Cult of Mac

As ever, I shall start this iPad case review by reminding you that I only ever use a Smart Cover on either of my iPads, the mini and the Retina. And that on the occasions that I might be moved to use a case (when not actively reviewing one) I like something light and thin.

Which brings me to the Lioncase Pocket Shield for the iPad mini. It’s slim (13mm), it’s light (150g) and it has a pocket!

The biggest pain about Netflix is how long it takes to finally decide on what to watch. You can scroll through the Netflix movie library for hours before settling on something so Netflix announced today that it is rolling out a new discovery tool called ‘Max’ that’s sort of like a cross between Siri and iTunes Genius.

Max helps users make a movie selection by asking a few questions first to gauge mood and taste, and then suggests a movie for you based on Netflix’s algorithms that predict what you might want to watch next.

Max is only available on on the PS3 Netflix app, but the company teased that it will probably come to the iPad next:

Apple is stil the top smartphone maker in the U.S. according to the latest quarterly report from comScore. While HTC, Motorola, and LTG continued to lose marketshare in the U.S. over the last three months, Apple and Samsung have continued to outpace the competition.

As of May 2013, comScore found that the iPhone now accounts for 39.2% of the U.S. smartphone marketshare. Even though Apple has the lead in hardware, Android is still the top ranking smartphone platform in the U.S. with 52.4 percent market share.

Here’s how Apple stacks up against the competition:

One of iOS 7’s signature new effects is parallax tilt shifting, which gives the operating system a 3D effect. But how does it work?

We had feared that Facebook’s ploy to ruin the Vine party by bringing video to Instagram would work, and according to data from Marketing Land, we were right. Since Instagram began supporting video on June 15, Vine sharing has tumbled by about 70%.

Plain and simple, managing your finances can suck. The app featured in this Cult of Mac Deals offer was created to change that.

Moneydance sports an easy-to-use interface and its syncing capabilities make for a streamlined experience that will get you saving your money, rather than washing it away. It easily handles online banking, account management, budgeting, and investment tracking all in this single application and the best part — you don’t have to pay thousands of dollars to hire a financial manager.

There’s another part that’s pretty great as well – Cult of Mac has it for just $25 for a limited time.

An image of what is claimed to be a bunch of new batteries for the iPhone 5S on an assembly line has surfaced today. If it is genuine, it confirms the iPhone 5S will be battery-powered like its predecessors, and it debunks rumors that have claimed Apple will turn to more traditional energy means such as coal and paraffin.

Apple is expected to seed its third iOS 7 beta to carriers and registered developers on Monday, July 8, according to “trusted sources” familiar with its plans. If the date is accurate, it suggests the Cupertino company is planning to release iOS 7 betas in two-week intervals.

Often times when you install a new piece of software on your Mac, you’re presented with a lengthy end user license agreement that you must agree to before you can use the application. You’re supposed to read it, but none of us ever do because they’re incredibly boring and long-winded.

But the iTunes end user license agreement gets particularly interesting towards the end, where it stipulates that you must agree not to design and develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Seriously.

We had expected BlackBerry Messenger to make its debut on Android and iOS on June 27 thanks to T-Mobile U.K., but when it became apparent that the carrier’s announcement was incorrect, we started to wonder just how long BlackBerry would keep us waiting.

But during a quarterly earnings call this morning, CEO Thorsten Heins again reiterated the company’s plan to make BBM a cross-platform service “before the end of the summer.”

While the iPhone has been slowly making its way to carriers all over the world since its release in 2007, there are still a number of major operators that are yet to offer it. One of those is China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier with over 800 million subscribers; and another is DoCoMo, a Japanese carrier that serves almost half of the country’s mobile market.

But DoCoMo isn’t at all concerned, even though it’s losing customers to other carriers that do offer Apple’s device. A company executive has acknowledged that the iPhone is an “attractive” device, but points out that it also comes with some disadvantages, and insists that the latest Android-powered offerings are just as good.

We already know that Google is preparing to bring Google Now notifications to the desktop through its Chrome web browser; the first trace of them appeared in an early Chrome Canary release back in March. But it appears that the feature is nearing closer to its public release.

Chrome users are now being presented with the option to enable Google Now cards on Mac and Windows.

You can already check in to a flight online, so why can’t you check your luggage? With a new luggage tag about to be trialed by British Airways, you can. And you can do it with your smartphone.

This is the Handleband. It’s a band for your handlebars, but it’s also a great word to roll around your mouth – handleband… handleband – rattling it through your teeth and wrapping it around your tongue. Haaaandlebaaaand.

In the right hands, the iPhone Makes a great camera. And in the wrong hands, even the best DSLR or rangefinder will spit out crap. This is the truth behind the SunTimes/DarkTimes Tumblr, a blog which highlights the terrible photos that the Chicago Sun Times is publishing ever since it fired all its photographers and let the writers snap pictures with their iPhones.

The result is clearly shown above.

Everpix 2 has launched, and it takes everything you love about the all-photos-everywhere service and makes it easier to use. It also introduces the comedically inaccurate Explore feature which mistakes breakfast for human faces.

And no, it still doesn’t work in portrait orientation.

Las Vegas isn’t the easiest town to get along with when something big is going down. Case in point: During CES back in January, I was shocked to see the nightly rate for my hotel room skyrocket by roughly 600 percent — pretty much matching my entire budget — during the show’s high-water mark (understandable, since the hotel was an easy stroll from the LV Convention Center, where the show squats).

I panicked for a few minutes, swore, then sat down and fired up the Hotwire app I’d just installed. Within an hour I was at the lobby of a swank joint, just off the strip, with my own suite — for a fraction of the rate of my old room (which, frankly, was a craphole).

And today’s release of the Universal Hotwire app dismisses the only real complaint I had: Having to use the iPhone-only app on my iPad.

At this point, Withings has to be the most complete biometric suite in existence outside of a hospital or Langley. The outfit began with a scale (which also measures body-fat percentage), added a separate blood pressure cuff and then snuck an air-quality sensor and a pulse meter into their scale.

The latest addition is the a wearable activity tracker that adds a feature unique, at this point, to activity trackers: a pulse meter (which explains why they’ve named it the Pulse).

Google made a big splash into wearable tech with Glass and even though they haven’t sold a single unit in stores yet, Google already has its sights on making a smartwatch – similar Apple’s rumored iWatch – and a videogame console powered by its Android operating system.

The Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon that Google is developing the products on its own in an effort to combat the rumored iWatch and the possibility of an updated Apple TV that could support third-party apps. 

Apple may or may not be making a smartwatch, but that’s not stopping its partner, Hon Hai Precision Industry – better known by it’s trading name, Foxconn – from making an iPhone compatible watch of its own.

Hon Hai unveiled it’s first smartwatch today at a shareholders meeting. The device can connect wirelessly to an iPhone and provides data on users’ vitals, such as heartbeat and respiration. The smartwatch can even check phone calls and Facebook posts.

Oh, and remember how the iPhone 5S might be getting a fingerprint sensor? Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou said they’re working to add that to their smartwatch in the future along with some other health features.

Instagram’s new video feature has taken off like wild fire as more than 5 million clips were uploaded in the first 24 hours alone. Many of those new 15-second Instagram videos are all over Twitter, but depending on the Twitter client you’re using, you might not be able to view them.

Tapbots announced today that it has added Instagram video support to its popular Twitter app, Tweetbot. The update is available on both the iPad and iPhone apps which run $2.99 a piece in the App Store.

Source: iTunes

Whether you love or hate iOS 7’s new parallax’d, flat and layered look, there’s no denying that most apps will need to undergo some big redesigns to fit in with the new UI Jony Ive’s presented.

iOS 7 doesn’t come out until later this fall, giving developers plenty of time to update their UI to the new vision. Rather than wait to see what developers come up with for iOS 7, one Tumblr account has started collecting iOS 7 redesign ideas for some of the most popular apps on the App Store.

Here are what some of your favorite apps might look like once they get an iOS 7 makeover:

Twitter’s #music app for iPhone is supposed to become one of the best ways to discover new and popular music. To help users fine tune their discovery needs, Twitter updated #music today to include  a new Genres feature for its charts.

The new Genres feature expands the number of areas users can select to search for music. You can now browse for music in country, hip-hop, pop, R&B and more. Twitter’s also included new categories for Superstars, Popular, Emerging, Unearth and Hunted charts.

Here’s what’s new:

iOS 7 beta brings with it a host of surprising features, one of which is the new way in which the mobile operating system handles multitasking. In iOS 6, a double click on the Home button on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch brings up a multitasking bar along the bottom of the screen. On iPhone and iPod touch, it only works in Portrait mode. On the iPad, it works in both Portrait and Landscape screen orientations.

That’s the same in iOS 7, but the visual look of the multitasking system is quite different. Instead of a small bar sliding up from the bottom, you get full previews of each app in the multitasking list. You can swipe left and right to move between apps at will. Also different in iOS 7 beta is the way you force quit apps, to start them anew or prevent certain ones from running in the background.

“Wow, this is cool.” That was my first thought when I saw CamRanger controlling a full-size DSLR for the first time, then wirelessly beaming picture previews to an iPad 15 feet away.

From ISO, to shutter, to aperture, white balance—-even live view and touch-to-focus—-the CamRanger gives you amazing control of any compatible DSLR from your iPad or iPhone. All it takes to get the magic going, is the tiny CamRanger unit and their free iOS app.