Cult of Mac

That statement up there in the headline, that Flowboard will be “the most important free app you download this month” — that’s kind of a bold thing to say.

But it’s not hyperbole; Flowboard’s publishing tools are super-easy to use, letting you easily create electronic portfolios and presentations — heck, even magazines and eBooks — and the finished products, published on Flowboard’s site, are just as easy to share and view.

And if you rarely download anything, well, this may be the most important free app you download all year.

Apple’s iOS isn’t customizable like Android. To get to the core of the operating system, very talented hackers have to create what is called a jailbreak. One of the brightest and most prolific minds in the jailbreak scene has been Nicholas Allegra, better known as “comex.” Allegra created JailbreakMe, a web-based jailbreak tool that was used to crack multiple version of iOS throughout the years.

But for the past couple of years, Allegra has been quiet in the hacking community. The reason for his code of silence is the company he’s been working for. Apple hired him as an intern last year, and he left in October after failing to reply to a company email.

Now Allegra is going to bat for the other team. Yesterday he announced plans to intern at Google. He’ll start in a few weeks. One would assume he’ll be working on beefing up security for Android, but he ruled out the possibility on his Twitter. ” I don’t like it enough to ever want to hack it,” he said.

Source: Forbes

How crappy are Windows PCs these days? The most reliable, best performing, highly rated laptop for running Windows on is a frickin’ Mac: specifically, a mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13. That’s the conclusion of a new report released by Soluto, purveyors of a cloud-based PC monitoring and management software suite, sampling data gathered for the first three months of 2013 from 150,000 portable PCs, and awarding them a score according to how many times programs on average crashed or hung, how long it took to boot up, how many background processes were running, and how many times it BSODed (or completely crashed).

As ZDNet’s Ed Bott points out, the laptops that were determined to be most reliable were the ones that ran clean installs of Windows, instead of bloatware-infected OEM installs. And surprise, every Mac running Boot Camp must use a clean install of Windows, making it the king.

Jeez, PC makers. This is just sad.

Source: Soluto

Another accessibility option like VoiceOver and Zoom, originally created for those with visual impairments, is Speak Selection. There are times when you may not want to turn the entire VoiceOver system on, having Siri read every button and icon on the screen, but would prefer to just have your iOS device speak text you’ve highlighted on the screen.

As an added bonus for those with print or learning disabilities, you can have your iPhone or iPad highlight the words as it speaks them for true bi-modal output (seeing and hearing the words at the same time).

Here’s how to make this happen.

In a pessimistic note on Silicon Alley Insider, Jay Yarrow points out the obvious: we’re in an unprecedented drought since the debut of the original iPad when it comes to major Apple hardware releases and keynotes. When WWDC finally rolls around, it will have been 230 days since the last Apple event, the launch of the iPad mini, fourth-gen iPad and new iMac. That’s pretty much unprecedented, almost double the previous delay between the MacBook Air and iPad 2 (132 days). And, as you can see, the extreme delay in releasing a new event pretty much directly corresponds to Apple’s share price.

Not good, and as Tim Cook basically said explicitly during yesterday’s earnings meeting, it’s unlikely that we’ll see any new products at WWDC either.

Source: Business Insider

Ballistic’s new Aspira iPhone cases are a little different from your usual ruggedized case. First, they’re not ugly. Second, they’re pretty slim. And third, you can keep them in your pocket.

I have been testing out a box of the things for a little while now and I kinda like them. My friends’ opinions might differ, though.

If you dream of chilling with your homie Tim Cook in the morning and grabbing coffee but never had the chance to meet Silicon Valley’s most powerful CEO, then here’s your chance.

Tim Cook is auctioning off 30min-1hour of his time for CharityBuzz.com. Proceeds go to support the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, and you’ll get to hangout with Tim at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino. Who knows. Maybe if you woo him he’ll show you the latest iWatch prototype.

The current bid is set at $5,250 but the estimated value of the prize is $50,000. The winner will get to bring themselves and 1 guest to coffee-time with Tim, but don’t expect to get too cozy with Tim as the auction details explain you’ll have to undergo a security screening before you get close to him, and he’s not going to pay for your hotel and airplane either.

Source: CharityBuzz

Via: Twitter

WWDC 2013 was just announced. Finally, Apple’s going to end this year’s drought, and show off some new stuff after going the entire first four months of the year without a single keynote or product announcement.

But now that WWDC is in our sights, what are people most excited about? There are tons of hardware rumors about the iPad, iPhone and even the iWatch but we doubt we’ll see either of those three. We’ve also heard that iOS 7 is going to have some huge changes, and we should see some of the next version of OS X. What are you guys most excited to see at WWDC 2013? Software or hardware?

Click here to go to the Cult of Mac Forums and tell us what you’re looking forward to the most at WWDC 2013.

Amazon is reportedly ready to take on the likes of the Apple TV and Roku with a set-top box of its own, presumably some sort of Kindle Box.

WWDC is getting closer, which means we’re probably going to see Jony Ive’s vision for iOS 7 really soon. We know Jony’s not a big fan of skeuomorphism, so we expect to see a lot of flat UI design in iOS 7.

Rafael Justino just published his concept for what iOS 7 might look like, and while there’s still a great deal of skeuomorphism in Justino’s concept, his vision adds a lot more functionality to some of the basic apps of iOS.

The full video is ready for your examination below:

WWDC is the best place in the world to go and learn how to become a better iOS or OS X programmer. Only problem is it’s really freaking expensive, and it’s hard as hell to buy tickets before the thing sells out.

To help students out with the $1599 price tag for one ticket to WWDC, Apple announced that it will award 150 WWDC 2013 Student Scholarships. All you have to do to get the scholarship is be a full-time registered student, and make a killer iOS app. 

There are a number of tweaks for jailbroken iOS devices that add alternative security measures to your lock screen, but Piano Passcode is possibly one of the craziest. Rather than typing a code or drawing a pattern, you have to play it a tune on a set of virtual keys.

Tumblr’s official iOS app has been updated today with a number of new sharing features, in addition to Instapaper and Pocket integration, that let you “do more than just reblog when you find something you love.” The update also makes some improvements to the photo viewer and the way the app displays GIF images.

Tickets to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference have sold out quickly in recent years — last year it took less than two hours — and this year is likely to be no different. With that being the case, a lot of developers are going to miss out. But they’ll still be able to catch up on WWDC sessions, but Apple is posting all of the videos online.

The iTunes Store celebrates its tenth anniversary this month, and Apple is marking the occasion with a new promotion called “A Decade of iTunes.” iTunes users can enjoy a timeline that recognizes key moments throughout the store’s history, as well as a look back at ten year’s worth of chart-topping tracks and albums.

As you may have noticed already, the embargo on the new Samsung Galaxy S4 was lifted today, and reviewers from all corners of the web are weighing in on the latest Android flagship. Given that the handset succeeds one of the most successful Android phones of all time, many of you are likely to be itching to find out what it’s like.

We’ve put together a review roundup to give you a snapshot of what those early reviews are saying about the Galaxy S4, and to help you decide whether the handset will be worth your hard-earned cash when it goes on sale in the coming weeks.

Drafts 3.0 for iPad and iPhone launches today, and it turns an already useful text-wrangling app into a note-taking powerhouse. Added are organization tools for your old drafts, way better Evernote integration, great compatibility with iOS native Reminders app plus an all-new Actions Directory. Let’s take a look:

This is the new logo for this year’s WWDC, which is scheduled to kick off on June 10th. WWDC logos tend to forecast in a round-about way what Apple thinks is the “kicker” of the conference: last year, it was the debut of the MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

So what does this WWDC 2013 logo mean? It features a bunch of rounded rectangles of varying colors, stacked a top each other, with a flat font reflecting WWDC into the year in Roman numerals. Here are our guesses:

Using the Mac App Store is helpful in many ways, what with the ability to re-download apps, pause them during download, and the like.

There’s even an easy way to delete apps you’ve purchased from the Mac App Store these days, aside from the tried and true “drag app icon to trash” method we’ve all grown to know and love since OS X debuted oh so many years ago.

Apple has this morning announced that its 2013 Worldwide Developer Conference will take place in San Francisco’s Moscone West from Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14. The five-day event will provide developers with a first look at the future of iOS and OS X.

Tickets will go on sale tomorrow, April 25, at 10 a.m. PDT.

Sprint has this morning reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2013, and they show yet another loss for America’s third-largest carrier. The company announced a $643 million net loss on $8.79 billion revenue, though it did manage to generate a positive operating revenue of $29 million.

Sprint sold 5 million smartphones during the period, 1.5 million of which were iPhones.

Apple has updated its Apple Store app for the iPhone to introduce push notifications for delivery updates. So when you order an item from the Apple Store, you’ll receive updates on its delivery status without having to check manually. The Cupertino company will even let you know when your iPhone is ready for an upgrade.

Panasonic’s new LF1 is a Wi-Fi-sharing, fast-lens shooting RAW-capture camera which looks like a kind of remixed LX-series camera. It’s clearly aimed at smartphone users who want a little extra.

Fans of both Ikea and swashbuckler movies will be very pleased with the new Metallo case from V-Moda. It comes with its own Allen wrench to screw on the backplate, and when you make this change, the sound
“emulates the sound of unsheathing a sword.”

Today Apple announced its financial earnings for the last fiscal quarter, reporting the first year-over-year loss in profit the company has seen in ten years. The tone of Apple’s call with investors was quite different than past quarters. Tim Cook and co. seemed very much on the defensive, as Wall Street has been hammering AAPL for the past several months.

There were still several interesting tidbits from the call that we’ve rounded up. Tim Cook spoke vaguely about exciting new products in the fall and throughout 2014. Comments were made about the possibility of a larger iPhone, iMac supply constraints, and, of course, plenty of numbers.