Angry Birds Space gains a laser sight to guide your birds
Angry Birds Space has just survived re-entry and is now in the App Store for just $1. The new Angry Birds, despite the release of the Seasons and Rio editions, is the true sequel to probably the most popular iOS game ever. Also, it rocks.
Netflix has updated its popular iPad app with enhanced Retina graphics. Everything from the icon to the app’s text has been updated for the new iPad’s shiny display, and the update is available now in the App Store.
One of the biggest complaints about the Netflix iOS app has been the lack of HD video streaming, and according to Netflix, HD video is coming soon. We wouldn’t be surprised if the next app version included the upgrade. We can’t wait for that!
Remember that streaming HD video over 4G on the new iPad will use a lot of data, so be aware of how much video you stream on the go.
One of the new features introduced in iOS 5 was the ability to create keyboard shortcuts for common and often used phrases. This feature was embraced by many iOS users, and for some has become the most useful feature in Apple’s latest release of iOS. Many don’t know it, but OS X actually includes this same feature. In this video, I’ll show you how to find it and set it up.
I’m a dead treeware holdout when it comes to cookbooks, and as such any recipes I save from the web are scattered across Pinboard, Instapaper and Simplenote. But Basil is the app that might just change all that. Yes, it’s another recipe organization app, but there’s a difference. Basil lets you throw in recipes from just about anywhere, formats them and categorizes them ready to use.
Showing off the ADT Pulse app is just one way the iPad delivers sales benefits for ADT
One of the immediate associations that most people have when they think about the iPad in business is the iPad as a sales tool. Not surprising given its form factor and the ease with which it can display presentations, offer up a portfolio, and generate quotes on the fly.
Do those abilities really add up to increased sales over binders of information, colorful brochures, and canned presentations on DVD? For home security giant ADT, the answer is an emphatic yes.
The new iPad delivers lightning fast 4G data speeds.
Some recent reports have suggested that the new iPad can use more data than its predecessor while on 4G LTE networks. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since faster download speeds on the new iPad will certainly lead to more online activity. It’s like saying an engine won’t get you somewhere faster after its been turbocharged.
One of the biggest features in the new iPad is its ability to use 4G data speeds on AT&T, Verizon, and select carriers in other countries. In most cases one can get faster speeds on the new iPad than a home DSL connection offers. It’s truly phenomenal.
Since you can’t get unlimited data on the iPad here in the states unless you’re grandfathered in, it’s important to be careful about how you use your iPad when you’re away from a WiFi network. It can be easy to blow through 1GB of data in a month if you don’t watch your activity. Here are some helpful tips and tricks for saving 4G data on your new iPad.
Apple's iPhone Configuration Utility can be a jumpstart for iPads in the workplace
For many IT shops, the iPad and/or the iPhone can be a conundrum. While iOS has built-in enterprise capabilities, they may not be immediately apparent. There’s also the fact that Apple doesn’t act the same way as most enterprise vendors. Apple does offer enterprise sales and support teams, training and certification programs, and a solid selection of enterprise-related resources, but rarely promotes them. This can be disorienting and frustrating to most IT professionals.
Often there’s a sense of urgency around getting iOS devices integrated securely that adds to this stress – it can be because executives want them, users are bringing them in and doing work on them already with no regard for IT or policies, or because there’s been a decision to offer iPads to specific users or groups.
The ideal beginning when faced with this prospect is to take a deep breath and then to begin breaking down the issues that need to be addressed and prioritizing and handling them. As with other major IT projects, you’ll probably need to develop stop-gap measures to keep things running until your final solution is ready to be rolled out.
Check out the best Retina-ready games already available in the App Store.
Since the new iPad made its debut in the U.S. and nine other countries last week, iOS developers have been working hard to optimize their titles for the device’s Retina display. There are already some fantastic games on offer that are Retina-ready, so we’ve compiled a list of the best so that you can get you game on in stunning high-definition, and compared them to their iPad 2 counterparts so you can see how nice the new graphics look.
Every once in a while a jailbreak tweak comes along that tires to reinvent multitasking on the iPhone. We’ve seen webOS-inspired tweaks like Multifl0w, multiasking-focused tweaks like Zephyr, and many others over the years.
A relatively new package called Imperium aims to change the way we jailbreakers multitask on the iPhone yet again. Is it worth the $1 price tag? Let’s take a closer look.
My Twitter stream. No, didn't know it looked like that either
Biologic is a – hmm, what is it exactly? It’s hard to describe. It’s not a Twitter client, although you can see Twitter with it. It’s not a Facebook client either, but your Facebook friends are all here if you want them to be. So what is it? The people who made it say it’s a “playful environment for exploring your friends’ activity streams from your favorite social networks.” Yeah, that covers it.
iPhoto lets you edit your pics with intuitive gestures on the iPhone and iPad.
Apple announced iPhoto for iOS at its March 7th iPad event, and the app has already been downloaded by over 1 million unique customers in less than two weeks. Since the app is priced at a cool $5, that means Apple has made at least $5 million since launch day. Not too shabby.
Your new iPad's Wi-Fi issues may not be hardware-related, and this simple fix could solve your issue.
This morning we reported that a number of new iPad owners are suffering from poor Wi-Fi performance on their new tablet. If you’re one of the unlucky few, then this simply fix might just solve the issue, and in turn save you a visit to the Genius Bar.
Rhombi, triangles, and rectangles probably don’t elicit a sexual response from you most times, but Apple thinks those beautiful shapes can be a little bit too orgasmic when combined in different configurations. Artist Luciano Foglia’s app of geometric shapes was recently rejected by Apple because they claimed it contained “excessively objectionable or crude content.” But it’s just a bunch of geometric shapes, so why did Apple label it as pornographic? Take a look and judge for yourself:
The Boostcase Hybrid is a battery case that's only bulky when it's charging your iPhone.
The iPhone gets great battery life, but we no longer live in the era of simple cell phones with week long battery life. That smartphone in your pocket isn’t just a way to make calls, but a real humming along inside your pocket, checking email, playing music, keeping an eye on your location, accepting text messages, sucking up push notifications, running Skype and a million other uses beside. That all takes up precious charge, and the more you pull that iPhone out of your pocket, the more quickly you use your battery up.
Given the realities of smartphone power management, battery cases like the Mophie Juice Pack are a necessary evil. Sure, they double and sometimes triple your battery life, but they also double and sometimes triple the size of your iPhone in your pocket. Worse, they are all-or-nothing affairs: if you want to use one, you need to take your existing case off your phone and put the juice pack on instead.
Boostcase’s new Hybrid Case does away with all that. It’s really two cases in one: a lightweight plastic protective case that can snap onto a beefy battery upgrade pack as needed that can juice your iPhone back up. And it’s a pretty great choice for anyone who doesn’t want to juggle cases on the go.
Lead Hipstamatic iOS engineer Sam Soffes sends a pic to Instagram
Instagram is undoubtedly the reigning champion of social photography apps, but there was once a time when Hipstamatic owned the spotlight. As the mobile app that took the trend of filtered photo sharing mainstream, Instagram owes a lot of its success to Hipstamatic. Apple awarded the iPhone app of the year award to Hipstamatic in 2010 and the torch was passed to Instagram in 2011.
As of today, Hipstamatic will now let you send photos you take in the app to Instagram. Not only does this move establish Instagram as the iPhone photography app victor, but it also establishes the app in its own right as a social network of the same caliber as Twitter for Facebook.
The contents of my man-sack, laid out for your inspection
We’re nosey as anyone here at Cult of Mac. We are also complete nerds, which means that we’re always peeking into people’s bags at conferences, or checking out what gear people use.
And we figured that you all might be just as bad, so we figured we’d rip open our man bags, handbags and purses and show you what’s inside, and why we carry what we do. We’ll be doing this every Wednesday, and to start things off, I’ll be showing you the contents of my bag. What you see above is my everyday bag surrounded by its everyday contents. To see what’s in there, read on.
In the desktop and laptop world, computer chips tend to get smaller over time, but with the A5X, Apple has gone a different route: they’ve actually made the chip bigger than its predecessors.
How big is the A5X? Over 310 percent bigger than the A4 shipped in the iPhone 4 and original iPad.
If you’re looking to create some smashing iOS apps and want to get all the goods delivered to you in one comprehensive course, we’ve got a Cult of Mac Deals offer that more than fits the bill!
Containing over 66 lectures and 11 hours of content, this iOS app development course we’re offering will teach you the fundamentals of Objective-C and a ton of the advanced strategies used by the pros. To get this kind of training in a live setting would run you in the neighbourhood of $3000 – but at Cult of Mac Deals we’re bringing it to you in an on-demand capacity for only $89!
Managing the iPad and other devices doesn't require a one size fits all approach
There are multiple ways that companies can approach mobile management. The most common approach is device management where IT pre-configure a device and locks it down by not allowing users access to certain features and/or prevents the installation of apps. There’s also the approach of locking down data in which enterprise apps allow IT to create and manage an encrypted sandbox for business data on the device. There’s also the option of taking a lighter hand and issuing policies about acceptable use where IT can use device management tools to ensure that users are complying with those policies.
There are pros and cons to each approach but the truth is that there’s no need to pick one approach over the others. An effective management strategy can actually employ multiple styles of management. It’s also important to remember that mobile management doesn’t need to be one size fits all – it’s perfectly fine to use different levels of management and security based on the job functions of users, on the ownership of devices, or on the devices themselves (and their OS version).
The idea of mixing mobile management options as a best practices got a boost this week in a pari of announcements my some of the major players in the enterprise mobility space.
When you've finished filling in our 3G/LTE survey, your entry should look like this.
Here at Cult of Mac, we’re interested in building a data set which we can use to determine which networks offer the fastest and most reliable 3G & LTE coverage to new iPad owners. We’ll then use this data to report on which new iPad carrier is the best in each country or territory where it’s available.
Will LTE networks be crushed by demand, or will the upgrade to true 4G be as dramatic as the likes of AT&T and Verizon would like us to be. Finally, will most people who buy an iPad Wi-Fi + 4G even live within an LTE coverage area?
If you’ve got a new iPad Wi-Fi + 4G, could you take a couple minutes out of playing with your new, shiny tablet and help us out?
Air Display for iPad will soon give you a small taste of future Retina Display Macs to come.
Do you use your iPad as a second monitor using Air Display to wirelessly extend your desktop? If so, bet you wish you could harness your new iPad’s retina display, don’t you? Unfortunately, the functionality currently isn’t baked into Air Display, but that’ll soon change… and for the first time let millions of OS X users experiment with the hidden HiDPI mode in Lion and Mountain Lion.
It seems unlikely you'll ever see an iTunes icon here.
Despite being totally dedicated to Mac OS X right now, I can’t help but get excited about Windows 8. Having enjoyed the Metro UI experience with Windows Phone, I can’t wait to try it out on a tablet. And I know a lot of users feel the same way. But one thing that could put many of them off Windows 8 slates is the lack of iTunes.
Microsoft knows this, and it knows it’s a real problem that could kill Windows 8 tablets before they’ve even hit the market in the minds of many consumers.
FreedomPop's plans include a 4G iPhone case hotspot
Earlier this week, NetZero launched a new freemium mobile broadband service using Clearwire’s WiMax 4G network. Although NetZero is the first U.S. company to launch a “free” 4G service, it isn’t going to be the last. Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom has begun work on a similar service called FreedomPop that will launch this summer.
FreedomPop plans to offer more monthly data for free than NetZero’s paltry 200MB. It will also target iPhone owners as a major part of its user base.
If you care nothing for aesthetics, you can make a stylus in a couple minutes. Photo CNET
So, you just spent $800 on a shiny new iPad so you could write, paint and draw on the go. But — inexplicably — you’re still too cheap to spend $20 on a stylus to help you do it. And if you’re this tight with your money, it’s likely that you have been hoarding the very ingredients you need to make your own stylus right now. So go grab the detritus lingering at the bottom of your fruit bowl or junk drawer and follow along.