Cult of Mac

In case you hadn’t already heard, BlackBerry launched its new BlackBerry Z10 back in February, finally making its new BlackBerry 10 platform available to the public. The device has gotten off to a surprisingly good start for the Canadian company, with more than one million units sold during its first three months of availability.

If you’re wondering what BB10 is like, and more importantly whether it’s a worthy contender to Android or iOS, then why not give it a try. You can now do so simply by visiting a URL in your browser — you don’t even have to leave the house.

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!

Randolph Divisions makes the HearPod, a digital hearing aid. The company has owned the “HearPod” trademark since 2007, and it recently filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple in Hawaii District Court. Apparently “HearPod” and “EarPods” sound too much alike.

Apple also owns a trademark for its EarPods, but it doesn’t own the earpods.com or earpod.com domain names—Randolph Divisions happens to own the latter.

With the kind of cash Apple has in the bank, Randolph Divisions will likely be paid off to settle this lawsuit.

Source: The Next Web

I love my Wacom Bamboo Stylus; it’s by far the best stylus I’ve owned for the iPad. And although I wouldn’t exactly call it big, I wouldn’t want to carry it around in my pocket all day. Fortunately, Wacom has a new, smaller and super cute version of the Bamboo for that.

Called the Bamboo Stylus mini and measuring just 1.85 inches, it’s the perfect portable stylus for those on the go.

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that jailbreak hackers have exploits saved up for another jailbreak release in the future. The bad news is that we will not be seeing a new jailbreak any time soon — at least until after iOS 7 comes out.

In China, the state-run press has been attacking Apple non-stop for the past couple of weeks over warranty policies that showed the company’s “unparalleled arrogance.” Apple Stores were fixing broken iPhone returns instead of replacing the devices entirely like they do in the United States. There was also an issue with Apple’s 90-day warranty on replaced parts not matching China’s mandatory one-year warranty policy.

Things got so heated that Apple CEO Tim Cook had to issue a public letter to Chinese customers apologizing “for any concerns or misunderstandings.” Apple’s scrutinized warranty and return policies have also been changed to address the concerns.

After the apology, China is starting to warm back up to Apple.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) will reportedly land a deal for Apple’s future “A7” processors when the Cupertino company’s current contract with Samsung expires in 2014.

Samsung has been responsible for Apple’s mobile chips since the introduction of the A4 back in 2010, but Apple has seemingly been looking to take its business elsewhere since the pair became embroiled in a series of lengthy legal battles.

We’ve been excited for iSteve, Funny or Die’s upcoming Steve Jobs movie, since it was announced on March 18, and with just under two weeks to go until its release, we’ve got its first teaser trailer. Check it out below.

One of the big things I do here in OS X tips is take screenshots. A quick Command-Shift-3 will get me a picture of my entire screen, while a Command-Shift-4 will get me a crosshair which I can use to click and drag around any area of my screen to get a more specific area of my Mac’s screen to demonstrate a point.

Sometimes, though, I miss. When I don’t get the right area of the screen, I typically hit the Escape key and then Command-Shift-4 to try again. If however, I need to just move the selection area around to another part of the screen, I always assumed I was out of luck.

Not true, and it’s super easy to do.

Apple has been dealt yet another blow by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office after receiving confirmation that its famous “rubber banding” patent, which plays a key role in the company’s fight against Samsung, is invalid. The “final” decision comes after the USPTO tentatively rejected all claims in the ‘381 patent back in October 2012.

Picfari is a smart little iPhone app which tells you where all the best photos are to be taken – wherever you are. Say you’re on vacation in, I don’t know… Barcelona, Spain. Fire up the app and it’ll not only let you browse photo hotspots, it’ll also pull in great sample shots from places like Flickr, and even give you some tips on getting the best shots.

Good news for those of you who were unfortunate enough to have dropped $130 on the Wahoo RFLKT (ROFL!) Bluetooth 4 iPhone HUD for your bike. One of the best iPhone cycling apps – Cyclemeter – has just been updated to support your fragile dongle. There’s bad news, too: You’ll have to drop another $3 on an in-app purchase to enable the new feature. Insult, meet injury.

Just Mobile, the folks behind many handy aluminum Mac and iOS accessories (like the pencil-impersonating AluPen stylus, and the AluRack laptop mount) has just busted out three new gadgets. There’s the AluCup – a plastic and aluminum desk-tidy in the shape of a cup; the HeadStand, which is a headphone holder/hanger for your desk, and the AluFrame, a fancy aluminum bumper for the iPhone 5.

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.

Apple has released the first beta of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 to third-party developers. “Please be aware that you will not be able to revert back to your previous system after updating,” warns Apple. “Please install this update on a system you are prepared to erase if necessary.”

The seed’s release notes don’t contain anything significant, but devs will surely find new stuff once they get to digging through the OS. 10.8.3 was released to the public a couple weeks ago after going through 13 beta revisions over a period of nearly 5 months.

It was February of last year when Apple unveiled Mountain Lion as the successor to Lion. Bets are on for what cat the next major OS X release will be named after.

Source: Apple

HD Voice offers higher voice quality for networks and devices, like the iPhone 5, that can support it. T-mobile has already announced its own plans to deploy the technology when it begins selling iPhone 5s later in the month. Sprint also has plans for the higher resolution mobile audio.

AT&T today announced its own support for HD Voice, with senior VP Kris Rinne telling group of technologists at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit that AT&T plans to roll out HD Voice support later this year, at the same time it starts running voice calling on its own LTE network.

Apple has revealed that it will announce its official earnings for the second fiscal quarter of 2013 on Tuesday, April 23rd. The call will be held at 2:00 P.M. Pacific, and anyone can stream it from Apple’s Investors Relations page.

If you ever had hopes of cashing in your iTunes library to make ends meet, think again: a federal judge has declared reselling your MP3s online, saying the first sale doctrine is not applicable.

iPhone theft has become a huge problem in places like New York City and San Francisco.  District Attorney George Gascón is on a mission to curb smartphone theft by having manufacturers implement a kill switch once a phone has been reported stolen, but that’s proven more difficult than Gascón imagined.

During his crusade to get answers from manufacturers, Gascón talked with Apple’s government liaison about getting a kill switch added to the iPhone, but was told that might not be possible because the next two iPhones were developed while Steve Jobs was still CEO at Apple.

With Google Reader set to close up shop on June 3oth there have been a number of apps competing to replace the dying RSS service. Digg and Reeder have emerged as popular replacements, but Feedly has seen tremendous growth thanks to Google Reader’s death.

Since Google’s announcement that it’s killing Google Reader, Feedly has seen more than 3 million new users joined the service. To make things even better, Feedly just released a big app update for iOS that includes a new discovery engine, better sharing, and a must read section. With the new update and the development of a Google Reader API clone called Normandy, Feedly is looking like it will be one of the best replacements for Google Reader.

Here are the release notes on what’s new in Feedly version 14:

Notifications on the iPhone can be annoying. Right? They drop at inappropriate times, and I always end up accidentally activating them. Of course, my iPhone is more than happy to hop over to the application that sent the Notification in the first place. There are, however, a couple of cool ways of dismissing them without activating them, short of waiting for them to go away, which is what I’ve done since they appeared in iOS 5. Today’s tip shows you how.

Reeder has long been our favorite newsreading app on the iPhone and iPad, but with Google Reader set to be discontinued on June 30th, the future of Reeder has been up in the air. Google Reader is the engine that drives Reeder, but with no clear alternative right now, it’s not exactly sure what Reeder’s new engine will be come July 1st.

So Reeder’s doing the right thing and not making people pay quite as much for an app with a seemingly uncertain future. Developer Silvio Rizzi are making the app free on both iPad and Mac, and they are halting development on the app until July 1st to wait until the dust settles and a clear Google Reader replacement emerges.

Unfortunately, Rizzi’s largesse only goes so far: the iPhone version still costs $2.99. I think it’s a price worth paying for the only iPhone feedreader in my view worth a damn, and with Reeder set to add Feedbin support sometime soon, my guess is that it will continue to be a strong app going forward.

Source: Reeder

After Judge Lucy Koh decided to invalidate $450.5 million of the original damages owed to Apple in its trial against Samsung, most of the press believed this meant Apple wasn’t going to get anywhere near the original $1.05 billion owed to it by Samsung. Turns out everyone was probably wrong.

Even though Judge Koh ordered a new trial to determine the proper damages to award Apple for 14 of the 28 infringing Samsung devices, Apple could actually get more than the original $1.05 billion figure.

On April 1st, 1976, Apple Computers was officialy founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne to sell the Apple I computer kit, personally hand-built by Wozniak himself. Thirty-seven years later, Apple is the most successful and profitable technology company in the world.

There’s no way to celebrate an anniversary that weighty with proper due reverence, so let’s celebrate it in a more frivolous (and delicious) way: looking at the best Apple-themed birthday cakes ever baked!

Cult of Mac Deals has partnered with 6 of the world’s finest indie gamer developers to bring you The Name Your Own Price Indie Gamer Bundle!

You pay what you want for three cross-platform, DRM-free games that will keep you gaming for hours on end including: The Journey Down, Aztaka, and iBomber Defense, and if you pay more than the average price, you’ll also receive Spades of Time, SpaceChem, and Cubemen.

Your purchase will also do some good. We’ve chosen three charities, Child’s Play Charity, 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 three charities of your choice: Child’s Play Charity, World Wildlife Fund, and Creative Commons. You get to help choose which charity raises the most!