Cult of Mac

Just a few short weeks before today’s WWDC keynote went down, Tim Cook was grilled by John McCain at the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple, Inc. Before the hearing was over, Senator McCain let off a joke to Cook that Apple needs to hurry up and add automatic app updates to the App Store:

Sir, there’s only one thing I wanted to ask you today: why do I keep on having to update all the apps on my iPhone? Can’t you guys fix that already?

Turns out that Tim Cook was actually listening, and now iOS 7 is going to get the feature all thanks in part to the efforts of our illustrious senator from Arizona.

McCain even tweeted his thanks to Cook for adding the feature that had most likely been in the works for months before Cook’s Senate appearance, but it’s good to know if we ever need new features added to iOS, just ask John McCain to tell Tim.

If you want to make your Mac look like it’s running OS X Mavericks but don’t want to wait for fall (or for the Apple developer site to stop crapping itself), here’s the default wallpaper OS X 10.9 now uses.

Looks great, doesn’t it? Download it in high-resolution here or here directly from Apple.

When Apple unveiled iOS 6’s new Maps icon, it became an emblem for everything that was wrong with Apple Maps, a service that — at launch — was widely criticized as being inferior to Google’s own maps data, which every previous version of iOS had shipped with.

Why the icon? Because it gave directions that would probably end up killing you if you followed them in real life. But that’s all changed in iOS 7.

Today Apple unveiled iOS 7, the software’s biggest redesign since the debut of the original iPhone. We’ve already told you everything that was just announced at WWDC, so now it’s time to take a closer look at what iOS 7 looks like.

Apple has posted some gorgeous new images on its website alongside video walkthroughs. Here’s iOS 7 in action:

Apple has really started to rally around its identity as an American company. During Tim Cook’s recent appearance in Washington he repeatedly stressed the point that Apple is proud to be an American company. Phil Schiller also made sure to note that the new Mac Pro is designed and assembled in America.

At the end of WWDC Apple revealed a new ad, ‘Designed by Apple in California’ which talks about the passion Apple puts into its products. Cook said the ad will start appearing on TV later today.

It’s not very often you find a contest where everyone wins, but that’s exactly what we have in store for you here at Cult of Mac Deals with this offer!

Artist Corner is the revolutionary new drawing and coloring app made specifically for the iPad. Download this iPad app for free and you’ll have endless hours of entertainment for your children, nephews, nieces, or any other child who wants to let their inner artist shine. And you can use the app to create a drawing to enter for a chance to win a $100 Apple gift card. (Note: Five drawings will be selected for a total of five $100 gift card giveaways.)

IOS 7 looks fantastic, and the good news is that photographers haven’t been left out of the updates. There’s new stuff in both the Camera app as well as Photos: a neat combination of flashy new features and great little fixes that will make both apps what they probably should have been to begin with.

iOS 7 is coming out this fall, but before you get really excited about getting to enjoy the simplicity of Jony Ive’s new UI, you better make sure Apple is going to actually support your iDevice.

Apple posted the following chart on its website to let customers know which iOS devices will be supported for iOS 7. If you’ve got an iPhone 3GS or older, you’re out of luck. The original iPad also won’t be supported either, but other than that, it looks like all other devices are going to be able to get in on the fun.

Source: Apple

We’re still waiting for Apple’s Developer Portal to come online so we can install the beta of iOS 7, but one of our readers noticed a neat little feature that wasn’t discussed during the keynote – the iOS 7 Clock app icon now updates to show you the real time.

Not sure if third-party apps will get the same abilities, but things are looking really promising in iOS 7. Check out out round-up post for all the details on everything Apple announced today.

Thanks: Chris!

Update: This post is wrong. Once we downloaded iOS 7, it was clear that the carrier name is still very much a part of iOS, even though Apple didn’t show it in their keynote. Mea culpa!

With iOS 7, Apple is getting rid of the signal bars in the top left-hand corner and replacing them with five dots to represent signal strength.

This is a good move, because the iOS signal bars have been incredibly misleading for years, although it remains to be seen if the new dots will come with controversies of their own.

Here’s the thing I really found interesting about it, though. Notice there’s no room for a carrier name anymore. Apple has finally succeeded in removing every trace of carrier branding from every iPhone they sell.

It’s only been moments since Apple ended its WWDC keynote, and the entire show is already available for streaming online. You can visit Apple’s website to stream the full 120-minute ordeal in all of its glory. The video file should also be hitting Apple’s podcast feed any moment now.

Apple’s live-streamed the event, but if you weren’t able to watch as it was happening, you can get caught up now. Streaming from Apple doesn’t necessarily work well in all browsers, so your best bet is Safari.

Don’t forget to also check out our mega roundup of everything Apple announced today.

Source: Apple

Rather than trying to invent some new big game cats to name the next version of OS X after, Apple has decided to start naming OS X after places in California which have inspired the company.

The first location Apple has used as inspiration for OS X is Mavericks, CA, an infamous surf spot in Northern California where waves routinely crest at 25 feet.

Here are some of the best shots of the place that inspired OS X Mavericks:

iOS 7 has been radically redesigned, and there’s going to be a lot of acclimiatization to the new brighter, more vibrant design.

That’s why Apple has posted a new site which allows anyone to preview the new operating system in their browser, with tons of videos of iOS 7’s new features, like Control Center, Notification Center, Multitasking, iTunes Radio, AirDrop, Siri and more.

If you want to see what iOS 7 is going to look like in your hand come fall, this is where you should start familiarizing yourself with Jony Ive’s radical new OS.

Source: iOS 7

The Apple Store is back online after a five hour downtime, and all of the exciting new products Apple unveiled today are there for sale.

There’s the new MacBook Air, with Haswell processors delivering all-day battery life, starting at $999. The new Haswell processors start at 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, up from the Core i3s of the past generation. These are underclocked to save battery life compared to the previous generation, but it shouldn’t be an issue, due to the upgrade in the speed of the flash internals, which is the real bottleneck these days. Still, you can upgrade the processor to a 1.7GHz Intel Core i7 for just $150 more.

In addition the new AirPort Time Capsule (starts at $299) and AirPort Extreme (starts at $199) are up.

The new Mac Pro doesn’t have a page yet, but you can see a small shot of it in the top navigation bar of the Apple Store Mac section

After unveiling the radically redesigned iOS 7 and some of its marquee features, Apple announced availability info at WWDC. Developers will be able to get their hands on the first beta of iOS 7 later today, and the public release will happen later this year.

Apple typically issues several betas to developers in the months leading up to a new iPhone announcement. Expect that to happen again this year.

iOS 7 will run on the iPhone 4 and up, iPad 2 and up, and the 5th gen iPod touch.

Some iOS 7 features Apple didn’t have time to talk about:

• FaceTime audio – you can now make high-quality audio-only calls over FaceTime.

• Activation lock – If a thief wipes a stolen device, guess what? They can’t reactivate that iPhone without the original Apple ID that was used to remotely wipe it.

• Phone, Message and FaceTime blocking – You can block people who just won’t let go. Fantastic!

• Notification Sync – Your notifications now sync across all devices! Yes!

The rumors were right. Apple has unveiled iTunes Radio (previously dubbed ‘iRadio” by the rumor mill) in the iOS 7 Music app. The service works a lot like Pandora. You can create stations based on artists you like and share what you’re listening to over social networks.

There are featured stations as well as the collection you create based on your own tastes. iTunes Radio is built into iOS 7, the Apple TV, and an upcoming version of iTunes.

The service is free with ads, and if you have an iTunes Match subscription, there are no ads.

Here’s a major, major new feature for the App Store in iOS 7: your apps will now automatically update themselves to the latest version, no manual updates required.

That’s a feature everyone’s going to love… until they hate it when apps invisibly stop working because something broke between versions, but users didn’t realize it had updated.

The App Store is also getting some new ways of browsing apps: by age, or by apps that are popular in your immediate area. Very cool.

Siri is also getting an upgrade in iOS 7.

For one thing, there’s a new look to the interface. It’s flatter and cleaner, and now you see a soundwave of your voice as you speak. And the results display much more cleanly.

There’s also a new Siri voice. It sounds more natural, and it comes in both male and female varieties. German and French speakers are also getting more natural voices.

Siri understands more system-level commands, too. Play my last voicemail, increase brightness, turn on my Bluetooth! Siri now understands all of these instructions.

Siri can also answer more questions. Siri now interacts with Twitter, Wikipedia, and it even integrates web search results from Bing! Did they ditch Google?

Siri’s also a big part in iOS’s next feature, called “iOS in the Car.” The idea here is that iOS 7 will interact with in-dash displays. It’s an extension of Siri Hands-Free.

iOS 7 just got announced, and boy is it a doozy. The look is new totally new, and Apple has introduced some really big new features.

Here are some of the main additions:

Craig Ferenghi just gave us a demo of iOS 7. Here’s what is new about the look and design ethos of iOS 7.

Tim Cook just took the stage to unveil the latest version of iOS, the world’s best-loved mobile operating system. It’s iOS 7, a redesigned operating system for a new generation of mobile users who already take the iPhone for granted. And it’s a radical redesign: “the biggest change to iOS 7 since the iPhone.”

There are way too many changes to count here. Jony Ive has made a point that this is a vast simplification and clarification of iOS that was only made possible by a radical collaboration across all departments at Apple.

We’ll delve into more features soon. For right now, enjoy this gallery of iOS 7.

“If you do the math, iOS is the world’s most popular operating system, and number 2 is an Android operating system that was released back in 2010,” says Tim Cook.

Were you beginning to think iWork was dead? Fear not. Today Apple announced iWork for iCloud, its answer to cloud-based document creation in the browser. Also, new versions of the three existing iWork apps are coming later this year.

Apple just gave developers at WWDC a sneak peek of the next Mac Pro, a revolutionary and radical new design for the next ten years. “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass!” quips Phil Schiller.

It’s a major departure, with a new stealth look. The new Mac Pro is built around a new unified thermal core, with a new generation 12-core Xeon processor. Twice as fast as the previous generation. The memory’s also super charged, 1866MHz DD3 with a 60GBps bandwidth. This is a powerhouse.