The picture above is purported to show third party non-approved authentication chips for Apple’s new Lightning USB cables. They’re pretty much a huge deal for anyone who plans to make iPhone 5 accessories or cables, because now that the Lightning authentication chip has been cracked, manufacturers can create cheaper accessories because they won’t have to pay Apple a fee to use the official Lightning chip.

Here’s an incredibly neat little hack for making your iPhone’s flash suck less, and it’s marred only by the photo used to illustrate it, which features some kind of Android “phone.”

If you ever wondered how you might use colored gels on your iPhone’s flash, read on. Or just look at the picture — it’s pretty self explanatory (once you get over the inexplicable purchase of an Android handset anyway).

Earlier this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook famously said that Cupertino was going to “double down on secrecy” this year. It hasn’t worked. Apple — once a company known for the surprise “one more thing” — had every single detail of the iPhone 5 leaked to the public before the actual event. Can Apple ever get its secrecy back?

Probably not. A new report talking to a number of Apple employees under the condition of anonymity suggests that while Apple HQ is as secretive of new products as ever, Cupertino can do nothing about leaks that come out of the Asian supply chain.

Quick, answer this one: what’s the quickest, easiest, no-sign-ups required way to get a bunch of photos from your iPhone to the internet, right now?

Instagram? Nope. You’re kind of right, but Instagram has its limitations. And you need to sign up to use it. Apple’s Photo Stream? Closer, but you still need to be using iCloud.

The quickest, easiest and no-sign-uppiest service I’ve yet seen has to be Photoset, a new thing from the people who make Tumblr.

After Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple, he went on to create NeXT, which focused on creating technology to aid the education industry. The video above shows Steve talking about the challenges that NeXT faced as he was building it, as well as footage inside NeXT and its employees.

Source: YouTube

Via: The Loop

Actions turns your iPad into a remote control for your Mac. No, it’s not a VNC app which lets you project your desktop onto your tablet’s screen. Nor is it a media remote (although it can be). Instead, Actions lets you assign, uh, actions to easy-to-tap tiles on the iPad’s screen, and these actions are then performed on the Mac (or PC).

The short version: Actions lets you trigger Mac keyboard shortcuts from your iPad.

When two of the biggest companies in tech are hardcore frememies, it’s nearly impossible to find the middle ground to reconcile. Samsung and Apple are trying to break things off entirely, even though they need each other.

In the latest news on their breakup, Samsung has said that they will end their LCD panel supply relationship with Apple as of next year. The stated reason behind Samsung breaking ties with Apple is that Apple’s supply pricing strategy provides Samsung with insufficient margins.

While it introduced a stack of great new features, iOS 6 also brought a few bugs to our iOS devices this summer. Users have reported problems with Wi-Fi, iPhone 5 display glitches, and more. But Apple could be preparing to fix those before it starts its holiday celebrations.

According to one report, the Cupertino company is currently testing iOS 6.0.1 for a release within the coming weeks, while iOS 6.1 will arrive after the holidays.

The iPhone’s camera is a little wonder, not least in its actual physical manifestation. The tiny lens is now capped with a crystal cover made from the same scratch-shrugging glass used for high-end watches. And all it takes to clean off the daily gunk is a quick rub on your pants leg.

But that hasn’t stopped the folks at Ace Display (ace name, BTW!) from designing a redundant case to protect and clean that same lens.

Two iPhone users claim Apple has violated the Sherman Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by locking their handsets to the AT&T network without their permission. They’re now suing the Cupertino company in an effort to get their iPhones unlocked, and for monetary damages. They also want a restraining order that will prevent Apple from locking its smartphone to carriers completely.

Winter is coming (in the Northern Hemisphere at least), and with it cold weather, frosty mornings, overcoats and gloves. And not much puts a cramp on your smartphone-toting style more than a pair of gloves or mittens. I should know — I one spent a winter in Berlin and was often forced to use the tip of my nose to launch the maps app on my iPod Touch.

The answer is Touchscreen Gloves.

When Apple unveiled the third-generation iPad earlier this year, it reduced the price of the iPad 2 to just $399 in an effort to provide fans with a more affordable option, and to stave off the competition from cheaper Android slates as much as it could. But with the iPad mini set to make its debut tomorrow, will there still be a need for the iPad 2?

One analyst thinks not.

Noteshelf, the iPad’s best handwritten note-taking app, is now even better. V7.0 adds new pens, customs colors and support for pressure-sensitive styluses. If you already own Noteshelf, you likely already downloaded it with great excitement over the weekend. If not, what are you waiting for?

Got a birthday wish list you’d like to share with significant others, making sure they are never wanting for just the right gift to give you for the next celebration? How about a grocery list that you can add to secure in the knowledge that your husband or wife will know to stop and get garlic at the store on the way home from work? Or even a shared task list for your work teammates, guaranteeing that you can hold them responsible for stuff on “the list?”

Sounds pretty handy, right? Well, you can set this up using Reminders on the Mac, an app that comes with OS X Mountain Lion and syncs via iCloud to iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, as well as with iCloud.com Here’s how to set it up.

Apple’s iOS lock screen has remained largely unchanged for the last five years. That’s probably because it serves its purpose pretty well, but sometimes it’s nice to try something different. Thanks to Pinch to Unlock, a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones, you can do just that. Rather than sliding to unlock your device, you just pinch.

Borderlands, Gearbox Software’s awesome first-person shooter series, is set to make its debut on iOS this month. Revealed in a advert within a Borderlands 2 digital strategy guide, the game will be called Borderlands Legends and it’ll allow you to play one of four original Borderlands heroes for the first time on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Apple’s upcoming iPad mini media event will be held at an unusual location, the California Theatre in San Jose, California. Instead of typical locations like the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco or Apple’s own Town Hall, the company is branching out and presenting in a venue it hasn’t used in 7 years.

As usual, the venue was decorated for Tuesday’s event over the weekend. Here are some pictures of Apple’s swanky signage:

Raise your hand if you’ve needed a background image or texture for a project and been pretty much SOL. Yeah, me too. A few times I’ve wandered about with my camera and found some cool textures I could use, but you know if it’s the middle of the night or you don’t have time to wander around with a camera, what then?

The “what then” is having textures and backgrounds on hand to use. Websites, apps, presentations, Twitter, whatever I think we need backgrounds more than ever now. Now with 375 textures to pick from, I bet you’ll find something you like—The Professional’s High-Resolution Textures Bundle: Take Your Designs to the Next Level with 375 Stunning Textures.

Apple’s Maps app is a bomb. A stinker. A sign of the company’s impending doom at the hands of Tim Cook, the CEO who replaced the irreplaceable Steve Jobs.

Landmarks are in the wrong place. Roads are missing. The 3D Flyover view looks like a collapsed sponge cake. There are no directions for buses, bikes or pedestrians. Entire cities are marked as hospitals, the Golden Gate Bridge is in the wrong place, and even Apple’s own retail stores can’t be found. It’s such an embarrasment, Tim Cook apologized for its suckiness.

But if you live in San Francisco, the Maps app rocks. I’ve been using Maps for weeks and I’ve fallen in love with it. I use it even if I’m *not* using it, just to watch the gorgeous 3D display unfold as I’m driving around.

Apple’s Maps app is by far the best maps sofware around. Tim Cook is a wussy. You’d love Maps too — if you lived in a geography where it works.

When one company swallows another, it’s common for a slow shift in rebranding and design to occur as the two entities thrash out their roles and relationship. The latest shift in the Logitech-Ultimate Ears story — Logitech purchased UE in 2008 — occured a month or so ago, when Ultimate Ears was rebranded as Logitech UE and launched a suite of high-end, blue-tinged soundware, with a product selection that reached far beyond the in-ear monitors the company has thus far been known for. In fact, out of seven new gadgets, just one new IEM was introduced: the Logitech UE 900 ($400), a quad-armature earphone that now sits at the pinnacle of UE’s non-custom earphone line.

The UE 900 has lineage, of course; we loved the snug fit, solid build and amazing sound of its antecedent, the TripleFi 10. But the TripleFi 10 is gone, and the UE 900 has stepped into its place with new ergonomics, a new sound — and a lot of blue.

Shared Photo Streams came along with iOS 6, allowing us all to create our own little photo sharing social networks using nothing more than an iCloud account and our iOS devices. Creating and sharing Photo Streams is dead-simple, but managing some of the more non-intuitive features, like comments and subscribers, can be a bit tricky for the uninitiated.

We took a look at these new features and put together a guide on using Shared Photo Streams to help you get the most out of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch when creating and sharing your photos with your friends and family.

A wonderful new news app from Reuters kicks off this week’s must-have apps list, providing you with an “unprecedented photography experience” that allows you to immerse yourself in the biggest news stories from around the world. Also included in the roundup is a terrific app for making mobile websites from your iPhone, a new weather app, and more.

The Apple iPhone has become the poster child for the problems of Chinese and American labor.

One strain of conventional wisdom goes that while rich, entitled Western elites whine and complain over trivial issues like maps and purple haze on screens, abused, exploited Chinese factory workers slave away to make those iPhones in unsafe factories and under exploitative conditions.

The iPhone represents the shafting of the Chinese worker.

Another strain of conventional wisdom goes that greedy Apple (and other companies) ships factory jobs overseas to China, where Chinese factory workers get all the jobs, and American workers are left in the unemployment line.

The iPhone represents the shafting of the American worker.

Here’s an idea. Let’s stop accepting these brain-dead caricatures, and insist on the truth about iPhones, factories and workers.

Many of the writers here at Cult of Mac use Flipboard to read news, and we know many of you do too. That’s why we’re proud to unveil our new and improved Flipboard page!

We’ve been working closely with Flipboard for the past several months on a special design that fits our style here at Cult of Mac. Our Flipboard page has been tweaked and optimized to mesh with our site layout, and now Flipboard is an even better way to read Cult of Mac on the iPhone and iPad.

The new developer seed for OS X Server v2.2, Seed 2, is out. In an email sent to developer accounts, Apple announced the new download, and included a link to the seed download source, a set of instructions on how to instal and/or upgrade from various previous versions of OS X Server, and a PDF with the new changes detailed.