Cult of Mac

It’s a first-world problem to be sure, but that doesn’t make tangled headphone cords any less annoying. Wrapping them around your iDevice helps, but you’ll probably do it too tight and end up breaking the cables. And those reel-em-in hand-cranked spindles so beloved of Sony in the 1990s have disappeared, probably because they’re too much hassle, or just kept getting lost.

Bluetooth promised to be the answer, but still sounds awful and requires recharging one more gadget. So Quirky’s new Wired tangle-free earbuds have got a lot to prove. Can they do it?

The App Store reached the 25 billionth download milestone over the weekend, and Apple recently announced the lucky winner of the $10,000 contest, Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China. It’s only fitting that the winner comes from China when you consider the exponential growth Apple has been seeing in that part of the world.

As it did when the App Store reached 10 billion downloads last year, Apple has revealed the all-time top paid and free apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Matthew Emmi is a twelve year old boy that probably won’t get to enjoy some of the milestone events in life that you and I might take for granted. His autism has severely limited his ability to read, write and speak sentences. But even though his family and friends never know exactly what he’s thinking, they do know that he likes going to synagogue, and with the help of an iPad, Matthew’s parents and educators were able to give Matthew a full bar mitzvah.

See those two batteries in the image above? They were both taken from Apple’s iPhone 3GS. The one on the right ballooned within the device, causing it to literally burst at the seams, breaking the device’s plastic shell, pulling apart its metal bezel, and even popping its screws. Could this happen to your iPhone, too?

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34jkJoN8qOI

If you enjoyed Dylan Bennett’s great video on how and why noise affects your digital photos — which we brought you a couple weeks ago — then you’re going to love this one about depth-of-field. Depth-of-field often proves confusing, but simply put, it is the amount of your scene that is in focus.

With an update to v4.0, the Mac AirPlay server AirServer has gotten the ability to mirror the display of your iPad on your big-screen Mac. This is pretty big, as you can now not only send video and music to your Mac as you could before, but you can make presentations and even play games, wirelessly.

Could iPad 3 cases already be shipping to Best Buy? Sure, and probably are. Does that mean third-party case manufacturers know what to expect? Don’t count on it, but if so, the iPad 3 case above — a variation on the existing Targus Versavu 360 case for iPad 2 — is the first one you’ll be able to buy.

CineXplayer, the go-to iOS app for playing pretty much any kind of video you can throw at it, has been updated to include virtual surround sound. This gives you surround sound in stereo speakers or headphones instead of mixing Dolby Digital 5.1 surround down to a plain stereo signal.

Apple issued a press release this morning to confirm that more than 25 billion apps have now been downloaded from its “revolutionary” App Store by more than 315 million iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches worldwide. The company also announced the lucky winner of its $10,000 iTunes gift card.

The iPad 3 will be officially unveiled just days from now, but the rumor mill is always forward-looking, which means it’s already on its way to being yesterday’s news. What can we expect after the iPad 3? That’s what everyone wants to know now.

If a report from Apple’s best frenemy Samsung is anything to go by, it’ll be the long-rumored iPad mini.

Y’all know Instapaper, right? It’s the amazing read-later service from Marco Arment which lets you save anything your find on the web to read at your leisure on your iPhone, iPad or Kindle. Now a new, free, Mac App Store app called Read Later will let you read your articles on your Mac.

Optimizing your Mac can be a time intensive process, require expensive software, or need more knowledge of the inner workings of the computer than you’re willing to learn. When older Macs start to slow down or show quirky odd behaviors, using an app to optimize and clean things up can be a tremendous time and energy saver. It may also provide a zippier computer at the end of the process, something everyone will appreciate.

Fuzel is another one-dollar photo collage maker for iOS. There are dozens of others, so what marks this one out?

Well actually it’s rather impressive. To start with, it has a lovely natural interface that begins with the faux-textured front cover of a photo album, with your most recent creation poking through a hole. Swipe this aside, and keep swiping through your creations, just as you would with a real album.

Apple’s infamous 1984 advertising campaign for the original Macintosh needs little introduction from myself. The one-minute clip, which was inspired by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four novel and depicts IBM users as mindless followers, was a huge success. So much so that the marketing guru behind it, Regis McKenna, believes it was more successful than the Macintosh itself.

Square, the iOS credit-card company, wants to replace lame old cash registers with sleek iPads sporting its little square white credit card-reading dongle. The new Square Register app for iPad aims to do just that.

Apple is yet to strike a deal with China Mobile over the iPhone, but that hasn’t stopped the Cupertino company from supporting China Mobile customers who want to use its latest smartphone with the carrier unofficially. Just a month after Apple confirmed that the iPhone 4S has issues with China Mobile SIM cards, it has fixed the device to eliminate signal issues.

Here’s a jailbreak tweak guaranteed to put a smile on your face if you’re a music junkie. It’s called Plugication and it automatically resumes your music when you plug your headphones into your iOS device, negating the need to open up the Music app and resume it manually. Best of all, it’s completely free.

This simple image has become a cliché in the UK in recent years, and is now much parodied and remixed everywhere you look. Now you can remix it yourself, thanks to a variety of (very similar-looking) apps for iOS.

A man bought what he thought was an iPhone in an electronics plaza in Zhengzhou. But when he found out it was fake, he grabbed a kitchen knife and went back to the plaza to find the seller.

After coming back every day for several days unsuccessfully finding the seller, he found another group of counterfeit iPhone sellers, got into an argument and ending up stabbing one of them to death.

Read the rest of the story.

Over the last couple of months we’ve seen a truck load of individual leaked parts of the iPad 3 hit the web, but no one has had them all in one place. Someone finally got their hands on both the front and rear shells of the iPad 3 and put them together on video to reveal that what the iPad 3 will look like.

The release of OS X Mountain Lion is still months away, but it’s never too early to save some money.

OS X Mountain Lion is going to be the first major OS X update sold and distributed exclusively through the App Store. This means that if you want to upgrade you must purchase and download it from the App Store. For savvy buyers out there, this might be a good opportunity to get a discount on your upgrade by taking advantage of special deals on iTunes Gift Cards.

Take a glance at the App Store Top Paid Apps list and you’ll see that 7 out of 10 are games. So, if you want to CRUSH it with an iOS app…then this iOS game development course may just be your ticket.

Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, Peggle— each one is as unique as they come, but they’re tied together to one simple principle: they’re built using Cocos2D. In this course, expert Cocos2D instructor, Marin Todorov takes a hands-on approach and walks you step-by-step through the process of building a complete game.

Get it while you can, this Cult of Mac Deal is 50% off for a limited time!

Is Apple getting into the car business? No, Apple isn’t building a car. But it makes perfect sense that Apple would be working on an in-dash system.

The car blog Jalopnik said this week that a Chinese head-hunting firm is apparently helping Apple hire someone expert in the manufacturing of car parts. The recruiter apparently placed the position in the automotive section of LinkedIn. The listing said:

“Apple(China) Looking for SQE/NPI with over 4 years Mechanical engineering background familiar with CNC/die casting/stamping/plastic injection, can use APQP/ PPAP/SPC to control product quality.”

PatentlyApple.com has reported over the years multiple patents held by Apple for in-car user interfaces.

The circumstantial evidence suggests that Apple is at least thinking about getting serious about the automotive dashboard business.

And getting into the car business just makes sense for Apple. Here’s why. 

The U.S. Air Force has been awarded a $9.36 million to buy up to 18,000 iPads. They will be used for navigation and as digital flight manuals.

It’s one of the military’s largest orders of tablets.

Did you know Cult of Mac has a brand new podcast? No lies! We’re calling it The CultCast, and it’s the best 30 minute conversation you’ll hear about Apple all week long.

And wouldn’t you know it, we just released episode two into the wild! Join Leander Kahney, Buster Heine, and me, Erfon Elijah, as we yay and nay our way though all the iPad 3 rumors you’ve been hearing; ponder how Apple’s stock price could make it to $1000 per share; and argue about whether AT&T should be allowed to throttle those of us with unlimited iPhone data plans.

Sound tasty? Well dig in my friend! You can subscribe to The CultCast right now in iTunes and listen to episode two on your way to work!