Looks like the rumors were true: Valve’s Steam digital delivery service is breaking out of being exclusive to games, and will soon be selling apps on the PC and Mac as well. That makes Steam a head-to-head competitor with Apple’s Mac App Store.
Valve will soon be expanding the scope of software on Steam beyond games to app types ranging from “creativity to productivity” including accounting, animation & modeling, utilities, software training, video production, web production, design & illustration and many more besides.
Verizon has some secret shared plans that cater to data-hungry customers.
Both Verizon and AT&T are introducing their shared data plans this summer, and Verizon is forcing all grandfathered unlimited data customers who renew their contracts with a subsidized phone purchase onto a shared plan. Whether you’re a fan of shared data or not, you probably don’t know that Verizon offers 5 extra top-tier data plans. For some reason, Verizon doesn’t list the upper-level plans on its website or in promotional materials.
Verizon’s biggest plan offers 20GB of shared data for $150 per month. AT&T charges $200 per month for 20GB across up to 10 devices. With the extra $40 per month Verizon charges per device (AT&T charges $30 per smartphone or tablet), Verizon’s shared plans end up being slightly cheaper than AT&T’s across the board.
BYOD programs are here to stay, but many companies still don't secure employee devices.
The number of personally-owned iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices that professionals bring into office is expected to more than double between now and 2014. That means the businesses that have so far been lax about considering or planning an official bring your own device (BYOD) program and/or establishing security policies around BYOD are going to need to play catch up – and they’ll need to get started as soon as possible.
The writing is on the wall my friends. Apple is going to announce a sleek and beautiful new iPhone in September, only instead of using the traditional 30-pin connector, it’s going to use something a lot smaller. Like, “maybe only 9-pins” smaller. Apple might sell an adaptor so your old iPod speaker docks can play nice with the new connector, but will that satisfy you?
Does the news make you sad or angry? Or maybe you’re like, “Smaller dock connector? Hells yeah! Now all my iDevices are going to be slimmer and cooler.” I dunno. You tell me. We want to hear how you feel about the smaller dock connector and whether or not you’re worried it will ruin all of your Apple accessories.
Apple's new dock connector will be less than half the size of the current 30-pin dock, if the rumor mill is to be believed.
In Cult of Mac’s feature on the future of Apple’s dock connector, John Brownlee hypothesized that Apple’s next iOS device dock would be significantly smaller because the current 30-pin architecture is severely outdated. Nearly half of the current dock connectors pins are for legacy technology no one uses anymore, and Brownlee’s research matched up perfectly with the general consensus at the time: Apple would introduce a smaller 19-pin dock connector in the next iPhone this fall.
New pictures of an alleged iPhone 5 exterior have surfaced today that compare the new dock connector with the current 30-pin design. The above pic reiterates the significantly smaller design, and also the possibility of a surprise to look forward to when the next iPhone is unveiled in the coming weeks.
Apple’s newest Mac ads have caused quite a stir with people loving and hating them. Whatever your feelings are on the “Mac Guy” we think he has some glorious Meme potential, but we need your help to turn it into an Internet success.
This week we want you to create your own Mac Guy meme. Share the link to it in the comments of this article and you’ll be entered to win one of ten free copies of FieldRunners 2 we’ll be giving out to our readers. Plus, you might see your Mac Guy Meme make onto the Cult of Mac homepage.
Don’t know how to create a meme? It’s easy, and we’ve already set everything up with QuickMeme.com so you can just add the captions. Here’s how to do it:
Have you ever watched your iPhone attempt to load a webpage with a poor Wi-Fi connection, and wondered why it doesn’t just switch to 3G automatically? In currently iOS releases, your device can’t do that. If you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, it will only use the Wi-Fi network. But iOS 6 changes that. You’ll soon be able to use “Wi-Fi Plus Cellular” connections, which allows apps to switch to a cellular data connection automatically when Wi-Fi is poor.
Forget Pentalobe screws, Apple's next-gen screw design could lock DIYers out of their Macs once and for all.
Self-repairability is often an aspect of Apple’s modern product design that gets Cupertino blasted by critics, with the Retina MacBook Pro being deemed “the least repairable laptop yet” by repair experts iFixIt. But if the leaked image above of a next-generation assymetric screw Apple is reportedly working on is to be believed, things are about to get a lot worse for Mac and iDevice owners who like to tinker with their devices.
College football teams follow NFL teams in replacing playbooks with iPads.
Football season is just around the corner and the iPad is set to become a fixture for both college and pro teams. As we noted earlier in the year, a handful of NFL teams made the switch to iPad-based playbooks at the start of last season and more are making the switch this year. In addition to NFL teams, several colleges have announced that they are transitioning to the iPad playbook model as well.
Following its Retina MacBook Pro teardown back in June, iFixit declared Apple’s latest portable “the least repairable laptop” it has ever taken apart. While some components aren’t too difficult to upgrade or replace, others — such as the battery and RAM — are near impossible without professional help. In its new repair guide, published today, iFixit details further repair limitations with the notebook, and estimates that a third-party battery replacement could cost around $500.
If you’re been waiting to get the new iPad from the refurbished section of Apple’s Online Store in an effort to save some cash, then today is your lucky day. The latest device, which is the first and only iPad to get a high-resolution Retina display, is now available with $50 off.
There are plenty of reasons to want to encrypt the data on a hard drive. Before OS X Mountain Lion, Apple provided tools to do this with the startup drive, via FileVault. Starting right now, however, with OS X 10.8, you can encrypt almost any external drive you like, including flash drives (also known as thumb drives in my neck of the woods). Here’s how.
iOS devices will soon be the world's most popular game console.
Apple’s iOS devices have had a huge impact on gaming, and more and more people are choosing to get their kicks on the iPhone and iPad rather than dedicated handheld consoles from the likes of Sony and Nintendo. By the end of this year, analysts expect Game Center accounts on iOS to surpass the 200 million milestone, making it the world’s biggest gaming platform.
Almost two years after making its debut on the iPad, The New Yorker is finally available on the iPhone — and it comes with two free issues from August 13 and August 20. Like the iPad app, it delivers new issues automatically every Monday morning when you subscribe, and each one is packed with videos, audio, infographics, and images that you won’t find in the print edition.
Here’s something to read over your morning cup of joe this morning: amassive 132 page report Apple released into evidence this morning in its trial against Samsung, proving without a doubt that this case is about a lot more than — as the Korean handset maker would have you believe — “patenting the shapes of rectangles.”
The evidence contains a lot of snippets from a 2010 report, translated from Korean, in which Samsung’s engineers went through their phones feature-by-feature and stacked it up against the iPhone. In almost every instance, Samsung’s engineers decided their phones would work better if they were more like the iPhone.
Ouch. That’s damning.
It’s looking undeniable at this point that Samsung systematically and shamelessly ripped-off practically every aspect of the iPhone’s design, right down to the UI. Comparing a Samsung smartphone pre-iPhone and post-iPhone is like comparing a Cambrian trilobyte with a 21st century ballerina.
Does anyone else get the impression that Samsung might not win this one… and that they know it?
Square just announced a huge partnership with Starbucks that will put the hot mobile payment startup in 7,000 Starbucks nationwide this fall. The news means that Square users will be able to use the app to pay at select Starbucks locations and find nearby stores in the Square Directory.
As part of the partnership, Starbucks is investing a cool $25 million in Square and the CEO of Starbucks will be joining Square’s Board of Directors. This is definitely a win-win for Square, Starbucks, and the mobile payment industry as a whole.
Install this app, right now, especially if you're planning on leaving your iPhone in your pants on the beach somewhere.
Ah, thank Apple for iCloud, Find My iPhone, and open water swimming. Wait, scratch that last bit.
Redditor and triathlon competitor pnine yesterday was out for a training swim in the ocean. He left his pants on the shore when diving into the water in his wetsuit, his keys in his shoes, his wallet and iPhone in his pants.
A bit of the way out, he had a premonition that some of his stuff had been taken. Upon returning to shore, he found out that his hunch was right. His keys, shoes, and towel were still there, but no pants. Which, of course, meant no wallet and no iPhone.
Instead of panicking like many of us would, he remembered he had his laptop and a handy mobile Wi-Fi hotspot in his car. No word on whether the laptop was a Mac or not, but that’s how we’re envisioning it.
Ever since Back to the Future II came out back in 1989, everyone’s been wondering: “Where are the damn Hoverboards!?” Thankfully, Google’s got you covered. Thanks to a newly released concept video, we now know that Hoverboards are next on Google’s X Labs project list, followed by talking dogs and real life Wolverine claws!
You didn’t really think Google was going to stop at Augmented Reality glasses and self driving cars, did you?
Totally different - this is a T-Shirt, not a mock turtleneck.
In a funny sneak preview clip, embedded below, Conan O’Brien plays a video from a “Samsung VP,” Nick Wood, who appears in the video to tell us all how innovative and completely different Samsung’s products are from Apple’s.
“And what about our Galaxy Tablet?” says the fake VP, while an image of the iPad next to a very similar Galaxy Tab is shown. “Not even close.”
Use this, instead of a phone call, to reset your password for now.
Yesterday, we reported on Apple’s response to Mat Honan’s “epic” AppleID, Amazon, and Twitter account hack. Basically, the company released a statement to Wired saying that the company would investigate the issue fully, as well as noting that its “own internal policies were not followed completely.”
Today, according to Wired, Apple ordered support staff to stop processing AppleID password changes over the phone. Wired claims that an Apple worker with knowledge of the situation, who required anonymity, told them that the freeze was planned for at least 24 hours. This same worker speculated that Apple put the hold in place to give Apple time to figure out what to change and how to do so.
Apple has just uploaded a new a new iPad commercial to their YouTube channel, following in the same manner as the previous iPad ad, talking about all the various capabilities of the 3rd generation iPad.
The new ad, entitled “All On iPad”, shows people tweeting, having a FaceTime chat, browsing the web, painting, reading, and more.
The ad runs as follows:
Read it. Tweet it. Be surprised. Be productive. Make a sale. Make some lunch. Make it movie night. Play a game, or an old favorite. Do it all more beautifully, with the retina display, on iPad.
Clearly, Apple is continuing to stress the importance of the Retina display, as this is the third commercial Apple has aired about the new iPad, highlighting the Retina display in each one.
Apple’s iPad ads have been traditionally different than its iPhone ads, which have recently featured celebrities, as well as its recent Mac ads, which have been met with much criticism. Clearly, Apple is continuing to broaden its advertising strategy in a number of ways, experimenting with ads targeted towards a wide variety of consumers.
All in all, the 30 second spot is very similar to its predecessor, using the same music and voice.
The new iPhone is coming out and supposedly it’s going to have a 4-inch screen. Rather than making the device wider, Apple’s just going to add more pixels to the top of the screen for a bigger display, which might be pretty cool, but how how are your favorite apps going to look once they’re all stretched out like that?
Well if you have access to Apple’s developer tools (which you can totally download for free by the way), then you can run the iOS Simulator and this quick hack to see for yourself what apps will look like at a display resolution of 640 x 1136.
Keeping up with all the latest Apple vs Samsung happenings can be tough, and confusing. The trials is underway in San Jose California. Some days are filled with interesting witnesses taking the stand, while others are packed with lawyers hammering boring witnesses with silly questions.
To help you keep up on the Apple vs Samsung trial we’re compiling each day’s events into one short news story that consists of the best tweets from the reporters there on the scene. Here’s everything you need to about what happened in the Apple vs Samsung Trial on day five, August 7th.
iPads at Duke cancer clinics lead to more accurate medical histories and symptom tracking.
The iPad has become a fixture in health care that simplifies the lives of doctors and nurses. It turns out that the iPad can improve the quality of care patients receive if it is used as a mechanism to record a patient’s medical history and/or as a way of monitoring that patient’s progress on follow-up visits.
