Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief strategy and research officer, recently said that Windows Phone 7 beat Siri to the punch. In an interview, Mundie argued that Apple only marketed Siri well, and that Microsoft has had the same technology for more than a year already.
Jason from TechAU has created a video face-off between Microsoft’s voice recognition software, called TellMe, and Siri on the iPhone 4S. We’ll let you guess which one actually works.
Review by Kelly Keltner
Many headsets promise a headset utopia, making smartphone users’ heads fill with visions of commanding their world with a simple voice command.
The Plantronics Marque M155 ($60) and the Motorola HX550 ($60) both make similar promises, with the HX550’s packaging going as far as to promise a “complete hands-free solution.” Both headsets offer liberation from holding the phone, but how do these midrange ‘sets match up to the marketing promises — or the abilities of their more expensive siblings?
Apple’s series of heated lawsuits with Samsung have put the two companies at odds, and Apple has been reportedly looking to other suppliers for hi-res displays. Specifically, Apple now has Sharp on deck to supply screens for the upcoming iPad 3.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is adding Sharp to its roster of screen suppliers for the next-generation iPad. The displays will allegedly be of higher resolution and thinner than the screens found in previous generations.
There’s a new jailbreak app on the block, and it doesn’t place nice. MobileMonitor is perhaps the scariest activity monitoring tool we’ve come across for the iPhone, and it’s available for anyone to download in the jailbreak equivalent to the App Store, Cydia.
Once installed, not only does MobileMonitor become untraceable on the iPhone itself, but it records and uploads all of your personal data to a website that can be accessed by anyone with the correct login information.
Weathermob is new and hip on the App Store this week. It’s a weather app with a twist – it’s social. Think of it as Instagram for clouds. Kinda.
ThinkGeek is celebrating this year’s Black Friday event by slashing the price of its popular iCade arcade cabinet for the iPad. The accessory would make the perfect Christmas gift for iPad owners who love retro gaming, and for a limited time only, it’s down from $99.99 to just $59.99.
1,000 workers at a Jingmo Electronics factory in Shenzhen, China, staged a strike earlier this week over long hours and poor working conditions. The factory supplies keyboards to companies like IBM, LG, and Apple, and China Labor Watch is now calling for these companies to improve the working conditions for the employees at the factory, focusing specifically on Apple.
iOS game developers love nothing more than to celebrate with a sale, so it’s no surprise to use that a plethora of hugely popular titles are available for as little as $0.99 this week. However, we are surprised by the sheer number of games on sale this year, from big-name developers like Gameloft, Sega, Namco Bandai, and more.
So that you don’t need to spend hours searching for these bargains yourself, we’ve compiled a huge list of the best reductions for you, featuring some of the most successful iOS titles, such as Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles, BackStab, Real Golf 2011, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Monkey Ball, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, and lots, lots more.
NOTE: We’ve added new titles from EA, Kairosoft, Konami and more!
Mac OS X ships with a lot of default system preference panes and I have about 30 of these on my MacBook Air running Mac OS X Lion. There are an extra 11 preference panes that I’ve added by installing third-party apps. So out of a total of 41 preference panes there are more than six of these that I don’t really need or even use all that often.
Did you know that you can hide the preference panes that you don’t need? This will clear up your view when you launch System Preferences. You’ll only see what you need to see and I’ll show you how to do this in the tip for today.
“These might be my favorite instructional videos ever. – Ashton Kutcher”
Take it from pretty boy and newly-minted startup investor, Ashton Kutcher…today’s exclusive offer is a BLACK FRIDAY KNOCKOUT punch! If your company doesn’t have a demo video, it’s missing out on the most effective way to convert those visitors into lifetime-long customers – by up to 400%.
To create a professionally made, high-quality video like this would typically run you at least $5,000…but with Cult of Mac Deals, you don’t need $5,000 to compete with the big boys.
Remember the Glif? It’s a cute little kickstand/tripod attachment gizmo for the iPhone 4 and 4S, brought to life by a successful campaign on Kickstarter.
Well now the makers of the Glif have announced some extra add-on gizmos to give the Glif some extra gazoom.
Since its release on the iPhone 4S last month, Siri has received some criticism for not coping well with a number of strong accents. But while the high price of the fifth-generation device may be seen as a major downfall to Indian users, they will be pleased to know that Siri will work just fine with their accent.
We were fortunate enough to get an exclusive look at Foxconn’s new factory in Brazil earlier this week, where the company will join the Foxconn factory in China in co-producing Apple’s iPhone, and soon its iPad. Although the factory is already up and running, we’re yet to see any Brazilian built iPhones on the market.
That was until today, when Brazilian blog MacMagazine published an image of one of the first iPhone 4 units that was assembled outside of China.
We Americans have stuffed our faces with turkey and various assortments of tasty dishes, and now it’s time for Black Friday. That means Apple’s online stores around the world are getting updated with special sales. Many other retails are also offering hot deals on our favorite Apple gadgets and accessories.
Things aren’t looking good for AT&T’s T-Mobile USA acquisition proposal. AT&T withdrew its merger application with the FCC today and agreed to pay a $4 billion pre-tax charge to the affected parties in its next quarterly earnings report.
While AT&T and Deutsche Telekom are still committed to the merger, this action signals that the deal will likely not make it past the courts. The proposed merger is facing opposition from multiple sides, including the FCC’s own chairman.
There seems to be a lot of noise made about the still camera abilities of the iPhone 4S recently, and for good reason; but let’s not forget that it’s also a very competent filmmaker (and the 3Gs and 4 aren’t slouches either). And if you’re even semi-serious about shooting video on your iPhone, you might want something like FiLMiC Pro, a video-production app with real video-production muscle and features.
Once you’re done stuffing your face full of turkey and gravy and recovered from your food coma, you’re going to need some entertainment for the rest of the weekend. How about some new games? Aspyr is currently having an awesome 50% off deal on some of their games biggest games. We’re not talking crappy boring titles either, we’re talking legit amazing games for 50% off. Call of Duty 4, Civilization V, Duke Nukem Forever, Star Wars The Force Unleashed, and many more titles are available between now and Monday, November 28th for download.
If you’re looking for something to do during your long weekend, you should probably head over to their site and get a few games for your Mac.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGrDMVk2isc
Apple has aired a new commercial for the iPod touch called “Share the Fun.” The advert features the white and black 4th gen iPod touch and several of the main features in iOS 5.
In the ad, people tweet from the iPod touch, use Game Center, talk on FaceTime, take pictures, and more. This new iPod touch ad joins Apple’s recent iPhone 4S and iPad 2 commercials.
In the spirit of the holiday, most of here at Cult of Mac have decided to spend the day with our friends and families, but like last year, we thought we’d observe the holiday by writing about why we’re thankful for Apple and its products this year. We hope you’ll join in in the comments
I have this terrible habit of doodling on things while I’m on the phone. Often it’s to jot down information that the person on the other end is feeding to me, but sometimes it’s simply to draw silly faces and obscure patterns to pass the time. When I don’t have a notepad to hand, almost anything could become my biro-covered victim.
But the Papernomad case for iPad is begging to be doodled on. It’s a tear resistant sleeve made from a patented material that consists of several layers of paper, cotton, and Australian sheep wool; and it’s completely biodegradable.
Programming Siri to do weird and wonderful things that are yet to be sanctioned by Apple is quickly becoming a hacker’s favorite hobby. We’ve already seen how well the digital assistant can control your home’s thermostat, but this latest hack is even more impressive.
One developer has created used the same proxy featured in the thermostat hack to connect Siri with his Viper car alarm system. He can now tell his iPhone to lock his car, enable his alarm, pop his trunk, and even start his engine.
iOS developers aren’t the only ones slashing prices for Black Friday 2011; there’s also some awesome discounts to be found in the Mac App Store. One of the best we’ve discovered this morning is over half off all three of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto titles for Mac.
Apple’s online stores in Australia and New Zealand have been taken down while reductions are made to a whole host of products for the company’s Black Friday sale.
Apple has been embracing subscription-based iOS applications for some time, such as those that offer magazines and newspapers, but the same model did not appear for iOS games until earlier this week, when the Cupertino company approved a title from Big Fish Games that offered gamers the opportunity to pay a monthly fee of $4.99 to access the companies entire catalog through one app.
When the title hit the App Store, it was reported that Apple had begun accepting subscription-based games for iOS, and that the new release from Big Fish could be the first of many games to offer a similar service. However, Apple has quickly put a stop to those dreams after it pulled Big Fish’s title from the App Store.
Mac OS X Lion includes many features that are very similar to those found in iOS. In this video, I’ll show you how to expand it even further, and make Mac OS X Lion even more like iOS.