Bento originally made its iOS debut on the iPhone 3G way back in 2009, and it has been supporting iOS devices ever since. Today the latest release, Bento 4, which promises to be the “redesigned, reinvented and revolutionary new version of the leading personal database app,” is now available on the iPad.
And it has 50% off its regular price tag for a limited time.
Microsoft’s announcement of its new Surface tablets got the entire tech industry’s attention yesterday. The announcement was big on drama but not so big on details. Despite showing off the new Surface devices and using them to build hype for Windows RT and Windows 8, Microsoft left out some key points of information like pricing and a clear understanding of how the devices will fit into mobile tech market.
The announcement also left many technology pros scratching their heads in confusion about Microsoft’s decision to own the entire computing process in the way that Apple does – from hardware to OS, to the app market. Another head scratcher, particularly for CIOs and IT leaders, is how or where Surface devices will fit into businesses.
In an email sent out to iOS developers today, Apple has announced a new rule that requires all apps to be submitted for approval with high resolution 1024 x 1024 icons and artwork. That’s a higher resolution than the display built into the iPad 2 — for an icon.
Bluetooth 4 is proving to be quite a lot more than just an incremental spec bump to the wireless protocol. Thanks to its super low power needs, Bluetooth 4 is finding all sorts of clever uses.
Example: The Hone, a key fob which can talk to your iPhone whenever you lose your keys, and yet still remain functional for up to six month between charges.
Google’s VP of Product Management, Bradley Horowitz, announced that Google has partnered with Flipboard to integrate Google+ streams into the popular magazine-styled reader. Google+ will join Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and a host of other social services available on Flipboard thanks to new extended APIs. This new integration is a great step forward for users, especially those who enjoy accessing all of their social content from a single app such as Flipboard.
Apple’s new Maps app that’s coming to iOS 6 looks really incredible. Its detailed 3D maps blow the traditional satellite view right out of the water, and allow you to view high resolution images of cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, and more. But what happens when those detailed images get into the wrong hands.
Well, U.S. Senator for New York, Charles E. Schumer, is worried the detailed images could be used to aid criminals and terrorists, and he has privacy concerns over the military-grade spy planes Apple uses to capture these images.
As I mentioned in my post about Sparrow for iPhone yesterday, it is by far my favorite mail client on both Mac and iOS. Despite a lack of push support — for now — Sparrow contains some really awesome features, which are detailed in my review. If you haven’t picked up this terrific app yet, now’s the best time, because it’s just $0.99 for the next 48 hours.
Apple mentioned during its unveiling of the MacBook Pro last week that it has made some substantial changes to the construction of the notebook’s display to help make it super thin. Unlike existing MacBooks, the new Pro does away with a cover glass and case to measure just 1.5mm thin, essentially making the entire display just an LCD panel.
Editing videos can lead to a great sense of fulfillment when you’re all done and showing off the fruits of your labors to a packed house of admirers, but you have to admit that the grunt work can be kind of a slog. Anything that makes the editing process a little faster or a little bit simpler has my vote for being a tip worth knowing about.
iMovie ’11 has a host of under-the-radar tricks that will help you take your editing workflow up a notch. One sweet trick that both saves time and impresses other video editors is using multitouch gestures right on the trackpad.
It’s not uncommon for Apple to hide little treats within the icons of its Mac apps, but it’s always nice when we stumble across a new one. The latest comes with the new Notes application that will launch in OS X Mountain Lion next month, and it contains a famous quote used in Apple’s Think Different ad campaign.
Spotify is gearing up to issue an update to its iOS app today, which will bring its popular radio feature to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch for the first time and allow the service to take on rivals like Pandora or Slacker. What’s more, unlike its traditional music streaming service, the radio feature will not require a paid Spotify Premium subscription to use on mobile devices.
Sasser, co-founder of Panic software, has had a fantastic idea to make stealing iPhones pretty useless. Most savvy thieves know that when you find or steal a smartphone, you shut it down immediately. This stops it being tracked by the carrier and – in the case of the iPhone – it stops the user from tracking it, or wiping it from afar.
Cabel’s incredibly simple idea would stop this from happening.
Microsoft today officially announced their new tablet, Surface for Windows, in two flavors, one with ARM chips (just like the iPad) and one with Intel chips, like standard laptops, including Macbooks. This is Microsoft directly competing with Apple for the iPad market, for sure.
It’s safe to say the majority of us already know the story behind Peter Parker and how he came to be Spider-Man. In case you aren’t familiar with this iconic story, Gameloft has released a prologue video to not only familiarize you with the history, but to show off some more in-game footage.
A recent update to both iPhoto and Aperture now allows both applications to share photo libraries for the first time. As noted by Apple, “All your photos stay together. And you get the best of both applications.”
Apple quietly updated its Mac Pro line last week. The update was an important move even though the actual changes were so minor as to be barely noteworthy. The minor refresh gave high computing customers a sense of confidence that Apple wasn’t going to abandon the Mac Pro line anytime soon. That sense of confidence got a boost from New York Times columnist David Pogue, who was assured more substantive Mac Pro upgrades were in the works for 2013.
The Mac Pro is something of a relic when it comes to Apple’s current strategy. It’s the only Mac that features significant expansion options using industry standard hardware – a point made by Lifehacker columnist Adam Dachis, who compared the Mac Pro’s specs and costs to three hackintosh options. Looking at the Mac Pro as simply a series of specs, performance, and cost is appropriate for most users – but not for some important niche markets.
In a post-9/11 environment, the TSA is suspicious of everything. Shoes. Bottles of water. What you look like underneath your clothes. Everything
So when Game Collage developer Juraj Hlaváč flew back from last week’s WWDC and was discovered with a mysterious black box in his backpack that resisted all attempts to be scanned by the airport’s security equipment, and mysteriously glowed to boot, the TSA quickly became suspicious.
Luckily, before it became cavity search suspicious, Hlaváč revealed the true nature of the black box in his bag: an Apple Design Award for his app, Bobo Explores Light.
If you’re in the market for a new MacBook Pro, particularly of the Retina display variety, expect to shell out a little more than usual for a new battery. Apple’s updated pricing list for MacBook battery replacements shows higher than ever battery costs.
Traditionally, clicking on App Store links in iOS was a very jarring experience. Instead of being taken to an App Store preview page like you are on the desktop, you would be immediately thrown out of your current app, and shuffled over to the App Store. This problem seems to be alleviated with iOS 6, at least to some extent.
Fans of jailbreaking will most likely know about Display Recorder, the jailbreak app by Ryan Petrich, that, as its name implies, lets you record your iPhone’s screen. Display Recorder is one of the reasons I initially began jailbreaking my devices. It’s a handy tool if you need to show someone how to do something on your iPhone. That in mind, I was excited today when I saw that Display Recorder had been released into the App Store. That is, until I saw it had been developed by someone else.
In the run up to the release of the new iPad, there were many rumors that Apple was going to use Sharp IGZO display technology to make a much more bright and vibrant Retina iPad with much better battery efficiency.
That didn’t pan out: Sharp delayed the debut of IGZO, and Apple instead was forced to release a Retina iPad that was thicker than the iPad 2 in order to accomodate a bigger battery necessary to drive the display.
But according to one expert, IGZO may have crept into the new Retina MacBook Pros…
So, you’ve got that big road-trip planned this summer, right? Got everything packed, maps apps at hand, ready to see the world from the point of view of your car, up close and personal in a way jet travel will never be. Pile in the dog and the kids and hit the road!
Of course, once the initial excitement wears off somewhere down the road, the kids are gonna get whiney. Instead of numbing them out with cartoons or video games, how about a bunch of classic car games? Of course you can use your iOS device! Here are a few fun apps that will teach the whole family some great ways to stay interested in the world outside the windows while staving off boredom.
You all use and love Instapaper, right? Or perhaps Pocket, or Readability? These apps are the perfect way to put long articles aside for reading during downtime, or for browsing on a device better suited to the task than a desktop computer. But what about those times when you have a few moments and you just want to stop and read the website in front of your right now?
That’s where Read It Now comes in.
Here at Cult of Mac, we’ve been playing around with our new Retina MacBook Pro — look for our review tomorrow — and we decided to install Mountain Lion on our shiny new ultra high-res notebook and take Apple’s latest operating system for a spin.
It runs a peach, of course, but one thing we noticed when we were playing around in the Displays preferences in Mountain Lion was that there is an option to set your display resolution as for “Best for AirPlay,” along with the other two regular options which appear in OS X Lion: Best for Retina display, and Scaled.
Do you know how to code a circle? If you’re a software developer, the answer is probably yes. But what about interface elements, complex icons and other fancy graphics? Sure, you could probably get it done, but what a pain. That’s what PaintCode is for.
PaintCode is a Mac app which takes your complicated vector-based designs and translates them into Objective C code, ready to be pasted straight into Xcode.