There are a handful of apps that I have to have on every Mac I use, or things quickly start to get annoying. Launchbar is one. Dropbox is another, and TextExpander is one more. TextExpander is sold as a way to expand a short string of text into a longer string of text, so I can just type, say, “aadd” and my address magically appears. I use it all day long on both Mac and iOS for adding Markdown and HTML code to my Cult of Mac posts, and even to the the name Cult of Mac (shortcut: ccom).

But there’s a lot more in there, as this example will show. BEcause TextExpander can run scripts, it can query all kinds of neat stuff — including finding out about your Mac.

Evernote Food, the iOS app for foodies that lets you keep a record of all the recipes and restaurants you want to remember, has received a major new update adding a number of neat new features. In addition to OpenTable reservations, users can now share recipes with their friends, enjoy better search results, and more.

Apple just released its latest iOS 6.1.3 update, which fixes a lock screen security flaw that allows users to bypass a passcode lock. The update also makes improvements to Maps for users in Japan.

Bubble wrap is one of the funnest creations man has ever invented. Not only does it keep your valuables safe from the nefarious hands of postal workers, but it’s fun as hell to pop between your fingers.

Bradley Hart is obsessed with bubble wrap too, except rather than destroying it like the rest of us, Hart creates incredible portraits by painstakingly injecting paint into each little bubble. The results are pretty amazing. He created the Steve Jobs portrait you see above, but he’s got a lot of other artwork you can browse through over on his personal website too.

Source: Visual News

According to some (questionable) reports, Apple will finally offer the iPhone in various different colors later this year. But rather than waiting to see whether or not that actually happens, why not take matters into your own hands. A number of third-party iPhone 5 replacement parts are now available to purchase, and they come in all sorts of pretty colors.

According to those dandruff-shouldered, bad-breathed “experts” at camera clubs the world over, converging verticals in a photograph are “bad.” Converging verticals are the effect you see when you tip your camera back to capture to top of a building and the verticals appear to point towards each other instead of straight up.

Amazingly, these “experts” never complain about converging horizontals.

So if you are planning on entering a competition at your local camera club, and there will be buildings involved in your pictures, then you might want to take a look at Perspective Correct, an app to — you guessed it — correct perspective.

Apple still isn’t correctly informing consumers about their warranty rights in Europe, according to the European Union’s Justice Commissioner, Vivian Reding.

The Cupertino company changed its European warranty policies last year after it came under fire for not meeting EU regulations. But it’s still not providing consumers with the right information in at least 21 of the EU member states, Reding says.

Mailbox might be getting all the e-mail press these days, but there’s a long line to get in, and it looks terrible on the iPad. Incredimail isn’t anything like Mailbox, but neither is it like any other e-mail client. Think of it as something like Flipboard fro you e-mail and you” get the idea.

OMGPOP CEO Dan Porter has confirmed that a sequel to the smash hit drawing game Draw Something is “coming soon.” The first screenshot of the new title was posted to Twitter by none other than TV host Ryan Seacrest shortly before Porter made the news official.

“I somehow convinced them to give me #DrawSomething2 first,” Seacrest wrote.

It’s generally super easy to get notes into Evernote, using the desktop client, the mobile client, and even the web client. There are a ton of different apps on Mac and iOS that will let you interface with Evernote, like Penultimate on the iPad or Reeder on the Mac.

But did you know that you could send emails along to Evernote, too? If you’re swiping through emails on your iPhone, or scrolling through them on your Mac, you can quickly forward important ones to your Evernote account, for later follow up or archiving. Here’s how.

Apple is expected to unveil its first smartwatch sometime this year, and there’s one company who will be right on its tail, competing for sales. As you may have already guessed, that company is Samsung.

Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of  the Korean company’s mobile business, confirmed the move during an interview with Bloomberg.

Wish you could do more with Notification Center in iOS 6? Besides the couple of stock widgets Apple includes, there isn’t a lot of functionality to be found. On my iPhone, it usually feels like a waste of space. What if you could compose an email or quickly access your camera alongside notifications?

Jailbreaking allows you to do that and more, thanks to a couple of handy Cydia tweaks.

There aren’t many good docks out there for Apple devices with the new Lightning connector, especially the fourth-gen iPad and iPad mini. While you’re on the hunt for a viable docking solution, check out this neat iPad dock made entirely of Legos. It’s from the same people who made the iPhone 5 Lightning Lego dock we showed you last year.

It’s a pretty cheap dock alternative that appeals to the kid in all of us. You assemble the kit yourself, and it works with any iPad that uses a Lightning connector.

Starwood Hotels recently opened Aloft Cupertino, a slick hotel that is located two blocks away from Apple’s famous One Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino, California. Given its close proximity to Apple itself, it only makes sense for Aloft to put Apple products into its rooms.

Unlike the crappy cable boxes that are usually in hotels, Aloft has installed an Apple TV in each of its 123 rooms with full access to all of the set-top box’s features, including AirPlay.

T-Mobile has been relegated to being America’s #4 U.S. carrier, thanks to it’s failed acquisition deal with AT&T. Apparently, the company has some big plans to put it back in the spotlight though.

T-Mobile just sent out invites to an exclusive event on March 26th in New York, where it is expected to detail plans to change its wireless business.

If you’re a designer or developer hunting for a CSS editor that does it all – and is going to save you a boatload of time – then there is no better opportunity out there with this Cult of Mac Deals offer. You’ll get Stylizer for only $40 – that’s 50% off the regular price!

The real-time editing capability allows you to edit your pages faster than ever and will literally help you save hundreds of hours in the course of a year playing around with your style sheets. Plus, this software works with both Mac and Windows machines. (Note: Browser previews dependent on your operating system).

Facebook has released an update to its iOS app that adds a few improvements, most notably the ability to change your cover photo. For some reason this feature has been missing all this time, and now it’s finally been implemented.

Group messaging has also been streamlined. Facebook says it takes fewer taps to start a group message, and it’s easier to name and find conversations in your inbox.

Source: App Store

Apple’s Mac sales have been in a bit of a slump lately thanks to issues with the production of the super skinny iMacs. Now that constraints have eased up a bit, sales are coming back strong.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster released a new research report today that covered Apple’s U.S. Mac sales from January-February 2013, and revealed that Mac sales are currently up 14% year-over-year.

Pay $80, get $100 worth of apps, music, movies or iBooks, thanks to this killer iTunes Gift Card deal over at Best Buy.

That’s basically free money: if you’re ever likely to spend more than $80 through iTunes (and that’s pretty much all of us) you’d be stupid to pass this opportunity up. Better act fast.

Source: Best Buy
Thanks: Roger

During his tenure as CEO of Apple, John Sculley saw the company suffer through a serious lack of innovation that nearly sunk the company, before Jobs came back and rescued it.

In an interview earlier this month, Sculley said he thinks Apple is experiencing a “lull in innovation.” To clarify his stance, Sculley just gave another interview and said that even though Apple’s experiencing a lull, it’s not really its own fault.

Speaking with Huffington Post, the former Apple CEO had the following to say about Apple’s perceived innovation problem:

With iOS 5, Apple included Emoji as a standard keyboard option, obviating the need for separate Emoji apps (previously the only way to get the cute characters on your iOS device). The Emoji option continued in iOS 6, adding a bunch of new cute characters, as well as some welcome gay and lesbian avatars as well.

If you haven’t enabled Emoji yet, or you want to disable it for whatever reason, read on.

If you jailbreak your iPhone or iPad, you are most likely to be an American male under the age of 30, you’re using either an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 running iOS 6.1 and your phone probably crashes around once or twice a week.

Or so says, at least, the following infographic, cataloguing the responses of 400 redditors, trying to put together a picture of the typical jailbreaker. The responses are illuminating, but definitely put the geoscape of jailbreaking in very clear perspective. Check it out.

As a reader of Cult of Mac, I’d say it’s a safe bet that you have a whole bunch of 30-pin docks around your home. And that those docks have been rendered useless by Apple’s evil insistence on equipping all of its new devices with smaller, tougher, easier to use Lightning plugs.

Now, we bring good news. With just €13, you can resurrect your pointless plastic paperweight.

Samsung has already explained its love for plastic, and why it chose to stick with it for the flagship Galaxy S4. But after receiving a lot of criticism for that decision, the company’s head of design, Dennis Miloseski, was forced to defend the Galaxy S4’s plastic build once again at Engadget’s Expand conference in San Francisco this weekend.

After hearing the news that Ashton Kutcher’s phenomenal Steve Jobs biopic has been delayed, you’re probably super bummed right? Well, the first Steve Jobs biopic is coming really soon, except it wasn’t written by Aaron Sorkin, nor does it star Ashton Kutcher.

Justin Long is set to star as Steve Jobs in Funny or Die’s own Steve Jobs movie, iSteve. The Steve Jobs biopic from Funny or Die will be a parody on biopics, and it will be released online on April 15th.