Cult of Mac

Happy Thanksgiving! This year to observe the holiday we asked each of our writers to tell us a bit about the things they are most thankful for in 2012: specifically, the Apple product, app, service, third-party accessory and person they most relied upon and were grateful for this year. All through the rest of the day, we’ll be posting these thanksgiving observances. Here’s Cult of Mac Reviews Editor Giles Turnbull’s list of the things he’s most thankful for this year. You can find the rest of our Thanksgiving Smorgasbord entries here.

Steam has kicked off its autumn sale by reducing some of the best games for Mac by as much as 75%. The sale runs until November 26, and Steam will add new games each and every day. Some of the Mac titles kicking off the sale today include The Walking Dead, Civilization V, Borderlands 2, and many, many more.

Happy Thanksgiving! This year to observe the holiday we asked each of our writers to tell us a bit about the things they are most thankful for in 2012: specifically, the Apple product, app, service, third-party accessory and person they most relied upon and were grateful for this year. All through the rest of the day, we’ll be posting these thanksgiving observances. Here’s Cult of Mac Social Media Editor Buster Heine’s list of the things he’s most thankful for this year. You can find the rest of our Thanksgiving Smorgasbord entries here.

Gameloft is gearing up to release Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour — the best Call of Duty alternative you’ll find on Android and iOS — later this year, but not before it’s teased us with more videos. The latest takes a look at the game’s 12-player online multiplayer mode, and the different game types it offers.

After announcing back in October that it will bring Grand Theft Auto: Vice City to Android and iOS to celebrate the game’s 10th anniversary, Rockstar Games went quiet on the release, leaving us all to wonder when it would finally arrive. It even had me searching the App Store for ‘Vice City’ on a daily basis in the hope that it would suddenly appear.

The company has now confirmed, however, that Vice City will hit the App Store and Google Play on December 6, priced at $4.99.

Check this video out – it’s a developer who’s used a Siri development plugin to control his Phillips Hue IP-controllable light bulbs. While the video is short, the guy who did it, Brandon Evans, has posted the code and instructions needed to make it happen on your own iPad, assuming you know what he’s talking about.

Evan has this to say about the project:

The Philips Hue hardware was first intriguing to me because they explicitly mention that it’s a ZigBee certified product on the packaging and labels. ZigBee is a wireless technology that is different from WiFi in a few important ways: Low power, equivalent range and intended for light data mesh networks. It’s popular with DIY hardware makers (think Arduinos) for this reason, as well as that it’s much cheaper than WiFi modules. It seems like it may be the wireless standards of choice for consumer home automation systems that are coming to market. As an example, the Nest thermostat was also found to have ZigBee hardware inside, although it isn’t supported in software yet. Because of all this I wanted to see exactly what hardware Philips was using, and if it would be possible to replicate the Hue system.

Looks like a great first step to using off-the-shelf technology to control home systems. Bravo, Mr. Evans!

Source: Brandon Evans
Via: Loop Insight

Popular third-party mail client Sparrow was recently bought by Google, but that hasn’t stopped the app’s developers from pushing out updates for their existing user base. Today Sparrow for iPhone received a long-awaited update that brings support for the iPhone 5’s taller display and iOS 6’s Passbook.

This very update was rejected by Apple earlier this month because of a mixup with Rich Text support in iOS 5. Sparrow has obviously ironed out the kinks with Apple, as users can download the update now in the App Store.

Earlier this morning, we told you that construction on Apple’s new, futuristic campus had been pushed back a year to 2016. Apple had originally wanted to break ground on the 176-acre piece of Cupertino property this year.

While most of the plans for the spaceship-like headquarters (referred to by Apple as “Campus 2”) have remained intact, a revised proposal was submitted to the city of Cupertino, California.

Apple has now issued an official comment on the delay of its new headquarters saying the company is approaching the build “with the same care and attention to detail we pay when designing any Apple product.”

Podcasts can be great fun, but they tend to have long segments of audio that you may or may not want to listen to. Which is fine, if you could sip through it easily. And, let’s face it, you might not be fully paying attention to them when they’re on, so you might miss things. Things you want to back up to hear, for example.

Well, guess what? You can do both with iOS 6, in the Podcast app.

Look, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, it’s a slow news day, whatever. Here’s a baby squirrel eating a pair of Apple earbuds in the cutest way possible. You’re welcome.

Via: TUAW

Black Friday isn’t for a few more days, but that isn’t stopping Cult of Mac Deals from kicking things off early. First up is a utility bundle packaged to “supercharge” your Mac.

Parallels 8 was recently revamped to not only be faster and more powerful, but more importantly, now it plays nice with both Mountain Lion and Windows 8. If you’ve ever wanted to run Windows on your Mac, this is the way to go.

If you’re looking to pick up a few of Gameloft’s hit titles at a fraction of the cost, you might want to check out the holiday sale they have going on right now. Starting today and running throughout the weekend, Gameloft is offering up a few hit titles for $0.99 each. Titles include The Amazing Spider-Man, BackStab, and more. Gameloft is certainly among the top publishers of console quality mobile games, so don’t miss out on this great deal.

Apple TV is just a hobby, but it’s still a pretty great product that beats most of the other low-cost entertainment service set-top boxes on the market. It turns out that Microsoft may want in on the action and is building there own Apple TV type of device to compete with Apple.

Sources at Microsoft have confirmed to The Verge that the Redmond company has plans to introduce a low-cost alternative to its Xbox console that will compete more directly with the Apple TV.

When Apple announced iTunes 11, they told us that they would totally get it launched by the end of October. Then, at the end of October, they said they’re gonna need more time, but they pinky-promised they would get it out in November. For real.

Based on the history of Apple’s software releases, we estimated that the most likely date for Apple to release iTunes 11 would be November 16th, but that date has obviously passed. However, it sounds like Apple is finally ready to release iTunes 11 in the next few days, because artists are getting emails telling them to get ready.

I didn’t expect Card Now to actually make me laugh, but it did. The idea of a business card-conjuring trick app made me shiver with horror – why would I inflict such a thing on other people?

But the reality, when I tried it out, was hilarious. When I “magically” pulled a freshly-printed business card off of my phone’s screen and into the real world, people’s reactions were delightful. I ended up laughing out loud.

If you’re really into investing and the stock market and all that fun, heart-wrenching stuff, then now might be a great time to buy some Apple stock if you believe Disney’s CEO Bob Iger knows what he’s doing.

On Monday, Iger bought $1 million worth of Apple shares, according to documents filed with the SEC. Along with being the CEO of Disney, Iger is also on Apple’s board of Directors. But he’s not just buying Apple stock; he’s ditching his Disney stock while he’s at it.

Despite taking control of Apple just 18 months ago, Tim Cook has been named by CNBC as the highest paid CEO in America. With an average annual compensation of around $95 million, Cook beats Oracle’s Larry Ellison and JC Penney’s Ron Johnson to the top spot.

Apple Stores usually have some pretty neat display art at the front of all their stores, but this year’s holiday display is probably one of their coolest ever. We’re calling it the iWreath (for obvious reasons). It’s a holiday wreath comprised of iPod touches, Smart Covers, and an iPhone.

Okay, so they didn’t use real Apple products to form the iWreath, but it’s still pretty amazing even if it’s just a cardboard printout. If you head over to your local Apple Store sometime between now and Christmas you’ll be able to see the wonder of the iWreath for yourself.

Source: Twitter

Back in February, I told you about an awesome iPhone 4S case called the Cellhelmet, which comes with one year of accidental damage cover absolutely free. If your iPhone gets damaged while inside the case, Cellhelmet will get it repaired or replaced — all you pay is the handling charge.

Now Cellhelmet’s coming to your iPhone 5.

Want an iPad? Best Buy has a great deal on the still-perfectly-excellent-and-less-than-a-year-old, third-gen model with Retina display: not only are they charging $50 less per iPad today only, but you’ll also walk away with a $75 gift card.

The deal is good today only, one iPad per customer, and you can only choose between a $649 64GB iPad WiFi in black or a $549 32GB iPad WiFi in black or white. After the discount is applied, you’re talking about $599 and $499 respectively. Shipping is free, but you have to order online.

Even so, that’s a heck of a deal: if you don’t have an iPad or have considered getting one for a loved one, you’re not going to beat this savings before the holiday.

Source: Best Buy
Via: iDB

A hacker has been found guilty of a massive security breach that exposed the emails of more than 114,000 iPad owners back in 2010. Andrew Auernheimer was one of two Goatse Security members who were arrested for exposing the major flaw in AT&T’s database, and he now faces two five-year charges.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is saying that Apple has basically solved their iPhone 5 supply issues in the United States, and that in a couple weeks, anyone who wants an iPhone will be able to just walk into a store and buy the one they want without any chance of leaving empty handed. Just in time for the holidays!

Nobody likes speaking to an automated phone system — they’re more unreliable than Siri — but a lot of companies use them, including Apple. You don’t necessarily have to speak to them for very long, however. Simply say the F-word next time you phone AppleCare and straight away you’ll be transferred to a human being — though your problem may not get solved any quicker.

Keyboard shortcuts are great. They let you do things on your Mac faster, letting you get to more stuff in less time. In Safari, for example, Command-1, -2, -3, and so on will open the sites in the Bookmarks Bar in order, from left to right.

There’s a Favorites Bar in the OS X Mail app that works similarly. You can drag Mailboxes that you use often to it. To show it, go to the View menu in Mail and choose Show Favorites Bar.

AT&T has notoriously been stingy, which made it no surprise back in August when they announced that they would only allow subscribers on Shared data plans — and not grandfathered plans — to utilize the new FaceTime over Cellular feature in 2016.

Call it an early Christmas present, call it a change of heart, but AT&T has now opened up FaceTime over Cellular to grandfathered unlimited data plans.