Cult of Mac

There’s an awesome image flying around Twitter this morning that shows someone working for the London Underground has a great sense of humor. On one of the many signs littered around London’s tube stations, someone has written:

For the benefit of passengers using Apple iOS 6, local area maps are available from the booking office.

Apple’s new Maps app has taken a lot of stick since its debut in iOS 6 on Wednesday, and users have been flocking to Twitter to post images of towns and villages that have seemingly been wiped out by the Cupertino company.

Source: Ben Mathis on Twitter

After boarding a plane to Melbourne, Australia to be one of the first in the whole world to get their hands on an iPhone 5, the folks at iFixit have torn it apart and found that — surprise — the new iPhone seems to actually have been designed with easy repair in mind. Partially, at least.

Update: Some of you have let us know that episode 32 is not showing up in iTunes yet. We’re not sure why, but if you subscribe via iTunes or Apple’s Podcasts App, it downloads fine.

Two HUNDRED new features — that’s what Apple claims they stuffed into iOS 6, and on this week’s CultCast, we’ll tell you which of those new additions delight us, and which lesser-known features we positively love.

Then, back by popular demand, direct from our Facebook page, we answer your listener questions, and boy, are some of you guys weird imaginative.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new episodes right on your iPhone or iPad with Apple’s newly updated and freshly debugged Podcasts App.

Read on for the show notes!

Apple’s new Maps app has gotten a ton of complaints since iOS 6 officially released this week, and with good reason. Heck, right here at Cult of Mac, we have a feature on how to fix the iOS 6 Maps experience, as well as a gallery on some of the worst imagery from the Maps app itself.

Apple spoke out today about the issue in a statement to AllThingsD, saying, essentially, that people need to be more patient.

iFixit rips into new technology like a ten-year-old with a stack of birthday presents. Co-founder Luke Soules flew down to Melbourne, Australia to be one of the first people to own the magical device, with the sole purpose of taking it apart at the MacFixit offices in Australia.

The process itself is well underway, as you can see in the gallery of images below.

The iPhone 5 went on sale in Australia today, and hundreds of folks lined up for the privilege of being some of the first in the country to purchase and own Apple’s latest cultural and technical marvel. Some waited as long as 68 hours for the iPhone 5, competing to be the first person in the world to own an iPhone 5.

If you’re planning on waiting in line for an iPhone 5 tomorrow, be warned: judging by the numbers of people already waiting outside some of the big Apple Stores, the iPhone 5 launch is looking like it’s going to be an absolute zoo. There have never been this many people in line this far ahead of an official Apple product launch, ever. And Apple themselves anticipate long lines outside of their stores “all day long, into the evening.”

When it comes to home furniture, computer desks are pretty much the least exciting thing on the market. Even coffee tables are more exciting. That’s kind of all changed over the last 12 months as standing desks have become a sort of fad with studies showing that switching to a standing desk can improve your health tremendously.

Half of our time as humans is spent sitting down at work, watching TV, or driving a car. Something needs to change, so I sought out to find the best standing desk on the market that abides by Apple’s design principles, and the NextDesk Terra was the winner.

The iPhone 5 is almost upon us, and Apple has mandated that all third-party developers start submitting iPhone 5 screenshots in the App Store. Devs with new updates must include screenshots optimized for the iPhone 5’s 4-inch, 1136×640 display.

Many popular App Store apps have already been updated for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, including the official Facebook app today. There were original concerns that developers wouldn’t have time to get their apps up to date for the iPhone 5, but it looks like updates are rolling out at a fairly rapid pace.

Since iOS 6 came out yesterday, everyone has been dog piling on the new Maps app, talking about how terrible it is (us included). There’s even an entire Tumlr dedicated to how badly it sucks. Is everyone being too hard on Apple for trying to build their own Maps platform? Or should Apple have kept Google Maps around?

What do you think? It seems like iOS Maps might be an understandable first step that will pay off for Apple big time in a couple of years, but do we really want to wait and have to use an inferior app for a few years while they try to get it right?

Click here to go to the Cult of Mac forums and let us know what you think about Apple’s decision to make their own Maps app

One of the best new additions of iOS 6 for iPad owners is the fact that not only do we finally get the iOS 6 clock app, but it’s absolutely gorgeous… easily Apple’s most attractive app, in my opinion.

The app’s good looks aren’t going unnoticed… and that might spell bad news for Apple. Apparently, the Swiss Federal Railway Service is livid over the clock used in the new app, says they own the trademark on the design.

Motorola is looking to bring down the ban hammer on almost every Apple product out there, including every Mac OSX computer. I have no idea if Motorola is just looking to throw spaghetti at the wall or what, but they have a long list of infringements that apparently the International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate.

So, there you are, sitting on the bus, and inspiration strikes. You really want to fire off a quick tweet or status update to Facebook, but your stop is coming up fairly quick, and you really can’t miss it again. Opening up the Facebook or Twitter app will take precious seconds, ones you don’t have to spare! What’s an iOS 6-enabled person to do?

Now that Facebook is integrated along with Twitter in iOS 6, you don’t need to open either specific app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to get out that short message of genius.

A lot has been written over the last day or so about the crappy maps in iOS 6, and the fact that Apple’s new data engine doesn’t live up to its pretty new map tiles and spectacular flyover feature.

I thought exactly the same thing when I first installed a beta of iOS 6 on my iPad a month or two back. But while Apple’s maps are definitely a step back in many ways, it’s not all as bad as it seems. Not quite anyway.

But guess what? If you’re willing to use a couple extra apps until Apple fixes things, you can get everything back that you’re missing.

In case you don’t get the reference. More (real) iOS 6 Maps disasters can be found in our gallery here.

Via: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps

Last year, iPhone 4S pre-orders sold out in 22 hours before shipping dates slipped to 2-3 weeks. This year iPhone 5 pre-orders sold out in 1 hour before shipping moved to 2-3 weeks. Apple is going to sell iPhone 5s faster, and in more volume, than they’ve ever sold anything.

If you didn’t manage to secure a pre-order in time and are facing the prospect of standing in line at the Apple Store to get an iPhone 5 on launch day, you’re probably wondering how early you need to wake up and get in line. There’s not a clear formula on how it all works, and only Apple knows for sure how much stock they have, but the experience of the last five iPhone launches have given us some important information.

For those of us not obsessively checking delivery status for iPhone 5s, here is a power pack for the iPhone 4/4S that might strike your fancy—Stay Charged With The SoL Hybrid Power Pack.

I have a couple different battery packs (I’m giving an extra to a friend), but they charge the “old fashioned way” through a USB cable to the wall (or computer, but you know). A solar charger certainly has a lot of appeal. You can just leave it charging cells up and keep it topped up all day. Very cool.

iPhone-Garage.de has the first teardown pictures of the iPhone 5, if you want to see Apple’s latest engineering and design miracle at work. Their site is being absolutely hammered now, and it keeps on going down, so we’ve put some of the best images in a gallery below the fold so you can see for yourself. iFixIt will doubtlessly have a more nuanced take, but for right now, all I can say is…man, what a tightly packed phone.

It’s no secret that Apple’s new iOS Maps app has been a pretty big letdown so far. Surely Apple is working on perfecting the app and correcting a lot of erroneous data, but if you’ve already updated to iOS 6 you’re stuck with maps that have a tendency to glitch out on you, especially if you live outside the U.S.

The Amazing iOs 6 Maps is a new Tumblr account dedicated to the uglier side of Apple’s new maps app. They’ve compiled a ton of screenshots of iOS 6 Maps doing terrible things. Here’s some of the best/worst ones so far:

Got a set of those annoying lenses for your iPhone that attach via magnets? Me too. The results are great, but getting the magnets lined up to the metal donut surrounding the lens is a real pain.

And so the following news is mixed. It's bad news because it uses the same dumb attachment system, and it's good news because it's a polarizer for the iPhone. And not just any polarizer, either. This one is made by legendary filter-monger B+W.

Apple’s solar farm in North Carolina is massive. Right now it’s the size of 109 football fields, but even that isn’t enough to make their data center run on 100% renewable energy, so Apple wants to make it bigger. To increase the amount of solar energy they’re able to generate, Apple just bought 200 acres of property in Catawba County for $3 million.

The iPhone 5 pre-orders kicked off last Friday at 12:00 a.m. PST and it only took a few hours for delivery estimates to start to slip well into October. A little perspective – it took nearly a day (approximately 22 hours) for last year’s iPhone 4S pre-sale to begin to run out; the iPhone 5 did the same in about an hour.

Hopefully Apple will be able to keep up with the demand for the iPhone 5. But if not here are a few tips based on what we have learned from past iPhone releases that might help lessen headaches and improve your chances of getting your hands on an iPhone 5 this season.

PDF Expert for iPad, arguably the best and most powerful PDF editor for iOS, has been updated today to introduce new features and improvements, including support for multiple signatures, and up to five times faster syncing.

Rumors had suggested that Samsung would add Apple’s iPhone 5 to the list of devices involved in a patent infringement suit between the two companies, and it looks like that’s going to happen. The Korean company has confirmed that it expects the latest iPhone to infringe the same patents the iPhone 4S does, and that it will be adding the handset to its case after it has had time to “analyze” it.

iOS 6’s Maps is the biggest criticism of Apple’s new mobile operating system. In short, it’s clearly years behind Google Maps, which previously powered Maps in past versions of iOS. Most of the time, complaints about Apple’s new Maps accuse the latter of being under-developed and unreliable compared to Google Maps, but the Irish government has a different concern: they are worried that iOS 6 Maps will result in pilots crashing their airplanes directly into a park.