Cult of Mac

Apple has given developers access to the first beta of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5. Given the planned release of OS X Mavericks this fall, 10.8.5 could very well end up being the last major version of Mountain Lion before Mavericks ships to the public. A developer beta of Mavericks was made available to developers the week of WWDC.

OS X 10.8.4 was officially released on June 4th and it brought a bunch of bug fixes. 10.8.5 will likely focus on bugs fixes and compatibility issues as well.

Source: Apple

Rdio has released an update to its iOS app that brings a feature called “Song Stations.” Like Apple’s recently announced iTunes Radio, you can now create a streaming radio station based on an individual song in the Rdio app. You get unlimited skips, but no ability to vote or down-vote a track to refine the station.

Song Stations are created by tapping and holding on any song in Rdio. Another nice addition is a feature called “AutoPlay.” When a playlist, album, or station has ended, Rdio can start automatically playing similar music based on what you were listening to already.

Rdio costs $10 per month for unlimited streaming on mobile and the web. You can grab today’s update in the App Store.

Source: App Store

Image: MacStories

While alternate RSS services have started popping up left and right in the wake of Google Reader’s death sentence, the strongest contender so far is certainly Feedly. In a few months, the service already has 12 million users and a pretty sophisticated platform.

Today Feedly officially turned on its own cloud sync, effectively cutting ties from Google Reader for good. The web app has also been redesigned to adapt to multiple browsers on different screen sizes without the need for a plugin.

Lytro, makers of the crazy Light Field camera that will let you refocus an image after it’s taken, is bringing its incredible editing powers to the iPhone and iPad.

This afternoon Lytro released a new iOS app that can connect to Lytro camera to import images, edit them, and then share to Twitter or Facebook. Wait, you didn’t know the Lytro had Wifi capabilities? Yep, Lytro kept it a secret from everyone but is now enabling the feature with a firmware update.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is just a week away and although it’s highly unlikely we’ll see any new iOS devices, we will get our first glimpse at iOS 7.

iOS 7 could be one of the biggest iOS updates to date, with many rumors claiming it will be completely overhauled with a new look and new features as Jony Ive makes his mark as the head of software design. A report that was published earlier this month claims that Apple has had to pull engineers away from OS X 10.9 to help complete it.

Personally, I couldn’t be more excited about iOS 7. I made the switch to Android just before Christmas because I found Jelly Bean on the Nexus 4 to be better than iOS 6 on the iPhone 5 at a lot of things, which I wrote about back in February.

Having used Android for four months, I’ve compiled a list of things iOS 7 should learn from its biggest rival. If Apple adds these things to its own platform — or variations of them that provide the same experience — then I think iOS 7 could be fantastic.

Check out the list below and see if you agree.

Before we get into today’s iOS 7 Beta tip, remember that any of the iOS 7 beta features and tips we share with you could change before the latest mobile operating system from Apple hits the streets this coming fall.

Also, be sure that you’re not using a beta iOS 7 on an iPhone you need to get work done on–-Apple has provided it without guarantee for developers to start working with, not for you to use on any mission critical tasks.

One of the most exciting features in the upcoming iOS 7, and it’s in the beta as well, is AirDrop, Apple’s configuration-free file sharing protocol that has been on OS X for a while. It’s making its way to iOS 7, and here’s how to use it in the beta, as well as how to set the privacy settings for the protocol.

Apple just posted videos for every session at WWDC 2013 so developers who didn’t make it out to California for the conference can still get all the new info on how to prepare their apps for iOS 7 and OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

The WWDC 2013 videos can be streamed from Safari, or you can download them straight to your desktop to watch later. You have to be a registered Apple Developer to view the videos which can be found here once you sign in.

Source: Apple

With iOS 7 Beta 1 now out on the iPhone, the next obvious question is “When is iOS 7 Beta 2” coming out? And what about Beta 3? Beta 4? When will iOS 7 go gold?

Good questions, and obviously, only Apple could tell you for sure. But Apple’s been releasing post-WWDC betas long enough at this point that it’s pretty easy to track how long on average each beta takes, and by doing so, we can not only forecast when iOS 7 will be released with a probable amount of accuracy: we can put a date on the iPhone 5S’s release.

Here’s what we think. We think iOS 7 Beta 2 will be released next Monday, the 24th. iOS 7 will go gold on September 10th, the same day the iPhone 5S will be announced. And the iPhone 5S and iOS 7 will be released on September 20th. Here’s why.

Fed up of changing your iPhone case every time you want to use an external battery pack or add a kickstand? Well, Boostcase for iPhone 5 hopes to make that a thing of the past. It’s just one case, but it’s compatible with a ton of attachments that slide into little grooves on its back and add all kinds of extra functionality to your phone.

I’ve been using Boostcase for the past two weeks, thanks to MyBanana, with a kickstand and a hand strap. But you can also get an external battery pack, a card holder, a wallet case, a clutch case, a studded jacket (which isn’t as saucy as it sounds), and more — all of which can be applied in seconds without ever having to remove the Boostcase from your iPhone.

The Boostcase itself costs $35 in a range of different colors and patterns, and for that you also get the hand strap and the kickstand. The other attachments range from $20 to $100.

So, let’s find out whether Boostcase is the only case you’ll ever need for your iPhone.

Testing a beta version of OS X 10.9 can always be risky, but to mitigate the possibility of losing all your data thanks to a crazy bug, you can always try running Mavericks in a virtual environment.

Parallels just announced that developers can install the OS X 10.9 Developer Preview in a virtual machine by using Parallels Desktop 8. To help users get started using Mavericks in Parallels, the Engineering team published the following guides:

Apple just scored a big win with the education industry last night as the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced it has signed a $30 million contract with Apple to supply its students with iPads in the classroom.

The terms of the contract show that Apple will provided the iPads to LAUSD at a cost of $678 per iPad. That price is a bit above retail, but the iPads will come pre-loaded with a bunch of educational software, and Apple’s giving them a three-year warranty as well.

Apple SVP Phil Schiller had the following to say about the deal in the official press release:

Steve Wozniak was the first guy to power up the vintage Apple I, the computer that gave the world Apple, Inc. and lead to all the products that followed: the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad and more.

Now Steve Wozniak is powering up the Apple 1 again, this time ceremonially for the History San Jose Museum.

Jony Ive didn’t even make an appearance at the WWDC keynote last week, but that didn’t stop his name from spreading all over Twitter and Facebook, thanks to his influence on iOS 7’s new parallax UI.

A report from the people at ViralHeat shows that Jony Ive had the most social media mentions of anyone at Apple, including CEO Tim Cook. Sir Jony Ive had 28,377 mentions across Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, while Tim cook was mentioned 20,919 times.

Not only did Jony get more attention on social media, the comments about him trended more positively than those about Cook (72% positive for Ive, 64% positive for Cook)

Here are the full social media stats about WWDC:

Readdle’s awesome Calendars+ app, which is normally priced at $6.99, is now free for 48 hours. It’s one of the best Google Calendar apps for iOS, packed with useful features and a great user interface, and it won’t cost you a penny if you download it now. But hurry!

Ever since Jony Ive took over Apple’s industrial design, it has been important to Cupertino to make their products out of material with authenticity and substance, not just cheap plastic. In the pursuit of these goals, Apple has managed to revolutionize the mass-production of not one, but two different materials that had previously gone virtually unused in gadgets, at least externally: glass and aluminum. And Apple’s made big plays to experiment with even more cutting-edge materials, like Liquid Metal.

Here’s a question, then. Apple likes to make its Macs and iPhones out of materials that feel authentic, that give them a unique look and feel. In the pursuit of those materials, Apple has revolutionized at least a couple of industrial design processes.

So what if Jony Ive got it in his head to make iPhones out of wood?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the highly-acclaimed tactical role-playing game from 2K Games, is coming to iOS this week, and it’s just begun its App Store rollout. It’s an exact port of the title that first hit the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 late last year, so you can expect a true console-quality experience and amazing visuals.

Those things don’t come cheap, however, with XCOM priced at $19.99 in the U.S.

Apple just rolled out a new software update for the Apple TV that adds new channels for HBO GO and WatchESPN, as well as Sky News, Crunchyroll, and Qello. The iOS 5.3 release is compatible with both the second- and third-generation Apple TVs, and is available to download now.

This post is brought to you by INTERDOM, creator of Mylifepaper.

We are constantly reading and watching news reports about other people in the newspapers and on TV. Well that may be interesting, but unless you happen to be a celebrity, politician, newscaster (or bankrobber), there is one person usually missing on the daily news: You. Mylifepaper is a new iPhone / iPad / iPod touch app devoted on every page to reporting news about you. Here is the news….

https://youtu.be/zut2NLMVL_k

A video from 1994 that has purportedly never been seen by a mass audience before features a bushy-bearded Steve Jobs discussing his legacy during his so-called NeXT wilderness years. And surprisingly, the egocentric and charismatic founder of Apple believes that in two hundred years, he will be forgotten.

When you set up a personal hotspot on your iOS device, the first thing you should do is delete the password Apple generates for your and enter your own. Researchers at the University of Erlangen in Germany have discovered a way to crack Apple’s hotspot passwords in under a minute, leaving your iOS device vulnerable to attack.

Speech to text is the next new thing, with all devices we use, including our Macs, having the ability to listen to our speech and type what we say for us. What usually makes this magic possible are network-connected processing data centers, that take your speech and convert it to text, all somewhere other than your iPhone device, say. But what if you want to keep what you say to your devices private?

In the new version of OS X, Mavericks beta, there’s a new option to do just that. It’s called Enhanced Dictation, and here’s how to enable it.

An exciting new update that brings new maps, weapons, and guns to Gameloft’s Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour is now available to download on iOS. Called Meltdown, the update is free to existing owners of the popular first-person shooter, and it’s one of the biggest the game has received since it hit the App Store back in December.

NEC became the world’s first and only smartphone manufacturer to launch a liquid-cooled handset back in May, but it may quickly lose that claim later this year. According to some sources, a number of high-profile smartphones makers, including Apple, Samsung, and HTC, will be launching their own liquid-cooled devices in the fourth quarter.

I’m completely reliant on Mailbox for my mail processing now: it’s just so easy to swipe and tap my way to an empty inbox that I prefer using my iPhone over the iPad or even the Mac to get things done (the iPad version of Mailbox is plain terrible, with a janky layout and tiny tiny body text for many messages).

But iPhone mail newcomer Ninja Mail might usurp Mailbox’s place in my daily e-mail “workflow.” No, it can’t file things for later, or even send the messages to folders. But it has one thing that makes it amazing fun to use: Swishing sword sounds that accompany every swipe.

We last saw Miniot making the rather hot MkII wooden Smart Cover for the iPad. Now it’s back with this equally stylish Miniot Book for the iPhone 5. The Book uses the same clever bendy wooden hinge as the iPad case, and adds in a rather smart protective “box.” And one thing is certain: Our wood-obsessed editor John Brownlee is gonna freak out over this.