The eBook publishing price-fixing scandal raised its fugly head again this week when the US Justice Department filed documents in advance of the June 3 trial in New York.

Among those documents was a series of emails and documents in which eBook pricing strategy and tactics are discussed.

An email from late founder and CEO Steve Jobs to News Corporation’s James Murdoch got all the attention. (The email itself was harmless but parts of it printed out of context sounded vaguely conspiratorial and old-boys clubbish.)

To me, the scandal is buried in those emails and testimony records. We learned that Apple used its control over app approvals to exert pressure on companies for reasons totally unrelated to the apps.

Does this bother you? It should.

Everyone’s gadgets look the same these days. That’s because they generally look so good out of the box. But why not personalize your gear a little bit? Make it really your own and let your personality come through every time you bring out your smartphone, tablet, computer, or other tech gadgets for all the world to see.

Cult of Mac Deals has an offer that will help you do just that, letting you change add stylish skin(s) to your tech with Slickwraps. We’ve got a deal tjhat gives you $50 of credit with Slickwraps for 50% off the regular price – just $25!

When Siri was updated along with iOS 6, we showed you a bunch of ways to use Apple’s personal digital assistant the right way, like using punctuation and finding out the weather.

Yet time marches ever onward, and we’ve compiled yet another five tips and tricks to help you master Siri, whether you’re looking to create a secure password or just pass the time with a few laughs. Enjoy! Discover even more secret siri commands to improve your Siri experience here.

Crescent Moon Games, known for its quality iOS gaming work (Aralon: Sword and Shadow, Dig!), has just released it’s well-regarded iOS game, Ravensword: Shadowlands, for Mac OS X.

Apple gave Ravensword: Shadowlands the Editor’s Choice designation for the iPad version, which can still be purchased for $7 on the iTunes App Store. The Mac OS X Version, enhanced with graphical upgrades like realtime shadows, bloom effects, and high resolution textures and environment models, is in the Mac App Store right now for $13, which seems like a pretty decent deal.

Like an odd cross between Sudoku and a collectible card game, Star Trek Rivals, from Elephant Mouse Games, is out for iOS on the App Store to capture your attention today, on the release date of Star Trek: Into Darkness (have you gotten your tickets, yet?).

The game is free, has all your Star Trek reboot characters in it, and is pretty simple to learn, but hard to master. It plays asynchronously, and you can play a bunch of games at once. Did I mention it’s made out of Star Trek? What’s not to like?

Every year Apple holds its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California. It’s the only time out of the year that third-party App Store developers can meet with Apple engineers face-to-face. For the indie dev making apps out of his home office, WWDC is Mecca. Besides the knowledge that can be gained, the conference holds tremendous networking value for many who make their livings from selling apps on the iPhone and Mac.

WWDC 2013 sold out in under two minutes this year, and about 5,000 developers will be descending upon the Moscone Center in San Francisco for the week-long conference in June. Some new information shows how WWDC attracts quite the international audience.

Have you used the hot new app “Bang With Friends?” No, don’t answer that. Keep your dignity in tact. You can guess what it does.

Apple has suddenly pulled Bang With Friends from the App Store after it went live last week. The app doesn’t contain any explicit content, but it’s obviously not meant for your kid to check out while searching for the latest Angry Birds game.

No word yet on why BWF has been pulled, but the service’s website says that it’s “working with Apple to get back into the App Store shortly.”

Source: Valleywag

Via: CNET

Limelight is a new iPhone app for collecting movies and sharing them with friends. Released earlier this week by indie dev studio 9:42 AM, Limelight is pitched as a “new way to browse and organize your movie library.”

Inspired by Delicious Library on the Mac, Limelight borrows from similar digital bookshelf apps and adds a unique social element.

I know what you’re asking: Yet another activity tracker? But LIT tracker from NZN Labs has a big secret ingredient that most others don’t — and that special ingredient makes it perfect for action sports like snowboarding, surfing and mountain biking.

We’ve shown you plenty of iTV/Apple TV concepts in the past. There are a lot of ideas to improve the TV experience out there, and Apple is working on a solution (if you put some level of faith in the rumor mill, that is).

How would you interact with an Apple TV that replaced your cable box? The above concept video suggests an interface that is controlled entirely with an iOS device. Gestures would be used to swipe through channels and navigate menus. You could use Siri to control the experience and ask questions, which is something that Apple has apparently been experimenting with for years.

These kinds of concepts tend to serve the purpose of getting people thinking, not laying out some detailed model that Apple absolutely needs to follow. There are parts of this video that are well executed, and parts that aren’t. The biggest thing that stands out is the total reliance on software. There’s nothing about the above concept that suggests Apple needing to build a physical television.

Via: iDownloadBlog

When Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, he left behind a wife and four children. His widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, has stayed hidden from the public sphere for years, but now she is starting to receive more recognition as an influential philanthropist.

She is passionate about a host of social issues, including education and immigration policy. As the world’s ninth richest woman, her platform to effect society has only grown larger in the wake of Jobs’s death.

This week on The CultCast: Google Maps gets prettier, smarter, and faster; Hangouts is a new chat app with some innovative features; Google Music is too late to party; Erfon eats H’orderves on a space jet with Tim Cook and Richard Branson; and Leander dons his powdered wig to judge an all new Faves ‘N Raves.

All that and more on this week’s CultCast! Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.

Show notes up next.

If you’ve tried to use Siri to call or text someone, you know it’s pretty simple. Just say, for example, “Call Joe Smith,” and Siri will call the person named Joe Smith in your Contacts App.

But did you know that Siri can also identify people via their relationship to you? You can say, “Call my brother,” or “Text my daughter,” and Siri will call or text that person, provided you’ve done a little set-up in the Contacts app.

You can also use Siri to define these relationships, so you don’t even have to open Contacts. Here’s how.

When my fingers are covered in egg, or I want to use my iPad as a second-screen when working at my Mac, or when I’m performing computer surgery and I want to keep iFixIt in the corner of my eye, there’s a lot of situations in which I might want a stand for my iPad.

Unfortunately, of the few I’ve tried, I’ve found most of them only to be good in specific situations: great for, say, using your iPad as second monitor at your computer, but not good for cooking or doing computer surgery.

The iOStand by iOMounts is the first stand I’ve really liked, because sometimes simpler is better. But it’s not perfect.

Earlier this week, Google beat Apple to the punch by launching a streaming subscription music service before Cuperino could unveil its own offering, iRadio.

How did Google managed to do it? Apple has all the music industry clout, so how could Google swing a deal first? Because Google Play Music All Access is essentially a clone of services like Rdio and Spotify, and the contract terms of services like that are easy to copy.

Apple’s iRadio? It’s a wholly different beast.

It’s not unusual for an iTunes library to get out of control. Duplicate songs, unnamed tracks, missing album artwork – it’s tough to keep things clean and organized as a music library grows. Chances are, like me, you are another Mac user who has some issue with their iTunes library. But Cult of Mac Deals has an offer that’s going to help.

Leawo Tunes Cleaner for Mac is the intelligent iTunes cleanup tool that will allow you to transform your iTunes to perfection with only a couple of clicks. Cult of Mac Deals has this software solution starting at $5.

Filippo Bigarella is best known for being the developer of some of the most popular jailbreak tweaks for iOS, including Springtomize, LivelyIcons, and PasswordPilot Pro. But he’s just launched his first official iPhone app through the App Store.

It’s called Balances, and it’s a wonderfully simply finance app with a gorgeous interface that’ll help you keep track of the money you owe and the money owed to you.

QuickLock is a terrific little tool from ThinkDev that makes it quick and convenient to lock your Mac when you leave your desk. It sits in your menubar out of your way, and a click (or a keyboard shortcut) is all it takes to keep your Mac safe.

With the latest version of QuickLock, users can enjoy a brand new interface and a number of new features. Best of all, it’s completely free.

Next time Maverick, Goose and Ice Man enter the Danger Zone, they’ll be flying about 40 pounds lighter, thanks to the U.S. Air Force’s recent decision to replace bulky flight bags with iPads… a move which could save the government $50 million in the next ten years.

Apple’s iOS devices have today been cleared for use on United States military networks by the Defense Department, Bloomberg reports. The move comes after Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 and the latest devices from BlackBerry gained government clearance earlier this month.

Inside every Mac — the one I’m writing this one, the one you’re reading this on, the one next to you at the cafe — is a little chip called the SMC, or system management controller. If you’ve ever had a problem related to your Mac’s performance or power supply, resetting the SMC is usually the first thing people suggest.

For most of us, worrying about the ‘security’ of our SMC is pretty harmless. While your SMC can be hacked, it’s a Mission Impossible style process that is only really likely to occur if you’re so important that the techno-elite of another country’s government decides they want to know what’s on your laptop.

Here’s where it gets funny, though. Let’s say China did want to hack your Mac’s SMC… how might they start? By entering the name of a Harry Potter spell!

AU Optronics, one of Apple’s display manufacturers for the iPad mini, is set to decrease its shipments from 4 million units in the first quarter of 2013 to between 2.5 and 2.8 million units in the second quarter, according to sources in the supply chain.

The move comes as we enter a traditionally quiet period for consumer spending.

Although Apple doesn’t like to talk too much about it, they admit right on their official website that all of the glass used in their iPhone and iPad displays are made by Corning, makers of Gorilla Glass.

Corning’s always looking to make their glass stronger, thinner and more useful to Apple, though, which is why they’ve just announced Corning Lotus XT Glass, which looks to be a prime contender for use in the upcoming iPhone 5S, iPad 5 and iPad mini 2.

The video above, frankly, is pretty boring. Here’s what you need to know: Lotus XT Glass is a new type of glass from Corning that is specifically designed for use in high-performance displays, like Retina displays. Its primary characteristics are that they allow more light through, so Lotus XT Glass reduces power draw (light goes through easier, so a backlight needs to do less to compensate) and increase color vibrancy. In addition, Lotus XT Glass is easier for manufacturers to work with, reducing manufacturing costs and increasing yields.

Press release is after the jump.

The winner of Apple’s $10,000 App Store gift card has revealed how he saved up apps to download to his iPhone in an a bit to become the 50 billionth downloader. Brandon Ashmore, 21, from Mentor, Ohio, held his downloads until Wednesday night to try to give himself a better chance of winning the contest.

He still thought it was a joke when Apple called to tell him he had won, though.

A new Mac malware has been found in the wild that allowed attackers to steal data and install unauthorized apps on a compromised machine. What makes this malware different than other recent Mac malware, though, is that it breezes right past Gatekeeper… and the people behind it might have been gunning for the life of their malware victim.