Cult of Mac

An iOS 6 jailbreak has been in the works since Apple released the iPhone 5 last fall, and it’s taken a long time for hackers to crack the enhanced security measures in Apple’s latest mobile operating system. After many months, the pieces have finally been put together. There is a full jailbreak for Apple’s latest iOS devices, and iOS 6.1 is the key to unlocking it.

While the jailbreak could be released for everyone now, trusted hackers behind past jailbreaks are waiting to see if Apple squashes any of their exploits in the final version of 6.1. If the bugs that form the jailbreak are still working, the iOS 6 jailbreak will be unleashed on the world after 6.1’s release.

You probably don’t give much thought to your chargers – after all, they come bundled with your devices, and Apple’s especially are mostly well-designed (MagSafe 2). But Kanex’s DoubleUp – which I took with me on a recent whistle-stop tour of Las Vegas and San Francisco – is worth a look if you travel a lot, or even if you just want something a little better, and a little more convenient, than Apple’s free option.

Neat. This $99 dongle adds GPS to your Wi-Fi-only iDevices.

Bad Elf is the first Apple approved, direct connect GPS accessory for the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. The Bad Elf delivers high performance location awareness through a 66 Channel, 10 Hz capable, WAAS compatible (SBAS/EGNOS/MSAS) GPS receiver.

I love gaming on my iPad, but for certain titles, virtual controls just don’t cut it. First-person shooters, fast-paced platforms, and even sports simulators are much better with physical controls. And there are plenty of them for iOS devices, but the Audojo for iPad could be the most convenient.

It’s a case with built-in analog sticks and triggers that turns your iPad into a real handheld gaming machine. But there is one thing missing.

This morning we told you that the Steve ‘JOBS’ biopic starring Ashton Kutcher is hitting theaters April 19th, and now the first video clip from the movie has been released online. It features Kutcher as Jobs alongside Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak.

Drafts, the default inbox for text on your iOS device, has just been updated to version 1.5 on the iPad and v2.5 on the iPhone. And, man, what an update!

Previously, Drafts was a great way to scribble down a note, and then send it off to pretty much any text-based app you could think of. Now, with two big new features called “URL Actions” and “Dropbox Actions,” Drafts not only becomes more powerful than you could possible imagine, it also lets you automate a whole lot of notetaking tasks.

How powerful are we talking about here? How about controlling your Mac at home from your iPhone by just jotting down a note?

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has today published Apple’s latest trademark certificate, which covers the “distinctive design & layout” of its iconic retail stores. The Cupertino company originally filed for the trademark back in May 2010, nine years after the first Apple store opened its doors in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

Twitter has released a new iPhone app in the App Store, and it’s called Vine. According to Twitter, “Vine is the best way to see and share life in motion. Create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way for your friends and family to see.”

6-second clips can be uploaded to Twitter from the app, and you can play them back right in embedded tweets on the web and in Twitter’s official mobile apps.

Things, one of the most popular task management applications for Mac, has had its price tag slashed in half until the end of January. It’s the first time Things has been reduced since it hit the Mac App Store in July 2011, but you can now pick it up for just $24.99. If you already use Things on iOS, it’s a must-have.

Apple stock opened at $457.70 this morning, down more than 10%, following its financial results on Wednesday. The Cupertino company announced $13.1 billion profit for the first quarter of 2013, a slight increase over the $13.06 billion it posted for the first quarter of 2012. But despite that increase, it’s clear Apple’s phenomenal growth has hit a stumbling block.

Samsung vice president JK Shin has confirmed that the company will be announcing the Galaxy Note 8.0 at Mobile World Congress next month, but you don’t need to wait until then to see what it’ll look like. Thanks to these pictures of the device out in the wild, we can see that the iPad mini competitor looks a lot like a giant Galaxy S III, with a traditional button setup that’s unlike other Galaxy tablets.

We all should back our stuff up frequently and often. With the advent of iCloud and Time Machine, keeping your Mac and the important things on it backed up has gotten easier, but there’s always a good reason to back stuff up when you can.

Reminders often have a lot of important data about us, our schedules, and things we really need to do. Keeping these backed up separately, in addition to the system wide backups we all should do, is probably a good idea as well. Here’s how to back them up, and to restore them when you need to get them back.

The first batch of Pebble smartwatches began shipping on Wednesday, nine months after the device broke Kickstarter records by securing more than $10 million in funding. Reports had suggested, however, that the accompanying Pebble iOS app would be delayed due to Apple’s approval process — but it just appeared in the App Store.

jOBS, the biopic starring Ashton Kutcher and Josh Gad, is scheduled to hit theaters nationwide on April 19, just days after Apple celebrates its 37th anniversary. Kutcher will portray the Apple co-founder’s life between 1971 and 2000, covering his founding of the company in 1976, his ousting from it in 1985, and his return in 1996.

Those of us over a certain age (ahem) remember the days, after the LP and the 8-track, but before the CD, when cassette tapes were all the rage. I belonged to a couple of different tape clubs back in the day, and still have quite a few of these bad boys in a case under my house, somewhere.

Photopoll is a sort of mashup between Instagram and Polldaddy, the super-useful poll tool we often use here at Cult of Mac. Just plug in some photos from Instagram, Amazon.com or your iPhone’s Camera Roll, and ask friends to vote for photos based on an accompanying question. Wild-yet-informative wackiness ensues.

The Cave is a brand new adventure game from legendary developer, Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion) and award-winning Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts, Brütal Legend). Choose a team of three from an available seven differently-equipped and skilled adventurers to descend into the dark, mysterious, and promisingly twisted depths of The Cave, now out on Steam for Mac and PC for a gloriously affordable $14.99.

Securifi’s new Almond+ router, a touch-screen router — really the touch-screen router, since the only other router available with a touch screen is the earlier version of the Almond, released mid last year and still available on Amazon for $80 — went live today on Kickstarter. It’s already lassoed over $90,000 in backing as this post goes live, with a goal of $250,000; that’s a third of its funding goal, just within its first day on Kickstarter.

Apple just posted one of their most successful financial quarters ever. A bunch of records were broken for iPad sales, iPhone sales, net revenue, and net profit.

Sorting through the pile of information and numbers Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer just gave us can make your head spin, so we’ve broken it down for you. Here are the most important numbers you need to know from today’s earnings call:

2 million Apple TVs were bought in the last quarter, up 60% since this time last year.

During Apple’s earnings call today, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster asked Tim Cook about future Apple TV plans yet again. Munster has been beating the Apple HDTV drum for years now, and Tim Cook has been skirting questions for just as long. Something is definitely brewing.

Apple commented today on its poor Mac sales from this past holiday quarter. The company sold only 4.1 million Macs, missing Wall Street’s expectations and the previous quarter’s sales. Overall Mac sales are actually down 16% since this time last year. Ouch.

Tim Cook blamed the new iMac that Apple introduced in October 2012 for the poor performance. Supplies for the iMac were constrained overseas all quarter, and Apple didn’t start actually shipping orders until December. Shipping times have yet to reach normal estimates as Apple continues to catch up with demand.

The new iMac has an ultra-thin design and completely new display that is really difficult to make. Apple’s own innovation can occasionally be a thorn in its side.

During Apple’s Q1 2013 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook addressed recent reports regarding iPhone order supply cuts overseas. Publications like The Wall Street Journal recently claimed that Apple has significantly slowed iPhone production, causing rampant speculation that demand has been weakening. Apple’s stock has slid since the rumors started picking up steam earlier this month.

Today Cook threw cold water on the idea of Apple cutting its own orders.

Apple has just announced the numbers for what has proven to be another record quarter, yet compared to the numbers Cupertino was showing a year ago, Wall Street is worried that Apple’s growth may have finally stalled. Are they nuts?

To help you make sense of Cupertino’s incredible growth, here’s a breakdown in easy-to-read chart form of everything from the growth of Apple’s revenues, profit and cash hoards, to the rise and fall of Cupertino’s various product empires.

We even have a comparison of how Apple did this quarter compared to how Wall Street prediced Apple would do. Usually, Apple does better than analyst predictions, but this time, they did worse. What does it mean?

Apple has just announced it’s best quarter EVER, but the stock is taking a pounding on Wall Street.

Apple announced earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2013: $54.5 billion and a net profit of $13.1 billion. But the stock is down more than 4% in after-hours trading because Wall Street is worried that Apple’s phenomenal growth is slowing. Don’t you love how a record-breaking quarter is still considered an “ouch?”

Apple was expected to report decent numbers despite the public’s perception that Apple’s streak of runaway sales of iPhones and iPads is plateauing. AAPL has been falling due to a number of factors, including analysts’ low predictions for the next March 2013 quarter. Apple is printing money, but not fast enough for Wall Street.

There have also been reports that Apple has cut back supply orders for the iPhone due to weakening demand, but iPhone sales are still up from 30 million last quarter.

Here are some of the key points from Apple’s Q1:

What do you get when you combine a highly anticipated iPhone app with a fascinating link to a senior executive at the most valuable company on earth? You get Mailbox and Adam Cue, a software engineer working on the hyped email app that’s going public soon. Cue works at Orchestra, the app development company behind Mailbox. You may recognize Adam’s last name because it also happens to be the last name of Eddy Cue, a longtime Apple senior executive who now oversees all of the company’s internet services, including email.

While this doesn’t mean that Apple will acquire Orchestra’s Mailbox app, it’s interesting to note the connection between the two companies.