Cult of Mac

Apple has announced its biggest executive shakeup since Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO.

The biggest surprise is the departure of Scott Forstall, a longtime Apple executive and the senior vice president of iOS Software. Forstall was the major architect of Apple’s mobile software and had been tipped as a possible future CEO. He will be leaving the company next year. He is serving as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook until his departure in 2013.

The other big surprise is the departure of Apple’s newest executive, John Browett, head of Apple ‘s retail division. Browett is leaving after running Apple’s stores for less than a year.

As part of the reshuffling, Apple’s head of design, Sir Jonathan, gets a major promotion. As well as leading Industrial Design, Ive will also run the company’s Human Interface department. Ive will be in charge of the all-important product interfaces in both hardware and software, a role previously fulfilled by the late Steve Jobs.

Microsoft gathered the press in San Francisco today to unveil Windows Phone 8, the next major iteration of its mobile platform. At today’s Windows Phone Summit, Steve Ballmer and co. unveiled the new operating system and all of its improvements. Initial reactions and early reviews are calling Windows Phone 8 a great update, but Microsoft still has a lot of catching up to do before it joins the ranks of Google and Apple in the smartphone space.

The 5th Avenue Apple Store is one of New York City’s most iconic buildings. It’s also made out of glass. Really strong glass that will probably be able to survive hurricane Sandy’s damage, but the store is also located underground. To add more protection from flooding, Apple added sandbags to the entrance of the store just in case.

Hopefully they’ve added a few barriers below the entrance too, because hypothetically, if the glass facade of the Apple Store does come crashing down I’m betting it would be huge target for looters, especially if it were discovered that a huge stash of iPad minis are down there right now.

It’s rare that you can point to an accessory and say “Jony Ive” designed that, but with the Harman Kardon Soundsticks, that’s literally true.

Back in July 2000, Apple partnered with Harman Kardon to release an officially blessed subwoofer and speaker combo to perfectly accentuate the translucent iMac G3. One of the benefits of that partnership to Harman Kardon was that Jonathan Ive undertook the design of the product. The result — the iSub 2000 Subwoofer and SoundSticks — are a classic example of vintage Ive design, all bubble shaped and translucent.

If you aren’t Apple, it’s rare to be handed an Ive design every day, and so Harman Kardon has wisely kept the shape and look of the SoundSticks line pretty much the same for the last twelve years, only improving the technology inside as they can.

The new SoundSticks Wireless system is a further refinement of the classic year 2000 design. There’s one big difference, though: the SoundSticks now do Bluetooth.

Today, Google announced two new Nexus tablets — the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 — which will go head-to-head with more established competitors like the iPad, the iPad mini and the Kindle Fire HD. But how do they stack up?

I’m not going to write up every single photo gadget that gets updated for the iPhone 5 (I’ll stop when Olloclip ships an updated version of its clip-on accessory lens, I promise). But as iPhone 5 gear is as thin on the ground as the iPhone 5 is thin in your hand, then the new Holga Filter Case is worth a mention — not least because is also gets a new color.

Using the real web on an iPhone is a wonderful thing. Apple has made their iOS browser, Safari, into a solid powerhouse of web-browsing goodness, ready to use out of the box, accessible in many ways to many kinds of people. It’s a great app.

And yet, the size of the iPhone screen, iPhone 5 included, can be a bit cramped. Add in the top address bar and the bottom button bar, and you have even less screen real estate to use for actual browsing. That’s why Apple included a new feature in iOS: full screen browsing.

These gorgeous wooden iPhone 5 cases come from the U.K, and look like they’d cost you an absolute fortune. Amazingly, for something hand-crafted and exquisitely designed, they cost just £35, or $56. Sure, it ain’t cheap, but neither is it crazy.

Lightbulbs are boring. Yes, they provide an important service to the world, but when was the last time that you got really excited to go out and buy some new lightbulbs? Probably never. But Philips’ new Hue LED lightbulbs are actually incredibly cool and will change your blasé opinion on lighting fixtures.

The new Hue bulbs revealed today by Philips are wirelessly controlled by your iOS device. You can turn them on or off from your iPhone as well as change their color even if you’re not at your house. The Hue app will select the perfect lighting for your mood or activity or let you adjust the lightning in a room based on one of your favorite photos.

I will be ordering a Button 2.0 for every single one of my shirts. I will even be sewing them onto my t-shirts in order to make them more useful. Why? As you can see in the image above, Button 2.0 is a simple upgrade to boring old Button 1.0 which turns it into a grippy place to clip your iPhone’s headphone cable.

Anrgy Birds In Space didn’t do much to get me excited enough to fling birds around on my iPad, but Angry Birds Star Wars has rekindled my love for the cute slingshot loving birdies and their pig nemeses. Rovio just released gameplay footage of Angry Birds Star Wars (you can watch it in the video above), and yes, you will get to wield a lightsaber and shoot your blaster at AT-ATs once the game is released on November 8th.

Source: YouTube

While the iPod touch is a terrific little device, it would be so much better if Apple gave it a data connection. It’s so frustrating when you quickly want to check on a sports score or load up a map and you’re in an area where there’s no Wi-Fi connection. Thanks to FreedomPop, however, you can now pick up a new case for $99 that comes with built-in WiMAX.

Sandy is ready to pounce on the East Coast and provide flooding and destruction like we’ve never even seen before, and thanks to Instagram, the entire world can see what it’s like to experience Sandy’s power. If you live in one of the areas that will be affected by Sandy, check out our guide of Sandy survival apps. If you don’t live on the East Coast then we’ve made this gallery so you can see the amounts of damage Sandy is causing.

We’ll be updating this gallery throughout the day as Sandy makes her way closer to NYC, so be sure to come back throughout the day and see even more of the best Instagram photos of the Frankenstorm.

Libratone’s Zipp is a another AirPlay speaker, only this one has a couple of twists. The most obvious difference between this and the Big Jambox (its closest competitor) is the colorful wool felt cover. The other difference is in how it connects: The Zipp creates its own Wi-Fi access point.

Hurricane Sandy is supposed to slam into the East Coast today, bringing flooding and and diaster with her that hasn’t been seen in decades. New York City is already flooding and the worst hasn’t even hit yet.

Even though the iPhone does a lot of magical fun things, you can also use it to stay informed on Sandy and use a couple of apps that will help you know what to do when disaster hits. We want everyone on the East Coast to stay as safe as possible today so here are seven apps that will help you survive Sandy.

Square Enix has revealed that it may reconsider its pricing structure for mobile games following critical feedback from users in Western countries. While the Japanese developer is well-known among iOS users for its awesome RPGs, such as Final Fantasy and Chaos Rings, it’s also famous for its hefty price tags, which can often be as much as $18 per title.

When console-quality games are going for less then $5 these days, those prices are a big problem for some.

Last week, we reported on a great little hack that allows you to remove Apple’s stock iOS apps from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch without jailbreaking it first. The only problem with it was when your device was restarted the apps would reappear, and you had to repeat the whole process again to remove the apps that are wasting space on your home screen.

Now the tweak’s been improved somewhat to make the whole process much quicker by using the new Passbook app in iOS 6. And no, it still doesn’t require a jailbreak.

The new iPhone 5 is light. How light? Well, this picture tells it best. I weighed and snapped three photos of the iDevices readily available in my apartment, and you can see that the iPhone 5 is almost as light as an iPod Touch.

Despite apparently record sales of the 7-inch Kindle Fire the day after Apple debuted the iPad mini, Amazon is taking to the low-road in order to direct shoppers on its website away from Cupertino’s new mini-sized tablet.

How? They’ve posted a comparison chart to the front page of Amazon.com showing how the Kindle Fire HD and iPad mini stack up, spec-for-spec.

If Rick Deckard had carried an iPhone in the movie Blade Runner, and he’d used a camera app, that app would have been BLUX. Not only is it a pretty great iPhone camera replacement app, but it has all the bleeps, bloops, on-screen graphics a futuristic sci-fi replicant could ask for. Hell, it even has a neat computer voice that offers photographic advice.

Apple looks set to close up to 50 retail stores across the East Coast of the Unites States as hurricane Sandy approaches. The Cupertino company is in the process of boarding up windows at 35 stores within the landfall of the hurricane’s path, in addition to another 15 just outside the zone across the northeastern U.S. and Canada.

We’re surprised it has taken this long. When the iPad mini initially became available for preorder on Friday morning, it took just twenty minutes for the white iPad mini + Wi-Fi to sell out, but the other models (especially the black) continued to be available for November 2nd delivery.

Apple doesn’t keep new products in stop indefinitely, though. As of this morning, the iPad mini doesn’t ship for another two weeks if you preorder it today. Still, it’s amazing it took this long for Apple to sell out of the much anticipated new product: either Apple made plenty of them ahead of time, or demand for the mini isn’t yet quite what it is for the iPhone or iPad.

Source: Apple Store

After we reported on Steam’s new Big Picture beta coming to the Mac, we got a reader question that I figured it’d be good to write a tip on.

Playing games on your Mac is great fun of course, and all of them use the keyboard and/or mouse to control the games being played. However, with AirPlay mirroring, HDMI cable support, and a bunch of new games showing up for the Mac platform along their Windows brethren, there are times when a console style controller is a better alternative. Being able to sit on the couch and play our favorite Mac games has a lot to recommend it, and using an Xbox controller is fairly easy to set up.

Here’s how.

If you own a Mac or an iOS device, there’s a good chance it was assembled by the fine folks at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. Despite being born there, however, Apple’s latest gadgets aren’t exactly easy to get hold of in the city. But that’s set to change on Saturday, November 3, when the Cupertino company opens the doors to its first Shenzhen retail store.

Ah, the ’80s — back when a Tab was something to drink, not deride, and Members Only wasn’t exactly an exclusive club. Reliving (or living, for those born after 1979) those days is as easy as tracking down a six-pack of Tab on the Internet, or purchasing this purple number.

Those who’d rather not deal with their friends’ hysterical laughter or horribly wilted taste buds can simply download a faithful recreation of DONKEY.BAS, probably the best thing Bill Gates ever made, onto their iPad or iPhone.