Cult of Mac

The revamped Google Search app for iOS, which we reported on yesterday, is a huge improvement on what went before.

Fotopedia Japan is a lovely photographic tour of modern Japan, available for free right now on the iOS App Store.

If you liked that tip earlier today about adding track information to your iTunes dock icon, here’s another great tip for you: it’s easy to replace the boring old iTunes icon in the dock with the album art for whatever track is playing. Here’s how.

After Apple finally converted its entire Mac lineup to AMD, SemiAccurate is reporting that Apple is switching back to NVIDIA as the graphics chip supplier for the upcoming MacBook Pro model in 2012.

While the report doesn’t specifically say why Apple is planning its move back to NVIDIA, it looks as though the rumored MacBook Pro refresh for 2012 will include NVIDIA graphics and possibly the Intel Ivy Bridge processor.

Inside every iPhone are a dozen little moisture indicators that turn pink the second your iPhone is exposed to excessive moisture. Apple uses them to tell when to deny you warranty service because you’ve accidentally dropped your device in a drink or left it out in the rain, but wouldn’t it be better if Apple never had to worry about replacing a water damaged device again?

We could be a year away from just that, thanks to Never Wet, a superhydrophobic coating that does such a good job resisting moisture that devices literally can never get wet when slathered in the stuff. Don’t believe us? Check out the video above, in which an iPhone 3G functions while submerged in water for over thirty minutes.

I’ve heard people complaining about the fonts in the iOS default Notes app for longer than I can remember. Most of the time people thought the default font was pretty cartoony and they wanted something a bit more professional.

I think Apple has finally offered up a solution for the font dilemma. The default font is no less cartoony or fun, but they now offer one font for business people and another I’ll let you categorize. Pick your favorite — fun or stuffy. You decide.

It’s time once more to prepare for the onslaught of sales targeting Black Friday shoppers, those courageous souls able to lift themselves out of post Thanksgiving induced sleep to grab the most outrageous bargains. As a public service, we present a running account of Apple-related deals offered by retailers nationwide. We’ll be updating it through the week, so if you know of any deals we’ve missed, please let us know in the comments or better yet, email us!

Iconic Brit kids comic The Beano has made its debut on the iOS App Store, with a hidden treat inside for kids: five free issues for the grabbing.

Google’s been redesigning many of its web services like Gmail and Reader lately to follow its new Google+ UI template, and now it appears its time for Google’s apps to get the same new coat of paint. The newest version of Google’s official Search app for iOS not only gets a new design for the iPad, but a fullscreen mode for iPhone and numerous other fixes and additions.

If you’ve wondered why AT&T recently increased the price of the iPhone 3GS from free to 99 cents, you weren’t alone. One of the best explanations so far involves the minimal price reducing a growing amount of fraud.

There are a lot of great apps out there that will alert you to what track is currently playing in iTunes by flashing a notice on your Mac’s desktop; Coversutra and Growltunes, to name just two. But did you know that iTunes has a secret option to display track information on your desktop every time the track changes? It’s true. It’s attractive. And it’s just a terminal command away.

The biggest shopping day of the year is fast approaching. This Friday, countless retailers all over the U.S. will be slashing prices for Black Friday, causing a frenzy amongst shoppers who cannot wait to spend some of their hard-earned cash on discounted goods.

Apple famously recognizes the event by discounting some of its hottest products in the Apple online store for one day only, with savings to be made on new Macs, iOS devices, iPods, and even the latest accessories for your beloved Apple gadgets. This year will be no different, so based on the past few years’ reductions, here’s what to expect at the Apple online store on Black Friday.

Yes, the iPhone design is sleek and sexy – and the Apple device is full of jaw-dropping features. But while that may convince some, what really puts the cash in Cupertino’s pockets are those boring, unexciting carrier agreements. Indeed, 50 percent of cell phone growth comes from adding new carriers. Although Apple has inked deals with 230 carriers, that is just 30 percent of the nearly 800 global service providers.

This week we’re really excited to announce one of the best giveaways we’ve had in a while. We’re teaming up with Monster Cable to give readers the chance to win a Monster Accessory Pack worth over $250 AND a free iPhone 4S! For this giveaway you’ll have two chances to win one of the amazing prizes we have in store for you. Here’s how to play:

Carved from aircraft-grade aluminum with two tripod mounts, the iPhone Lens Dial defiantly asks — and responds to — the question, “Who says you can’t put external frickin’ lenses on your iPhone? Stupids, that’s who!” But who is stupider: the guy who doesn’t think you can put a lens on your iPhone, or the guy who pays $250 for a bulky case to do just that?

Described as an “explosive development in the tablet market,” the holiday season could finally see a two-way race for consumers’ attention as the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire vie for nearly 90 percent of sales. In a survey of North Americans intending to buy a tablet, 65 percent said they plan to buy an iPad, while 22 percent said they would pick the Kindle Fire, according to ChangeWave Research results released Monday. Those percentages may look disparate, but the Kindle Fire is still proving to be a shot across the bow of iPad… and it could soon become a full broadside.

The U.K.’s Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, has slammed Apple and its co-founder Steve Jobs for creating an egocentric and selfish consumer society that has only led to unhappiness. He claims the company’s advertising methods only make shoppers aware of what they don’t own, and he singled out Apple for creating a culture in which people only care about themselves. What hypocritical nonsense.

The folks at Canlys this morning are doing what analysts are fond of: playing the ‘if’ game. If iPads were included in the same category as computers, Apple might soon overtake HP as the world’s largest PC maker — particularly if the Cupertino, Calif. company launches the iPad 3, anticipated by many to be a 2012 release. Canalys, which does count tablets as PCs, expects Apple to pass HP before mid-2012.

Last week, we reported that French developer Applidium had managed to blow the Siri protocol wide open, making it possible for any internet connected device to dial into Apple’s Siri servers and get a response.

Any internet connected device? Pshaw, you might scoff. But one week later, we have the proof: a hacker who has tricked Siri into talking with his internet-connected thermostat!

We exclusively confirmed way back in February that Apple had plans to build a store in Grand Central Station’s main terminal, and following months of speculation it seems the store is set to open its doors this week, just in time for the Christmas rush.

While we all eagerly await an untethered jailbreak for iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S, many of us are using custom settings shortcuts on our iOS homescreens to duplicate the functionality of a more robust Cydia hack like SBSettings.

The only problem? While the shortcuts work really well, some of the icons can be ugly and distinctly un-Apple-like.

Why settle for some puked-up icons, though, when you can have icons sexy enough to lick? Just go over to https://brdrck.me/settings/ on your iDevice and get downloading. Follow our previous how-to if you need guidance on setting these up.

[via iDB]

The Tilt by madMINDS from Sulmo Kim on Vimeo.

A cooling stand is traditionally one of the ugliest accessories you can buy for your svelte MacBook Pro, one that’s guaranteed to take all that hard work Apple put into creating a beautiful notebook and just throwing it away. That is, until the TILT came along.

It’s Thanksgiving Week, and that means most of us Americans will start thinking about how much weight we’ll gain and how much money we’ll end up spending on Black Friday, especially if we have children clamoring for an iPhone, iPod or iPad.

If you, like many other parents, are planning on buying your kids an iDevice this Christmas, you should know that your kids will need an iTunes account to use with their new device. Presumably, you’ll want to control how much they can spend buying apps. So you’ll be happy to know you can set up an iTunes account without a credit card. Your kid will be able to download a plethora of free apps and you’ll be able to give them gift cards to use to buy paid ones. This will let you control how much they spend, which is a lot better than giving them carte blanche access to your line of credit.

Sprint’s debut iPhone 4S commercial (unsurprisingly) boasts about the biggest reason for choosing Sprint over its rivals, and that’s “truly unlimited” data. It also praises Apple’s App Store, which is home to half a million apps, by floating popular app icons around New York City.

Walter Isaacson’s terrific Steve Jobs biography offers a magnificent insight into how Steve created Apple, and the work he did behind the scenes. However, it doesn’t talk all that much about NeXT — another computer company Steve founded during his spell away from Apple in the mid-eighties.

These fascinating clips from a series called Entrepreneurs do, however. They show Steve as many of us have never seen him before — discussing new ideas with his team, brainstorming on company retreats, and leading NeXT to create something awesome.

Check out more of the documentary after the break.