Cult of Mac

RunKeeper makes fitness apps for a variety of smartphones and is widely considered the premiere platform for tracking and sharing workout information. Today the company announced that it will be the first third-party service to partner with the Pebble watch, a record-breaking Kickstarter project that has collected over $8 million in funding. Pebble sports a customizable interface that can connect with apps and smartphones like the iPhone and Android.

Thanks to the partnership with RunKeeper, Pebble owners will be able to see live fitness data and control RunKeeper without touching their smartphones during a workout.

This is just awesome. Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” as performed entirely by OS X system sounds. The only slight quibble we have is that it really should be using Siri to sing the lyrics… or, since Siri’s nowhere to be found on the Mac, at least the Samantha voice in OS X’s Text-To-Speech mode.

[via MacMagazine]

Rumors have been flying about Apple’s next-gen iPhone featuring a liquidmetal alloy casing, unlike the glass backing that currently cradles the iPhone 4 and 4S’s precious internals. Liquidmetal would assumedly create a lighter iPhone that’s also more durable and scratch resistant. There’s also been rumors that the next-gen MacBooks will be made of liquidmetal, but no hard evidence has surfaced to support the speculation.

Two years ago Apple bought exclusive rights to use material from Liquidmetal Technologies in its products, but we have yet to see a liquidmetal iPhone. The only liquidmetal material to be incorporated was the pin used for ejecting the iPhone 3G SIM card. Will 2012 be the year Apple’s product line goes liquidmetal? Sadly, the odds don’t look good.

In my day job, I work with folks with disabilities. Some of them have lost the ability to speak through an accident or stroke, and come to us looking for technology and devices to help them reclaim their ability to communicate with others. One of the apps I find myself frequently recommending is today’s tip.

May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here  and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.

AirWatch provides a full range of mobile management features and implements all of the iOS 4 and iOS 5 management and monitoring capabilities. The software integrates with a range of enterprise technologies including directory services. The service works with a wide range of clients including small and mid-size businesses, large and enterprise organizations as well as government agencies.

Did you know that Steve Jobs played the role of FDR in a colossal World War II styled Apple commercial? We’ve seen glimpses of Steve in his FDR costume from a video made to celebrate Jobs’s 30th birthday, but we never knew the context of why Jobs was dressed up like the former-U.S. President until now.

After the success of their 1984 Super Bowl commercial, Apple created a broad-cast quality production titled “1944” that was designed to motivate Apple’s international sales force during a 1984 company meeting in Hawaii. Apple supposedly spent $50,000 on the production that used a mix of professional actors alongside prominent Apple figures. The 9-minute commericial uses a World War II theme to focus on the battle between Apple and IBM, with El Jobso taking up the mantle of FDR. The entire video is pretty bizarre and terribly corny, but definitely worth watching.

Spigen’s all-glass iPhone and iPad screen protectors use some special kind of silicone gloop to stick them in place, but that same gloop can be found in one of Spigen’s cases. It’s called the Diary, and as it consists of just one sheet of folded leather, it’s about as minimal as you can get. It’s also pretty classy, and has one huge, glaring omission.

You may have been quite content using such unofficial apps as the UK Train Times for your detailed, real-time U.K. train information but we thought you’d like to know that an official U.K. National Rail app has finally made its way to Anroid and iOS. Announced yesterday, the official National Rail Enquiries app for iOS and Android feature detailed, real-time information as well as:

Let me begin this review by admitting that seeing the words “electric” and “British” close together always seems to conjure up images of an MG or Triumph on fire, with flames pouring out of the engine compartment (apologies to British readers, co-workers, editors or friends I may have offended with this statement. Also my mom).

UK-based DBest’s tiny single, and stereo, Bluetooth speaker models — respectively named PS4001BT ($60) and PS4003BT ($70) — didn’t spark; in fact, apart from a lack of sophistication, the tiny dynamos were surprisingly powerful, packing a powerful audio punch into an almost unbelievably minuscule package — especially in the case of the single-speaker unit, the clear winner of the two models.

Parallels released an update to the company’s mobile access app for iPhone and iPad. The app offers an array features, particularly for iPad users. The current update adds iPad and iOS 5 optimization, international keyboard support, retina graphics on the new iPad, along with several bug fixes including Mac and Windows scrolling fixes.

During last week’s earnings call Tim Cook was asked what he thought about Windows 8 being “optimized” for tablets. Cook humorously responded that, “anything can be forced to converge, but the problem is that products are about tradeoffs, and you begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day does not please the user. You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.

Well, guess what, Timmy? A couple of genius engineers over at The Brydge went out and combined two of the greatest kitchen appliances of our time — the toaster and the fridge —  and came up with the glory of The Froaster. Eat those words! Eat them!

Do you use Amazon’s Cloud Drive over any of the other cloud clients du jour like Dropbox, SkyDrive, SugarSync, Google Drive, and so on? Congratulations: you’ve somehow managed to be a die-hard user of the service despite the lack of a native Mac app. You had to upload and download files through the browser like some kind of sucker.

Now Amazon’s about to reward you for your patience with the native client they probably should have shipped in the first place. Yup, the wait is over: Amazon’s Cloud Drive Desktop App for Mac is now here, allowing you to easily upload your files to Cloud Drive by dragging them to an icon or simply right-clicking on a file or folder.

Just don’t expect Dropbox-style syncing. Cloud Drive’s a different kind of beast, and if you want to download your files, you’ll have to do so manually.

If you have been thinking about dipping a photographic toe into the contrasty, blurred waters of Lensbaby’s lenses, and you happen to have $750 (but not $805) lying around the house with nothing to spend it on, then perhaps you might consider the Pro Effects Kit, a bundle of some of Lensbaby’s funnest gear, all in its own special bag.

Back in March, Amazon offered up certified refurbished Amazon Kindle Fires for an amazing $139. It was only a 24-hour deal but sold out in half the time. Well, the deal is back, and yes, it’s another 24-hour deal. It’s already about half-way through the deal but they still appear in stock so you might want to take this opportunity to pick up a nice little tablet for cheap.

Deploying a large number of Macs with a full load of software can be a challenge for any organization. There are, of course, tools that help ease the process of both initial roll outs as well as software installation or updates.

If Mac users also need the ability to run Windows apps,however, there’s an extra layer of complexity. IT departments need to to get Windows onto each Mac, configured, and joined to enterprise systems in an efficient manner. Adding to the challenge Windows on Mac deployments add to the good  amount of additional data that needs to be deployed – more than doubling it in some situations.

The BYOD movement has transformed the relationship between IT staffers and other employees in a wide range of companies. While there are benefits to BYOD, there are also headaches – and securing data on personal devices and/or securing the devices themselves is one of the biggest. While there’s an ongoing discussion about whether to manage data, apps, or devices, right now most companies are developing a strategy that has a mix of approaches.

All that could change if the mobile management industry unfolds the way Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney expects. Dulaney is an advocate of creating what he calls “beneficial viruses” that companies can layer into apps and data itself – the idea being that the data could delete itself if it becomes compromised.

Amazon’s lineup of Kindle e-readers and tablets have been fairly successful devices for U.S. retailer Target, with the Kindle Fire becoming its best-selling tablet on Black Friday last year. However, a leaked memo has revealed that the company is about to cease carrying all Amazon devices due to a “conflict of interest.” Many believe it’s simply a ploy to boost its sales of Apple devices.

PopCap and Walls360 have teamed up to bring the the zombie apocalyptic hit Plants vs. Zombies to a bare wall near you. You’ve spent countless hours defending your virtual home from these hideous undead, now you can protect your real home with these re-positionable, self-adhesive wall graphics that will stick to almost any surface.

It’s been a long time coming, but Spotify has finally arrived fully optimized for iPad. But if you’re a newcomer to Spotify on iOS, be warned: you need a Premium account to really get the most out of this app.

Scott Forstall, Apple’s Senior Vice President of iOS Software, has sold 65,151 shares of his Apple stock — the equivalent of 95% of his stake in the company — for a staggering $38.7 million. He now owns just 2,988 Apple shares, worth around $1.8 million, but if he sticks around, there’s plenty more where they came from.

Just think of all that time you spend managing your monitor. There are Energy Saver preferences, Screen Savers, and the like to keep your energy usage lower and less costly. Today’s tip is the most easy and least time consuming way to do so that we’ve seen.

“Unopened! Still sealed in original retail box!” cry the Craigslist ads advertising “new” iPhones and iPads at lower-than-retail prices, but the truth is far more insidious: many of the “new” iPhones you see on Craigslist and eBay are actually old, used iPhones repackaged and sold as new using the hardware equivalent of meat glue.

Despite steady demand since the device made its debut back in March, Apple has still been able to maintain a speedy international rollout for its latest iPad. The new device is now available in 57 countries around the world, and what’s more, its shipping delay in the U.S. has now dropped to just 3-5 days.

Merely two years after the launch of the iPad, Spotify has finally released a big-screen edition of everybody’s favorite music-streaming app. In short, it works a lot like Twitter for the iPad, and it doesn’t have Spotify apps. The app is Universal, so when it hits the store (it’s still not showing up in some places), it will do so as an update, and while it is free, you’ll need to be a paid Spotify subscriber to use it.

Even with iCloud now up and running, Dropbox is still one of the best ways to sync documents between your Mac and iOS devices. It’s so great that all kinds of iOS apps — task managers, word processors, and even games — use Dropbox to send your data to the cloud so that you can access it on any of your devices.

However, Apple just turned up to the party swinging its banhammer. The Cupertino company has begun rejecting certain iOS apps that use the Dropbox SDK simply because they link to the Dropbox website.