Cult of Mac

Do you prefer to do your typing on a real keyboard with your iPhone or iPad? iOS already allows you devices with a Bluetooth keyboard, but what if you don’t have a spare one handy? Let’s say, for example, that your Apple Bluetooth Keyboard is already paired to your Mac, or you’re on the go and only have your MacBook Air handy. What then?

Enter Type2Phone, a great new app that allows you to make your Mac show up as a Bluetooth keyboard to iOS 3.2 or above. Now you don’t need a dedicated keyboard to type on your iPhone or iPad… your Mac can do it for you.

Telltale games have created some of my favorite games for the iPad, most notably their recent series of Back to the Future titles. But having finished with Marty McFly, the team have turned their focus to building another iPad adventure inspired by a fantastic film.

The first episode in a series of Jurassic Park games is now available to purchase from the App Store.

It’s going to be four months until Samsung can get patent infringement claims against Apple’s iPhone 4S before an Australian court. The nation’s federal court announced it will take up the charges in March, earlier than the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant wanted, but providing several months before any sales ban can go into effect.

It seems early iPhone 4S adopters the world over have discovered a new issue with Apple’s latest handset. No, it has nothing to do with poor battery life, but rather a complete loss of signal for no apparent reason. To be clear, this isn’t a new “antennagate” — the issue does not occur while holding the device in a certain position — it’s a new problem that causes the device to lose its signal randomly. Users report they can be enjoying a full five-bar signal one minute, then be greeted by that frustrating “No Service” status the next.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been blunt about Cupertino’s plans for adopting LTE: they’d love to, but they’re waiting on next-gen LTE chipsets that aren’t so power-thirsty they’ll turn your iPhone’s battery pack into a desiccated husk within seconds of flipping the 4G radio on.

Well, Qualcomm may have just announced the next-gen LTE chipset that might finally allow Apple to roll out 4G speeds to iDevices in 2012.

Yesterday, I wrote a tip about using FileVault 2 encryption in Mac OS X Lion to encrypt a variety of external devices and SD cards. Although I like FileVault 2, I mentioned that it had some caveats.

The most glaring caveat is that media encrypted using FileVault 2 won’t work on other platforms. That might be fine in a home or business that uses only Macs, but it isn’t fine if you are also using computers running Windows or Linux.

Today I’ll show you how to encrypt drives that will work on computers running Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

So you’ve upgraded to the latest and greatest, and it’s time to give your old Mac to a new owner. But how do you get rid of all your old data and software before making the handoff?

I just pulled the trigger on ordering a new iMac, a nice new 21.5″ i7 quad-core. Needless to say, I can’t wait, even though it will be my first venture with OS X Lion. I get doing a full backup from my current iMac on my Time Capsule to load up my new iMac when it arrives, but I am wondering what to do with old Mac computers to make it clean and ready to gift to the Grandkids’ family.

We’ve seen a number of parodies that poke fun at Apple’s new intelligent assistant, but this one has to be my favorite. It’s a skit from CollegeHumor that mocks Apple’s latest Siri adverts by placing the feature in between husband and wife while they fight, and it’s hilarious.

After months of anticipation, Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire started shipping yesterday, but even since its unveiling critics have been labeling it a worthy iPad competitor. Its pocket-pleasing price tag coupled with its terrific user interface could make it the first tablet to really give the iPad something to worry about.

But how does it stack up to Apple’s device in terms of performance? Well, at less than $200, none of us expected the Kindle Fire to really match the iPad 2’s speed, but as you’ll see in this video comparison, it does a fantastic job of keeping up while browsing the web, and it’s significantly quicker and streaming Netflix videos.

The 21st century is the first time in history that you’ve been able to go to college without actually enrolling. Stanford is offering its popular iOS app development course for free in iTunes U.

The most up to date version of the course on developing for iOS 5 is available, and any iTunes customer can download class lectures and presentation slides.

The Notification Center that ships with iOS 5 is nice, and by default it displays a stock ticker, weather, mail, and calendar entries. It all looks great and the eye candy it provides actually conceal some very useful tricks you can use to reach some of its hidden secrets. Today we’ll take a look at the stock ticker.

Starbucks has launched a new iPhone app for the holidays that gives customers special offers and deals on the drinks we all crave. Not only that, but the Starbucks Cup Magic app also lets you play with augmented reality by tracking and taking pictures of special Starbucks characters.

Users can also send a Starbucks Card “eGift” to loved ones.

Popular mobile payment solution Square has received a significant update that adds new features and specialized hardware integration for merchants.

You can set up in-store rewards for regular customers, integrate Square with cash drawers and receipt printers, and work with enhanced software features for transaction and specific customer details.

Apple has seeded OS X 10.7.3 to developers. The update focuses on iCloud document storage and issues relating to several of Apple’s native apps.

Developers are asked to focus on bugs involving iCal, Mail, and Address Book. Apple also warns that installing this 10.7.3 build will prevent one from reverting back to older versions of OS X Lion.

In a press release sent out just moments ago, Apple has just announced that former Genentech CEO Arthur D. Levinson has filled the vacant Chairman of the Board position that Steve Jobs left empty by his death in October.

Levinson has been on Apple’s board since 2005 as co-lead director and served on all three board committees over that period.

In addition, Apple has announced that Disney President and CEO Robert A. Iger will be joining Apple’s board and will serve on the audit committee.

Press release below.

Apple has sent an email out to developers with the reminder that the annual iTunes Connect shutdown is scheduled for December 22nd-29th. The iTunes Connect portal shuts down every year during the holidays while Apple’s corporate employees take a much-deserved break.

The shutdown means there will be no app updates, price changes, or submissions approved for the App Store during that timeframe. This year’s shutdown lasts two days longer than previous years.

Steve Jobs’s legacy on the mobile industry is uncontested, but instead of just changing the balance of power between handset makers and the carriers, Jobs’s original vision was even more revolutionary: he wanted Apple to become a carrier using unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum.

AppZilla 2 is one of those jack-of-all-trades apps, squeezing 120 little mini-apps into one place.

Tap it, and it grinds open with a dramatic kzzzzzzrrr-tang sound. Inside, you see a springboard-within-a-springboard, with pages of apps to mess around with.

You’re not going to exactly want to replace your tape measure, but as far as iPhone hacks go, this is about as cool as it gets: Acoustic Ruler allows you to measure distance up to 82 feet using a blast of pure sound.

For Apple, the iPhone’s clean desktop is simply an extension of its overall minimalist design. While keeping control of what apps appear on the smartphone makes fans of users, forbidding so-called carrier ‘junkware’ could be a deal-breaker for NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest wireless provider.

Great spot by 9to5Mac: Amazon just dropped the price of the Apple TV by $10 to just $89.99; they’ve also rechristened it the ‘2010’ model.

Could Amazon know something the rest of us poor suckers don’t? Is an updated 2011 Apple TV incoming in time for Black Friday? If so, don’t expect much besides a bump to an A5 chip: if Apple were to, say, bring Siri to the Apple TV, they’d definitely make a big fuss over it in an event.

Even if you’re not a jailbreaker, TinyUmbrella is a great little app that allows you to save your iPhone, iPod touch or iPads SHSH blob files locally. What is the actual use of such a technobabble practice? Simple: if you have your blob files stored locally, you can downgrade your iDevice to an earlier version of iOS; useful if your iPhone gets hit with a bug in the latest version of iOS, or an app you can’t live without stops working.

If you are running iOS 5.0.1, you might want to head on by TinyUmbrella’s official website and grab the latest version: it’s been updated to slurp down the latest version’s SHSH blob files.

Just how popular is OS X Lion 10.7, compared to its predecessors? “Lion’s adoption has been less than stellar,” says one online ad firm. Yet the figures don’t seem to jive with other Internet surveys, as well as Apple’s. Who’s right? As often is the case, it depends on who you ask.

Making an album of new songs seems to be too much like hard work for bands these days. It’s so much easier to pay some developers to make an app instead.

Research giant Gartner had a quick lesson for Apple: don’t let off the iPhone accelerator — if you do, you’ll pay. The latest price for delaying until October its new smartphone: iOS dipped to 15 percent of sales while Android-based handsets skyrocketed to 52.5 percent of the market.