Cult of Mac

Every so often, an iOS accessory maker takes advantage of a little-known or little-used feature to create a really unique product that no one else thought of. The FLASHr from Phaze5 is a Kickstarter project that falls right into that category. It’s an iPhone case that lights up whenever you receive a call, text message, or email — but there are no LEDs built-in. Instead, it uses your iPhone’s flash and the LED alert feature in iOS 5.

If there was ever a company mired in Microsoftian corporate nonsense, it’s IRIS, the scanning and OCR company. Clunky, ugly and ridiculously overpriced software combined with hideous hardware, and a lame bird-based logo to boot – if IRIS were a human, it would be a taste-free middle-manager from the early 1990s.

The latest example is the IRIScan Book 2, a scanner which you have to drag over each sheet of paper by hand in order to digitize the letters thereon.

Jumsoft has announced its first pack of Word for Mac templates. Named the Inspiration Set for Word, the pack contains 169 templates for almost any document or project from business stationary to canning jar labels – of them beautifully designed by Jumsoft’s team of professional graphic designers.

Jumsoft has made a name for itself with a range of template collections for iWork and other Apple apps including a collection of templates/themes for iBooks Author and two collections for spicing up emails composed using OS X’s Mail app. The company has also produced two packs of clipart that can be used in virtually application.

Samsung’s Galaxy S III has gotten off to a great start, and according to one company executive, it has already sold 10 million units. But it’s the upcoming iPhone that the majority of us are waiting for, according to a new survey. Demand for the iPhone 5 is “strikingly higher” that that of any other iPhone, and when smartphone sales hit an all-time high this fall, Apple will be the number one beneficiary.

A rare Pixar Image Computer that was originally developed by the Computer Division of Lucasfilm has surfaced on eBay with a $25,000 price tag. The computer is accompanied by an original Pixar monitor and is said to be in good condition, though it’s unclear whether the system actually works.

Sometimes, it’s just fun to compare scores with your friends. Without the urge to compete, we wouldn’t have sports, national videogame competitions, or reality television. Now there’s a new way to measure up against those around you – Solid State Drive (SSD) speed.

Ok, so it’s not really a thing, but here’s how you can benchmark your own SSD to compare it with other SSD devices, if you need to know how much faster one computer you own is than another. In fact, it’s a ton of fun to compare the speed of an SSD, say in this here Macbook Air, and that of a hard drive, like in my Mac Mini. Here’s how.

Apple’s fight against Russian hacker Alex Borodin, who took advantage of an in-app purchasing exploit to provide users with paid content for free, has paid off. The Cupertino company has developed a fix that will make its debut in iOS 6, which is almost impossible to bypass, according to Borodin.

According to a French blog site, the highly anticipated iPhone 5 featuring a larger screen and a 19-pin dock connector will be released on Friday, September 21, 2012.

Shortly after iOS 6 beta 1 made its debut in early June, Cult of Mac reported that users are no longer required to enter their iTunes password when downloading updates or previous purchases from the App Store. In iOS 6 beta 3, Apple has expanded this feature to cover free apps, too.

Finally! Canon has at last announced its answer to Micro Four Thirds and other mirrorless formats. And unlike Nikon, which was content to dash off a crappy toy in the shape of the “1,” the EOS M is pretty much exactly what we hoped for: an EOS SLR packed into a tiny body.

Sources familiar with Apple’s plans have revealed to Reuters that the company’s “iPhone 5” will launch with a smaller, 19-pin dock connector that will make room for a headphone jack on the bottom of the device. The move will mean that existing iPhone accessories — which use Apple’s existing 30-pin connector — won’t be compatible with the new handset.

When Tapbots finally released its highly-anticpated Tweetbot Twitter client on the Mac, the software was labeled as a free Alpha. This means that the developers are continuing to add major new features and bug fixes leading up to the official 1.0 release in the Mac App Store. In fact, users are warned before downloading that there could be major bugs, and all Alpha testers are encouraged to submit bug reports to Tapbots.

Over the weekend, the first update was released for the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha, and the update packs several new features and improvements.

Kicking off this week’s must-have apps list is a new to-do app called Checkmark, which is being labeled the reminders app Apple should have made. There’s also a great new video sharing service called Vyclone, a unique clock app, and more.

Art. It’s something we all aspire to from the earliest of age and a pursuit of all humankind, including ancient cave and modern city dwellers, folks from the suburbs and people from the Renaissance. Head into any art museum and you’ll see paintings along the walls made with a variety of styles, techniques, and philosophical points of view.

Would you like to “brush up” on your painting skills? Practice drawing with colored pencils, pen and ink, water colors? How about acrylics, oils, or pastels. You can on your iPad with Art Set, a $0.99 app from developer LOFOPI.

It must surely be a sign of the impending apocalypse that Microsoft’s operating systems have “more taste” than Apple’s.

I’m referring, of course, to Apple’s inexplicable use of skeuomorphic design in iOS and OS X apps, and contrasting that with Microsoft’s stark avoidance of such cheesy gimmickry in the Windows 8 and Windows Phone user interfaces.

A skeuomorphic design in software is one that “decorates” the interface with fake reality — say, analog knobs or torn paper.

The problem is worse than it sounds. 

Contrary to the name, putting a laptop on your lap, isn’t actually a great idea. Laptops can get rather warm, not to mention it’s impossible for air to get below your laptop to help keep it cool (do you think Apple made these glorious devices out of aluminum just for kicks and giggles?). Likewise laptops just on a desk or table not only don’t let the machines cool as well as they could, but they aren’t terribly comfortable to work at for long periods of time.

It’s pretty hard to find a device that works great on your lap and on a desk (believe me, I’ve looked and there aren’t many), which is where the iLap comes in.

Only available in the Continental U.S.

Kicking off this week’s must-have games roundup is Dark Knight Rises, the official game of this year’s biggest blockbuster. You’ll also find the sequal to Fieldrunners, arguably the best tower defense game on iOS; a great cycling simulator; and a humorous title featuring Usian Bolt, the world’s fastest man.

A mere ten days before the scheduled patent infringement trial between Samsung and Apple, US District Judge Lucky Koh rejected two more proposals from Samsung, maker of Android enabled smartphones. Judge Koh entered a supplemental claim construction order in which two disputed terms are now defined. Unfortunately for Samsung, who initially requested the order, the definition decision favors Apple, using the Cupertino-based tech company’s definition in the dispute.

We bumped into neophyte Australian headphones-maker Audiofly in January, during a press-only event at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and gave two models in the four-model lineup a whirl. Their mid-level AF45 set sounded great for $50; but the next one I tried — the top-of-the-line AF78 ($200) — left me slack-jawed with disbelief; its sound knocked my socks off, even amid the cacophony of noisy journalists.

What makes the AF78 unusual is its speaker arrangement.

Many mid-to-high-end canalphones are powered by tiny armature speakers, while moving coil drivers are found pretty much everywhere except the very high end. Armatures are generally better at producing clean highs and mids, but can lack deep bass; moving coils, on the other hand, are generally not as good at reproducing the clarity of an armature. But the AF78 is part of an elite group of models  — like the Scosche IEM856m I reviewed last year — that employ both a moving coil speaker and a balanced armature in each ear, in an attempt to give the listener the best of both worlds. And it works spectacularly.

If you were (or still are) the proud owner of a Sega Dreamcast, then you may remember the classic title Jet Set Radio (Jet Grind Radio in North America). Jet Set Radio was hailed as a revolutionary game due to it being one of the first to make prolific use of a rendering technique called cel-shading (allowing for a “cartoon-like” appearance of 3D rendered objects). While these rendering techniques aren’t so revolutionizing today, Jet Set Radio remains a rollerblading, music loving classic, featuring wholesale amounts of spray paint.

The iPhone is the top performer in the mobile ad monetization performance space, according to a new report from Opera Software. It is followed by Android devices, of course, and then a large gap in which the rest of the mobile devices are being left behind.

“The iPhone leads the smartphone OS pack with an average eCPM of $2.85,” writes the company in their first State of Mobile Advertising report. “Though it is closely followed by Android devices (at $2.10). The rest of the mobile phone field is significantly behind.”

Now that Apple is fixing the in-app purchasing exploit that Russian hacker Alexei Borodin brought to light this week, it seems as if he’s at it again. This time, however, it’s an in-app purchasing hack that works in the Mac App Store.

The method here is similar as the one Borodin used in iOS, with the user installing some fake security certificates and then pointing the Mac’s DNS servers at a false server run by Borodin. The remote server then pretends to be the actual Mac Store and verifies the purchase, bypassing the real system for in-app purchases set up by Apple and use by developers of Mac apps. Borodin claims that this system has allowed approximately 8.4 million free purchases so far.

It was recently discovered that a Russian hacker had been hijacking Apple’s iOS in-app purchasing system to score paid upgrades for free. The trick was accomplished by bypassing Apple’s authentication servers and routing an in-app purchase through a proxy that sent back a faulty purchase receipt.

While Apple has already attempted to combat this activity, today the company outlined a solution for developers to keep their in-app purchases safe from such an exploit. Apple has also confirmed that the issue will be fixed when iOS 6 ships to the public this fall.

I’m gonna be honest. I totally forgot that Homescreen.me existed. That’s because the website has been in private beta for two years, and I stopped using it after I initially uploaded my iPhone’s Home screen in 2010. So, I after finding out that Homescreen.me has opened its doors up for everyone today, I logged back into my account. Seeing the main apps I used on my iPhone 3GS at the time brought back a flood of memories. There’s something very personal about a Home screen. It represents the apps that are most special to you. But those apps change over time.

After logging back in, I uploaded my current iPhone and iPad Home screens. It was interesting to see how my layout changed two years later and what new apps had been given first page priority. I then shared my current setup on Twitter for my friends to check out.

That’s what Homescreen.me is about: sharing and discovering great Home screens with fellow geeks who love their iOS devices.