Cult of Mac

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.

There are quite a few apps out there that share your location data and allow you to check in at a place, like Foursquare, Facebook, etc. They’re pretty fantastic, and they let your friends see where you are at, and then come meet you.

But what if you want to share where you are going to be in a little while? What about letting your friends know that you’re on your way, and letting them track where you are, how far away you are, and when you’ll arrive at a certain location? Glympse has got your back for that very thing, and some other great stuff.

Power! It’s the stuff I’m always hunting for in the halls of conventions, like the upcoming 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). For you see, when you’re multi-touching your iPhone 5 morning, noon, and night, a once-a-day charge isn’t going to cut it.

So this year, when I’m gadget-hunting on the floors of CES, in my bag I’ll definitely be carrying the Mophie Juice Pack Powerstation ($79). It’s tiny, looks great (more on that in a sec), and will charge a dying iPhone 5 up to two times. Yes sir, in my short time with it thus far, I reckon it’s already become one of my favorite new iPhone accessories.

There are two sure fire ways to get Apple’s legal team to blitz you with a thunderpunch of litigation: 1) make an action figure doll in the likeness of Steve Jobs and advertise it as a Steve Jobs doll 2) Use the Apple logo, or anything that kind of almost looks like the Apple logo, on a product you’re selling.

Leofrutta, a fruit company in Sicily, is guilty of option number two. They don’t even try to morph the Apple logo into something a little bit different, instead they just use an exact replica of the bitten apple made famous by Steve Jobs. They’re not just using the Apple logo on their truck though, it’s all over their website too.

Here’s a screenshot:

At last! A proper Lightning dock for your iPhone, complete with its own built-in, pivoting Lightning connector. No longer do you need to sacrifice a valuable (read: overpriced) Apple Lightning cable to make a dock work with an iPhone 5.

The world has hated Apple Maps with a fiery passion, and Apple is ready to clean house and get rid of key people who were in charge of the disaster.

According to a tweet by Bloomberg news, Richard Williamson, the executive behind Apple’s new Maps app, just got fired by Eddy Cue. After Scott Forstall was recently fired, Cue was given the reigns on the Maps app and it appears that he’s wasting no time getting things fixed.

Good lord! Where do we even begin with this crazy iPhone case? With the list of its capabilities I guess, and maybe a video of it (literally) screwing around.

Fruitiny is a retro-style memory game for iOS, one of those games that takes about 10 seconds to learn and many hours of tapping to conquer.

The Mac Pro has been sitting in a forgotten corner of the Apple campus, relatively untouched for the last two years. And who can blame Apple for focusing on the iPad and iPhone when the Mac Pro just hasn’t been selling all that well.

Last summer Apple did throw a two year-old Intel Xeon E5645 chip into the monstrous beast, but that just pissed Mac Pro fans off even more, so Tim Cook sent an email out reassuring customers that a new Mac Pro will be coming in 2013. OS X Mountain Lion has a few internal configuration files for the new Mac Pro, and the latest OS X 10.8.3 beta also hints that the AMD Radeon HD 7000 series might be coming to the Mac Pro in 2013 as well.

Australian airline Qantas has announced its support for Apple’s Passbook service, allowing users to checkin using digital boarding passes on their iPhones.

A USB 2.0 Ethernet adapter is a pitiful thing, an ugly workaround only really useful when you find yourself in a Wi-Fi-free hotel room with only your MacBook Air for company.

A USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet adapter, on the other hand, is every bit as good as having a real 10/1000 network connector hole in the side of your machine.

Adobe pushed out a big update to its Ideas app for iOS today, introducing a number of news tools and features that promise to give you “more creative options and control.” There are enhanced tools for drawing, working with color, and managing layers, Adobe says — in addition to support for the iPhone 5, iPad mini, and iOS 6.

The iPhone 5 has become Apple’s fastest-selling iPhone yet, with 5 million units sold during its first three days of availability. More than two months after its debut, the handset is still facing a one-week shipping delay via the Apple online store. In fact, the device is selling so well that it just helped iOS overtake Android’s market share in the United States.

What could be classier than adding a few extra millimeters to the height of your keycaps whilst simultaneously collaborating in the death of a walnut or cherry tree? Nothing, that’s what. Which is why these Lazerwood keys for Apple keyboards are pretty much the best thing ever.

I remain firmly of the opinion that a driver should drive, and not sip coffee, or listen to the radio, or text his lover, or use cruise-control. As a cyclist, I rely on the pilots of these road-going behemoths to pay attention to the road in order for me to remain alive.

So I have mixed feelings about a gadget which puts a cellphone within such easy reach.

If you’re anything like me, you use the Messages app in OS X Mountain Lion to keep chatting with those iMessage-happy iOS users in your group of friends when you’re at your computer. Nothing’s more annoying than having to pick up my iPhone while I’m on my Mac, just to text someone back.

With the OS X Messages app, I can just chat with them as if they were on any other instant message client, using the full keyboard on my app instead of the tiny one on my iPhone. Sometimes, though, friends might send along a web link. When I don’t want to have to click through to see it in Safari or Chrome, I preview it right in Messages.

Apple promised us that its new 21.5-inch iMac would be available to order before the end of November, and it will be — just about. The Cupertino company has issued a press release confirming that the new all-in-one will be available on Friday, November 30.

Sometimes, you really need to make an important Skype call when you’re on the go. Or you want to use your bike as a giant (and slightly unwieldy) “tripod” for your camera. At these times, what you need is Photojojo’s Bikepod

General Motors has announced that its upcoming Chevrolets will be the world’s first cars to offer “Eyes Free” Siri integration, allowing drivers to use the voice control capabilities of their iPhone without taking their hands off the wheel. The feature will be integrated into GM’s MyLink infotainment system.