Cult of Mac

Back in February it was discovered that Google was bypassing Apple’s privacy settings in Mobile Safari on iOS. The search giant was making ad revenue from Safari users’ web activity by ‘tricking’ the default iOS browser to allow multiple tracking cookies.

6 months later, and Google is about to pay the “largest penalty ever levied on a single company” by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Google will pay $22.5 million to settle the charges issued by the FTC, and the code in question has already been disabled by Google in Safari on iOS.

This graphic shows popular tablet screen sizes compared with the rumored ‘iPad mini’ screen size. Tablets include the Kindle Fire (Amazon is rumored to introduce a new generation of the Fire in coming months), Google Nexus 7, current iPad, and the theoretical 7.85-inch iPad mini’s screen. Rounding the screen size, we should actually be calling the purported device a 8-inch iPad.

Rumors are saying Apple will unveil the iPad mini (unconfirmed name) this fall, and that the device will sport a non-Retina 1024×768 display.

Source: @trojankitten

Via: Daring Fireball

More than any other iPod, the venerable iPod nano has tended to be the chrysalid of the family, morphing from one radically different shape to the next with every successive generation.

The first couple generations of the iPod nano tended to be long and thin devices, to be replaced with a squatter square third-gen model, before returning to its familiar rectangle shape for the fourth and fifth generations, only to become a radically different touchscreen Shuffle-sized device in 2010.

Crazy. So what’s next for the iPod nano? According to a new report, it’ll stay a multitouch device, but again become long, thin and rectangular. It’ll even get a home button!

If you want to make photo collages on your iPhone or iPad, you use Diptic. Those are the rules. But a challenger is in town: Fuzel, from the Vietnamese designers at Not A Basement Studio, will launch on July 12th and looks to be a fast and easy way to make great collages.

Last week, I compared the costs of Mountain Lion Server with the licensing for Windows Server 2012 Essentials Edition. Both products are pretty clearly for the small business market. One of the big questions or concerns from readers centered around Microsoft’s Active Directory and Exchange. The assumption being that Apple didn’t provide anything similar.

That assumption, however, isn’t accurate. To clear up confusion, let’s take a look at what the core services and features in OS X Server actually offers and the audience that can best benefit from Mountain Lion Server – small businesses looking to set up a handful of services for a relatively small number of users.

In 2006, Apple released an iPod that, to this day, is unique amongst all of the iPods it sells in that it didn’t come with a standard Dock Connector: the iPod shuffle.

In order to save space in a design that was built from the ground up to be as tiny as possible, Apple jettisoned the traditional 30-Pin Dock Connector in the second-gen shuffle in favor of a clever implementation of USB that plugged in right through the 3.5mm audio jack.

For the last six years, Apple has favored this implementation of USB syncing and charging in its line of iPod shuffles, even as every other model of iPhone, iPod or iPad shipped with a much bulkier 30-Pin Apple Dock Connector.

As rumors have heated up that Apple will abandon the 30-Pin Dock Connector in the next iPhone for a slimmer 19-Pin Connector, a natural question to ask is, “why?” If Apple just wants to save space in the next iPhone, why not just adopt the time-tested iPod shuffle’s approach, which is about the most efficient and elegant implementation of USB ever designed?

The answer’s simple: while the iPod shuffle’s USB design is ingenious at syncing and charging, it’s really crappy at everything else that the 30-Pin Dock Connector is designed to do. But what does the 30-Pin Dock Connector do, why doesn’t Apple just use USB like most of its competitors, and why is 19-Pin — not 30 — the way to go?

Who would have thought we’d see the day when Rovio released anything but an Angry Birds game? Well, that day is almost upon us, as Rovio has released the official Amazing Alex trailer announcing a July 12th release for both the Google Play Store and App Store.

Well, I guess it had to happen some time. What? A ring-flash for the iPhone. And not only that, but a ring-flash that looks like an Anglepoise lamp. My feeling is that there are some iPhoneography nerds out there getting very excited right now.

Who needs Instagram? Well, me for one, ever since I gave up on Flickr and never really got started with the evil Facebook. But I’m pretty bored with the Instagram filters already (they could toss them all except X-Pro II and I wouldn’t even notice).

And yes, there are a million other photo-filtering apps out there, but what about a little DIY? If you’re feeling adventurous, grab some tape, some colored gels and your iPhone and head over to Lomography for this great little low-tech project.

Dropbox today announced some major changes to its Pro storage plans. The cross-platform data storage/sync solution is introducing huge upgrades for its Pro users. The service’s 50GB ($10/month) plan has been doubled to 100GB, and the 100GB plan ($20/month) has been doubled to 200GB for no extra charge. Pro users who already pay for one of those plans will be given the extra storage for free automatically. For those who want even more space on the cloud, a giant 500GB plan has also been announced.

Mujjo makes high quality cases and accessories for iOS devices, and the company is announcing the first sleeve for the brand new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The hand-crafted sleeve is made in The Netherlands, and you can pre-order it now from Mujjo now for €64.95 ($80). Shipments go out on August 28th.

We conducted a brief chat with Mujjo about their new sleeve, and the product looks fantastic.

Apple’s rivals are already producing smartphones with NFC capabilities, and although NFC is yet to really take off, it’s still capable of some pretty incredible things that we all want from our smartphones. However, there has been some debate about whether or not Apple will adopt the feature, or create an alternative of its own — possibly utilizing Bluetooth.

Since the company unveiled Passbook in iOS 6, that debate has hit an all-time high. Passbook would work wonderfully with NFC, and would allow us to ditch physical cards and tickets in favor of a “contactless” system in which we just hold our devices up to a sensor. And according to a newly granted Apple patent for “iTravel,” it appears the Cupertino company is just as excited about that prospect as we are.

When Apple opened the App Store in 2008, it began a revolution that would lead to the largest and most vibrant mobile apps ecosystem in existence. It should then come as no surprise that Objective-C, the object-oriented coding language used by developers to build apps for iOS and OS X, has become the third most popular coding language, right behind Java and C itself.

When you have a lot of documents, pictures, songs, and videos on your Mac fighting for every last kilobyte of space, finding the right file at a moment’s notice can be an impossibly long and tiring task. Add in the complications and fragmentation that we get from the “Cloud” where we share different files on Dropbox, Google Drive, Gmail, or Google Docs, and the search gets exponentially harder.

Found is a lightning-fast search tool for your Mac that wants to put an end to all that rubbish and help you find your files wherever they are. It’s an awesome, easy-to-use app with a gorgeous interface and the makers just came out with a new update that makes it even better. A few weeks ago Found gave three lucky Cult of Mac readers a free MacBook Air for trying out the app. Well, they’re back, and the prize is even bigger for Cult of Mac readers who download Found’s newest update.

If you want to search files on your Mac with ease, AND win a free MacBook Pro with Retina display, then all you got to do is follow these simple rules:

It would take a long while to get through all the innuendo-laden jokes made possible by the LenSkirt. So I guess we’ll just take things slow. But first let me tell you what it is: a black cloth bag which sticks to windows so you can shoot through glass without reflections. Now, let the schoolboy fun begin.

Apple has been pretty strict on BitTorrent clients — or anything related to torrent downloading — for iOS, and it does its best to keep them out of the App Store, meaning you must jailbreak your device if you want to install one. However, the Cupertino company appears to have let one slip through its net. Transmission RPC, although not a full-fledged BitTorrent client, is a $1.99 app that allows you to control Transmission for Mac OS X from your iOS device.

Seven new markets received AT&T 4G LTE yesterday, bringing AT&T’s total LTE coverage to 47 cities. AT&T continues their slow roll, while Verizon’s lighting up around 47 cities per month. Since you AT&T customers could probably care less about Verizon’s plague like rollout, I’ll jump right to the new markets so you can see if you’ve hit the AT&T LTE jackpot.

We’ve seen the iPad used in a range of workplaces. Although some are surprising, like industrial farming and the Vatican, most are a bit more pedestrian. The U.S. Navy is planning to use iPads in a way that is both pedestrian and very high-end.

According to a recent government contract that is up for bid, the Navy plans to include iPads in a revamp of its Executive Dining Facility in the Pentagon. The dining room is often used by the Secretary of the Navy and regularly plays host to high-level Pentagon guests.

The Audio Xciter music player’s press release is full of the usual superlatives, and I quickly glossed over them in my usual cynical manner looking for something to make fun of (which I found – more on that in a bit). But one listen of the audio-processing iOS app is enough to make you sit up and, uh, listen.

It really is amazing.

One of the joys of being a power user is when you use keyboard shortcuts to shave precious seconds off of your workflow routines. While you may know all the system shortcuts there are (⌘ + C for Copy, ⌘ + V for Paste, etc.), you may not be as familiar with those in the Open or Save dialog windows that you encounter every day.

Obviously, we’re here to help

Apple has announced that the new iPad will finally make its debut in China on Friday, July 20, more than two months after the device made its debut in the United States. The third-generation tablet, which is the first iPad to feature a high-resolution Retina display, will be available through the Apple Online Store, Apple retail stores, and from select Apple Authorized Resellers.

Is your Retina MacBook Pro seeing less than half the seven hours of battery life that Apple promised you? Well, this may not be because you keep watching high-resolution videos over and over again on its Retina display (though that is certainly not helping). Instead, it could be thanks to a corrupt file created by Migration Assistant that needs removing with a simple terminal command.

Here’s how to do it and boost your Retina MacBook Pro’s battery life.

Struggling to find beautiful wallpapers for your new MacBook Pro’s high-resolution Retina display? With Wallpaper Wizard for Mac OS X, you can browse over 100,000 high-definition wallpapers with resolutions up to 2880 x 1800 all in one place, saving only the images ones you want to keep. And best of all, Wallpaper Wizard is today’s Two Dollar Tuesday pick, meaning it has 80% off its normal $9.99 price tag.

The official Readability app for iOS has received a major update today that not only promises to deliver “huge performance improvements,” but also adds a number of new features, including new “Top Reads” and “Longform Picks” reading lists, YouTube and Vimeo integration, and more.

Next Issue Media just became available for the iPad, making the jump from its Android roots. The app is a subscription-based magazine app that may redefine what you think of when you hear the words ‘magazine suscription.’

With Next Issue, you purchase a subscription to ALL the magazines in their service, for one fee. Techcrunch makes the obvious comparison to Netflix, for good reason, but we’ll try to avoid that here. Oops.