Cult of Mac

How things have changed. Five years ago, Apple shipped every iPhone with a dock; now, they claim that no one uses one, and aren’t offering an official iPhone 5 dock at all.

Luckily, you now have an option. Coming in an attractive hardwood version or a choice of either regular or black aluminum, the Lightning Dock is a no-fuss, no-frills dock that works with or without a case and depends on the incredible strength of the new Lightning Connector to keep the iPhone upright.

It also works with the new fifth-generation iPod touch, and it’s pretty cheap: the hardwood version will only cost you $24.95, while the aluminum version is $10 more. That’s without an included Lightning cable: if you want them to ship you one, it’ll cost $20 more.

Source: Lightning Dock
Via: iMore

In a timed announcement made exactly on the one year anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death, Chrisann Brennan — Steve Jobs’s highschool sweetheart and the mother of American journalist and writer Lisa Brennan-Jobs, for whom the Apple Lisa was named — has said that she will be publishing a memoir next year.

Apple marked the anniversary of Steve Jobs death with a tribute on its home page today, the kind of tribute that only Apple could do.

So, the wacky little app-thingy that we all wondered about in iOS 6, Passbook, seems like it’s starting to grow up a bit. Now, when you tap the App Store button in the Passbook App, the new “Apps for Passbook” section of the iTunes App Store, only available via your iPhone running iOS, has quite a few new apps available.

The Apple store is down on Apple’s website, which typically happens when a new product is about to come online and be sold to the public. With the iPad Mini all but confirmed to be released at a separate event, and the iPhone 5 a semi-distant last-week memory, chances are this is a simple update or change. Maybe a simple speed bump for one of the Mac computers? The iMac, perhaps?

Of course, the fan boy in me really wants it to be something super cool, so I’m asking you all here to jump in with your wildest fantasy of why the Apple store is down. Ready? Go!

The Hipstamatic folks sent us word that their new 260 update is here, with some rad new features, like Multiple Exposures, Rock the Vote free films, a new switch for the flash, and fully iOS 6 and iPhone 5 capabilities – no more letterboxing.

You can now create double exposure (or triple or quadruple) to spice up your photographic styles. It’s available as a $0.99 in-app purchase, and should let you play around with lens, film, and flash combinations to your heart’s content.

Coffee Stain Studios announced a new update for its 3D tower-defense game, available for Mac on Steam for $9.99. The new update is named “Still Alive,” and includes two new towers and a new weapon. A new map pack is available, as well, cleverly named “Sanctum – Map Pack 2.” This adds three new levels, each new environment containing its own set of challenges and strategies for winning.

Sanctum takes the standard tower defense game and brings you into the action with a zoomable 3D perspective. You must place towers of differing power types along the route of aliens intending to destroy your space ship, upgrading them as the waves of enemy creeps grow more voluminous and stronger with each successive defeat.

The iPad mini’s rumored announcement is drawing near, with many speculating that Apple will unveil the mythical device by mid-October. We’ve seen a few part leaks of the smaller tablet, and The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Apple is starting to ramp up mass production for the expected launch. Hopefully low yield rates overseas can pick up to meet what will undoubtedly be crazy consumer demand.

Martin Hajek made some strikingly accurate concept designs for the iPhone 5 before it was announced, and now he’s back with Gizmodo for the iPad mini:

Apple has quietly released two supplemental updates for OS X Mountain Lion and Lion today. The first supplemental update for OS X 10.8.2 is available now in the Mac App Store, and a similar update to 10.7.5 has also been made available. Both updates contain small bug fixes.

AT&T has announced that they will be the first to carry the 16MP, Android 4.1 touting, 4G Samsung Galaxy Camera we told you about back in August. AT&T is taking a gamble on this unique product, and I, for one, am curious to see how it turns out. I personally don’t believe there’s a market for it, but you never know (just look at the Galaxy Note).

Facebook hit 1 billion users earlier today, and Mark Zuckerberg has been making the rounds with the press to celebrate the milestone. While speaking with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Zuckerberg talked briefly about Steve Jobs and Apple’s influence on Facebook as a company.

When asked about Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg mentioned how his company and Apple share a respect for user experience. “He [Steve Jobs] was just so focused,” said Zuckerberg. “For him, the user experience was the only thing that mattered.”

You wait for ages for a calculator, then two come along at once. Following on from Sums which we reviewed the other day, here’s Calculator LCD, a smart-looking one dollar desktop-style calculator for iPad.

I like to be notified when email comes in, but I sure do get a lot of email. Prior to iOS 6, I was relegated to just dealing with it, and setting the type of notification–Badges, Banners, and Sounds–for eMail in general. It got a bit tedious, to say the least, with the four main accounts I check on my iPhone.

You know now that you can set up a different signature for each email account you check on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 6. But did you know you could also set up a different Notification style for each account, as well?

Here’s how.

After 30 years (and a mountain of quarters), SEGA has unleashed the next chapter of the hit classic Zaxxon. Now that you’ve defeated the evil Zaxxon, it’s time to shoot and tilt your way past Zaxxon’s evil army as you try to escape the collapsing asteroid base. This modern sequel to an everlasting classic features:

After the death of Steve Jobs last year the city of Fremont wanted to celebrate Jobs’s work by registering his original Macintosh factory as a place of historical significance. Fremont’s city council quickly went to work on getting the Mac factory – which was a state-of-the-art automation facility at the time – registered, but found out that the building isn’t old enough to meet federal criteria for a historic designation.

According to federal criteria, a building must be at least 50 years old to be registered as a historic place of significance, and Apple’s Mac factory is only 30 years old. Fremont City Council spent $45,000 in the effort to get the factory listed before realizing they wouldn’t be able to do so.

Apple’s legal team is freaky fast, and they don’t mess around. Yesterday we saw these portable speakers by iAudio2 that feature a glowing Apple logo on the casing. They’re small and probably sound like crap because they’re so cheap, but they look great. Too great. And we warned that if you wanted to get one you should act quick because Apple would be coming out with the ban hammer real fast.

Well, Apple has already sent iAudio2 a cease and desist letter telling them they better stop the sales of the iAudio2 immediately, or else. But iAudio2 has decided they’re not done having their fun just yet, and that even though Apple said to stop selling their product immediately, they’re going to keep selling them for the next 24hours before they run away scared. Unless of course Apple calls again, then they’ll stop immediately.

Here’s iAudio’s full letter to customers regarding the situation:

Camera Awesome, the iPhone camera app that actually is pretty awesome, has been update to support the iPad. Better, it’s now a Universal app, which means that if you already own the iPhone version, this one now works on your iPad, too, for no extra charge. Actually, even for new customers the app is free.

The Cygnett Lavish from MobileFun is a genuine leather flip case for iPhone 5 that contains a plastic snap-on shell that houses your device. It boasts a magnetic closure, and a card slot that will comfortable house one or two credit cards without adding too much bulk to your pocket.

The Lavish provides access to all of your ports and buttons, and can be folded back to expose your iPhone’s rear-facing camera. It comes in black or “regatta blue,” and it’s priced at $41 (£30).

It’s not the cheapest iPhone 5 case, then, but is it worth it?

Amazon has today released a new Cloud Drive desktop app for Mac OS X, and it offers a number of nifty features that the web app isn’t capable of. For example, with Cloud Drive installed, you can upload files to your cloud-based locker simply by dragging them to your menu bar, and you can quickly import all of your images from iPhoto with just a few clicks.

We’ve seen all kinds of ridiculous and terrible Apple thefts, but this guy tops all of them by literally stealing an iPhone from a baby. It’s hard to make out the details in the video, but inside the carriage is a 20-month old baby, happily watching Barney on an iPhone while her mom is distracted with some shopping. The man walks up to the carriage, glances up, snatches the iPhone out of the baby’s hands and then walk away like nothing happened.

The worst part about it is police say the nasty old man followed the mom and her child into the store and deliberately targeted them knowing it’d be an easy crime to commit. The baby wasn’t harmed, but police are still looking for the suspect.

Source: The Sun

Via: MacGasm

Today, I bring you news of the Smartphone Coaster, an innovation that is clearly set to take the world by storm. Well, the world of promotional marketing, at least.

What is it? The Smartphone Coaster is a steel kickstand which can be branded with your company’s logo, thus spreading your corporate message to the world whilst simultaneously depleting our precious Earth’s limited supply of minerals. Congratulations: you hate the future.

Apple has climbed up to the second spot in Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands” survey of 2012, with an estimated brand value of $76.5 billion. The Cupertino company is second only to Coca-Cola, worth an estimated $77.8 billion, and it leaves IBM, Google, and Microsoft trailing behind.

As Apple patents go, it’s not always easy to tell which ideas will make their way out of Cupertino in future devices, and which will be written off. But I’m guessing this one falls into that last category. Published by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office on Thursday, this patent covers a new feature, which could one day make its way into iOS, that would demand users change print settings by shaking their device.

Eye-Fi has updated its top-of-the-range Pro X2 SD card from 8GB to 16GB, upped the speed to Class and kept the price at the same ridiculous $99. The X2 is the card to buy if you need everything Eye-Fi has to offer: geotagging, direct transfer to your iDevice and RAW file support. But it might not necessarily be the one you want.

New from Tapbots is Netbot, an iOS client for app.net users.

If you’ve used Tweetbot, you already know how to use Netbot. It looks almost identical to its precursor, and behaves almost identically too.