Cult of Mac

Like a psychic, the bread and butter of most analysts is to make wild predictions to their clients and then, when they don’t come true, pretend like those predictions were never made to begin with. When that fails, another ploys analysts, like psychics, sometimes use is overly vague predictions that could literally be fulfilled by anything.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty’s latest bit of soothsaying falls into the latter cam: she claims that after meeting with Apple management recently, she feels quite certain that Apple could release a “killer app” this year. Only one, Katy?

As the last major carrier in the U.S. to sell the iPhone, T-Mobile has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to become competitive with AT&T, Verizon, and even Sprint. With the iPhone 5 set to launch on T-Mobile tomorrow, the carrier is preparing a massive media blitz to try and win new customers.

Along with its “uncarrier” plans and the $100 iPhone 5 price point, T-Mobile has been busy training its employees on the benefits of switching to T-Mobile from a cost perspective, and right now it looks like T-Mobile is the cheapest carrier to roll with on your iPhone.

If you’re looking to do more with their photos – things like image manipulation and other advanced techniques – it’s not uncommon to hear one word uttered as a recommendation: Photoshop. But Photoshop is expensive – and can be a real pain to wrap your head around. This Cult of Mac Deals offer may just offer that alternative you’ve been looking for.

PhotoDirector 4 is a comprehensive, powerful, and intuitive solution to create professional looking photos. From the moment your photos are imported, you are empowered with new and unique features that bring out depth and sharpness in your masterpieces. Portraits become flawless, scenery transforms to your desire. No matter what kind of photographer you are, or what kind of photos you take, PhotoDirector will give you the tools for professional perfection. And in this deal, we’re offering it to you for just $49.

I have done a lot writing in my day, and there are times when I want to just let the words fly freely faster than I can possibly type them. When I’ve worked on my talks for seminars or wanted to work out some thoughts on a major piece of writing, I have given the reins to Dragon Dictate.

This Cult of Mac Deals offer has a huge savings on Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac – which has been an indispensable tool for me as a writer. You can get it for only $100 – that’s 50% off the regular price!

Hey fellas. You know what the laydeez love more than anything? Ferrari-branded gear, that’s what. When they see a man in a Ferrari jacket, or toting a Ferrari laptop, or – best of all – topped with a Ferrari baseball cap, do you know what she thinks? She thinks that you must own a Ferrari! Or that you drive one for a living, probably in those macho Formula One races.

More than anything, she can’t stop thinking about your Grand Prix.

Vine is being used to tell stories at The Tribeca Film Festival, an event founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. The festival takes place later this month, and there’s a competition for ultra-short films shot exclusively on Vine, Twitter’s video sharing app for the iPhone.

Aspiring filmmakers have been submitting Vines to Tribeca under the #6SECFILMS hashtag on Twitter. The submissions that make the cut will be highlighted on the festival’s website later this month and receive a cash prize. 

U.S. District Judge Robert Scola believes Apple and Google-owned Motorola are more interested in using litigation as a business strategy than they are in resolving patent disputes. Both companies accused each other of infringing patents related to wireless technologies back in 2010, and today the case is still on going.

“The parties have no interest in efficiently and expeditiously resolving this dispute; they instead are using this and similar litigation worldwide as a business strategy that appears to have no end,” said Judge Scola in an order dated yesterday. “That is not a proper use of this court.”

Face it. Camera bags are dorky as all get-out. I avoid them entirely, either dropping my camera into the pocket of a regular bag with a pair of woolen socks underneath for padding (true, and it works great in my Rickshaw Zero Messenger) or putting it and its accessories into a padded liner that slips into any other bag I might want to use.

But Manfrotto (Bogen in the U.S) has hit on the formula for cool camera bags. The secret? Calling them “Stile” bags and taking photos of them being used by young people in leather jackets.

You know when you make a Skype call and your own voice echoes back at you, and you find it impossible to concentrate on anything except VIOLENCE and KILLING! Please make it STOP!?

And you also know how cool it is when you pull out your credit card, or slip your bank card into an ATM and it just doesn’t work? Like it’s been zeroed out by magnets? Well, imagine if you could somehow combine these two things into one.

You need imagine no more: Daniel Weyer has done the hard work for you. Behold! The MagSkin case.

EA just released the first update to Real Racing 3 on iOS, and it adds a whole bunch of new content for you to enjoy. In addition to two new Chevrolets, you can also look forward to more than 100 new events, a new game mode, cloud save syncing, and new social features.

Readdle Documents has today been updated with support for the iPhone, following its launch on the iPad back in January. Documents isn’t just a file manager, but also a document editor, a web browser, and a media player. So whether you’re editing a letter, organizing some photos, or you just want to kick back and watch that movie you downloaded, Documents will let you do it all — and for free.

You can get some pretty cool gadgets that can be remote controlled by your smartphones and tablets, such as helicopters, cars, and even tanks. But who wants one of those when you can control the real think?

At the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam this week, Hugo Teso, a pilot turned IT technician, demonstrated the ability to remotely hijack an airplane using a smartphone and a radio transmitter.

With so much interest in Apple’s unreleased iOS devices, the Cupertino has had a difficult time trying to prevent leaks of late. We saw numerous components for recent iPads, the iPhone 5, and the iPad mini ahead of their official unveilings, and now we’re beginning to see parts believed to be from Apple’s next generation of devices.

The vibration motor and switches pictured above are reportedly destined for Apple’s rumored low-cost iPhone, which could launch sometime this year.

No one wants to own a Blackberry. That’s the takeaway from a new poll which asks people which device they’d never be caught dead using. There aren’t many people who wouldn’t be caught dead buying an iPhone, though.

The Mac OS X Calendar is great for a lot of things, not least of which scheduling reminders of appointments and such via the built-in alert system. But did you know that Calendar can do a lot more than that? It can alert you to an upcoming event with an Email or a Notification, and it can even open a file on schedule.

If you’ve ever wanted to open a website, MP3, or other such file on your Mac at a certain day and time, keep reading.

Apple’s U.S. Mac sales changed around 7.5% during the first quarter of 2013, according to research firms IDC and Gartner, but neither agree on whether they were up or down. While IDC reports that shipments were down 7.5% during January to April, Gartner sales that sales were up 7.4%. So who’s right?

Remember Rego? It’s the place-saving app whose name means “asshole” in Brazil, and which lets you check-into and remember locations without sharing them.

When the app launched a couple of weeks ago, I moaned,whined and complained endlessly about the lack of a search function for places – you just had to swipe and pinch your way there manually. Now v1.1 is here. And it brings search, accessing the Foursquare database, as well as using Apple Maps search and grabbing places from your contacts.

Microsoft is planning a new lineup of Surface tablets that includes a 7-inch model designed to compete with Apple’s iPad mini and Google’s Nexus 7, The Wall Street Journal reports. The device will enter mass production later this year, according to people familiar with Microsoft’s plans, but it’s unclear when the company will bring the new slate to market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4ja6Sy2JwEc

Imagine dining at a sumptuous, football-field-sized smorgasbord where all your friends and acquaintances have made and brought tantalizing morsels for you. And it’s all yours to sample, as you glide past table after stacked table. On ice skates.

Now replace the food with photos, and you’ll understand the draw of Cooliris (assuming you like looking at photos; and since the toaster is probably the last remaining electric gadget not equipped with either a camera or a way to display images, it’s a safe assumption).

And the iOS app is even cooler now that it’s just been seamlessly integrated with Dropbox.

Speaking at a conference for the National Association of Broadcasters conference, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam mentioned that he had talked to Steve Jobs about the power of LTE in a meeting with the late Apple CEO. McAdam said that he spent some time trying to convince Jobs to add an LTE radio to Apple’s then-unreleased iPhone.

“I was really trying to sell him and he sat there without any reaction. Finally, he said, ‘Enough. You had me at 10 Mbps. I know you can stream video at 10 Mbps,'” said McAdam.

PC shipments plummeted 13.9 percent during the first quarter of 2013 as compared to the same period of time last year, even more than the expected decline of around 7.7 percent. The International Data Corporation released its Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker data today, and reports that these numbers are the worst quarter ever, since the IDC began tracking the PC market in 1994. This also makes it the fourth quarter in a row of year-over-year declines in PC shipments.

We’ve covered the Chinese government’s multiple media attacks on Apple extensively here at Cult of Mac. The state-run press has been slamming Apple for everything from iPhone warranty practices to declining interview requests from Chinese journalists.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently issued a public apology to try and douse the firestorm, and China seemed to warm back up to Apple. Jeff Williams, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations, is reportedly in China right now dealing with the backlash.

There’s nothing worse than having to carry too much in your pockets. Keys, pocket change, a wallet, and now…your iPhone. That’s why Krome has developed the perfect case to consolidate your daily belongings. Not only does the Krome CargoCase sport a durable polycarbonate shell with an aircraft aluminum hinge to keep your iPhone in pristine condition, but it maintains all your valuables in one, safe location.

And Cult of Mac Deals has some special pricing on the Krome CargoCase for the iPhone 5. – only $29!

Last year, I told you about Picture Safe, a great app that lets separate, group, organize and password protect any iOS device photos you want. It’s an app that I’ve used since then to keep photos that I want to keep privately archived on my iPhone.

Just a couple weeks back, though, when I launched the app, I got a notification to upgrade to Video Safe 2, an app by the same developer that does the same thing as Photo Safe, but allows you to keep video behind the password as well. Even better, it had a migration tool that let me move all my folders and photos from Photo Safe over to Video Safe, using my Mac and the USB Lightning cable that came with my iPhone 5.

A lot of hullabaloo has been made over the last 24 hours regarding the comic Saga #12. To catch up the uninformed, basically there’s a popular comic that has two “postage stamp” size scenes of gay sex in it, so it got banned from the App Store.

Everyone immediately blamed Apple and screamed “censorship” but it turns out Apple didn’t have anything to do with Saga #12’s banishment at all. It was Comixology.

In a letter posted to customers on the company blog, David Steinberger, CEO of Comixology decided to make it clear that Apple was not at all responsible for the banning: