Did you love the iOS game Sword & Sworcery? Nope, me neither – too much grind, and not enough find. But I totally dug the awesome soundtrack by Jim Guthrie. I bought it in lossless format and listened the crap out of it.
And now I’m into it for another $5, thanks to a remix album which has been released to celebrate the Japanese launch of the game. And if you’re into retro, rock or just good music, you’re in for a treat.
One of Apple’s hallmarks is that it says “no” to way more products than it says “yes” to. And this kind of perfection is what also lead photographer Steve Bloom to capture the amazing photo of stampeding zebras which features in the promo shots for the new Retina MacBook Pro.
Not only was he shooting on film while on location in Botswana, he almost missed the shot entirely rather than capture something less than perfect.
The Opus hotel in Vancouver made a somewhat shocking announcement last week. The hotel was ripping the landline phones out of its rooms and replacing them with iPhones. While that seems extravagant, it’s actually a rather brilliant plan.
The hotel, which already offers guests an iPad that can act as a concierge service, points out that offering guests, particularly international guests, an iPhone adds a lot of value. In addition to the value for customers, Apple’s free iOS management tools could make implementing such a program simple and relatively inexpensive – beyond the cost of the iPhones themselves anyway.
Apple purchasing several mapping companies over the last fews years, Apple is finally replacing Google Maps with its own solution in iOS 6. But it seems the Cupertino company may be planning to expand it beyond iOS. One developer has discovered some code within the iOS 6 beta that indicates Maps will also be coming to OS X later on.
Tones looks to be just about the coolest way to create custom ringtones for your iPhone that I have seen. Then again, I haven’t seen many as I’m not a thoughtless teenager who thinks that other people want to hear his crappy music every time a call comes in.
Better still, Tones puts iPhone ringtone editing just where it should be: on the iPhone itself.
Although a new iPhone didn’t show its face during Apple’s WWDC keynote back in June, the Cupertino company did release a number of new products, including refreshed MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and Mac Pros; a new “next generation” MacBook Pro, and more. But according to one analyst, the Cupertino company’s fall event will be even bigger, with a new iPhone, a new iPad, and a new Apple TV all on their way.
The bring your own device (BYOD) movement and the broader trend of increased mobile solutions are driving a very ambivalent dialog in most business, schools, and government agencies. On one hand, iPhones, iPads, and other mobile technologies are increasing user productivity and satisfaction (often while improving customer engagement). On the other hand, many devices contain sensitive data and are far from being truly secure.
A handful of studies released over the past few days highlight the often-schizophrenic nature of the discussions taking place in many workplaces – including on experiment that showed 83% of individuals finding a lost corporate smartphone would attempt to access corporate data on it.
As Apple’s App Store continues to grow at an incredible rate, it’s becoming increasingly hard for iOS developers to get their apps noticed. There are currently more than 700,000 titles already available, which is an awful lot to compete with if you’re a newcomer without any previous App Store presence.
But there are some things you can do to get your apps recognized by Apple, according to one of the company’s former engineers, Matt Drance. These five tips will help Apple’s review staff notice your apps, which gives you a better chance of getting it picked for one of the App Store’s featured sections.
“Dear Valued Customer” began the pitch e-mail for the iPhone 4/S microscope lens, and it looks as if just as much effort has gone into the product itself.
The lens will turn your iPhone into an examiner of the minuscule, promising 50x magnification for use in science, medical analysis, textile inspection “and more.”
How? Does it hook up the phone via dock-connector to an optically awesome array of magnifying magnificence? Does it put the iPhone itself at the center of a lavish layout of lenses? Not really. The “microscope” kit is instead something we’ve all seen before: a cheap plastic case to which you attach an add-on lens.
Let me tell you a story. Many years ago, I was a cocktail bartender in a busy London bar. I had just gotten a brand new dumb-phone (a Siemens if I remember correctly), a little silver candy-bar of crap, but it was my candy-bar of crap, and I’d owned it only a few hours.
On shift, I switched the phone to silent and put it in a rocks glass on the backbar, behind my station. The bottom shelf of the backbar had a small lip at the front. Partway through the busy shift I needed some Kahlua (for a Vodka Espresso, not a White Russian). I grabbed the bottle and the base caught the shelf-edge and sheared clean off. The Kahlua – of course – was dumped into the glass with my brand new phone.
I was lucky: this was before the days of moisture sensors and a quick wash later and I got a new handset from the store. Today, you might not fare so well.
Which is why I have mixed (no pun intended) opinions of the Cube.
Terminal is one handy app, I’ve got to say. There are a ton of amazing things you can do with it, as it’s essentially the back end control room of your Mac. All the Unixy underpinnings of your operating system can be accessed in here, and while it’s possible to completely hose your system with the wrong command (rm * comes to mind, for one), there are a lot of helpful things you can do with it as well.
RAM is the type of memory your Mac uses to run active applications in, as opposed to the kind of memory on your hard disc or SSD drive. The more memory you have, the faster memory-dependent apps (like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, for example) will seem to run, and the more everyday apps you can run at once. While old-school Mac users will remember needing to close all the applications to free up memory, that’s really not as necessary as it used to be with the advanced memory handling routines in Mac OS X. However, on occasion, you might want to try the purge command in the Terminal.
Purge frees up the RAM on your Mac, telling each running app to release all the RAM it was given at launch that it is not currently using. It’s like a mini reboot without the stress.
Launch Terminal from the Utilities folder in the Applications folder. Once launched, type
purge
then hit Return on your keyboard and your Mac will force all your running apps to release the RAM they don’t need. This means you have more free RAM to run more apps, or to let heavy RAM using apps grab a bit more, running just a bit faster. You Mac may take a second or three to complete the purge task, but don’t worry – this is safe, and won’t bork your machine.
Source: LifeHack
Got an OS X tip? Need help troubleshooting OS X? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.
When Apple releases OS X Mountain Lion to the public later this month, the software will be available exclusively to the Mac App Store, just like its predecessor. However, this time around, the Mac App Store will confirm your system is capable of running the software before it allows you to purchase and download it.
Apple has been handed yet another blow in a U.K. courtroom after the High Court of England & Wales sided with Samsung today and decided that the Korean company’s Galaxy Tab series does not infringe Apple’s designs. The judge said Samsung’s products are recognizably different to Apple’s, and are therefore free to remain on sale in the U.K.
There’s no denying that the iPad is far to big to be a telephone, but there are times when it would be nice to make calls on the device. For example, I’ve previously used Skype to make a call on mine while my iPhone was being updated. But a new smartphone app called ‘TU Go’, on its way from U.K. carrier O2, will allow you to use a device connected to your iPhone — such as an iPad — to make and receive calls from your existing phone number.
As reported by Marc Gurman over at 9 to 5 Mac, Twitter’s official iPhone app is getting a big update soon.
The beta iOS 6 App Store has mistakenly loaded some app update screens for the new Twitter client, version 4.3. Twitter’s apps have been lagging farther and farther behind recently, due to changes in Twitter’s mobile API and third-party apps that include more power features than the official ones. The changes are substantive, however, in the upcoming Twitter app, as shown in the leaked release notes.
The topic of selling access to iOS beta software has come up again as of late, and with Apple’s release of the iOS 6 beta, many eager non-developers are itching to get their hands on the upcoming OS as soon as possible. For some, the desire to try iOS 6 is so great that they will buy access to developer-only software from unofficial websites Apple does not support.
Apple has turned its attention to the underbelly of selling iOS and OS X developer software, according to a new report.
Did you know the first version of WordPress was written using DreamWeaver? Yep, it’s true. Now you might not be interested in creating the next great CMS, but you might be interested in using Dreamweaver to create awesome websites. This is where Dreamweaver Essentials comes in. Over 7.5 hours and 100 hands-on lectures that will make you a DW rockstar.
More info on the Dreamweaver Essentials Course after the jump…
Apple’s new MacBook Pro features a stunning 2880×1800 Retina display that makes any other screen look like pixelated junk. Because the next-gen 2012 MacBook Pro packs so many pixels in an insane resolution on a 15-inch display, it can be difficult to find great wallpapers that are optimized correctly. Luckily, we’ve collected the best resources on the internet to help you find the most beautiful wallpapers possible.
GarageBand for OS X changed the way us mere mortals create great music on their Macs. Included with all new Macs or available in the Mac App store for $15, it gives musicians from the brand new to the seasoned veteran a way to record all kinds of music, connecting real instruments, MIDI devices, and microphones to your Mac for easy music sessions. It also does some other cool things, which we’ll tell you about right now.
Despite months of speculation, many doubted Google would ever bring its terrific Chrome browser to iOS. But the search giant has put an end to the rumors by finally releasing it, and it’s kicking off this week’s must-have apps roundup. We also have a new weather app for those who like to keep it simple, arguably the best Google Analytics client for iOS, and more.
Garageband for iPad is an amazing deal – for just five bucks, you have access to a fully featured, powerful set of recording tools at your beck and call, all while on the go. There’s no need for wires, expensive sound equipment, or even instruments – GarageBand for iPad can make you sound like an expert musician, regardless of your previous experience with music or recording software. Let’s take a look at how.
It’s been rumored for many months that Apple will release a smaller ‘iPad Mini’ to compete with cheaper Android tablets and devices like the Kindle Fire.
After Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is indeed working on a smaller version of its popular iPad tablet, a fresh report from Japanese blog Macotakara reveals some more alleged details about the forthcoming device.
Rip, store, archive, share. Whether it’s music or movies — okay, maybe not the sharing part — CDs and DVDs are still part of our digital life. Sometimes you just need to archive something to DVD. Sometimes you need to make a great mix to play at a party and you want to bring a CD. While there are lots of reasons why you’d want to burn a CD or DVD on your Mac, the problem is that the tools built into your Mac are just adequate. They work, but there are differences between getting a flip phone and a smartphone. Both make calls, but the smartphone just does more.
This is where Roxio Toast comes in. We all know Roxio. We know they make great tools for burning data to media. So, do you have Roxio in your toolkit? No? Well, right now you can get it for 50% off.
The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) “evaluates the environmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it’s designed and manufactured.” For years, Apple has been one of the EPEAT’s key supporters, with many of the Cupertino company’s computers earning the highest ratings in the industry.
As one of the biggest proponents of green technology and environment friendly packaging, it’s a tad shocking that Apple itself is withdrawing its 39 products from the EPEAT. This means that none of the company’s products technically meet the industry’s green standard anymore. Many large companies, educational institutions, and the U.S. federal government require computers to come with an EPEAT certification, meaning a large portion of the enterprise and education sectors could be barred from purchasing Apple products now.
The #BoycottApple hashtag was trending hard on Google+ last week.
No, I’m not talking about the boycott-Apple-to-save-Chinese-workers, the boycott-Apple-because-they-discriminate-against-Iranians or even the boycott-Apple-because-they-support-gay-marriage movements.
I’m talking about the boycott-Apple-because-they’re-using-the-courts-to-compete-against-Android-devices movement.
Specifically, the call to boycott is based on anger over Apple’s successful attempt to ban both the Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone and the Galaxy 10.1 tablet. An appeals court temporarily lifted the ban on the phone yesterday, but upheld the tablet ban.
Here’s why the call for a boycott is misguided and futile.