Cult of Mac

It just got a whole lot easier to install Lion on your hackintosh, thanks to Tonymacx86’s new “UniBeast” bootable USB drive utility. In case you didn’t know, a hackintosh is basically a PC that’s been modified to run OS X, and some people create pretty sweet hackintosh setups for half the price of an Apple-branded equivalent.

UniBeast is a new tool that makes it easy to install Apple’s newest desktop OS, Lion, on your hackintosh. Not only does UniBeast get rid of the need for an iBoot CD, but it also creates a bootable Lion USB flash drive.

Technology columnist and occasional Cult of Mac (CoM) contributor Mike Elgan was on Macbreak Weekly Tuesday talking about his recent CoM piece, “In Defense of Steve Jobs.” The story led to an interesting dialogue between he and Leo Laporte, one with a Jobsian twist I’d never heard before.

Apple has seeded iOS 5.0.1 to developers in the iOS Dev Center. The beta adds enhanced multitasking gestures for the original iPad, fixes the battery life bug that has extensively plagued iPhone 4S users, and adds several other fixes.

Apple also issued a statement prior to seeding this developer beta saying that it was aware of the battery life bug in iOS 5. The public 5.0.1 update is expected to drop in a few weeks.

Apple has issued an official statement to AllThingsD saying it is aware of a battery life bug in iOS 5 that causes users’ battery performance to drastically decrease when running iOS 5 on a range of devices. An iOS 5 update will be issued in the coming weeks to fix the bug.

The team at 6Wunderkinder is well known for Wunderlist, one of the best task manager apps for the Mac and iOS platform. Wunderlist has quickly become a favorite among the GTD (Getting Things Done) community, and it remains one of the slickest task managers with cloud sync in the App Store.

6Wunderkinder has a new project up its sleeve called Wunderkit, and it looks like a dream come true for the collaborative productivity app scene.

If you have more than one iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you probably want to give each one a unique name so you can tell them apart. Or you might be upgrading from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 4S, like I did. If you give every device a unique name, you’ll be able to identify each one when you sync it in iTunes or pick it up from the desk you share with your family.

Apple has provided two ways that allow you to change the name of your iOS devices.

Well, that didn’t take long. Just three hours after Google released their official Gmail for iOS app, they’ve already pulled it.

Why? Well, despite our initial enthusiasm, it kind of sucked.

Siri’s a smart little moppet, but she can’t do everything for you. You can’t ask her to find you a picture of a dog from Google Images, or see if the guy you have a blind date with that night is a registered sex offender, or really do anything that Siri and Wolfram Alpha aren’t already programmed to do.

The good news is that Siri hacker chpwn has teamed up with GitHub hacker Aman Gupta to figure out how to add custom Siri commands. The bad news is it’s quite complicated, and there’s no way to do it right now for yourself.

If you’ve been using a Mac for any real length of time, you probably know Retrospect. They’ve been releasing great backup tools to Mac users since the Metazoic age of MacOS 6, and despite coming under the thrall of various corporate overlords from time to time, Retrospect’s still hard at work making great software… and Retrospect 9 for Mac might be their best backup client yet.

What’s new? Growl notifications and AES-256 encryption, for one, making Prospect 9 a corporate level backup solution. Task workflows and WebDAV support are now in the mix, as well as a network backup option supporting all flavors of machines, including Mac, Linux and Windows, and the whole software package has gotten a shot in the arm to run even faster and prettier than ever before.

How much? $129 for five users, or $479 for a single-server, 20 seat license. Pay $1699 and use it on as many servers and as many users as you want. Or just download the free trial.

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is catnip for Mac lovers, selling 379,000 copies during its first week. Although it doesn’t compare to the 4 million iPhone 4S handsets sold during its first weekend, the book’s sales were enough to leave best-selling fiction author John Grisham in the literary dust.

Remember that fantastic native Gmail app that Google was on the verge of releasing? They’ve done gone and released it, and it’s available now as a free download for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 4 or above.

Telefonica Czech Republic has rejected sales of the iPhone 4S and other versions of Apple’s smartphone due to a dispute over reported business terms. Two other carriers will offer the new handset instead, which has sold at a record pace since a mid-October introduction.

Are you being taunted by the sneering pigs? Does the Bluebird of Happiness never seem to come your way? Then you -like I – are an Angry Bird addict and responsible for the infuriating entertainment becoming the world’s most popular game, topping half a billion downloads.

Apple revolutionized retail shopping when it opened up its first brick and mortar store back in 2001, and it’s about to do it all over again — using an iOS app. The Cupertino company will reportedly issue a major update to its Apple Store app for iOS devices this Thursday that will change the way you buy Apple products forever.

You want to buy an iPad for Christmas. The problem: scammers know it too and are waiting in prey for you this holiday season. Here are some tips on how to safely shop for tablets online without falling victim to hoax high-tech Santas.

As the legal battles between Apple and Samsung continue, the Korean electronics giant is seeking depositions from a number of Apple designers behind the company’s revolutionary iPhone, including its Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jony Ive.

Despite a number of recent courtroom victories which have seen Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in both Australia and Europe, one small Spanish firm has proven Apple doesn’t always get its own way in front of a judge.

The Cupertino computer giant just lost a case against NT-K, which makes Android tablets in Spain, after it pulled the company into court and claimed that NT-K’s device rips off the iPad.

UPDATE: Apple just sent us a statement saying Cano has not been named head of retail. A spokeswoman said: “The search is underway with lots of interest and we are carefully selecting Ron’s successor. We have nothing to announce today.”

Although an official announcement has yet to be made, Cult of Mac has learned that Apple has already replaced its outgoing head of retail, Ron Johnson.

Reports on Monday suggested Apple hasn’t found a replacement for Johnson, its highly-regarded Senior Vice President of Retail. But we’ve been told by a source that Apple has already promoted an internal candidate to Johnson’s job.

Apple’s new retail boss isn’t just some suit, though. He’s one of the first retail employees Apple ever hired, a California surfer dude who has climbed from the sales floor to the very top rung of Apple management.

It’s a real rags-to-riches story that should be inspiration to every stressed out Apple Store sales associate or overworked Genius: your work can be noticed, and you too can go to the very top.

On a Mac everything is supposed to “just work”, and usually it does. However, sometimes a missing internet plug-in or other component may be required for correct operation:

I have been a Mac user since the first home/small Mac computers were available. My recent eMac was 9 years old, so I was out of sync with EVERYTHING. Just bought a new iMac and I have Safari. Sometimes I click on a document on the Internet, and I get a basically blank page that says “Missing plug-in.” So I can’t open everything I need.

I like the new Preview app that ships with Mac OS X Lion. It comes with a lot of new features, but one I find particularly useful is the feature you can use to sign PDFs digitally.

Apple issued a press release yesterday in which it confirmed the new iPhone 4S will be launching in South Korea next Friday, November 11. In order to prepare for its arrival, the South Korean government has lifted a ban that prevented iOS users from downloading games onto their devices.

Siri is a tremendous addition to Apple’s latest iPhone. But if you’ve already had the pleasure of making it your own virtual assistant, you may have noticed that without a data connection, Siri goes quiet. That’s because the feature connects to Apple’s servers every time you make a request in order to retrieve your answers, or perform the task you have requested.

If you’re a regular Siri user, then, you may be worried about the dent it’s making in your monthly data allowance. But there’s no need to worry, because it’s hardly anything.

The response we’ve received for the Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle has been enormous. We’re so glad that everyone has been enjoying this awesome deal. Unfortunately this deal is ending tonight at midnight, so get it while the gettin’s good. 10 best-selling apps for $49. Camtasia alone is a steal at $50 but we’ve managed to snag Fantasical, CleanMyMac, Houdah Spot, Mac Hider, Disc Label, En Soul, Audio Converter Pro, Font Explosion, and Enigmo 2 into this mega-pack of awesomeness.

Not familiar with all those cool apps? Here’s a quick run down of the goodies that are available. Deal ends tonight at Midnight PST.

For users who work with both Macs and PCs, having a flash drive that can work between both and seamlessly transport files can be critical. The tricky part is choosing the filesystem that provides the best interoperability between both computers. In this video, I’ll show how to format a flash drive for both Macs and PCs the right way.

Sure, you don’t have to be particularly well-endowed upstairs to swipe an iPad out of a big box store, but the police reports make this guy sound like an Arsène Lupin III 2.0.