Apple made its new iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad available to customers in China today, where its iOS devices have recently been seeing record demand. However, that wasn’t the case at the Cupertino company’s new retail store in Beijing. Lines outside the building were almost nonexistent when doors first opened, while only four customers entered the building in the following hour. Most of those who did walk out with a device sold them straight on to scalpers waiting outside.
Google’s social network, Google+, rolled out a new Communities feature this week. Your favorite blog has already established the biggest and fastest-growing Apple-related community on the network.
Apple warned us that supplies of its new iMac would be extremely limited this year, and it hasn’t taken long for its initial stock pile to diminish. The 27-inch all-in-one, that was once shipping in “3-4 weeks,” now won’t be sent out until January via the Apple online store.
T-Mobile customers are quickly jumping ship, turning to rival carriers to bag the iPhone. But on Thursday, the company announced that it will finally begin selling Apple’s immensely popular smartphone from next year, and it is hoping that the move will help it claw back some subscribers. Chief Executive John Legere wants to see it making a positive impact on the carrier’s subscription numbers by 2013.
“It is an aggressive target but we think it is possible,” Legere told reporters on Friday.
Apple's biggest manufacturing partner making preparations to turn this thing into a reality.
On Tuesday I went to a party at San Francisco’s Cafe Du Nord to celebrate the launch of Fuze For Mac, a nifty cloud-based videoconferencing tool from FuzeBox.
I heard several interesting things about Steve Jobs and some intriguing Apple TV rumors. One of the rumors made me think that Tim Cook’s new Mac — the one that is going to be made in the U.S.A. — might actually be a big-screen Apple TV.
Here’s what I heard:
The software was developed at the behest of Steve Jobs himself, who persuaded FuzeBox to make the software not just for the Mac, but for an upcoming Apple TV.
Steve Jobs gave the company a special dev lab on Apple’s campus.
According to FuzeBox’s CEO, the upcoming Apple TV has a 60-inch screen. It has no inputs whatsoever, except an AC power cord. No wires. You can’t plug in a cable box or a game console. Nothing.
It does have Gigabit wireless Wi-Fi and gesture controls, equivalent to Microsoft’s Kinect accessory for the Xbox.
And finally, the story of how FuzeBox got an ultra rare meeting with Steve Jobs is worth telling — details below.
Now, I’m the first to admit that not all of this adds up. I got it from Jeff Cavins, FuzeBox’s CEO, who told a good tale, especially after I’d had a couple of pints. While I was fascinated and entertained, it didn’t get to pin him down on details. The party was loud and crowded, and we were constantly interrupted. So mostly for entertainment purposes, this is what he said:
The iNotebook from Targus is yet another attempt to solve the old problem of hand-writing on your iPad. This one comes in the form of a folio with a pad of paper, a special pen and a sensor up top to record your ink strokes in digital format.
The trouble is, it looks like another “faster horse and carriage” solution.
Believe it or not, Black Friday has already come and gone. Pretty soon the Christmas season will begin, and we’ll mark this midwinter festival by getting together with friends and family and continuing to drink and eat far too much.
Meanwhile, we also buy gifts for those same friends and family members, whether they want them or not. Luckily, we’re here to help, and if you follow our festive advice, your gifts just might make it into the “wanted” category.
From now until Christmas, Cult of Mac will be putting together holiday gift guys full of ideas for the special ones in your life, no matter what their interests or your budget. Today, we’re looking at gifts for the whining kids in your life.
The ongoing legal battles between Apple and Samsung were rather entertaining early on, now it’s like watching two school children fight over who was first to own the latest pair of trendy sneakers. Even the judges presiding over the cases are beginning to lose their patience. As the pair continue to fight it out in the U.S. district court of Northern California this week, Judge Lucy Koh has made a plea for “global peace.”
As I shrieked in jubilation on Twitter, it’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here! Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition — the modernized port of one of the best RPGs of all time — has finally landed on the iPad!
And if you, like me, ever spent six months in 1999 slowly turning your skin translucent under the X-Ray glow of an old CRT monitor massacring half the Sword Coast with a chaotic evil gnome, well, say good bye to your social life, boys.
This is theGOODbook. It is a book, and it is very, very good. It’s so hot that even though I’m a dedicated non-user of cases, I have the product page primed and ready to place my order.
Was your iPad mini stolen at JFK airport? Sean Henry might have it.
A TSA agent caught stealing iPads and numerous other electronic devices was arrested this week following a sting operation at New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport. Sean Henry, 32, joins the growing list of TSA workers who have been accused of stealing from passengers as they pass through airport checkpoints across the United States.
So, now that you’re becoming quite the iTunes 11 power user, it’s time to take that one final step: keyboard shortcuts.
Everyone knows that using the mouse when there’s a keyboard shortcut to be had is tre uncool. I’ve been on some friends’ case for years to get them to actually use Command-C and Command-V to cut and paste their text, sometimes to no avail.
But not you, no. You’re a power user in training. You’re ready to control iTunes 11 with the power of the keyboard. Here’s a few of them to get you started.
We already posted the transcript to Tim Cook’s full interview with Brian Williams on last night’s NBC Rock Center, but here’s the video, covering everything from his CEO role at Apple, the failure of iOS 6’s Maps, the future of the Apple TV, and more.
Part one is above, and part two is below the jump. Sorry, NBC insists on posting their videos in Flash, so you’ll need to watch this on a Mac or PC.
Apple CEO Tim Cook practically never grants interviews, and rarer still, one where he talks with such candor about the future of Apple, the legacy of Steve Jobs, and why Apple products aren’t currently made here in the USA, but soon will be.
Join us on our newest CultCast as we discuss Mr. Cook’s recent interviews, his frank comments about Apple’s “intense interest” in TV, and why that new Apple-stamped mystery set could be built right here in the U.S. of A.
All that and more on our newest CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Christmas is nearly here, and with it comes the snapping of a million never-to-be shared photos. So, instead of promising your friends and family that you’ll e-mail pictures, or trying to teach your mom how to use shared Photo Streams, or dicking around with SD cards and sneakernet, why not just make some good, old-fashioned prints?
And don’t worry – you won’t have to touch a computer.
KitCam has quickly become one of my favorite photography apps for the iPhone — featuring in last week’s must-have apps roundup — and it has just been updated to add a number of handy features. In addition to photo importing from the camera roll, KitCam now has a time lapse timer, and better zoom functionality.
“All work and no play makes Homer something something…”
Fans of The Simpsons will know that all work and no play actually made Homer go crazy, so to celebrate those brief times when we get to play, Cult of Mac Deals has a pretty sweet ride that will keep you entertained for hours. And (hopefully) keep you from going crazy.
This remote-controlled hyperspeed stunt flier is the most dynamic of its kind – and Cult of Mac Deals has it for just $49…but it is a deal that is wrapping up very soon!
Grant Paul's Zephry (left), Infinifolders (middle), and Gridlock (right) have all been updated.
As jailbreakers wait with eager expectation for an untethered jailbreak that works on iOS 6 and the iPhone 5, Cydia developers are still hard at work. One of the community’s most popular hackers, Grant “chpwn” Paul, has updated many of his popular tweaks. His most famous tweaks, Infinidock, Infiniboard, and Infinifolders, have all been completely rebuilt and made compatible with iOS 6. Collectively they now form Infiniapps 2.0.
Some of Paul’s other iOS tweaks have also received minor updates, like VoiceActivator and Zephyr.
The Big Four US mobile carriers–AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile–have just sent out a press release committing to push the issue of text to 911 capabilities, hopefully sooner than, but at least by, 2014.
These major players, plus The 911 Association and the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials International, have decided to work together on standards and procedures to make this happen with a seamless transition to text to 911 services across the US.
NBC Rock Center just aired its exclusive interview with Brian Williams and Apple CEO Tim Cook. In his first real TV interview, Cook was candid about his CEO role at Apple, the failure of iOS 6’s Maps, the future of the Apple TV, and more.
Here’s the full transcript of tonight’s Rock Center segment with Tim Cook:
Zazzle Instant is an iOS app that lets you add your own pictures to a ton of different products, including Macbook and iPad sleeves, iPhone cases, messenger bags, playing cards, and a whole lot more.
The app has updated recently to include some great new features, like integration with your Facebook photos, easier adjustment to images, and new panoramic photos (in case you were wondering what to do with all those new iOS 6 panoramic photos). The folks at Zazzle promise to unleash new features on the app for the next few Saturdays, as well, so now is a great time to try it out.
Last night The Iconfactory released Twitterrific 5, a completely new iOS version of the grandaddy of Twitter apps. I reviewed the new app in detail when it came out, and the releases seems to have been met with a lot of positive feedback.
One of the developers behind Twitterrific, Craig Hockenberry, has lifted the curtain to give a behind the scenes look at the making of Twitterrific 5. A lot of work goes into making a great app.
Let us use our monkey-flappin' iPads on the monkey-flappin' plane, already!
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today pushed for a wider use of electronic portable devices in-flight.
In a letter to Michael Huerta, the acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski called for the FAA to “enable greater use of tablets, e-readers, and other portable devices” during airplane travel.
Remember those goofy VHS interactive video board games they had back in the early 90s? I had one, based on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It came out in 1993, so you can pick one up from eBay for about $24 these days. I remember being just super excited that I could play a board game and fake-interact with klingons on the television set, remote in hand to pause, fast forward, and rewind as the board game told me what to do.
Imagine my surprise now when I can have a party at my house with up to 15 iOS device owners, playing a drawing charades game on a huge flat screen TV with nothing but a tiny computer that everyone brought into the house with them, their fingers, and a tiny hockey-puck sized device connected to the television. Now that would feel like science-fiction.
Draw-It, Push-It, a new game for iOS devices, purports to do just that.
Earlier today T-Mobile announced that it will finally start selling Apple products in 2013. As the last major U.S. carrier to not offer Apple’s beloved iPhone, it’s about time T-Mobile joined the cool kids’ table.
T-Mobile CEO John Legere has promised that buying the iPhone on his network will be “dramatically different” due to the carrier’s decision to abandon subsidized wireless contracts altogether. This is a huge move that could either make or break T-Mobile, and it will hopefully make buying smartphones like the iPhone a better experience for U.S. customers.
