Cult of Mac

Apple has a long history of naming its new versions of the OS X operating system after successively larger cats, but after eleven years of this, Cupertino’s got a problem on their hands: they’ve pretty much run out of big Earth cats.

Far beyond the Oort cloud, however, there are even bigger and more ferocious cats on the loose. Feel the magic and hear the roar of OS X Lion-O, Third Earth’s most popular operating system.

Featuring Snarf, your Mac’s cowering new digital sidekick, revolutionary Sight Beyond iSight technology, and i of Thundera compatibility, OS X Lion-O is the best Mac operating system yet.

Think you’ve got a better idea for the next version of OS X? Join our contest for a chance to win a copy of Photoshop Touch and the next version of OS X when it comes out!

PowerSkin has today announced its new silicone battery case for the iPhone 5, which features a 1,500mAh battery that promises to provide you with up to 8 hours of additional usage on Wi-Fi, up to 6.5 hours of additional talk-time, and up to 182 hours of standby time. It’s priced at $80 and it’s available to order now from the PowerSkin website.

If it seems like David Bowie hasn’t released a decent album in years, it’s because he hasn’t: his last album, Reality, came out in 2003. A few weeks ago, though, the heterochromic androgyne began teasing songs from an upcoming album called The Next Day, to be released on March 12.

Can’t wait to hear it, though? You don’t have to. Just load up iTunes and David Bowie and you can stream the entire album for free, up until The Next Day’s March 12 release.

Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust era Bowie fans, or even Labyrinth era Bowie fans, take note: this album is very definitely what one would characterize as “late Bowie.”

Source: iTunes

Robotic technology developed by England’s Oxford University is working alongside the iPad to enable an electric Nissan Leaf to drive itself. Apple’s tablet is built into the vehicle’s dashboard, and can be used to activate the robotic technology that will take over the vehicle for short stretches.

The clever system, which is designed to take the strain off of drivers during busy commutes, uses small cameras and lasers built discretely into the body of the car that allow it to recognize its surroundings and avoid collisions. 

AutoResponder, the popular jailbreak tweak that allows users to set up automatic replies to incoming text messages, has today been updated to introduce support for devices running Apple’s latest iOS 6 firmwares. Now called AutoResponder 2, the tweak also has 50% off for a limited time for those who haven’t yet purchased it.

The latest data from Display Search suggests that the iPad mini is cannibalizing iPad sales, and that Apple won’t sell as many larger iPads this year as it anticipated. Generally speaking, self-cannibalism is something Cupertino’s okay with… but they may not like the taste in their mouths nearly as much this time.

It’s a bad week for app updates. Hot on the heels of an epic Kindle for iOS bug that wiped out users’ e-book libraries comes a bug affecting version 5.2 of Evernote, which causes the app to crash upon startup. Luckily, it’s a simple fix.

Used to be that when you shared photos from iPhoto via email, iPhoto would open up Mail app, drop the photos in as attachments, and let you send from there. Nowadays, iPhoto uses an internal email routine that mimics the iOS way of adding photos to email, but many folks just plain don’t like it. If you fall into this camp, and want to disable this iPhoto “functionality,” this tip is for you.

Teardown specialists iFixit have published a new tablet repairability guide that quickly tells you how difficult it’s going to be to mend your broken Android, iOS, or Windows 8 slate. The guide features 18 popular tablets, which have been given a repairability score between one and ten. The higher the score, the easier they are to repair.

Unsurprisingly, Apple’s iPads are some of the hardest tablets to fix, second only to the Microsoft Surface Pro — the only tablet with a score of one. Amazon’s Kindle Fire’s, on the other hand, are relatively easy to repair, as are Dell’s devices.

British carrier O2 has today launched a new VoIP and messaging service called TU Go, which is available to its pay monthly customers with Android and iOS devices. The service allows users to make calls and send texts over the Internet, so even when they have no cell reception, they can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and get in touch with friends and family.

If you’re a true music aficionado your time has come to upgrade to one of the best-designed sets of headphones on the market. This Cult of Mac Deals offer features a headset that is designed specifically for anyone looking to enhance their audio experience.

If you’ve considered buying high-end headphones such as Beats by Dre, these ETZ Headphones from 3EIGHTY5 AUDIO have arguably better sound quality with more luxury and style for half the price – just $129!

Yeah yeah, Vine is all the rage right now. But remember Socialcam, the share-heavy iOS video app from effects-wizard Autodesk? If you don’t, here’s a reminder that the app is a sharp tool for shooting and sharing quick vids on Facebook — and it’s just been spiced up with HDR, new filters and the ability to shoot in 720p.

It’s taken three years, but HeartMath has finally responded, in the form of a major redesign, to the concerns we (and probably other critics) voiced over their original emWave stress-management gadget.

Where the emWave required plugging in to a USB port and cost $300, their new Inner Balance system works with pretty much any 30-pin iDevice and sells for just $99.

I’m sitting here using an amazing pair of headphones while I work: the SteelSeries Flux wired headset. Cult of Mac put these in our Awesome 2012 Advent Calendar this past holiday season, and for good reason. They’re superb headphones, very portable, easy on the ears, and have some great advanced features, like detachable cords and a second headphone jack on the headset itself to share your music with a friend.

Today, then, SteelSeries and EA announced the Real Racing 3 Gaming Headset, which is based on the very same Flux headset, to reproduce the racing sounds and over-the-top dub step soundtrack in Real Racing 3, released in the US App Store today, with much higher fidelity than any standard earbuds you might get from, say, Apple.

According to a newly-posted shareholder document, Apple now requires executive officers to own three times their annual salary. The CEO is still required to hold ten times his own annual salary in stock, as well.

This current move, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes a month after Apple’s board actually opposed a similar measure proposed by a shareholder.

We got it wrong last week, when we thought a cryptic Disney teaser was a clue to something we’ve been salivating over for a few months: the arrival of Android and iOS at Disney’s Infinity platform.

Instead, Disney has released a beautiful Toy Story 3D puzzler game for iOS and Android; and even though it’s not exactly what we’ve been waiting for, it still looks really freaking cool.

A couple of weeks ago, 11 bit studios (Anomaly Warzone Earth, Anomaly Korea) asked us all to pre-order its next game at half price, sight unseen. Well, the time has come to lift the curtain on that mystery game.

Anomaly 2 is planned for a Q2 2013 release on Mac, PC and Linux, bringing the sci-fi strategy series started on iOS to desktop computers for the first time. Along with the announcement, the development team has released a preview trailer (above) and developer diary, the latter of which is a very honest look at what it takes to make an independent game these days.

Apple is working on a 4.5-inch iPhone with a polycarbonate body, according to a new report from Japanese publication Macotakara. The device has reportedly been “postponed” for a 2014 release.

Want to preserve your entire photo, without having to crop it, and save it to Instagram for all your many followers to enjoy and Favorite? Well, you could pull it to your Mac, create a square canvas, add sidebars with an image editing app, and then put it back on your iPhone, ready to send to Instagram, but who wants to do all that?

#NoCrop–the app, not the hashtag–has you covered.

Google has a released a pretty big update for its YouTube iOS app that adds a “send to TV” option. The feature was added to Android last year.

This is basically Google’s version of AirPlay. It’s an open protocol that’s in Google TV, Xbox, PS3, and some new HDTV sets. Once you’ve paired with the device, the YouTube iOS app becomes a remote for discovering and playing back videos on the big screen.

The promise of the Wahoo RFLKT is of a tiny, ultralight box with an LCD readout which displays information from an iPhone cycling app on the handlebars of your bike. You get the advantage of using your favorite tracking app, and also of having an easy to read and control HUD, instead of having to buy an expensive GPS-enabled bike computer.

The reality comes somewhat short.

Skewering Apple’s recent ads aired during the Oscars, Conan O’Brien spells out for everyone what the iPad is really used for more than almost anything else: porn. Of course, the iPad mini is even better, since you can hold it with one hand.

Source: YouTube
Via: Gizmodo

It was recently reported that Apple is working on a wristwatch computer with a curved glass display. The glass was speculated to be Corning’s Willow Glass, a brand new technology that lets a thin pane of glass fold up like a newspaper. “The thinness, strength and flexibility of the glass has the potential to enable displays to be “wrapped” around a device or structure,” according to Corning.

If Apple were to release an iWatch in the next year or so, it would assumedly need Willow Glass to be ready for mass production. Unfortunately, it will be several more years before Corning’s flexible displays are ready for consumers.

After saying that the highly anticipated racing game would launch in 2012, EA and Firemonkeys have finally released Real Racing 3 in the U.S. App Store. The Real Racing franchise has been a staple part of the App Store since 2009, and the third installment was demoed onstage at Apple’s iPhone 5 event last September.

Real Racing 3 is perhaps the most visually stunning iOS game ever, and it’s free to download. However, there is one catch…

Throughout the churn of ever-changing priorities and products at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, or at any trade show for that matter, there is one constant: slogans. To be more specific: big banners printed with meaningless corporate gibberish.

This is where the world’s surplus of words like “enabling,” “future,” “innovating,” and “together” go to die, like orange-skinned retirees to Florida.