Cult of Mac

Apple has a patent for a touchscreen iMac with an arm that swivels the display down to allow you to manipulate the display more like an iPad, without getting “gorilla arm.” It’s a cool patent, but what would that iMac look like in real life? Motion graphics and 3D animation student Joakim Ulseth put together an awesome video bringing an iMac Touch running OS X Mountain Lion to life. There’s a lot of problems with this sort of design, and Apple would never in a million years release it, but it sure does make a sexy video. [via iFans]

Remember back in the day when Apple and Google were all chummy? Back when the original iPhone was released in 2007, and Google wasn’t in the smartphone business? That all changed once Google betrayed Apple’s trust and launched the Android operating system, and ever since then Google has held the stance that they never copied the iPhone. It’s hard to prove that a company wasn’t thinking about something, but newly released designs of Google’s original concept phone from 2006 show that Google wasn’t even considering the creation of a touchscreen smartphone back when the iPhone was unveiled, so they stole Apple’s designs instead once they saw them.

You know how many tech companies strive to make our experience of their products easier and more transparent so that — in the case of things like the iPad — the product disappears and lets us enjoy whatever it is that it does?

Koss didn’t get that memo, and has launched Striva, an “initiative” which takes something as simple as a headphone and makes it as complicated as an old-school router.

You know how it is. There are a bunch of apps out there that allow you to open and edit different types of files on your iOS device. Look, we get it. You just want to view the file, right? No need to edit or collaborate or whatever. Just, you know, look at it. Sadly, while iOS is fairly magical, it only has a few file types it can view natively. Which is where today’s tip comes in.

Google Drive was announced yesterday, and we’ve spent some time putting the OS X client software to the test. How does it stand up against the list of rivals (which seems to be growing by the day)?

Gameloft released a teaser video for the upcoming N.O.V.A. 3 game which is rumored to be powered by Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3. This is the third installment in the N.O.V.A. franchise, which stands for Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, and picks up with Kal Wardin crash-landing towards Earth. Gameloft has been known for their console-quality mobile games and N.O.V.A. 3 doesn’t look to disappoint.

In theory, there are two players in the bookbindery iPad case market: Pad&Quill and Dodocase. But that’s a little like saying that there are two players in the tablet market itself: iPad and (snicker) Android. Technically it’s true, but the difference in real life is huge.

Sure, Dodocase makes a nice lightweight case, but it is pretty much the same one it launched a couple years ago. Pad&Quill’s cases, on the other hand, have just gotten better, iteration by iteration. Just like Apple’s products.

The latest are the Contega and Octavo cases for the iPad 3, and they pack a surprising amount of tech into such a traditional design.

Tickets to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference sold out in less than two hours this morning. WWDC is a great event for any developer to attend. The media focus around WWDC, however, always centers on the keynote that kicks of the conference Monday morning – and with good reason. That’s the only public event at the show and also the least technical part of the conference.

The keynote is always more Apple announcement and preview than it is developer content. Apple uses it to announce and preview new technologies in the next iterations of OS X and iOS. The company has also used its WWDC keynote to launch new products (like the iPhone 4 in 2010).

One of the greatest things about a service like Dropbox is that as long as you are either using apps with support baked in or can save your files to a Dropbox folder, you can keep all your data synced between multiple Macs.

What if you want to keep app data synced between Macs that don’t lend themselves to being saved to a Dropbox folder or don’t come with Dropbox support, though?

For example, most Mac games don’t allow you to specify where you keep your saves, but what if you want to be able to save your game on your iMac and then load it up again on the road on your MacBook Pro? Or what if you want to keep your app settings synced between your iMac and MacBook Air? Settings files are usually stored in a hidden system folder on your Mac, so how do you keep things synced then?

It’s actually way easier than you might think. Here’s how to keep any file or folder synced between Macs using the cloud, no matter where it’s stored.

Apple had a crazy earnings call this week. The company nearly doubled quarterly profits, vastly exceeding Wall Street expectations.

Apple’s stock price will probably now reverse course and head back into the stratosphere, and for one reason: China.

Apple sold 35.1 million phones during the quarter worldwide, which provided half the total revenue reported by the company. Half!

Chinese phone sales in the reported quarter were, incredibly, five times higher than the same quarter last year. What’s surprising about this growth is that Apple still hasn’t signed a long-awaited deal with China’s largest carrier — the world’s largest carrier — China Mobile.

So it has become clear to everyone that Apple’s highest-revenue product ever has enormous future sales potential in China.

Also: Apple feels that it has far fewer points of sale (stores) in China than it needs.

When the China Mobile deal happens and Apple builds more stores, watch out. China is likely to become Apple’s biggest handset market, far exceeding even the United States.

Overall revenue for China was $7.9 billion, three times higher than last year.

Another crazy milestone: Asia-Pacific revenue for the quarter was actually higher than European revenue for the first time ever. The relative importance of Asia over Europe is likely to continue indefinitely.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

This is Fragile Earth, an interactive photo gallery designed to teach you a little about ecology, conservation and the natural environment.

There appear to be a few ways to stop your earbuds from dropping to the floor when you unplug them from your waxy canals. One is to just run the cable from the iPhone/iPod in your front pants pocket up through your shirt/t-shirt/muscle-vest and out through the neck hole. Pop out the earbuds and there they dangle. This is so easy and well-known that even clueless teenagers can manage it.

The second method, I have just discovered, is to use the Props from Quirky.

Ken Segall, who named the iMac and worked on the “Think Different” campaign, has some choice takeaways from working with Steve Jobs that he’s finally sharing in book form with Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success.

The cleanly-designed cover in Apple’s signature Myriad typeface looks almost like it should be unboxed; inside you’ll find choice insider tales of the flops, false starts and history made with Apple over the 12 years he worked with the Cupertino company. (You can read an exclusive excerpt from Insanely Simple and our review of the book here.)

Segall tells Cult of Mac about the reasoning behind that lowercase “i,” winning Jobs over and what happened when ads flopped. You can catch up with him through his blog or Facebook page, where you’ll also find details about his upcoming book tour.

What do you do when you have a huge DVD collection that you’ve been building for years, and combine it with Apple’s resolutionary new iPad? Your favorite movies are stuck in a physical format and you can’t even totally enjoy the awesome new Apple gadget you just bought. Repurchasing all your movies on iTunes would cost more than new iMac, but fortunately there’s a simple answer that is totally free.

This week we’re going to teach you how to take your DVDs, rip the movie files off them, and stream them to your iPad or iPhone courtesy of the folks at Digiarty. For the next 7 days Cult of Mac readers can get a free copy of MacX DVD Ripper Pro Streamer Edition provided by Digiarty, which will help change the way you watch movies.

Once you’ve downloaded your free software you’re going to need to know how to rip your old DVDs. It’s super easy, but we’re here to help you out. To get rip your movies from DVD to your Mac follow these 4 simple steps using MacX DVD Ripper Pro.

If you’ve ever wanted an amazing library that will help you take your designs to the next level, Cult of Mac Deals has an incredible offer for you.

This incredible bundle of over 90 different packs of resources, including textures, icons, vectors, brushes and more. It is an invaluable resource for any designers’ toolkit. Impress yourself, your clients, and design better with The Spring Creative Bundle – which is available for a very limited time you can stack up on these digital tools for only $49!

This year’s WWDC track listing has a focus that seems evenly split between between OS X and iOS development. There’s also a fairly even amount of material for both experienced Mac and iOS developers as well as those new to developing for Apple’s platforms. One track that Apple appears to have axed from WWDC 2012, however, is the IT or enterprise technologies track.

An IT or enterprise technology track has not been a guaranteed WWDC staple, but Apple has offered several times over the past decade. The track, which typically comprises the only non-developer events at WWDC, has always offered large enterprises and IT professionals things that they rarely get from Apple – a roadmap or sense of where Apple is heading technologically as well as insights from Apple engineers and other Apple-focsed IT professionals.

For the last few years, each Worldwide Developer’s Conference has sold out in successively less and less time. Three years ago, WWDC sold out in a month. Two years ago, it sold out in a week. Last year, it took twelve hours.

Everyone knew WWDC 2012 would sell out even faster than last year’s when it was eventually announced, but it’s obvious even Apple didn’t anticipate how fast that would be: less than two hours to sell out 5,000 tickets.

The problem? Cupertino-based Apple announced WWDC ticket sales before its own time zone even rolled out of bed and brushed its teeth. The result is that West Coast based app devs — the kind who can just climb in their cars and drive to the Moscone Center — have been totally boned, and tickets to WWDC were gone before they even knew they were available for sale.

The Ozaki iCoat Finger Case turns your iPhone 4/S into a see-saw, or teeter-totter. Kidding! While it *does* do that, it also protects your phone whilst storing a tiny, stubby stylus on its back. This design not only makes it awkward to hold the phone while in the case, it also stops it from fitting into pretty much any pants pocket or sleeve designed to accommodate even an iPhone already inside a case.

Here’s the most pared-down review I can manage of Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success by Ken Segall.

If you wonder what it was like to work with Steve Jobs: read it. You’ll enjoy it.

A new music service by Microsoft is expected to rear its face at E3 and should give us a better look into the “Spotify-like” Zune replacement code named “Woodstock.” While we generally wouldn’t be too interested in Microsoft news, the new service is reportedly going to be cross-platform and will indeed be available for Android and iOS.

Following the announcement of the already-sold-out WWDC 2012, Apple has officially begun accepting nominations for its 2012 Apple Design Awards. Mac and iOS apps can be nominated to win the most prestigious developer awards Apple gives each year, and past winners include apps like Infinity Blade and Things.

Registered iOS developers can nominate apps today and Apple will announce the winners at WWDC in June.

While the vast majority of the world’s tech press was focused on Apple’s record-breaking quarter yesterday, HTC quietly announced its own figures. Unlike Apple, the Taiwanese company reported a huge 70% drop in profits after raking in just $151.5 million during the three-month period. And it says the iPhone 4S is the main reason for its dismal quarter.

Tickets to Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) always sell out quickly once Apple announces the event – this year the conference sold out even faster than ever. In what was likely an effort to streamline ticket-purchasing and encourage more independent developers to attend, Apple modified the rules governing ticket purchases this year.

Whoa. WWDC 2012 was announced just under two hours ago, and the conference has already sold out. Apple has confirmed the news, and devs who weren’t able to grab a ticket are out of luck.

Three years ago, WWDC sold out in a month. The next year took a week to sell out. 2011 took just 12 hours. This year took 2 hours. How fast will next year sell out?

Here’s an exclusive excerpt from a new book about Steve Jobs and Apple by ex-advertising Mad Man, Ken Segall. The book is called Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success, and it’s on sale tomorrow. In the excerpt, we learn about Steve Jobs’s great reaction to criticism of the infamous hockey puck mouse, how he responded quickly to mistakes, and his attitudes toward the “brand bank.”