Cult of Mac

You know what I hate? Detangling the cables, chargers, headphones, and other electronic accoutrements that always weave themselves into a ball while stored in my backpack.

Cocoon, makers of the Grid-It “ultimate organizer,” want to solve that problem. The Grid-It ($20), stows your accessories against a flat surface, all held tidily in place with a series of interwoven elastic bands. That sounds a heckuvalot better than what I’m doing. So with Earpods, chargers, and lightning cables in hand, I put one to the test to see how well it works.

It’s been said about 120,386 times now, but holy crap, Ashton Kutcher really does look like Steve Jobs. This latest comparison almost got me excited about his movie. Like, Ashton looks impeccable as Steve Jobs, and because he’s got all those years of modeling under his belt, I’m gonna go ahead and say yes, Ashton is wearing that vest and tie combo better than El Jobso himself did.

I don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but maybe this really is the role he was born to play. Maybe jOBS won’t suck as badly as I claimed it will. If looks alone win you the Grand Jury Prize at Sundace (they don’t), then I think Ashton’s on his way. As for Woz, well, Josh Gad’s portrayal is embarrassing so far. The costume director couldn’t find him a denim shirt so they dressed him up in paisleys?

Here are some other Jobs vs Ashton comparison photos for good measure:

No one likes typing on a touchscreen keyboard. Even after using an iPhone for five years, I avoid writing anything more than a short text message or email on it whenever possible. We know Apple’s been working hard to bring tactile feedback to touchscreen devices from previous patents, but this particular invention is one of its weirder ideas.

It’s a clip-on accessory that fits onto a an iPod, iPhone, or iPad and provides tactile buttons for typing.

Even though we’ve seen some positive news over the past few months regarding Apple’s smartphone marketshare, there’s no denying that Android is the most dominant mobile platform in the world right now.

Apple may continue to grow its marketshare of the world smartphone market for another year or so, but according to one analyst, Apple’s marketshare will peak sometime in 2013 unless Samsung does something really stupid.

Samsung looks to be preparing to take on the iPad mini with the Galaxy Note 8.0, a smaller version of the Galaxy Note 10.1, which is expected to be priced very aggressively. In addition to an 8-inch display, the device will reportedly offer a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera, and of course, Samsung’s S Pen stylus.

This is not Pacman. No. It looks like Pacman, it sounds like Pacman. But it’s called Not Pacman for a reason: it’s not Pacman.

How does it play?

Like Pacman. A bit.

After investing billions into the iPhone, Sprint is trying to play catch with Verizon and AT&T and deliver 4G LTE data across the U.S. They already have 4G LTE in nearly 200 cities, or are in the process of delivering it, but they’ll need to add a lot more coverage if they really want to compete with AT&T and Verizon.

Yesterday, Sprint announced that they are going to bring 4G LTE to 28 additional cities in the U.S. within the next few months. If you’re in one of the new cities, Sprint says that you can actually uses the 4G LTE network during the pre-launch phase as soon as you get a signal.

Here’s a list of all the new places that will get some juicy LTE later this year:

Apple stock took a battering this week when it was reported that the iPhone 5 wasn’t selling as well as the Cupertino company had expected it to, and it appears analysts aren’t going to let it recover just yet. JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz is now reporting that iPad sales won’t meet expectations due to supply constraints during the fourth quarter of 2012.

Buying an iPhone without getting AppleCare+ or your provider’s insurance plan is a bad move. You’re going to break that screen eventually trust us.

If you don’t live near an Apple Store, then you might want to go with your carrier’s own insurance protection plan on your iPhone. AT&T & Verizon already offer insurance for iPhone customers, and Sprint is finally joining the mix too.

Rolling Stone magazine finally makes its debut in Newsstand on the iPad today, two years after the publication’s founder criticized rivals’ premature rush to Apple’s tablet. The digital version of the magazine comes filled with iTunes links that will allow readers to quickly purchase content from featured artists.

The iPad may be the king of tablets in some markets, but Apple’s device cannot compete with the Nexus 7 in Japan. Its premium price tag is causing tablet buyers to opt for Google’s 7-inch slate instead, despite its smaller display and lack of a rear-facing camera. One survey of Japanese electronics stores has found that the Nexus 7 has claimed 44.4% of the tablet market.

The popular Dolphin Browser for Android and iOS has been updated today to introduce a number of handy new features. In addition to one-tap sharing to Facebook and Twitter, users can enjoy Evernote clipping, and the ability to sync bookmarks and tabs between Dolphin and their desktop browser.

USA Today published a couple of new stills from the upcoming movie, Jobs,which has actor Ashton Kutcher playing Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs and Josh Gad playing co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The movie will premier January 26 at the Sundance Film Festival and hits theaters in April.

Amazon has today launched a new web app for the iPhone and iPod touch that allows users to purchase more than 22 million tracks directly from the retail giant’s MP3 store. Amazon says the HTML5 app has been optimized to work seamlessly inside Apple’s mobile Safari browser, and any music you purchase will be transferred instantly to your Cloud Player library.

AT&T could acquire a European carrier as it looks to expand its business overseas, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company is reportedly looking at way in which it can escape the growth constraints in the United States by entering a new wireless market where it can “upgrade technology and rollout more lucrative pricing strategies.”

Although AT&T is only identifying targets at this point, it’s though the company could announce a deal before the end of the year.

Here’s a fun little extra for those of you that use the Reminders app on OS X.

Sometimes you just like to feel a bit more accomplished, a bit more successful at your day. One of the cool things about keeping a list of things you need to remember to do is actually checking them off as you do so. Heck, on a particularly frustrating day, you might want to know how many things you’ve actually completed, right?

Using the Reminders app, this is fairly simple to do.

This post is brought to you by SquidMelon, creator of Live Wallpaper.

Live Wallpaper is the quickest, easiest way to liven up your desktop. With twenty-three official themes and an ever-expanding assortment of custom themes, Live Wallpaper offers an array of high-res images and animations to liven up your Mac screen, or across multiple screens if you use more than one monitor.

As we reported a couple of days ago, the iOS game from the National Rifle Association (NRA), NRA: Practice Range, has been coming under fire from various media outlets and political organizations for being a shooting game that is rated for anyone four years of age and up.

Apparently, Apple heard some of the outcry, and revised the rating in the App Store, which now says the shooting game is “Rated 12+ for the following: Frequent/Intense Realistic Violence.”

So, here’s an interesting new idea. Take a little bit of Instagram, with it’s ability to snap quick pictures and apply fun visual filters, and combine that with a push-to-record feature that lets you add audio commentary, music, whatever you like, to the picture itself. Digisocial aims to be the next big social thing, obviously, with a well-designed, free app that’s easy and fun to use.

The problem is, of course, a matter of scale.

CNN Money polled 67 separate analysts, 39 pros and 28 indies, on their thoughts about Apple’s upcoming financial report, due on January 23rd. The consensus among them all is that Apple is most likely going to report the best quarter it has ever had. Ever.

Apple products are expensive, and they’re especially expensive in China, a country where Foxconn workers can’t afford the iPhones they make. To help make its devices more affordable for Chinese customers, Apple has started offering payment plans that range from 6-24 months. The plans are available for purchases between 300 yuan to 30,000 yuan, or about $48 to $4,825.

The 6-12 month installments are offered with 0% interest, while a 2-year payment plan comes with a 8% interest charge. Customers must be using China Merchants Bank to participate.

We know that Apple’s product roadmap for 2013 will consist of new iPads, iPhones and Macs. That’s nothing new. Apple is always working on new stuff, and if 2012 is anything to go by, we’re about to see an onslaught of new products.

Martin Hajek is a successful designer, and his work has been featured multiple times here on Cult of Mac. His iPad mini and iPhone 5 concepts from last year were spot on, and Hajek has published renderings for the less-expensive ‘iPhone mini’ that Apple reportedly has planned for later in 2013. Some think the seventh-gen iPhone (‘iPhone 5S’) could come in multiple colors, and it will probably look a lot like the 5.

Hajek also has some great renderings of what the iPad 5 may look like should Apple tweak the design to look more like the iPad mini.

Facebook promised that their updated Facebook Messenger app would allow iPhone users to call one another for free thanks to the magic of VOIP calls. The feature has been rolled out to other countries, but Facebook just rolled it out to the U.S. today.

The Free Call feature allows you to call any of your Facebook friends who are also using the Facebook Messenger app. Rather than using the minutes on your cellular plan, the calls are made using your data connection so you’re not using up any minutes.

Write is yet another Dropbox-friendly text editor for the iPhone, but even in its present state as a teaser video and landing site, it looks amazing. In fact, it looks like it could become my favorite iPhone editor.

Not convinced? Read on…

Apple has issued a new developer beta of OS X 10.8.3. The update comes after a long line of betas for the next version of Mountain Lion, and today marks Apple’s seventh release to devs.

Another beta build was seeded last Tuesday with no major changes, and today’s update looks relatively minor as well. Apple always asks dev to focus on testing with certain aspects of OS X, and today’s beta is mainly focused on WiFi issues. (Apple is rumored to incorporate faster 802.11ac wireless into future Macs, coincidentally.)

The newest version of Mountain Lion should be available to the public any day now. We’ll be staying on the lookout for 10.8.3 to drop.

Source: Apple