s authenticity, but if it’s real, it has most likely revealed the name for the rumored budget iPhone.

The best argument for funding the space program is: “Because space, that’s why!!”

But for many this argument is pointless. They would prefer the money be spent to help people on Earth. And for those folks, the best argument is: “Space missions always invent numerous technologies that make life better for everybody.” NASA even maintains an online database/magazine called Spinoff to keep track of these technologies, which average about 50 per year.

A similar phenomenon is likely to happen with Google Glass, which is not only a wearable computing hardware device, but also a development platform.

I’m predicting that Google’s massively well funded moonshot, the beta product formerly known as the Google Glass Project, will bring to Android phone and tablet users incredible technologies, ideas, apps and content originally developed for Glass.

The summer season isn’t traditionally associated with productivity. It’s a time where we relax, go on holidays, and spend more time in the great outdoors. But this is also a great time of year where you can make your Mac more efficient through the use of apps that can take your productivity to a new level.

That’s why Cult of Mac Deals has assembled The Summer 2013 Mac Bundle, featuring Parallels and 9 other killer Mac apps – and you can get it for only $49.99 for a limited time.

I’ve written a lot about Apple’s ability to create new markets, which may be among its chief contributions to the world.

In several cases, from media players to multi-touch phones to tablets, others in the industry have tried to get a market going without success.Then Apple came along with a bold, killer information appliance and not only dominated the market, but created it.

I’ve notice a new trend lately: Now markets are being created based substantially on nothing more than the expectation that Apple will enter it with a killer product.

Your Mac is an amazing machine, and like a sports car, requires regular maintenance to keep it running at peak efficiency. Take all the hassle and guesswork out of cleaning up your system with CleanMyMac 2.

And with this exclusive Double Pack promotion from Cult of Mac Deals a single license will keep two of your Macs clean and clutter-free – and it’ll do that for only $34.95!

I’ve just spent the last several hours knee-deep in the drek of post-magic Seattle, mixing and fighting with dwarves, trolls, mages, and deckers, and I’m here to tell you it’s utterly wiz.

Shadowrun Returns is out now on Steam for Mac and PC and should be headed to iPad and Android soon, as well. In my short time with the game, I’ve got to say that I’m deeply impressed.

Every written line, all the dialogue, the visuals, are pure Shadowrun, down to the totem poles on the corners of downtown Seattle and the angry patois of the citizen characters running in the shadows beneath the megacorps who care only about nuyen, the currency of the age.

The music and the visuals are fantastic, conveying a sense of dread and decay in every environment, but, honestly, Shadowrun Returns shines due to its fictional setting and attention to storytelling.

I’m hooked, and can’t wait to find out what happens next.

This week on the ‘ol CultCast: why Google’s new Chromecast is great for us Apple fans; the 5S might be the biggest S-upgrade ever; Apple’s earnings make a low-cost iPhone look likely; how to best connect your iDevice to your car stereo; the Dev Center gets hacked; and then, Tim Cook sings Barbie Girl!

Have a few laughs and get 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.

Thanks to Bitcasa for sponsoring this episode. Show notes up next.

After being offline since last Thursday, Apple’s Developer Center is back and operational. Certain parts of the portal are still coming back online, but Apple’s system status page reveals that several services are accessible again, including the centers where developers can download iOS and OS X betas.