Cult of Mac

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Our own Charie Sorrel wasn’t a huge fan of the BodyMedia Fit Link activity tracker when he reviewed it a few months back; negatives ranged from a user-unfriendly app interface and just the overall gawkiness of the device itself. BodyMedia has listened, and addressed at least one of those issues with a smaller, sleeker version of the Core called the Core 2 — and it’ll even allow you to pop the four-sensor device into elegant jewelry designed to accept the, well, core of the gadget.

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Cocoon is showing off at CES this year a new bag that combines the best of their organization tools with the familiarity of a carrying case for your devices.

The IQ Collection, as it’s being tentatively called, is based around Cocoon’s Grid, a storage system that keeps a wide variety of your gadgets secure and organized while you’re traveling.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Back when I was a kid, I had all kinds of Fisher-Price toys I loved playing with. But I don’t think I remember anything quite as magic as Fisher-Price’s new line of Apptivity sets for preschoolers that combine child-safe cases and toy figures with slick augmented-reality apps (though my little Classic Xylophone came close).

I ran across an issue yesterday in trying to support a Macbook Pro at work. We wanted to reformat the Macbook to a clean system install, but we had no system disk for the computer (it was lost in the move to our new offices), and we didn’t know the admin password for the Mac. I thought we were out of luck, until I ran across a solution in Apple’s discussion forums that showed me how to reset the admin password without a system disk. I figured I’d share this process here, hoping it helps some of you out.

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When it comes to styluses for your iPad, there’s quite a few options, but none are quite like the Connect, Pogo’s newest stylus that they’re showing off at CES this year. The Connect is a pressure-sensitive stylus with some unique features that set it apart from the rest.

The Pogo connect lets you rest your hand on the iPads screen while drawing, something that can come in handy when using the stylus for extended periods of time. Because of this, your hand won’t get sore trying to rest it on the bezel to avoid unwanted input from your wrist.

Tim Cook is on his second visit to China as Apple CEO this week, and during an interview with local reporters on Thursday, he confirmed that the cellular version of the iPad mini will be arriving in the nation in late January. The Wi-Fi only model arriving in China on December 7, just over a month after it launched in the United States.

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Cult Of Mac’s gadget hunter Erfon Elijah stopped by the HEX booth at CES this year to check out some of the company’s new products, including a new backpack as well as some custom designed headphones.

HEX’s products are focused heavily on great design, and it shows in the new Origin backpack that was demoed at CES. Instead of going with run-of-the-mill materials, HEX developed the material for the Origin backpack themselves, to get just the right texture.

Apple announced on its developer site today that it will be locking down the images submitted along with apps once they are approved for the App Store, locking scammers out of one more tactic used to scam naive app buyers into purchasing apps that may look just like popular games (like Pokemon or Minecraft). The tactic involved submitting apps with basic images for approval to Apple, then switching them out to infringing images that look just like the popular apps.

Apple’s new policy should help cut down on scammer app sellers from deploying the bait and switch maneuver in the future, helping keep app buyers a bit safer than before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlZfco05AZM

There’s a new game in town, coming to the Mac early this year, according to Haemimont Games, developer of Tropico. Omerta: City of Gangsters has you work your way up the criminal scene of 1920’s Atlantic City. Start running small jobs, recruit new gang members, and take down other mobsters, grabbing their territory as you take them out. Eventually, you’ll set up your own city-wide crime syndicate and rule Atlantic City’s seedy underground.

Lucky Frame, developer behind indie hit iOS games Bad Hotel and Pugs Luv Beats, announced today that its anticipated follow-up game, Wave Trip, will release on January 22, 2012. So, in just two short weeks, you’ll be able to control a mysterious geometric astronaut, helping her travel through worlds of beauty as well as danger, saving her friends via music and beat-based gameplay.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Samson’s iQ5 is a Lightning-connected stereo mic which rotates to give proper left and right channels whether you’re shooting in landscape or portrait.

That’s right – Samson is enabling portrait-format video. Shame on them.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – When I shoot video with my iPhone it usually looks like a rehabbing crack addict shot it. I get the shakes and the video becomes a wonky mess as everything starts blurring together.

If you want to shoot better video with your iPhone, there’s a new product we found at CES today that will make you look like a pro. It’s called the iStabilizer Dolly, and it helps you capture smooth video cinematic videos and panning shots using your iPhone.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Let’s be honest, iPad styluses are pretty boring. I’ve tried to use a few different models, but the problem is you always have to take it with you and then you forget about it because you’re so used to using pens.

It’s nearly impossible for me to get excited about styluses, but LunaTick’s new Touch Pen is the first stylus I’ve seen that’s actually made me think a stylus could be useful.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Lightning accessories for the iPhone are starting to show up at last, but who really wants a speaker dock anymore anyway? ILuv seems to think that somebody out there will buy one, and the result is this Aud 5 dock, a device which is fully CES-buzzword compliant.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – It’d be easy to believe that CES is totally about the press, but the real reason its here is for device makers to hawk their wares to dealers, store chains and so on.

And that’s what’s happening at the iLuv booth, which this year has a neat Lightning iPhone dock (more on that in another post) and this super-stylish iPhone case.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Last year, Supertooth promised to make its Disco 2 speakers stereo, with each separate Bluetooth speaker becoming either the left or right speaker in the pair.

At the last minute, it switched out this feature in favor of low-power Bluetooth 4, which is probably way more useful to most buyers. Now, stereo is back, and it sounds great.

If you happen to wander the courtyard of St. Petersburg’s National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (quite the mouthful), you will now find a giant iPhone. The monument stands about as tall as a fully grown man, and a huge screen displays photos, videos and text about Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder.

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The Cult of Mac staff invaded Show Stoppers last night at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. Along with some free buffet food and an endless supply of booze, there were products galore. Some were neat. A lot were horrible. But the event was a lot of fun.

Here is a small sampling of the sights of CES Showstoppers last night:

Apple has released an important software update for all mid-2012 MacBook Air models. The EFI firmware update is available now via Software Update in the Mac App Store. Today’s 2.6 update addresses issues with coloring on HDMI-connected displays, booting into Windows via a tool like Boot Camp, and a Thunderbolt glitch.

This update fixes a color issue with HDMI displays connected to MacBook Air, resolves an issue with Windows which can prevent MacBook Air from booting properly, and also resolves an issue where unplugging a Thunderbolt device may cause the system to freeze when waking from standby.

Source: Apple

Apple released iTunes 1.0 to the world at Macworld back on January 9th, 2001. The application was based on SoundJam MP, an old piece of software Apple purchased from a development company called Casady & Greene in 2000. Apple simplified the SoundJam MP interface, added CD burning, and rebranded it as iTunes.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – CES isn’t just about the big names. We ran into the folks from Nifty Mini Drive, a successful Kickstarter project which is about to go on general sale. The Nifty is a tiny dongle which house a microSD card, and then slots into your MacBook’s SD card slot.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The CES iLounge is jam packed with a cornucopia of iPhone  headphones, all with their own little trick or gimmick to make them standout. A lot of them try to solve the problem of tangled headphone wires, and then best one I’ve seen so far are Zipbuds.

Like almost every other headphone manufacturer at CES, Zipbuds makes headphones with big puffy earpieces that can pump out some loud bass. Zipbuds also has a lot of celebrity endorsements and all that jazz. But what sets Zipbuds’ product apart, is that you can zip your headphone wires together to make everything tangle free. It’s simple, and clever, and works really well.

I have an admiration for very simple solutions, and while the CardNinja — a new iPhone accessory that was on display last night at Showstoppers! — isn’t going to light anyone’s world on fire, it’s a “why didn’t I think of that?” kind of product that makes it a lot easier to treat your iPhone like a real wallet.

We’ve been itching to get our hands on the Pebble smartwatch since it first hit Kickstarter, but that wait will be over later this month. At CES in Las Vegas today, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the device has now entered mass production, and that shipping will begin on January 23.

Twitter has updated one its Mac applications today, but no, it’s not the Twitter app. It’s TweetDeck, which now offers a number of new features, and more than 90 fixes for previous issues. The update brings the native TweetDeck client in line with TweetDeck for Google Chrome.