Cult of Mac

Will.i.am, of Black Eyed Peas fame, has decided that your iPhone is cool but he could make it even more amazing. He’s got a new accessory called the V.4 that attaches to the iPhone and converts it into a “fashionable camera” by adding a vintage looking camera frame to the back with interchangeable lenses and a pop-out keyboard.

Not only does the accessory add a vintage camera and keyboard, but it also comes with its own vintage photo filters, a built-in flash, and photo editing. Plus, you don’t have to use Instagram anymore because now you’ll be able to upload your photos to Will.i.am’s own photo network called i.am.

If you’ve ever wondered precisely what your Mac is connecting to on the internet and when it’s doing it, there’s a new free app called Private Eye to help you out.

Instagram is a totally cool and hip way to share your wannabe vintage photos of your fabulous life, but apparently it can also be used to create hip and cool music videos by snapping one retro picture at a time.

To create his music video for the song “Invasión,” Arturo Perez Jr. snapped 1905 photos around the San Francisco area and then combined them to create a video. Perez Jr. says it’s the first video to be made through Instagram and we believe him, because you’ve gotta be crazy to sit around and apple the Sierra filter to 1905 photos in a row.

Rovio is gearing up to release its first new episode for their most recent hit, Angry Birds Star Wars. This new episode includes our favorite snowy planet Hoth, chock full of pig driven AT-AT walkers. The update is set to go live sometime tomorrow and should keep you Rebel Alliance Angry Birds lovers busy for a bit.

500px launched an awesome iPad app last year, which allowed us to browse the site’s stunning photography from the comfort of our armchairs. We’ve been itching to have the same experience on our iPhones ever since, and today it’s here — a new 500px app for iPhone and iPod touch.

Ring flash — once the preserve of high-end (or deep-pocketed) fashion photographers and macro nerds with real, like, cameras — now in reach of us plebs with cameraphones. The LED Ringlight from Adorama is a dim-able, continuous light source that can now be used for video and non-synced camera lighting, and it costs just $100.

Why bother? Read on:

Adobe has released a teaser video for Photoshop CS6, which the company will unveil on December 11, and it suggests one of the software’s new features will be support for the high-resolution Retina displays in Apple’s latest MacBook Pros. The 15-inch machine actually features in the clip, and there are plenty of close-ups that show rather crisp visuals.

Do you trust the translations you see on Chinese menus? I don’t. Why? Because my local Chinese restaurant — which lists dishes in Chinese, English and Spanish — manages to write a different description for each one.

Luckily, Waigo is here to help, with it’s augmented-reality translation. Or is that “here to confuse”?

It would seem as if Apple could make it easy to import Facebook calendars to the built-in Calendar app in OS X Mountain Lion, would’t it? I mean, you can totally import Facebook contacts into the Contacts app. Why not Facebook calendars into the Calendar app?

Well, I wouldn’t even bring it up unless I had found a solution. Here’s how to bring your Facebook calendars to your Mac.

Pocket brought us a terrific Mac app back in October, and just over a month on, it’s already back with a new update. This one introduces a nice stack of new features, including native Twitter and Facebook support for those running OS X Mountain Lion, new keyboard shortcuts, better Evernote sharing, and more.

Skype has issued an update to its iOS app that introduces support for Microsoft accounts, and a number of new features. Users can now login to the app using their Messenger, Hotmail, and Outlook.com credentials and then merge their accounts. And if you’ve got an iOS device with a Retina display, you can enjoy animated emoticons. Finally!

Here at Cult of Mac, we love Checkmark, the terrific task management app for iPhone. In fact, we think its awesome location-based reminders make it the perfect alternative to Apple’s own Reminders app. If you haven’t already discovered it yourself, then now’s the perfect time, because Checkmark is on sale for $0.99 just this week.

So, I sold my iPad mini WiFi today, in hopes I could head to my local Apple retail store and pick one up. My friend was headed down to the store to pick hers up, so I figured there were plenty in stock. Just to be safe, I gave them a call to check on the availability of the 16G model LTE that I wanted to purchase.

The local Apple rep that picked up the phone said that they were out of stock, and did not know when new ones would be available.

I hopped onto the Apple Store app, in hopes I could fool the system, and order one for store pickup, anyway. Sadly, I was unable to get the app to allow me to buy one for in-store pickup; I could only get it to send me one via mail, with a 2 week shipping date.

Then I got crafty.

Apple’s made some excellent television ads over the last few decades. They’ve also made some dumb ones, like the Mac Genius ads that got axed this year. If for some reason you wanted to study each and everyone of the 485ish ads that Apple’s produced, some thoughtful YouTube user, who loves you very much, has created a huge video playlists of every Apple TV ad ever aired.

There are 485 ads in the playlist and it would only take you around 4 hours or so to watch them all, so have at. Watch as Apple’s ad strategy morphs before your eyes as it goes from Macintosh, to Newton, to iMac, to iPod, to the Get a Mac ads to iPhone and beyond. And if you want to combine all of those 485 ads into one long video to make it even easier for us all, that’d be pretty cool too.

Source: YouTube

Via: Gizmodo

It’s not very often you can find a series of apps that has 16 utilities in one bundle, but this soon-to-end Cult of Mac Deals offer has 16 utilities all in one application! MacKeeper has got you covered in more ways than one – and you can get it for just $24 – and you’ll have the use of it for two of your Macs to boot!

The feature set that MacKeeper offers is almost limitless!

Android tablets have grabbed 14 percent of tablet market share, according to new research. While Apple’s iPad is still king, with up to 55 percent of third-quarter tablet shipments, tablets running the Google Android system are gaining ground, and fast.

ABI Research found data that shows the iPad losing more of its dominant position to Android competitors, as reported on CNET today. The iPad is showing a decline of 14 percent, the lowest its been since the iPad was introduced two years ago. Samsung, Amazon, and Asus tablets were among the tablet manufacturers that account for that Android increase, with the Google operating system powering over 44 percent of all tablets shipped.

Want to make like Elton John and Billy Joel, dueling across from each other on two pianos, playing the hits from both of your huge ouvre of pop tunes? Well, except for the whole you’re-not-either-one-of-those-guys part, you can play two piano-like keyboards across from another friend on your iPad, with new free app, Duette.

So, if you’re in the market for a silly, fun little app that will let you mix photos, videos and sound on your iPhone, Artsy Head may be the one to grab. It’s free for the rest of November to celebrate Cyber Monday week as well as the end of Movember. Apparently, one of the fun things folks do with Artsy Head is add mustaches to their photos and videos, making it thematically appropriate, don’t ya know.

It’s rarer now, but once in a while I still come across a journalist or blogger agonizingly hunting-and-pecking a story to completion — in a world where a low WPM means starvation (or at least, a diet of Ramen noodles).

It makes me smile, because I used to be like that. I’m much faster now, thanks to an abundance of repetition. But I’m still no maestro — so I’ve employed a secret weapon to help fashion me into a typing cyborg: The free Typist Mac app. Although I suppose it isn’t much of a secret since I’ve blabbed this to practically the entire Internet.

One of the best pieces of iPhonography kit we’ve played with is the Olloclip, a tiny gizmo that clips onto the corner of the iPhone 4/S and gives photographers the use of three additional lenses; now it’s finally available for the iPhone 5.

You may have forgotten, but Microsoft actually owns a search engine. It’s called Bing. Today Microsoft released the top Bing searches from 2012, and the results include events like the birth of Beyonce’s baby alongside celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber.

Interestingly, the top news story of the year wasn’t the U.S. presidential election or the summer Olympics. It was the iPhone 5. Microsoft must be so proud.

Gene Munster, everyone’s favorite Apple analyst, spoke at Business Insider’s IGNITION Conference today in New York City. One of the topics Munster hit on was the Apple TV. For years, Munster has been one of the biggest proponents of Apple releasing a literal TV. His most recent prediction pushed the product’s announcement to the end of next year, while last year he predicted that Apple would start shipping in early 2013.

Apple’s real plans for the living room remain to be seen, but today Munster explained his reasoning for why Apple didn’t announce a HDTV this year.

Apple has a solid track record of great print ads, but their latest ad for the iPad mini on the back cover of Time magazine is perfect. It’s clean, minimal, clever and intuitive. Rather than saying anything about the iPad mini and why it’s an incredible device, the ad simply shows readers the actual size of the iPad mini containing the content they love. Well done Apple.

Source: Reddit

If there’s anything more illusive than the iPhone 5 jailbreak, it’s the third-gen Apple TV jailbreak. While real progress is being made on cracking Apple’s latest smartphone, hackers are having a harder time jailbreaking everyone’s favorite living room hockey puck.

Like Spotify, Rdio offers unlimited music streaming for a monthly subscription fee. Today Rdio unveiled a completely redesigned iOS app in the App Store, and it’s available now as a free download for subscribers.

Clean and simple design has always been a plus for Rdio, and the new iPhone and iPad apps reflect that design taste.