Sao Paulo, Brazil – Apple’s restrictive control measures and policies will ultimately fail, according to Linus Torvalds.
“Technologies that lock things down tend to lose in the end,” said Torvalds at the keynote of LinuxCon Brazil. (Cult of Mac is reporting from Sao Paulo; come to our Nov. 20 meetup for a chance to win a signed copy of the Brazilian edition of Leander Kahney’s “Inside Steve’s Brain.”)
Evil Twin is a joke photo app that makes use of something called the Thatcher Effect.
If you’re a photographer, designer or marketing type, chances are you’ve used Shutterstock‘s stock image service at some point — either to hawk your wares, or to grab inexpensive(ish) good-looking images for a project. And if you use the service frequently, things just became a little easier — thanks to Shutterstock’s new iPad app (as long as you have an iPad, of course; if you’re a photographer without an iPad, well, get one).
Myxer, which just released its iPhone app, is alot like Pandora, only with a huge side of friends. Instead of being based around a solitary experience, Myxer encourages users to listen to what their friends are into — which is great for discovering new tunes.
Jabra isn’t an organization afraid of veering off the main road; it seems to use many of its high-end Bluetooth gadgets as design and technology showpieces — sometimes with unfortunate results (the Stone sacrifced performance for a radically shaped body, and the Halo headphones were all kinds of awful).
But when Jabra isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, it’s actually able to give us stuff that’s pretty darn good. The outfit’s newest creation is the high-end Jabra Supreme ($100), the first monoaural Bluetooth headset to offer active noise-cancelling technology in its earpiece, along with all the other goodies usually stuffed into a primo ‘set. So Jabra’s definitely gone the showcase route with the Supreme — but this time, the headset is also an outstanding performer.
Flipboard, a popular RSS reader for the iPad, has been updated with a new Account feature that lets users sync settings across devices. A Flipboard Account lets users store feeds and other settings in the cloud.
Once a new Account is set up in-app, reading preferences and feeds are available to anyone that uses that login on another iPad. A Flipboard iPhone app is in the works, and this new feature prepares the service for syncing settings across more iOS devices in the near future.
US carriers can’t sell the iPhone 4S fast enough, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal. Potential iPhone customers are still unable to get their eager hands on Apple’s coveted smartphone, with many carriers estimating shipping dates of 1-3 weeks.
Initial iPhone 4S sales have made the device Apple’s fastest-selling product of all time, and demand continues to outpace supply.
The new beta of Skype for Mac and Windows integrates with Facebook to allow video calling between two people. As part of Skype’s new partnership with Facebook, users can access their friends’ Facebook status updates and messages within the Skype app.
A method has been uncovered that unlocks the GSM iPhone 4S for T-Mobile. By taking advantage of an alleged bug in iOS 5, you can supposedly unlock your iPhone 4S on AT&T without jailbreaking.
To perform the hack, you’ll need a T-Mobile Micro SIM and your AT&T SIM from your iPhone 4S.
AT&T is set to unveil a new store in the bustling metropolis of Chicago tomorrow, and the new space takes multiple cues from the Apple Stores that we’ve all come to know and love.
The carrier has spent recent months studying some of the most successful retail brands, including Apple, in an attempt to create a better in-store experience for customers. As part of AT&T’s new concept store, employees will be able to checkout buyers by using iPhones and iPads to handle transactions.
What do the kids want under the Christmas tree this year? According to new market research by Nielsen, youngsters in the US want iPads, iPod touches, and iPhones.
As the holiday season quickly approaches, kids between the ages of 6 and 12 desperately want a precious iOS device from Apple. The iPad is the most desired product on the nation’s collective Christmas lists, while the iPod touch and iPhone sit comfortably in the second and third spot.
I recall the time I met someone who was not only vision impaired, but nearly blind. However, their loss of vision didn’t prevent them from enjoying computers. Although we were both able to get a lot done, they wouldn’t have been able to get as much as I can get done without special tools like a large display with overly magnified and software enhancements on their computer.
Apple’s iOS mobile operating system offers nearly the same features to help the vision impaired and even people who depend on reading glasses to see things displayed on the iPhone’s tiny display. Here’s how to access them.
As a tribute to Steve Jobs, the guys over at Signal Snowboards decided to make a plank that was totally infused with the spirit of Apple design.
The result? A snowboard milled from a block of aluminum with a glowing, Apple-like logo and a built-in 3G iPad 2.
The verdict? Not exactly a great plank for maneuverability, but I’m just impressed they didn’t crack that iPad into a million pieces after their first trick./
It’s a tiny, tiny squidge of an update, but an update nonetheless: Apple has just released version 4.4.3 for the Apple TV, adding support for Netflix in Mexico and resolving an audio issue where sound might not play through the optical port when the attached TV is turned off.
As usual, to grab the update, just hit up Settings > General. Enjoy all those great streaming episodes of Abrázame Muy Fuerte!.
Apple has a long history of taking a technology created by Xerox and transforming it into the heart and soul of computing, such as the mouse or the concept of a graphic user interface. Now comes word Apple owns a Xerox patent for location based services. The patent could prompt Apple to sue a wide array of companies, ranging from Android-backer Google to social networking giant Facebook and any others relying on the ability to check users’ location.
With the Kindle Fire, Amazon has proved that it is possible to compete with the iPad, at least in the budget tablet market. Will they try to take the crown from the iPhone’s head next with a so-called Kindle Phone? Yup, maybe!
For the first time in 15 years, Apple has five percent of the global PC market. The numbers are almost embarrassing: 24.6 percent third-quarter Mac sales growth that beat the pants off a PC industry limping along with just a 5.3 percent increase.
Apple’s iOS devices, especially the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, are famous for their inability to endure even the smallest of drops without their displays shattering into a thousand tiny pieces. However, according to a patent application from the company, future iPhones could employ a fancy airbag system that prevents them from cracking when they hit the ground.
A new study contains more evidence the iPhone is taking hold at work, even displacing the stolid business-centric BlackBerry as the smartphone of choice. Of enterprise workers carrying a smartphone, 45 percent said the handset is an iPhone versus 32 percent for the BlackBerry.
A couple weeks ago, we posted about TwelveSix’s PlugBug, a cute little attachment that plugs into your standard MacBook MagSafe charger and gives it a 10W USB port, perfect for charging your MacBook and iPad simultaneously.
The PlugBug’s an ingenious little idea, and I’m reviewing one now. However, PlugBug’s days might be numbered: a new patent says that Apple is working on a universal power adapter that can charge MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPads, all at the same time.
Apple’s Texas Hold’em game was one of the first titles I purchased from the App Store when it opened for business in 2008, and the only game Apple has developed for iOS devices. And while it was a fantastic purchase at the time, the Cupertino company hasn’t exactly been committed to maintaining its popularity.
Its last update came in September 2008, and today, the game has been removed from the App Store completely.
Retailers have found getting rid of non-iPad tablets can be like selling Halloween candy in November. Retail giant Staples is taking a cue from other failed attempts to rival the Apple device and cutting up to $300 off RIM’s PlayBook, just in time for Christmas.
aTV Flash (black) from FireCore has now dropped its beta tag and hit version 1.0. The software package is designed to supercharge your second-generation jailbroken Apple TV, introducing a whole host of functionality that isn’t available from Apple. In addition to a media player which supports a huge variety of formats, aTV Flash will also introduce a web browser, weather and RSS feeds, a Last.fm radio, and more to your set-top box.
Could it get any sadder? Ten years late, Microsoft is finally set to open its sad sack retail store later today at Tysons Corner, pretty much directly across from the original Apple Store that started it all way back in 2001. Needless to say, the world’s pretty much yawning at the news, and so Microsoft is trying anything to get people to attend the grand opening. I’m not sure what’s sadder, though: the fact that they hired a Jonas Brother to draw in crowds, or the fact that the Jonas Brother they hired, Joe Jonas, is both a Mac user and a former entertainment act for Apple, famously drawing scores of screaming teens to the SoHo Apple Store in 2008.
Digging through the bowels of iOS 5.0.1, developer John Heaton found something neat: some code strings that strongly hint iChat functionality will be coming to iOS sometime more or less relativistically soon.