One of the best tools in a photographer’s editing kit is the crop. Finding the best part of a picture and cutting out all else is a fantastic way to make an ordinary picture into a great picture.

You can do this right on your iPhone or iPad with the Photos app. Here’s how.

This is the uNu Ex-Era battery case for iPhone 4 and 4S. It offers a degree of flexibility you won’t find in most other battery cases, although that flexibility comes with a drawback – namely that the case doesn’t feel as robust as some of its less flexible rivals. But you can’t have everything, all the time.

IFit may be a familiar name to those who weigh less than 200 pounds. Found in many fitness machines, the iFit service lets you plan a training regime via the web, and then carry it out down at the gym.

Now, iFit has released an iPhone app so you can continue training outdoors instead of holed up in that sweathole you pay $100 per month to use.

It’s hard to believe that Apple ever faced a time where most consumers thought Macs are underpowered, pricey heaps of junk. But back in 1997 things were not looking  good for Apple and it was hard to convince people that buying a Mac was worth it. The answer? Create a CD full of Apple propaganda that fans can use to convince their friends to buy a Mac.

In 1997 Apple created the MacAdvocate CD-ROM that was free to any Apple fans who requested a copy. Dan Frommer recently unearthed his copy of the 1997 Apple MacAdvocate and found it was full of a funny Apple propoganda and ugly 90’s graphic.

Take a look at how Apple tried to convince people that Macs were cool in the 90’s:

With rumors heating up again about the next iPhone featuring a smaller 19-pin dock connector, iMore is now saying that Apple will provide an adapter to give the upcoming iPhone’s smaller dock connector the ability to interface with 30-pin accessories and ports. As the site that originally started the smaller iPhone dock rumor, we have reason to believe that iMore’s report is accurate.

Thousands of accessory and peripheral makers have undoubtedly been shaking in their boots since the rumors started about a 19-pin connector in the sixth-gen iPhone, and Apple’s adapter should stem the tide until third-parties can make updated accessories for the new architecture.

As AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon continue extending their LTE networks across the country, a new market analysis suggests that most users will eventually choose not to buy LTE iPads and other 3G/4G-enabled tablets. The report, which comes from research firm CCS Insight, says that demand for iPads and other tablets with built-in mobile broadband support will continue to drop over the next four years. Following that logic, the company says that it expects Apple and other manufacturers to reduce the number of iPads and other tablets with built-in cellular connectivity.

We’re big fans of Zite and the unique way it brings readers new content that they may have never seen. Thanks to Zite’s fancy algorithm, we’ve been introduced to countless interesting stories from sources we never visit. Zite is one of the best iPad apps available that is really trying to change the world around us, which makes us really excited to announce our new partnership with them. Earlier today Cult of Mac was announced as one of Zite’s 9 new publishing partners.

What this means is that now you can load the Zite app and add a special Cult of Mac section that has all of Cult of Mac’s latest news, except rather than having us tell you the most significant news of the day, Zite’s alogrithm will display the stories that it believes are most relevant to what you’d want to read.

If you haven’t seen The Dark Knight Rises yet, buy a ticket for the soonest IMAX showing near you and prepare to have your mind blown. Ticket sales are strong, and many are calling this latest Batman movie the best yet.

Christopher Nolan, the man who wrote and directed the last three Batman films, is a fascinating character. The Brit is at the top of his game and considered the most bankable director in Hollywood, yet he doesn’t own a cell phone or even use email! In a recent interview, Nolan poo-pooed Apple’s Siri, genuinely asking the question, “What’s the purpose of that?”

Our friends at Wired have released their August issue, and the magazine features a cover story called Am I Steve Jobs. The cover photo is an earlier picture of Jobs depicted with a halo and horns drawn around his head. Three lines express the self-contradictory nature of Apple’s late CEO: “He was a Buddhist and a tyrant,” He was a genius and a jerk,” and “How his life story has become an inspiration for some and a cautionary tale for others.”

The new issue is available now and can be downloaded in Apple’s Newsstand (weighs in at a healthy 532MB). The main article borrows heavily from Walter Isaacson’s biography, so you may have heard many of the Jobs anecdotes before. There are, however, some interesting interviews that add to the discussion. The focus of the piece is mainly taken from a business and entrepreneurial perspective, but anyone who has followed Jobs and Apple should get at least a little out of it.

The Tablet Strap is exactly the kind of corporate-dorkwear iPad accessory I used to poke fun at. Now, though, having used an iPad since the first one launched all those moons ago, it’s the kind of iPad accessory I want to buy. Or I would, if it didn’t have that hideous pleather-look finish.

Let the games begin. Within minutes of the first Olympic athletes arriving in London for the summer games, Grindr — a geolocation-based dating app primarily geared towards gay men — crashed due to an onslaught of unprecedented demand. Technicians believe that the arrival of the Olympians created a wave of new customers signing up for the service that caused the servers to grind to a halt.

We recently told you that Apple will be giving free copies of OS X Mountain Lion to customers who purchased a new Mac from June 11, 2012 onward. Everyone else will have to pay $20 to download the new OS in the Mac App Store. Apple’s OS X Up-To-Date Program has already gone live unofficially, and that means you can claim your free copy of Mountain Lion now before it’s made available later this week.

Let’s face it, windows can get out of control. Lost windows off the side of the screen, clutter, window positions… Or this situation, you’re working on a project where you’re taking screenshots or doing a screencast of something. You can’t finish all at once and have to come back to it. Now, how do you think you’ll get the windows back exactly the way they were before?

Oh you can try to do in manually—and wind up pulling out your hair—or you can pick up today’s giveaway Breeze. Usually this is a (well worth it) $8 app, but right now you can grab it for free (which is exactly what I’ll be doing in short order).

If you want to see how it all works before you grab the app, check out the Autumn Apps site and watch the screencast (they had me in the first minute).

The TED organization, which sponsors a range of conferences and talks on cutting edge topics recently launched an ebook series known as TED Books. Like the non-profit’s other initiatives, TED Books are “designed to spread great ideas.” Sticking to that ideal, the organization is making the ebooks, which will be released every two weeks, available across a range of ebook platforms including the new TED Books app for iOS devices.

The move highlights one of the challenges about ebooks – the choice of merchant and platform. That’s a particular concern when it comes to Apple’s iBookstore because purchases can only be read on an iOS device.

This post is brought to you by Chase — a strong supporter of TRANS4M Boyle Heights, a program that provides multiple social services that address Boyle Heights’ particular needs. Learn more here.

While some kids are at goofing off at camp or watching re-runs this summer, a group of teens in Los Angeles are reinventing their neighborhood with the help of iPads.

They’re taking part in a new Digital Storytelling class and the first assignment – run as a contest – is to see who comes up with the best ideas for transforming Boyle Heights. This East Los Angeles neighborhood, described by singer will.i.am who grew up there as a “wasteland” is also home to one of the youngest populations in the city.

One of the many pros of jailbreaking is the ability to theme your iOS device. When you install a custom theme in Cydia, you’re effectively replacing Apple’s default iOS design with something new and fresh. There are many great themes for jailbreakers, but my new favorite is undoubtedly ayecon. Developed originally for the iPhone and iPod touch, ayecon is coming to the iPad on August 3rd.

I’ve been using ayecon on my jailbroken iPad for a couple weeks now, and I couldn’t be happier. Here are some screenshots to give you a taste of what to expect from this benchmark iOS theme:

IGills is another waterproof iPhone case, but this one is a little more waterproof than the rest. It’s billed as a “smart diving system” which replaces $1,000s worth of specialist gear, and that’s not far off the mark.

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.