Cult of Mac

Apple has confirmed it will seek to add Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent-infringement lawsuit against the Korean electronics giant.

In a statement filed in the U.S. District Court in California on Monday, Apple said it has analyzed the Galaxy S4 and “concluded that it is an infringing device and accordingly intends to move for leave to add the Galaxy S4 as an infringing product.”

Facebook for iOS has received another new update today, which adds a new “photo viewer button” which allows you to save and share images, and make them your profile picture. It also makes improvements to places editing, and more.

Hard drive space is at a premium these days, with files getting larger and solid state drives (SSD) becoming more affordable and ubiquitous. I’m typing on a MacBook Air right now, and making sure I don’t clutter up the drive with unnecessary files is important to me.

One way to do this is to get rid of the voices that Mac OS X uses for text-to-speech. These files can take up a decent amount of space, which may well be why iOS only allows the one onboard, now that I think about it.

Anyway, if you’re not using those text-to-speech voices, you might as well clear them off your drive and save some space. Here’s how.

By now, you’ve probably see Commander Chris Hadfield’s tear-jerking farewell to the International Space Station: a cover of David Bowie’s classic space song, Space Oddity, filmed and performed by Hadfield himself in zero-g. In case you haven’t, we’ve embedded it above: it’s hard not to be proud of humanity after watching it.

But do you know how Hadfield actually recorded it? With his iPad, of course.

Nearly three in every four smartphones sold during the first quarter of 2013 were running Android, according to the latest statistics from the analysts at Gartner. Google’s operating system grabbed a whopping 74% of the market share during the three-month period, while Apple’s iOS came in second with 18.2%.

Companies choosing to build Windows Phone, BlackBerry, and Symbian powered devices might want to look away now.

Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek is our favorite know-nothing analyst, having been proven hysterically, horribly wrong on about every major Apple prediction he’s ever made. He’s probably safe on this prediction, though: even Misek doesn’t think Apple’s going to surprise us with a new iPhone in June. But he’s still kind of an idiot, since it directly contradicts his own prophecies back in December.

Twitterrific, one of my favorite Twitter clients on iOS, got a new update this week that adds Readability integration for bookmarking tweets you want to catch up with later, as well as support for image hosting service Droplr. The update also comes with a ton of bug fixes and improvements.

What would a budget or mid-range iPhone mini look like with a radical new vision of iOS 7 installed on it, fronted by that skeuomorph-hating design perfectionist, Jony Ive?

Martin Hajek — one of the most talented Apple concept designers around — wanted to know, so he created a new budget iPhone concept that features bighter colors, a smaller screen, and a plastic backshell inspired by the iPad mini, then “installed” Dámaso Benítez’ “really nice concept” of how Jony Ive might flatten iOS 7.

On my part, I seriously doubt iOS 7 will look anything like this: Ive’s sense of design sophistication is not going to have him making app icons that look as if they would be right at home in a preschoolers sticker book. But it’s a nice concept none the less.

Some more images after the break to wet your whistle.

The iPhone 5S could come with a sapphire crystal capacitive touch home button that incorporates a new fingerprint sensor, according to supply chain sources in Taiwan.

Apple is expected to do away with the traditional physical home button, which has long been one of the most unreliable components on iOS devices. It’s thought that using sapphire crystal, which has a hardness second only to diamond, will prevent the button from getting scratched and ruining the fingerprint sensor.

Nokia has this morning announced its new Lumia 925, a Windows Phone smartphone with an aluminum frame that hopes to step up Nokia’s fight against Apple and Samsung. But does the Lumia 925 really have what it takes to compete with the iPhone 5, the Galaxy S4, the HTC One, and other high-end smartphones?

We’ve put together a spec-by-spec comparison to help you decide whether Nokia’s new flagship is worth the switch to Windows Phone.

Nokia has today announced the Lumia 925, a new Windows Phone flagship that will be hoping to steal market share away from Apple and Samsung in 2013. The device boasts an aluminum frame and offers an 8.7-megapixel rear-facing PureView camera — both of which are firsts for Nokia’s Windows Phone devices.

Crowd-sourced funding is hot these days, with outfits like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allowing anyone with a hot business idea to pitch their service, product, or–in this case–app to those bleeding edge enough to want to support an idea before it’s even built.

MiWallet has that hot idea, and now they want you to help fund it. Think of the convenience of the Apple Store app checkout via iTunes connected with the security of Google Wallet, and you’ve got the general idea.

Heroes and Castles, Foursaken Media’s mix of a third-person shooter with the castle defense genre, is a heck of a lot of fun to play, and today the iOS game has gotten a big old update, with a ton of great stuff to extend the fun, possibly enticing new players to try it out as well.

There are three new characters to play and level up: a stealthy (and free) Assassin, a natural-magic Druid, and a brawny Barbarian character. You’ll be able to put each through their paces in a brand new single player campaign, available as an unlock upon completion of the original campaign, with an entirely new environment and a ton of new enemies to battle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XEh-Q_7VuGk#!

Microscope-like macro lenses are super neat — and not just because they let you see the little hairs on a ladybug’s leg. No, macro lenses can show you a whole new world. Or macro lenses can spark (or rekindle) a love affair with photography. Heck, at the very least, they’re good for hours of amusement.

There’s no shortage of macro lenses for the iPhone: There’s the high-end Olloclip, which also comes with a fisheye and a wide-angle lens; then there’s also this rubber-band macro from Photojojo, and these magnetic specimens.

Add to the list the new Carson ML-515 LensMag, a pair of iPhone macro lenses that clip magnetically onto the iPhone 5 — pretty standard fare. Only there is something different.

So far, it’s been an interesting few weeks for digital publishing. Late last month saw the introduction of Flowboard, a digital publishing platform centered around an iPad app.

Now Disney has come out with their (highly simplified) take. Disney Story is a free iPhone app that lets you easily create a storyboard from photos on your iPhone, with accompanying text, which you can then share via email or on Facebook.

If you hate remembering and entering passwords, then you’re probably intimately familiar with 1Password. If you’re not, then you really should give the app a try because it just got a meaty update in the App Store.

1Password 4.2 was just released on the Apple Store today and it comes with a ton of new features, including the ability to share items through Messages, search for vault items by URL, lots of bug fixes, and more. The app will set you back $17.99 but the peace of mind it will bring you is well worth it.

Here are the release notes:

If you’re a Daft Punk fan who can’t wait to hear the random access beats of their latest album, Random Access Memories, it’s now streamingfree and live on iTunes here on a computer or iPad. You can also preorder the entire album for $11.99.

I’ve got to say, between this and David Bowie’s latest album, I’m liking this streaming trend Apple’s started.

Source: iTunes

Have you ever had one of those Siri moments, where you ask her to search for something, and she interprets your speech incorrectly? I’m guessing all of us have, at one time or another.

One thing Siri doesn’t do very well is provide for “no I meant…” error correction, at least using speech. Next time you use Siri and the result is something you didn’t expect, don’t just press the home button in frustration, but correct Siri using your iPhone or iPad keyboard instead.

iPhone theft has become a huge issue in big city like New York City. In fact, Mayor Bloomberg says the iPhone was responsible for New York City’s first increase in crime in 20 years.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is supposedly pretty tired of his constituents getting their iPhones stolen from them, so he’s written a public letter to Tim Cook asking why Apple isn’t doing more to stop iPhone theft.

Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch is one of the most advanced mobile devices on the market and you owe it to yourself to make sure you are using it to its full capabilities.

That’s why Cult of Mac Deals is excited to bring you this lifetime membership to iOS Centric for only $49 because now you can be up-to-date on all iOS secrets for the rest of your life!

T-Mobile had that slamming deal on the iPhone 5 to kick off its rebranding as “The Uncarrier” but those fun and happy days are all gone.

The Uncarrier has decided to bump up the down payment price of the iPhone 5 from $99 to $149 without ever really telling anyone that the $99 price was just a promotion.

Every major television network in the U.S. has its own iOS app that lets users watch episodes of their favorite TV shows, but ABC is revolutionizing its iOS app this week by offering live TV streaming.

ABC’s iOS app will be updated later this week to include a button called “live,” which will allow users to press it at anytime to view a live-stream of ABC’s local stations in the area.

The official SoundCloud apps for Android and iOS have today been updated to add support for Google+ Sign-In, allowing you to use your Google+ account in place of Facebook or Twitter. What’s more, there’s also support for Google+ sharing.

Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, has long been Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner, with around 60-70% of its revenue coming from the Cupertino company. But local rival Pegatron is hoping to change that.

By offering Apple more competitive prices and sacrificing its profit margins, Pegatron appears to be securing iPhone and iPad assembly orders that would have normally gone straight to Foxconn.

Killing iOS apps — not just closing them, but killing them completely — is nowhere near as simple as it should be.

First you have to double-tap the home button to open the multitasking tray, then you have to tap and hold the app’s icon, and then you have to close it by tapping the tiny circle. That’s a pain if you have several apps you wish to kill at once.

But with a new tweak for jailbroken iOS devices called Slide2Kill, you can completely kill iOS apps with just a swipe.