Cult of Mac

Questions is a video ask-and-answer community for iOS. A bit like a video version of Quora – although where Quora encourages thoughtful discourse and discussion, Questions is all about brevity and snappiness. You only get 10 seconds to ask a question or submit an answer.

We’ve seen a number of Apple fans come up with clever docks for the iPhone by using packaging materials Apple ships products with. Taking a cue from their customers’ resourcefulness, Apple has a new patent that shows iPhone packaging that can also double as a dock after it’s been opened.

I have a feeling that there are going to be many, many misguided attempts at making iPad Mini cases. Exhibit A: The Rubata Mini case from Padacs, a cheap and extraordinarily ugly keyboard case which turns the little iPad into a tiny laptop.

Where am I going with this? One word: netbooks.

Last month, Apple failed to make its own self-imposed deadline to release iTunes 11 by the end of October.

iTunes 11 is a radical overhaul of Apple’s media management, shopping and syncing software for the Mac and PC that seemingly addresses the numerous complaints of bloat and convolutedness that have been leveled at the app over the years. It also has a much more attractive and modern design.

Consequently, numerous Apple fans — including ourselves — were disappointed when Cupertino quietly announced they were pushing back iTunes 11’s release by a month, into November. But when in November?

We have no inside information on when, exactly, iTunes 11 will be released, but we think there’s an excellent chance that it will be released by no later than the end of next week, and most likely next Wednesday. Here’s why.

As part of a court ruling in the U.K. Apple has been forced to publish a public apology to Samsung on the U.K. Apple website. When Apple originally published the apology on the U.K. homepage, some clever coding pushed the apology statement below the browser window.

This morning an update to the Apple U.K. homepage has removed the coding that was hiding the apology unless a user’s browser window was extremely tall.

Despite launching the fastest-selling iPhone to date just over a month ago, in addition to a new iPad mini that’s sure to be a big hit this Christmas, Apple is suffering from a surprising yet swift decline in stock value. Just weeks after reaching a $705 high, it now sits at its lowest price in over five months.

Many will dismiss the decline as a rare dip, confident that Apple will bounce back bigger and stronger than before. But others are questioning its ability to do so with ever increasing competition from its rivals. ABC Nightline asks whether Apple has “lost its shine.”

The “world’s first panoramic monitor” might not sound appropriate for the Cult of Mac, but when you find out about some of its tricks, you’ll see why I’m bothering to tell you about it.

The monitor is from LG, measures 29-inches on the diagonal and has a wide, wide aspect ratio of 21:9, and a rather lame resolution of 2,560 x 1,080.

According to a new rumor, iPhone assembler Foxconn Electronics is discussing plans to build manufacturing plants in the U.S. Possible locations for the new plants include Detroit and Los Angeles, but Foxconn may be conducting evaluations in other cities as well.

Foxconn and Apple have come under fire over the last few years for terrible working conditions in assembly plants. The assembly of the iPhone and iPad being conducted in China rather than the U.S. was even a debate point in the recent presidential election. Bringing manufacturing jobs into the U.S. may help heal Foxconn’s reputation.

Apple may have just launched the EarPods, undoubtedly the Cupertino company’s best earphones yet, but it’s already hard at working on something better. In a new patent filing, Apple demonstrates its work towards a new set of headphones that would have built-in loudspeakers. The design allows you to quickly switch between headphones for personal use, and a set of speakers for sharing your favorite tracks with your friends.

Still looking for an iPhone 5 dock? Yeah, me too. But I have found a BIY dock that not only looks cool but is pretty much free. If you have a printer and a sheet of thick paper around the house that is. And you don’t mid paying for the PDF.

We’re used to cheap software mimicking expensive hardware, and nowhere has that been truer than with tilt-shift photography. What was once an effect needing super-expensive and unwieldy architectural camera gear is now a free filter in many free apps.

But the trend sometimes goes the other way. Here’s the Tilt Shift camera from Photojojo, an actual physical digital camera with a tilt-shift lens. For $150.

When I first heard that Angry Birds Star Wars was on its way, all I could think was: I have a bad feeling about this.

The cynic in me felt disgruntled about the repetitive nature of the Angry Birds brand, but the realist in me told the cynic to shut up, chill out, and enjoy the game.

Mac OS X has had the ability to recognize data like dates, times, and phone numbers for a while now. If you’re using the Mail app, you can right click on a recognized date and add it to the Calendar app. If you right click on a phone number, you can add it to the Contacts app. Pretty neat, right?

But what you may not have known, however, is that the app you can see iMessages in from anyone on an iOS or OS X device, Messages, is also able to recognize this data, making adding Calendar events from within Messages super easy. Here’s how to do it.

In the age of tiny, efficient Thunderbolt and Lightning ports, stuffing a full-sized USB plug into a Mac now seems so very very old fashioned. Still, USB is still the oversized and awkward norm, and stuff them into our Macs we must.

Which is where Satechi’s “Premium 4-Port Aluminum USB 2.0 Hub” comes in.

Fantastical is an awesome little calendar app originally developed for OS X by Flexibits. It sits in your Mac’s menu bar and provides you with quick and easy access to your appointments and reminders. You’re probably already familiar with it; we’ve covered it a number of times here on Cult of Mac, and we’re big fans.

Which is why we’re pleased to tell you that Fantastical is coming to your iPhone.

The wait is finally over. Your favorite game and your favorite movie have joined forces to become one in what looks like the most exciting addition to the series yet. I’m talking, of course, about Rovio’s Angry Birds Star Wars, which is now available to download on your Android and iOS devices.

As you read this, I’m sure you’re not thinking about all of the email you have to deal with. I’m not just talking about the email that you left behind for follow-up the last time you checked…I’m also talking about all of the email you have received since you last checked.

Knowing all of this, can your mind really be on what you’re doing right now? Better still, can you keep your mind on the important stuff that goes on outside of your email inbox knowing that you’re going to have to deal with both the important and unimportant messages that will arrive in your inbox on a non-stop basis?

It’s kind of insane, isn’t it?

This is where the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer comes to the rescue with a one-year lunch box plan for SaneBox for only $69.

Popular microblogging service Tumblr just pushed out a huge update for its official iPhone app. Tumblr on the iPhone has always been a web-reliant experience, but today’s update introduces a new app that has been rewritten from the ground up to be completely native.

The Dashboard view is totally new and there’s a nifty Notifications panel with fluid animations and swiping gestures throughout the whole app.

Full list of changes:

Earlier this year, Realmac Software and Impending released Clear, a bold and innovate to-do list app for the iPhone. Despite the seemingly never-ending supply of task managers in the App Store, Clear managed to set itself apart with its unique interface, gestures and clean design.

Fast forward to today, and Realmac Software is bringing Clear to the Mac. How does such a gesture-driven app live and breathe on the desktop? On the Mac, Clear is a fresh and enjoyable way to manage tasks. It’s apps like Clear that show the convergence between iOS and OS X.

Just like Blue Microphone’s non-digital Spark, the new, Digital Spark microphone has been put together with an armful of we’re-not-playing-around components and features. Things like a beefed-up condenser capsule, a Focus selector that toggles between a low-frequency bias and a detail bias, and an adjustable desk stand with shock mount. But this Spark is built for iPads (or iPhones); though its USB connector means it’ll work just fine with your MacBook Pro, iMac, Sony Vaio, Samsung Galaxy Tab or anything else with a USB input.

We reported on Negative Nimbus a couple of weeks ago, calling it a sweet-natured iPad game with a horribly sad raincloud, the aforementioned Nimbus.

Tomorrow, it’ll be updated to a universal app, which will make it playable on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. You can also unlock a new world that has 8 new additional levels, more comics, new hats, and more achievements, which can only be a good thing.

The App Store app is a fantastic thing, letting you walk into an Apple Store, scan a product on the shelf, pay for it with your iTunes account, and walk out. I ordered my iPad mini from the iPhone app this past week, as well. The app has been updated today, adding the ability to buy new gift cards and email them to anyone right from within the app. The gift cards can then be integrated into the new Passbook app in the US.

According to Cult of Mac staff, however, the Passbook functionality is not working yet, and we speculate it may be a server issue.

Siri, Apple’s voice assistant, is now also able to help you find prices of and shop for Apple products if you have a Siri-enabled device.

The iPad mini is rather perfectly sized for an e-reader: light, easy to hold, super thin. What better way to show off your reading street cred with a set of luxuriously tasty book-themed images? They’re perfectly sized for the iPad mini, with higher resolution options for its larger, more Retina-enabled bigger brothers, too.

The year was 1983. Arcades were the primary way I played video games, unless you count the Magnavox Odyssey pong clone sitting on our TV at home. I didn’t.

I remember stepping into the local arcade, a pocket full of quarters, and seeing this…amazing game. It was like a animated movie! The characters moved fluidly! I stepped forward.

Dragon’s Lair had my entire pocket of quarters within 30 minutes.

Now we can all relive the glory without the quarters via the Mac, as Dragon’s Lair comes out for the Mac platform tomorrow, November 8, 2012 for $9.99.