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.

Q: How Does Bob Marley like his donuts?
A: Wi’ Jam in [1].

And Jamn is also the name of this little pocket software toolkit for musicians. It’s an iPhone app which shows you the notes in a any scale in any key, but it has a rather clever gimmick that makes it a lot easier to read: the notes are on a wheel.

If you stayed in any but the most flea-bitten of hotels in the last few years, you will have seen an iHome dock on the nightstand, ready to be mostly ignored until you need a place to charge your iPhone at night.

And as you eyed the clock/radio/speaker you may have chuckled to yourself and muttered something about the poor hotel owner, who just wasted like tens of thousands of dollars on now-obsolete 30-pin connector-equipped boxes.

If only he's waited, he could have had this new Lightning version, which also works with older models.

Admit it: When your iPhone/iPad/camera lens/spectacles get greasy fingerprints all over it, you don't reach for a microfiber cloth,right? Nope. You do exactly what everyone else does, and polish off the dirt with a corner of your shirt.

But what if you could continue with your filthy (if rather popular) habit, but with the magical results of microfiber? Thanks to the Voy Voy Summer Oxford, you can.

Wondering what iOS 7 will look like running on an iPad? Then look no further than this video from Russian blogger Rozetked, which shows just that.

If you haven’t played Torchlight, yet, you’re missing out. It’s essentially a Diablo-style dungeon crawling hack n slash game, which is no surprise considering that Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer, co-designers of Diablo and Diablo II, were on the team that made it.

Today, and for the next 48 hours, Torchlight is free to download and own on GoG.com, formerly known as Good Old Games, one of the best ways to get older games for your Mac without any digital rights management (DRM) mess.

That’s some seriously worth it for a download, but wait, there’s more!

Louie Mantia is a renowned icon and visual interface designer in Silicon Valley who has worked at big companies like Apple and Square. He was involved in designing many of Apple’s pre-iOS 7 app icons, like Trailers, Remote, Garageband, and iBooks. He even designed the Starbucks and Obama campaign app icons, for crying out loud.

The point is that this guy knows good icon design. He’s posted the above iOS 7 concept on his Dribbble, and I think it looks fantastic. He did the same thing last year for iOS 6. This time around, I think he’s nailed it better than Apple.

“Today, I revisited that original task and took about a day to understand the new style,” said Mantia. “Simpler, smoother, subtler. While I don’t employ the grid they created (and while I instead use the colors I chose), these feel interesting and balanced. Vibrant and bold, but not overbearing.”

Indeed. Please hire this guy back, Tim Cook. He gets it.

Source: Dribbble

Simple, a great bank I’ve been using for the past several months, has brought its “Goals” budgeting feature to the iPhone. If you haven’t checked out Simple as a banking alternative yet, then go do that now because it will entice you. The whole service is exquisitely designed on web and mobile, and the customer support is top notch (there’s an open ticket to chat with a real Simple employee right in the app, if that says anything).

While Simple still has some growing to do, it got better today. Goals helps you manage your money on the go so you don’t go broke buying overpriced lattes and such.

Hitcase Pro, like Tony Stark’s iron suit, is the penultimate protection for your iPhone 5, even when it’s flying through the air.

That’s because, like the red Avenger, Hitcase Pro isn’t just a suit of armor, like so many cases before it. No, this one’s built for action, with some special mounting and lens capabilities that encourage you take your lovely iPhone on adventures you ordinarily should not, all so you can use its camera to record the chaos and prove you survived.

Following the rising success of Twitter’s video sharing app Vine, Facebook is set to bring video to Instagram at a press event this Thursday. According to a report from AllThingsD, Instagram’s “video product” will revolve around quickly sharing short clips, although the allowed length of clips isn’t yet known. Vine lets you record up to six seconds per share.

Facebook just came out with version 6.2 of its iOS app. The update includes a new feature that allows users to add icons to status updates that show what you’re feeling based on a number of categories.

To use the new icons feature, just draft a status update in the new app and tap the new emoticon icon. The new icons screen is divided into 7 categories: Feeling, Watching, Reading, Listening to, Drinking, Eating, and Playing. You also change who can see something you’ve shared and start new conversations with photos.

What’s New in Version 6.2

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Max Payne 3 will be available for Mac later this week, on Thursday June 20th: https://t.co/4CsJE3Njmv

— Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) June 18, 2013

Max Payne 3 was released on Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows during the Summer 2012, but Rockstar Games just announced that the company is finally porting the game over to the Mac on June 20th.

The third-person shooter received a lot of praise from console gamers for its shooting mechanics, graphics, and new bullet-time features. Rockstar says the Mac version will feature scalable high-resolution textures and character models, DirectX11 features, multi-monitor support and 3D.

Here are the recommended Mac specs:

Just like we said yesterday, 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.

That said, let’s take a look at a new feature in iOS 7: Smart Mailboxes. In OS X, you can create a mailbox with a bunch of filtering rules to help you gather together just email you’re interested in into one place.

iOS 7 beta doesn’t let you create your own smart mailbox, though. Rather, it has four or five new “mailboxes” that filter your incoming email into new categories, like Flagged email, email with attachments, or others. Here’s where to find, and ultimately enable, these new mailboxes in iOS 7 beta.

Twitter’s video sharing app, Vine, just got a new update that makes sharing your favorite Vines easier than ever.

Vine version 1.1.3 comes with a new share button underneath posts on your feed that allows you to share Vines to Facebook and Twitter or get the embedded code so you can post it on your own blog. The update also includes a number of interface improvements and bug fixes.

You can pick up the new version of Vine from the App Store for free right here.

Source: iTunes

Apple hasn’t even announced a price tag or release date for the tiny new Mac Pro machines that were unveiled at WWDC, but that’s not stopping one company from creating a Mac Pro server rack that will turn Apple’s new pro machines into a supercomputer.

The new cylindrical design of the Mac Pro makes it perfect for linking to other Mac Pros to form a supercomputer, and MacStadium announced that it has created a rack that can hold 270 Mac Pros but only occupies 12 square-feet of floor space.