Cult of Mac

Everyone is generous about advising Apple on how it should spend its billions.

Apple should buy Twitter, according to financial analyst and blogger, Barry Ritholtz.

Apple could become a bank, according to consulting company KAE. Or maybe just buy American Express.

Apple should buy a chip manufacturer, Dell, Nintendo, Disney, Tesla, Sprint, Nvidia, VISA, Newsweek, the US Postal Service, according to a seemingly endless list of pundits.

Gimme a break.

I think Apple should buy… nothing. Here’s why. 

As we kick off another weekend, I’m sure you’re not thinking about all of the email you have to deal with when you return to work. I’m not just talking about the email that you left behind for follow-up; I’m also talking about all of the email you’ll receive over the weekend. After all, the Internet never sleeps.

Knowing all of this, can your mind truly be on the weekend at hand? Furthermore, can you keep your mind on the important stuff that goes on outside of your email inbox knowing that you’re going to have to deal with both the important and unimportant messages that will arrive in your inbox on a non-stop basis?

It’s kind of insane, isn’t it?

This is where the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer comes to the rescue…with SaneBox.

https://www.cultofmac.com/155915/steve-jobs-hated-the-new-apple-tv-ui-but-apple-changed-it-anyway/

Complementing the launch of the new Apple TV, an iOS software update made some significant changes to the Apple TV user interface after the new iPad keynote. Over the last couple weeks the new UI has received a heavy dose of criticism from fans who feel like the new interface is a step backwards, and it turns out that those criticisms may be true. Literally.

According to one ex-Apple TV Engineer, the new Apple TV UI has been on the table for about five years, but Steve Jobs himself allegedly didn’t like it and rejected its implementation. Now that Jobs isn’t around “to say no to bad design,” the UI was resurrected.

iOS hackers are some of the most sought after individuals in the security research community. Geniuses like Comex who come up with jailbreaks used by millions of iPhone and iPad users are offered incredible sums of money to sell their exploits to powerful and high profile clients.

Sure, you could win a decent amount of cash at a security conference for showing off the exploits you’ve uncovered, but why not make $250,000 and secretly sell your stuff to say, an entity like the U.S. government?

Jailbreakers enjoy all kinds of cool Siri add-ons, and a tweak called BatteryLevelAE lets you use Apple’s digital assistant to give you helpful information about your iPhone’s battery life. In a world where we’re always on the go, keeping track of your iPhone’s battery can sometimes be the last thing on our minds. That’s why BatterLevelAE makes it easy for you — just ask Siri.

A new app for the iPad, The Guitar Collection: George Harrison, is rather like a little pocket book of the former Beatles’ most famous axes. It features the history, pics, guitar model specifications, and historic photographic images of the iconic instruments.

But unlike a book, it’s a multimedia feast full of 3D models, music clips, and videos of George and his pals talking rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a rich potpourri of sounds and visuals for Beatlemaniacs. Trouble is, there’s so much missing.

https://www.cultofmac.com/155834/apple-downsizes-it-training-and-certification-how-the-changes-may-impact-you/

Like many technology companies, Apple offers training and certification programs. The company’s certification options have typically been aimed at three different core competencies: hardware troubleshooting/repair, IT support and systems administration, and creative professionals using Apple’s “Pro” applications.

As Apple has moved out of the data center over the past year and a half, it has been making major changes to its training and certification options for IT professionals. Some of these changes could have been anticipated and some have been big surprises with major consequences to individuals and to organizations that have long employed Apple enterprise solutions.

Frameographer is an excellent $3 photography app for stop motion and time lapse video recording. It works because it keeps things as simple as they can possibly be.

If you’re selling, giving away, or scrapping an old iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you’re likely to plug it into iTunes and hit the restore button to remove all of your personal content and reset the device’s software back to factory settings. But did you know that you can do all that without iTunes?

Here’s how to reset your iOS device and remove all of its content and settings without iTunes.

I love getting to review products from Just Mobile because I know they will always have excellent build quality. The Highway car charger for the iPhone is no exception. At about $35, the Highway isn’t exactly price sensitive. You’ll be able to find a multitude of cheaper solutions at your local Walmart, but you won’t find anything quite as luxurious.

The likelihood of Apple significantly expanding the size of the next iPhone to make way for a bigger display is pretty laughable, but LTE seems like a lock for the next iPhone. That’s why we’ve got a good feeling about a new report that says that while the next iPhone will be truly 4G in every sense of the term, the biggest change to the overall form factor of the device will be a new micro dock connector.

Although many EU consumer laws already guarantee twice as much protection, Apple can continue to rip off customers there by selling AppleCare extended warranties.

Lawyer Carlo Piana told Cult of Mac that although Apple lost its appeal over fines for unfair business practices in an Italian court, that probably won’t affect Apple’s stance in the rest of the EU-27, although consumer laws are “harmonized” across member states.

Episode 5 of The CultCast just hit iTunes my friends, and this one is sure to give you a pleasant, tingly sensation.

This week we investigate the truth behind overheating new iPads; declare why new retina display MacBooks could be in your hands by summer; and new iPad data plans — why are some users chewing through their monthly caps in less than a week?

All that and so much more on this week’s CultCast. Subscribe now!

Picture this: You’re at the park, playing with your dog, and an overwhelming hunger cripples you. God you need some tacos, but the nearest joint is 3 miles away, and they don’t like dogs. Don’t worry bro, TacoCopter is here to rescue you from your perils. Well it might be. I have no idea if this thing is real or not, but everything inside of me wants it to be because it combines three of my favorite things: robots, iPhone apps, and tacos. TacoCopter is a website that claims to a be a startup in San Francisco that will use magical flying robots to deliver tacos to your location.

A truly awesome deal like this only comes around every once in a while…but a truly awesome deal like this also won’t last for very long either! In fact, the Mac Spring 2012 Bundle is around for less than 24 hours, so you’d better grab these amazing 10 Mac apps while you can!

This latest Cult of Mac Deals offer includes apps that are valued at over $800.00 – and there’s something for everyone to be found in it. But for the next few hours you’ll get them all for an exclusive price of just $49.99! That’s a savings of over 90%!

It’s no secret that Apple’s stock has been flying higher than an eagle hopped up on Charlie Sheen’s cocaine stash. I’m no stock expert, but it doesn’t look like AAPL’s upward trend is going to stop any month soon, and it’s going to make investors a boat load of more money. Yesterday, I found out my friend had bought 94 shares of Apple stock back in 2004 for $21 a share. He’s held onto the shares this entire time too. Despite being jealous as hell at his good fortune, I’m also cheering on the stock to hit $1000 so he can cash in a big pay day and treat me to a fine dinner.

The latest Joy of Tech comic gets my jealous angst perfectly. Here’s the rest of it:

You know the drill. You take a walk around a nearby neighborhood at dusk, when it’s dark enough that people have switched their lights on, but not late enough that they have closed their drapes. You glance through the windows and get a tiny, thrilling glimpse into their private world.

But what if you want to get even creepier? How many bedrooms does that house have? How much is it worth? Does it have heating? The answers to these questions can be had using an iPhone app called HomeSnap. Just snap a photo of the home, and it will pull up the details in seconds.

Earlier this week, we highlighted the growing need for companies to develop more comprehensive approaches to iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices than simply purchasing and implementing a mobile device management console. The device-only approach isn’t always a solution in itself and there’s a growing trend of focusing on managing the information and apps on an iOS device instead of (or in addition to) the device itself.

As this multi-tiered model becomes more common, businesses are typically looking at multiple solutions, which is prompting companies in this space to develop strategic partnerships or consider acquisitions as a way of offer businesses a more integrated approach. Two instances of this were the announcement of Good and Box partnering for secure data and enterprise cloud storage and Symantec’s acquisition of Nukona and Odyssey.

Another partnership was announced yesterday between MDM vendor MobileIron and enterprise wireless firm iPass.

https://www.cultofmac.com/155739/foxconn-employs-more-people-than-most-of-the-worlds-armies/

Apple’s main supplier pal Foxconn is massive. With multiple mega-factories that can include up to 400,000 workers living on a cramped “campus,” it’s no surprise that Foxconn has quickly become one of the biggest companies in the world. They employ more people than Apple. Not only that, but they’re actually the 10th largest employer in the world, which is freaking enormous when you consider that the US Department of Defense is the world’s largest employer with 3.2 million employees. Foxconn, on the other hand, is just a few notches below them with 1.2million employees. Amazing!

Apple stock just keeps going up, up, up… except when some computer goes bananas, starts screaming “SELL SELL SELL” and all of Wall Street panics. Which is pretty much what happened earlier today, when Apple stock lost 9% of its value in just a blink of an eye.

So you just bought yourself a new Android tablet, and you wish you’d gone for the iPad. Well, that’s too bad. But you’ll be pleased to hear that you can still get your hands on the iPad’s home screen, thanks to Espier Launcher HD.

Way back in September, we told you about a “forthcoming” mod by U.K. based iPatch that would turn the Apple logo on the back of your iPhone into a glowing cutout illuminated by the back of the display, just like on a MacBook. iPatch promised the mod would cost around $160 and be available in about a month.

Well, six months later, and we still don’t have glowing iPhones, but the guys at iPatch are still apparently tinkering with their perpetually imminent mod, and have now shown off how it will allow them to make a miniature torch out of the headphone jack. The iPatch guys talk about how you could then use transparent earbuds to make glow-in-the-dark headphones, but I think they’re missing the true potential here. Can anyone say “laser pointer”?