Cult of Mac

We learned a lot about Google Glass this week. In doing so, we also learned a lot about Google.

It’s tempting to look at Google’s vast range of products and research projects and conclude that the company has more ideas than vision. (The difference is that ideas tend to be disconnected, whereas vision involves a coherent strategic direction.)

Where is Google going? Does Google even know?

A closer look suggests that Google is, in fact, an increasingly visionary company. And the fate of many Google projects is predictable.

Some are predestined to die eventually in the hellfire of “spring cleaning” (Orkut), many will live on forever as useful, profitable but not centrally strategic products (Gmail) and others form the strategic centerpiece of Google’s longterm future (Google+).

If we’ve learned anything from the truckload of Google Glass details this week, and from prior revelations that I’ll tell you about, Google Now is absolutely strategic and central to the future of Google.

More interestingly, Google Now’s cards metaphor looks likely to become one of the main interfaces for interacting with Google’s many cloud services.

Jailbreaking is great for fine tuning the iOS experience. Abstergo is a new and excellent jailbreak tweak that does just that, and it’s available in Cydia now for $2. Developed by Joshua Tucker and Andrew Richardson, Abstergo improves Notification Center by adding some subtle features. It won’t blow you away, but it will make interacting with notifications less annoying—and sometimes that’s all it takes for a tweak to be great.

Looking for a toy that is both fun, creepy, and lets you use your cherished iOS devices all at the same time? Then this Cult of Mac Deals offer will be right up your alley.

This little robotic bug looks and moves just like a real insect, but is completely controlled by your iOS device. That’s right – you can control this creepy crawler with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod – and we’ve got it at a 27% discount for a limited time. Thanks to Cult of Mac Deals you can get this tiny tech toy for only $29!

https://vimeo.com/54553882

If you’re one of the lucky ones to have signed up for Mailbox, Orchestra’s amazing new email client for the iPhone, you know how great it is. It allows you to re-think how you deal with email on a daily basis. Mail messages can be archived, set to remind you at a later time or day, or placed in lists you create yourself all with a swipe of your thumb or finger. Mailbox turns email into much less of a chore while on the go.

Here are five great tips and tricks to get you mastering the Mailbox app for iPhone.

We get ca-rayyy-zee on this week’s CultCast, takin’ ’bout iPhone 5S’ rumored new camera; why megapixels don’t matter; Facebook Home coming to iOS; why teens really love Snapchat; and we review the new iSteve mockumentary—it’s either way better or way worse than you heard. Plus more!

Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.

Be excellent to each other, and party on through for the show notes.

There’s an argument in the platform wars, and also on Wall Street, that goes something like this: “Apple doesn’t innovate anymore. It moves too slowly, and is being taken over by more nimble, more innovative rivals.”

Any success Apple has is the result of slick marketing, rather than the newest technology. But now, Apple is a laggard and is being overtaken by more nimble companies.

Apple has an “innovation problem,” according to Forbes.

“Samsung is innovating faster than Apple,” according to Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster.

“Why Doesn’t Apple Innovate?” asks CEO.com.

For Apple haters, this argument feels good to make. Unfortunately, it fails the test of fact and reason. Here’s why.

Our last “name your own price bundle” performed so well that we’re bringing a second one to our Cult of Mac readers. And once again we’ve delivered 10 top Mac Apps for a price that only you can name with The Name Your Own Price Bundle 2.0!

That’s right. You pay what you want for 3 different Mac Apps that will make you faster and more efficient on your Mac including: HoudahSpot, Elmedia Player Pro, and PhotoBulk. And, if you pay more than the average price, you’ll also receive Snapz Pro X, CrossOver XI, DiskTools Pro, Gemini, Mac Blu-Ray Player, Musictube, and Paperless.

We’ve chosen three charities, Child’s Play, World Wildlife Fund, and Creative Commons, that we believe make a significant positive impact across the globe. 10% of your entire purchase will go to help one of those charities – whichever one you choose!

If you haven’t been using Alfred, the amazing app launcher (and much more) on your Mac, you’ve been missing out. It started out as an app launcher, a la Quicksilver, but continued to get improvements and additions over time until now, version 2.0 can do a ton of things on your Mac, all with a quick hotkey press on the keyboard, including launching apps, issuing system commands, and more.

Here are five tips and tricks to getting the most out of Alfred 2.0, one of the best apps you can have on your Mac.

When I hear about a game that uses miniature figurines with a videogame, I automatically think of Skylanders, Activision’s hit toy/video game that uses plastic creature figures placed on a special “portal of power” to use the creature’s special abilities in the videogame, on consoles and on iPad.

Sydney, Australia-based TableTop Interactive is going one step further to a fuller interactive experience, with mini-figurines reminiscent of tabletop games like Hero Clix or Warmachine, and gameplay that looks more like an action RPG like Diablo. The Kickstarter project is just getting started, with a £150,000 goal and 42 days left to get to it.

Fans of hit vertical jumper The Incident will be pleased to learn that the game’s makers are about to release a new creation in the App Store called Space Age. Based on early screenshots and demo videos, it has the same delightfully retro charm as its predecessor.

The App Store has a chokehold on mobile gaming, but Apple has yet to set foot into the world of living room consoles. And Apple doesn’t need to worry about competing with the likes of Xbox—the App Store has already created an incredibly vibrant and profitable gaming ecosystem.

You can mirror a game running on your iPhone to the big screen with an Apple TV. It works, but there’s more that could be done. That’s why a gaming startup based in India is bringing Wii-like motion gaming to the Apple TV. Instead of playing on the iPhone, you play with the iPhone.

One of the advantages of Mailbox only working with Gmail is that a lot of the conventions you’re already used to are present in this fantastic on-the-go email app for your iPhone. If you spend a lot of time on your iPhone using Mailbox, you might have wondered what it does with your mail when you archive, set to later, or add to a list.

Well, it’s really quite simple.

Perpetual PC chipmaking underdog AMD is having a rough time of it in the mobile age. The stock is in the tank, and they lost $146 million last quarter on $1.09 billion in revenue. AMD needs to figure out a way to make a splash in mobile quick if it intends on surviving.

Over the past year, there’s been some sign that AMD has been taking this threat seriously. Last August, Jim Keller — previously director of Apple’s mobile platform architecture group — was enticed over to AMD, reporting to former Apple hardware chief Mark Papermaster. Reportedly, Keller was focusing on developing high-performance, low-power processor cores at AMD.

Now it looks like AMD is looking to beef up its mobile division even further. It is now being reported that AMD has poached Raja Koduri, Apple’s director of graphics architecture.

Back in February, I reviewed the The SurfacePad from Twelve South and called it the “Best iPhone Case Ever.” And had it stayed pristine and continued working like it did for the first few weeks, that would be it.

But it didn’t. The lovely, minimalist leather cover certainly kept working, but while it might be a great design for something like an iPad, for an iPhone – which is constantly being shoved in and out of pockets – it’s just too fragile. That, and it sucks for taking photos.

Fitbug is a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Fitbit is also a company that makes exercise accessories that work with iPhone apps. Their names are similar, and so are their products. It’s kind of like they’re the same company, except they’re totally not, and that’s the problem.

The confusion between the names of the two companies has really started to get under Fitbug’s skin, so it’s decided to sue Fitbit for trademark infringement to decided who gets to be the fittest company in the U.S.

Ah, the iCar. We’ve been waiting for Apple to make a real one for years, ever since they transformed a Porsche into one way back in 1980. And we know Steve Jobs was game.

So the promise that Volkswagen is preparing an iBeetle might, at first, seem of interest to Apple fans and auto enthusiasts. But don’t get too excited, because the iBeetle is lame.

Earlier this week, we wrote about Grabby, a rad little Cydia tweak that let you extend the lockscreen camera launcher into a quickbar for up to five favorite apps.

Here’s a similar idea. Atom is an upcoming Cydia tweak that is set to be released this weekend which allows you to unlock your iPhone directly to up to six different apps, just by dragging the on-screen ‘locked’ icon to one of six positions.