Cult of Mac

Greenpeace likes to target Apple every year or so to keep them environmentally honest, and lately, the environmental access group has been going after Apple’s giant data supercenter in Maiden, North Carolina, claiming that it helps make iCloud one of the dirtiest things on the planet.

What Greenpeace is upset about is how much of the data center’s power comes from non-renewable resources, particularly coal. And they don’t think that Apple’s going far enough with its plans for solar energy plans.

Now the protests are getting real, with seven Greenpeace activists blocking train tracks used by Duke Energy and Apple use to ship coal.

Everyone knows that Apple leads and others follow, right? It’s iOS that people are copying elsewhere. No-one would ever dream of making a music player for iOS that uses the same UI as Microsoft’s Metro) mobile OS design language. Would they? Wait – would they?

The screenshot above might look like the typical UI mess of an Android phone, but it’s actually an iOS reflex game called Slide To Unlock, in which the only goal of the game is to eponymously unlock slider after slider in all directions — up, down, left and right — but not through multiple dimensions, like time and space. It’s like a lock screen Simon.

Remember the Glif? It was probably the first Kickstarter project to take off, and of course it was an iPhone photography accessory. The original Glif probably went on to make its creators — Studio Neat –billionaires, and now it’s back, in the form of the Glif Plus. And what’s more, it comes with a bunch of bad new typography-based puns.

Type “Mother’s Day” into Google and right above the search results it’ll say “Mother’s Day is on Sunday, May 13, 2012.” Put it in your diary, order some flowers and get ready to spend some money on the woman who gave the best part of her life just so you could sit around reading sites like Cult of Mac on your iPhone.

To help you repay her frankly pointless sacrifice, here’s our Grand Cult of Mac Mother’s Day Gift Guide 2012, the best and most definitive gift advice guide you’ll read this year. Whether you mother is a nerd, a technophobe, a globetrotting traveller or just plain lazy, we’ve got you covered. There’s a Mac- or iOS-centric  gift for every kind of Mom in here… even yours!  Read on:

When most of us here words like forensics, we picture an episode of CSI or NCIS. We think of ballistics results form a murder scene or fingerprints on a gun. An iPhone or iPad isn’t the first automatic visual that comes to mind. Yet more and more iPhones and iPads are becoming the subjects of forensic investigations according to warrants issued via the U.S. federal court system.

Today we have the perfect video to satisfy a very particular demographic. If you love the whole 8-Bit aesthetic, and yet remain confused by the interactions of the three basics of photographic exposure — aperture, shutter speed and ISO — then sit back, relax and hit the play button on the Vimeo video above.

In a mobile industry that’s simply booming, there’s only two phone vendors reaping the majority of the benefits: Samsung and Apple. In Q1 of 2012, Apple and Samsung combined for 99% of mobile phone vendor profits — the remaining 1% belonged to HTC. Independently, Apple holds the lion’s share of profits with an incredible 73% of operating profits thanks to carrier premiums for the iPhone 4S. Samsung, while leading in mobile phone shipments, only grabbed 26% operating profits — which isn’t really that bad considering every other carrier (other than HTC) managed to face significant losses.

Yesterday, Samsung announced their new Galaxy S III smartphone, a 4.8-inch monstrosity that doesn’t look a thing like an iPhone, but of course rips off Apple in many other particulars.

But let’s not pay attention to that. Instead, let’s ask ourselves what we can glean from the first Samsung Galaxy S III ad, especially when comparing it to a thirty-second iPhone 4S commercial.

TriggerTrap is another app which works with an accessory cable to remote trigger you DSLR. Compared to other trigger app/cable combos, TriggerTrap distinguishes itself by also triggering the iPhone’s own camera, should you wish, and by its crazy range of triggering modes.

Barnes & Noble’s announcement that it was spinning off its Nook business and that Microsoft would be a significant stakeholder in the new company raised a lot of eyebrows. The partnership seemed unnecessary in order to meet the goals of settling a patent dispute and ensuring a Nook app for Windows 8 tablets.

It turns out that Barnes & Nobel will be shifting its textbook business to the new company along with the Nook and that Microsoft’s $300 million investment will likely be centered around creating an e-textbook initiative that will likely compete head-on with Apple’s fledging iPad-based e-textbook business.

When Apple first released iPhoto for iOS, it quickly became clear that the new app was Apple’s first app to distance itself from Google’s Maps API in favor of OpenStreetMap (OSM), a collaborative online project aimed at making a free and complete map of the world. When you checked in iPhoto where a photo had been taken, you were seeing maps built upon the foundation of OSM. The only problem? Apple wasn’t bothering to credit them.

Now with the latest update to iPhoto, Cupertino’s decided to do the right thing. OpenStreetMap is credited in the app’s acknowledgement section.

What you’re seeing above are Steve Jobs’s speech notes that he brought with him on January 9, 2007 when he announced the original iPhone, and they are in many ways a telling encapsulation of the man himself. Jobs was a natural showman who needed only the barest outline to announce the changing of the world, and his notes here are so simple that they could have been scrawled on the back of a napkin, but Jobs was also a perfectionist: he had them expertly type set, printed out and bound.

Amazing. Also, if you’re wondering what those three devices are below the notes on Steve’s podium, they’re actually iPhones with special attachments so they can do video on the big screen behind him. Steve would only use one; the others were probably backups.

Source: Wahaha
Via: Reddit
Image: Flickr

VSCO’s Cam is a film emulation app for the iPhone and iPad (pixel doubled). It is also one of the new generation of “serious” iPhone camera apps which capture uncompressed JPG files before applying filters, for a much higher quality end product.

Let’s face it, having the best laptop in the world doesn’t exempt us road warriors from having to deal with reality. Batteries are so much better these days, sure, but they’re still the failure point for most of us traveling types. In between charges and external battery boosters, it’s up to us to keep an eye on how fast the old power cell is draining. The app in today’s tip should help with that very thing. Go figure, right?

My kids fell in love with Toothless, the lovable fire-breathing dragon, after watching DreamWorks’s hit 2010 animation How To Train Your Dragon. Today he makes his debut on iOS in DreamWorks Dragons: TapDragonTap, a colorful physics-based puzzle game from development studio PikPok.

An iTunes customer who was billed twice for the same song has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple after the Cupertino company refused to refund his money. Robert Herskowitz $2.58 for Adam Lambert’s pain-inducing pop song “Whataya Want From Me,” but he should have paid just $1.29.

He’s now taking Apple to court in an effort to make refunds easier for iTunes customers.

When Apple introduced the new iPad earlier this year, it didn’t just discontinue the iPad 2; it dropped its price and sent it out to do battle with cheaper, Android-powered tablets from the likes of Amazon. But that’s not the only change the Cupertino company made to the device.

Although there’s no mention of it, if you buy a brand new iPad today, it will pack a new A5 processor under the hood that’s a little different to earlier A5 chips, and delivers much better battery life.

Update: In an official statement today to Cult of Mac, Walmart U.S. confirmed that these new price listings were a mistake that have been corrected at certain stores throughout the country. “Yesterday, we experienced a pricing error in limited stores,” said Walmart. “This has been addressed and the normal prices are in effect (iPhone 4S – $188, iPhone 4 – $88, iPhone 3GS – $0.97).”

We’ve gotten word that Walmart has dropped its prices on the AT&T iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S in its retail stores. Without any notice, the price of the 8GB iPhone 4 on AT&T has dropped from $88 to $34. Also, the white and black 16GB flavor of the iPhone 4S on AT&T is now being offered for $114, down from the original $188 listing.

Good news for hopeful iOS 5.1 jailbreakers, infamous iOS hacker and Chronic Dev Team member ‘pod2g’ just tweeted that he has his iPhone 4 running an untethered jailbreak on iOS 5.1. For those who don’t know, the difference between a tethered and untethered jailbreak is huge; the former means you have to re-jailbreak every time the device reboots while the latter means you’re jailbroken until you update to a new version of iOS.

There’s still a lot of work to be done on the untethered iOS 5.1 jailbreak for iPhone 4S owners, but an untether for iPhone 4 and iPad 2 users looks to be on the distant horizon. The iPhone 4S runs on a faster A5 processor, making it a totally different nut to crack for jailbreak hackers.

First Temple Run, then Instagram, and now Flipboard.

Continuing the trend of high-profile iPhone apps making their way to the Android platform, popular reading app Flipboard has unveiled its exclusive partnership window with Samsung for the just-announced Galaxy S III. This is the first time Flipboard has ventured away from iOS, and its Android app will be available exclusively for the Galaxy S III for an undisclosed amount of time. The app will then be available for all Android handsets in Google’s Play store.

One of the problems with modern glass displays on smartphones, tablets, and computers is screen glare. If you’ve ever tried to use your iPad out in the sun or check your iPhone on the beach during a bright, sunny day, you know what it’s like — any kind of light creates a glare that can be almost unbearable. Amazon has touted the Kindle’s E-ink display for its anti-glare technology, while all of Apple’s products with glass screens, including the non-matte MacBooks, are notorious for their tendency to collect smudges and reflect ambient light.

MIT researches have developed a water-repellent, self-cleaning glass that “virtually eliminates” reflections of any kind. The new glass will hopefully start making its way into the technologies we use on a daily basis, especially our beloved Apple devices.

Text editing on iOS isn’t bad, but it’s definitely fiddly. Make an error or want to delete some words and unless you’re using a Bluetooth keyboard, you have to take your hands off the keyboard, tap the words you want to select or where you want to insert your cursor, adjust the boxes manually and more. A pain.

YouTube user Daniel Chase Hooper had a better ideas, as illustrated in this video concept below. What if to edit text, your hands never had to leave the keyboard area on the iPad? To move the cursor, you swipe in the keyboard area left, right, up or down. To select a bunch of text at once, you swipe in the keyboard area while holding down shift.

This morning Samsung announced their newest high-end Android phone, the Samsung Galaxy S III. With a release date of May 29th, the new phone comes with a lot of crazy new features, like Smart Stay, that uses facial recognition to determine if you’re looking at it, and if not, it’ll turn the screen off. But topping the list of awesome new features is the “innovative” voice recognition feature. It’s innovative because you can say things like, “Hi Mr. Galaxy phone, what’s the weather gonna be like today?” and S Voice will pop-up a screen that looks exactly like Apple’s Siri feature does on the iPhone 4S.

Keep it up Samsung.

Source: Sebastiaan de With

Via: Rene Ritchie

In response to our tip about the presentation iOS app, Remote Mouse, Cult of Mac reader (and iOS developer) Roman Keller sent us an email to recommend Logitech’s own remote mouse iOS app, Touch Mouse. What a great app to have on hand, because you know I’ve always got my iPhone, but I may have left that mobile mouse at home. Thanks for the tip, Roman! Let’s look at it a bit more in depth.