Okay, we’re stretching it a bit with the headline, but we couldn’t resist: Apple has just sent a shut down notice to an online retailer called iPopMyBaby that sells nothing but onesies and diapers featuring Apple’s products: namely, the iPod clickwheel and iPhone homescreen.
The iPhone 4S has some bodacious battery life problems and no one seems to know what’s going on. Apple themselves have released an iOS update, iOS 5.0.1, to fix the problems, to no avail. Meanwhile, some iPhone 4S owners find their batteries draining at a rate of 10% every ten minutes, while luckier customers can only report the same excellent battery life the iPhone 4 was known for.
What the heck is going on? Are some iPhone 4Ses just defective? Will Apple have to initiate a recall?
Thankfully, no. Although no one knows what the problem exactly is, it has at least been proven to be a software problem… not a hardware problem.
Two weeks late, Apple’s match-and-mirror music in the cloud service iTunes Match has finally launched while retaining its beta status. In the meantime, iTunes 10.5.1 for both Windows and Mac has been released, so get downloading if you intend on using iTunes Match.
On Mac, the iTunes 10.5.1 update is 102MB, and is available now on the official iTunes homepage or through Software Update.
iTunes Match is Apple’s much anticipated cloud music service. For $24.99 a year, users can match any of the songs on their hard drive into the cloud to be redownloadable on any iOS or Mac device in 256Kbps AAC CD quality, even if their original track was of much lower quality.
iTunes Match is launching as a beta service. However, for subscribing to iTunes Match Beta, we hear you get 15 months of service instead of just 12. Not a bad deal, but be warned that Apple will delete your iTunes Match library at the end of the beta, meaning you’ll have to go through the matching process all over again.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve found that Apple has been having problems getting iTunes Match’s mirroring service to work reliably. We’ll report back and let you know if they’ve worked out the kinks.
A new Apple patent that details battery and solid state drive configurations for the company’s MacBook Air suggests that future models will boast battery life that significantly exceeds the 7 hours offered by today’s ultraportable.
Despite the talk about Android being available on more handsets, Apple’s short list of iPhones continues to rock the charts. Although fans are always yearning for the next bigthing, nothing illustrates how deep Apple’s bench is than recent figures showing the iPhone 4 and 3GS remain the top-selling smartphones in the United States.
YouTube wasn’t supposed to be a music player, but that’s what a lot of people use it for. There are millions of songs on YouTube – the only problem is finding them.
That’s why you might enjoy a Mac app called Musictube, which takes the hard work out of finding and playing the songs you want. If you want a video jukebox on your Mac, this is it.
Pugs are the adorable little walleyed goblins of dogs, but through years of selective breeding in the shallower end of the canine gene pool, they aren’t exactly the brightest pups out there.
I guess we shouldn’t feel too betrayed by this cute pug’s lack of taste then. Check out how upset Coco the Pug gets when the latest iPhone 4S commercial pops up during his channel surfing. Check out the video below.
If you’ve ever taken part in a freshman biology class (or seen Pauly Shore’s Bio-Dome, you know what a terrarium is: an enclosed space for keeping animals and plants by simulating that species’ native ecosystem. For example, that heated tank full of sand and rocks you keep your iguana in, or the dark moist basement Leander keeps Cult of Mac’s writers imprisoned in.
The only problem with terrariums is that it can be difficult to keep the conditions inside of them just so for the plant or pet you’re trying to make feel at home. It’s too easy to get the temperature or humidity or light just slightly wrong. But what if your iPad could control all of the fiddly knobs for you?
Deals.CultofMac.com is currently offering two great app bundles this week but both are ending soon. The Mac Productivity Mini-Bundle carries three great apps that will make life in OS X insanely easier and more simple. MenuEverywhere, Trembo, and Cinch will boost your productivity so you can spend less time fussing with the mundane tasks on your Mac and get to the fun stuff. This deal will be available for the next 10 days, saving readers $21 off the retail price. This deal is set to expire in 3 days, so get it now before it’s gone.
Here’s what these apps can do for you:
In a twist that’s left many scratching their heads, Apple’s rival Samsung dropped plans to block iPhone 4S sales on its home turf of South Korea… the one place they could really hope for a reasonable chance at a court win. After a long-running debate, the Android-maker reportedly decided not to battle Apple in its home country because they do not need to “gain more market share in Korea,” a blustery position if there ever was one.
Remember Project Black Mirror, those hackers who claimed to have hooked up an some EEG suction cups, an Arduino and a MacBook Pro to an iPhone 4S and got Siri to read their minds? Lying bastards, the lot of them. And shame on us, we fell for it, at least in part.
Ron Johnson, Apple’s former Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, who changed the face of retail with the opening of the first Apple store in 2001, left the Cupertino company at the beginning of this month. Replacing him has become a mammoth task for Apple, according to a new report, with external candidates struggling to meet Johnson’s caliber, which may force the company to promote from within its ranks.
Earlier this summer, Apple introduced the new Reading List feature in Safari 5 as part of Mac OS X Lion’s widescale release. This new feature lets you save web pages until you have time to read them later. It is a handy feature that you might find yourself accessing a lot so the tips today will help you do that as quickly as possible.
OS X already comes with a sizable library of some of nature photography’s most beautiful pictures, curated personally by Steve Jobs for use as wallpapers. But as breathtaking as OS X’s default wallpapers can be, if you have your Mac desktop set to randomize, you’re probably sick to death of them at this point.
The foremost name in beautiful nature photography is here to help you supplement them. Every year, National Geographic holds a photo contest, and this year, they have put up all of their entries in downloadable JPEGs suitable for the desktop, iPhone or iPad.
Oi paulistanos! Cult of Mac writer Nicole Martinelli will be in Sao Paulo and looking to talk all things Apple with you, especially the local scene.
Apple likes to make things as easy as possible to join WiFi networks, especially when the network isn’t password protected. However in one reader’s case this isn’t a good thing but rather a major headache:
Is there a way to RESTRICT joining certain wifi networks to certain OS X user accounts?
When using my MacBook Pro, I have two basic OS X logins. One for known SECURE wifi networks, and one for INSECURE wifi networks. The problem is that Airport settings always remember the INSECURE network, and almost always tries to connect my SECURE OSX login to the INSECURE wifi, at which point Mail (or other apps) start up and shoot my logs/passes across the air for all to see.
One of the advantages to jailbreaking the iPhone — at least for me — is the ability to add shortcuts to your home screen that will quickly adjust your device’s settings. There are a number of tweaks that allow you to change your brightness; and toggle 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Airplane mode, and more.
It’s not so easy if you’re device isn’t jailbroken, but a new app called IconProject changes that — for just $0.99.
A trademark feature at Apple retail stores all over the world is the Genius Bar. Operated by a group of Apple experts, the Genius Bar allows any Mac or iOS device owner to take their device to their nearest Apple store and get technical help, repairs, or replacements.
Along with Apple experts, the Genius Bar sports a line of MacBook Pros which Apple staff use to diagnose problems, order parts for repairs, check the status of your product’s warranty, and more. In this “post-PC” era, however, those MacBook Pros are set to be replaced by the iPad.
Since the announcement of Siri with the iPhone 4S, countless OS X users have been wondering if Siri will eventually makes it’s way to the Mac. Well, you may not know it, but OS X actually includes a Speech Recognition system called Speakable Items, which is very similar to Siri in many ways. In this video, I’ll show you how to set it up, as well as how to tweak Speakable Items to your liking.
One of the biggest missing features from Apple’s Siri technology is integration with third-party apps. Apple launched Siri on the iPhone 4S with Wolfram Alpha and Yelp integration, but other developers have been unable to fully integrate their apps with Siri to create a compelling, voice-controlled experience.
Apple hasn’t given a confirmation that it will eventually open up Siri to third-party apps, but that hasn’t kept several apps from offering workarounds for Siri integration. What about the apps that were meant for Siri? We’ve collected 10 apps that we want to see integrated with Siri in the near future.
Apple has released iTunes Match beta 3 to developers following the scheduled library reset that took place yesterday, November 11th. The latest beta version of iTunes Match addresses a number of important performance and stability improvements.
Apple originally projected the public launch of iTunes Match for the end of October, but that deadline has passed. Apple is still ironing out the final bugs in its $24.99/year cloud music service.
Fragmentary and occasional reports suggest that Apple has been negotiating with China Mobile for three years without reaching a deal over official support for iPhones on the carrier’s network.
The sticking point: China Mobile wants a percentage of app revenue.
Many US pundits have written that Apple should bend over and do whatever China Mobile wants. Why? Because China Mobile is so ginormous that Apple could make a killing from all those new customers, even if it shared app revenue.
I think they’re flat-out wrong. Apple should hold firm, and refuse to make an exception for China Mobile. Here’s why.
Apple has initiated a replacement program for the first-generation iPod nano due to an overheating issue with the battery inside of the device. The problem was recognized by Apple several years ago and they offered replacements to customers on a case-by-case basis. A number of foreign government agencies in Europe and Asia investigated the defect and last year the Japan trade ministry forced Apple to tell customers about the replacement website on Apple’s Japanese website.
Timbuk2 says its new “aerodynamic” (their words, not mine) Mission Cycling Wallet was inspired by the gearheads over at San Francisco-based Mission Cycling Club — one imagines its inception resulting from a cacophony of complaints about sweaty iPhones and the absence of holes to stash a credit card for that post-ride latte.
