Four out of the five highest-paid executives in the United States work for Apple, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, but not one of them is CEO Tim Cook.
According to fiscal 2012 compensation figures for top earners filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Apple’s Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Williams, and Peter Oppenheimer join Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to make up the top five corporate earners last year.
Ecoute is one of the best third-party music players for iPhone, and it just got a whole lot better thanks to its latest update. In addition to the ability to download missing artwork, it also has new features and supports a new URL scheme that allows it to play nicely with Launch Center Pro.
Foxconn has begun taking on new workers as it prepares to begin production of Apple’s next iPhone, according to two seperate reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.
The company has added to its numbers at an iPhone plant in Zhengzhou, eastern China, ending a freeze on recruitment that was implemented back in February. The new workers will reportedly assemble the upcoming “iPhone 5S,” as well as existing models that Apple has requested to boost capacity, a supply chain source said.
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.
Let’s take a look at one of the most basic things Alfred can do for you: launching apps. Once you’ve upgraded to or downloaded Alfred version 2, you can import your version 1 settings, and be ready to roll.
Five employees working at an official iPhone distributor in China have been arrested after exploiting Apple’s returns policy by exchanging fake iPhone parts for real ones. The group sent 121 fake iPhone 4S BAND parts to have them exchanged for real ones worth around CN¥400,000 ($64,117), which they then used to build and sell fake iPhones.
This is the Bison Tote, and it’s just about the hottest laptop/camera bag ever. Unless, of course, you’re a bison. Why? Because the bag is made from bison skin.
Lomo’s awesomely handsome Belair camera has some retro-tastic styling, and a clever-and-classical bellows system to allow it to fold flat for your (oversized) pocket. The rub was that it used 120 roll-film, the kind used by medium-format cameras in the olden days.
120 is great, and the big negatives give amazingly sharp and detailed prints. But 35mm film is both cheaper and easier to process. To address this, Loma will now sell you a replacement 35mm back for your Belair.
Ever wanted to save a picture of an entire webpage? I have. Last time I made a style guide for our Cult of Mac reviews, I wanted to take a picture and scrawl notes on it. Could I find an app to help? Could I hell. In the end I resorted to printing PDF on my Mac and…. I can’t really remember. It was so convoluted that my brain has repressed the traumatic memory.
If only I’d had Barry to help me.
When you think about it, it seems absurd that there’s no way to add the currently highlighted text on your Mac to your notes. The Notes app, which is the spiritual successor to Stickies, with the advantage of a) not clogging up your screen with yellow squares and b) syncing with your iPhone and iPad, is pretty great. But it lacks, inexplicably, a way to quickly clip the selected text.
This little System Service, which runs an Applescript, will fix that for you.
LaunchBar power-users should get their virtual asses over to developer Obdev’s nightly builds page and grab the latest version of v5.5. Amongst a whole bunch of neat fixes and tweaks it adds one essential new feature: support for your iCloud documents.
Yesterday, I visited the nerd-o-rama that is the annual Barcelona comics convention, and along with the overweight folks in too-tight superhero costumes, there were overweight folks in black t-shirts and sweatpants taking lots of photos. And their comfy clothing choices were explained by the fact that they had to carry like 20 kilos of glass in their camera bags.
Next year, they might be able to dress a little better whilst also saving their spines, using the Schneider iPro Series 2 lenses for the iPhone 5.
Microsoft is designing a new smartwatch that could allow it to compete with upcoming devices from the likes of Apple, Google, and Samsung, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company has already asked suppliers in Asia to ship components for the device, which will reportedly boast a “touch-enabled” display.
Messaging standards are great! Maybe that’s why we have so many of them.
Don’t look now, but people communicate via the Internet. Whichever company can get the majority of users on their system wins. To quote Newman, the Seinfeld mailman: “When you control the mail, you control… information!”
The reason is that communication is where most of the online eyeballs are. And the network effect factor is overwhelming. (Network effect is: more users make a network more valuable to users, and users want to use networks that are more valuable.)
The carriers want everybody texting. It costs next to nothing to deliver text messages, but carriers can charge a lot and, for some reason, people pay. It’s free money, as far as the carriers are concerned.
Thousands of app makers want you to give up SMS and embrace some app-based communications system. Some work like texting. Others like an intercom system. Many of them are really great, but they’ve got an uphill battle getting everyone to embrace them.
Apple wants to get all OS X and iOS users messaging via iMessage.
Facebook wants to leverage Google’s Android to get everyone embracing Facebook Home.
And Google’s hatching a killer service based on Google+ called Babel. Allegedly.
Steam! That’s what Steve Jobs would have had rocket from his ears when he heard about Facebook Home. We’ll explain why on our newest CultCast, but also covet aloud the one feature we hope Apple borrows for iOS. Plus, inside Leander Kahney’s Jony Ive book; Ron Johnson father of the Apple Store takes a boot to the rear; and we wrap with an all new Faves ‘N Raves, the segment where we pitch our favorite tech and apps then vote on which one’s best!
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.
Click on through for the show notes.
Apple is working on the use of flexible-glass touch displays. Which products will Apple use flexible displays in?
The answer is: all of them.
When people think about flexible displays, they think about small-screen gadgets like iWatches and curved-glass iPhones. What most don’t realize is that flexible displays can bring some amazing benefits to a device, even if the display itself isn’t curved.
And Apple has patents on all of it.
Here’s how Apple might deploy flexible displays to transform every product they make.
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!
Your Mac is a machine that can do a whole lot for you – but even your Mac needs some fine-tuning every once in a while. What if you could not only have a means to maintain your Mac…but also enhance it?
Enter MacKeeper – an award-winning all-in-one system utility that includes 16 powerful maintenance features that fully optimize, protect, control, and clean your Mac. We’ve got it for you here at Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time at an amazing price – only $29. And for that price, you’ll receive the Standard version…which gives you MacKeeper coverage on 2 of your Macs.
As a user of Google calendar, I’ve often ignored Mac OS X’s Calendar app, formerly iCal, for the bright internet lights of the easy to use, sharable online calendar from the folks in Mountain View, California.
I forget, though, that Calendar has a ton of great features for folks who really don’t need or want to use Google’s option, or who just want to stick with Apple products. There’s a dedicated group of folks out there that use nothing but Calendar, because it integrates well with iOS, comes free with every Mac, and pulls other calendars in, like Google Calendar.
So, here are five great tips to help you master this ubiquitous OS X app, Calendar (née iCal).
One of the cool features that I didn’t realize Calendar had until recently is natural language event creation in Calendar itself.
Even before I ever dreamed of writing and taking pictures for a living — I’ll just pause here to let my fellow journalists and bloggers finish laughing hysterically at the idea that earnings from journalism could be considered “a living” — I rocked one of those photographer’s jackets. You know the one — zippers and pockets everywhere. I was a Geek King in the jacket, but I didn’t care; it let me carry all my gizmos and, yes, sometimes even photography gear.
Only the most wizened, old-school photographers use those vests anymore. And there are far better ways to shlep a quiver of gadgets — like the magnetic-sleeved, 22-pocket, Personal Area Network-equipped Tropiformer by Scottevest. Oh yeah.
Bill Campbell, an Apple board member as well as the chairman of the Intuit board, sat down for an hour long chat with Intuit’s CEO today to talk about technology. This is a rare move for Campbell, who’s known for his behind the scenes work (as well as his salty language, apparently).
Without giving away Apple secrets, Campbell talked about a new era of technology, one that will include all sorts of “intimate objects” as our new devices.
While the term intimate objects may mean completely different things to some folks, I’m betting he was talking about tech that you wear on your body, like glasses, or watches.
Zynga, the veritable king of social game publishing, is bringing yet another card battling game to mobile platforms, starting with iOS today. War of the Fallen is a digital collectible card game, one that mirrors real-life card games like Magic: The Gathering. Zynga’s game is free-to-download now on the iOS App Store, and will come to the Google Play store, soon.
For the first time since Steve Jobs died, his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, will speak on TV — in this case, in an interview on Rock Center with Brian Williams this evening, in just a few hours.
Pebble has updated its Bluetooth smartwatch OS with several notable additions and bug fixes. Battery life has been improved, and push notifications requesting permission to pair appear less frequently on iOS devices. Developers now have access to the SDK for creating custom watchfaces.
Twitter’s rumored music app technically exists, and it even has its own website. But normal people can’t use it yet. Twitter was expected to unveil a standalone music app to the world sometime today, but it turns out that the social network is doing a promotion with celebrities to generate more hype. This is all timed with the Coachella music festival this weekend, of course.
So for the next week or so, you’ll see some celebrities on Twitter sharing how much they love the music app. “There’s a serious dance party happening,” they’ll say. But you won’t be able to jam with them because you are a normal. Welcome to the real world. Time to wait another week.
Source: AllThingsD
Steve Wozniak is no stranger to gaming, having met Steve Jobs while working at Atari and even programmed his own version of the classic video game, Pong.
Did you know, though, that the Woz is a huge aficionado of the classic Gameboy game, Tetris. Well, he is… so much so that Nintendo Power magazine back in the 1980s refused to publish his scores anymore because he’d dominated the #1 spot for too long!