Cult of Mac

Just how important was Steve Jobs’ departure as Apple CEO to sales of the iPad? Very little, according to a survey indicating consumers were prepared for Apple’s co-founder to step down.

Personally, we’re pretty impressed by Windows 8 — at least the Metro parts — but we’ve got to admit, we snickered.

We’re not quite sure where this came from, so if you know, let us know so we can give proper credit.

Could Broadcom be the reason Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced a boost in business from “rush orders.” Some Wall Street analysts point to the Apple supplier needing parts to meet unexpected iPhone demand. In a bit of sleuthing, experts say Broadcom’s stable revenue in an otherwise faltering economy makes the most sense.

Now that Nintendo’s lucky anthropomorphic Mario star is fading, there’s been a lot of talk about the game maker looking for Princess Peach in another castle: the iOS App Store.

To speak more plainly, since Nintendo’s 3DS console is a bust, and since Apple’s App Store is such a phenomenon, there’ve been consistent rumors and shareholder insistence that Nintendo should take their cherished game properties to an iPhone near you.

Will it happen? Fat chance, Nintendo says.

The long-running dispute between Apple and Samsung has erupted again, this time in an unrelated insider-trading trial. The former manager of Samsung’s U.S. division told a New York City court he leaked shipment data of LCD screens destined for the iPad to a Calif. financial analyst.

For a number of reasons, mainly its long list of stability issues and its unquenchable thirst for any power your system may have, Apple will ensure we never see Adobe Flash on the iPad. And while the company has been criticized by competition for this decision in the past, it’s not the only one turning its back on the aging technology: Microsoft has also announced that Flash player will not feature in Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8 tablets.

As part of their much ballyhooed deal with Facebook from a couple of months back, Skype has just rolled out a new version of their worse-by-the-point-release VoIP client for Mac… and what do you know, the new v5.4 beta brings Facebook support to the mix!

Depending on exactly how entangled you are in Zuckerberg’s viscous social afterbirth, that might be appealing to you. But less appealing, no doubt? Ads!

China Mobile’s chairman, Wang Jianzhou, revealed in an interview today that Apple has given the carrier a “positive answer” to its request for an iPhone compatible with 4G LTE networks.

In the current wave of patent wars, Google has become an arms supplier, buying technology from other firms to increase Android’s ability to fight back against Apple. In its latest purchase in the Silicon Valley’s version of an arms bazaar, the Internet giant snapped up 1,023 IBM patents.

I love the Internet Archive, it’s one of the best online projects there’s ever been.

I knew it archived a lot of stuff, but until this week I had no idea that the collection included scanned magazines of old. Jason Scott, of textfiles.com fame, now works for the Archive and wrote a blog post about some of the latest additions – dozens of tech magazines from the dawn of personal computing.

At first glance, you won’t see anything Mac-specific on the list. But you need to delve a little deeper. Remember, in those days Apple was just one of dozens of new arrivals, all of them jostling for position in a brand new consumer market.

Iomega’s new Helium Portable Hard Drive is a compact little brick of data storage. Encased in a hard aluminum shell, the Helium Drive is perfect for Time Machine backups or supplementing the memory of a MacBook Air.

Whatever it’s used for, the data will always be safe, even if the drive is lost or stolen. The Helium has built-in hardware encryption, which means no one can ever peek at your files. That also makes it a good place to stash files you don’t want anyone to see…

There have been a some reports that followed the release of Mac OS X Lion from iMac users complaining about graphic or video problems.

One user reports that he’s been experiencing video artifacts on his 2011 27-inch iMac configured with a 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 and AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. It’s been fairly intermittent and it always disappears for a while after a restart.

Today the problem was so different and a lot worse than usual that they finally decided to call AppleCare.

Apple has included a nice app in Mac OS X Lion that you can use to gather all kinds of diagnostic information from your wireless network. The app provides really technical information about the network that most users might find puzzling perhaps that is why Apple decided to hide it. Today’s tip will show you how to uncover this handy wireless network utility.

This screen protector, supposedly built for Apple’s much-anticipated iPhone 5, indicates the new device will indeed boast that fancy redesign we’ve all been longing for — with a larger screen and an all-new home button.

I’m sure you’ve already heard a lot about Facebook’s latest iPhone application, Facebook Messenger. However, unless you live in the U.S. or Canada, you’ve been unable to download it… until now! Facebook Messenger has gone global, and is now available to download from App Stores worldwide.

Following the release of an EFI firmware update for its latest MacBook Air earlier this week, Apple has also prepared its Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro and Mac mini with an EFI firmware update of their own. Now available through Software Update, the updates resolves issues with the upcoming Thunderbolt Display, and signals its release isn’t far away.

MacBook users are reporting that they are experiencing an issue after installing full disk encryption using File Vault. The problem manifests itself by automatically restarting the MacBook after it is turned on and restarted once already forcing the user to login twice before actually reaching their desk top.

There’re few materials that can match leather for wear resistance and luxuriousness; and if you’re using an iPad in a professional or fashion-forward setting, leather makes a great choice.

Problem is, leather cases tend not to be the most practical solutions: They’re generally portlier than their proletariat plastic counterparts, and they’re also generally don’t allow for mucking about with positioning much.

Ah, but the updated Sena Folio for iPad ($100) is different.

Apple unveiled the @AppStore Twitter account back in January. The account tweets prominent apps in the App Store to its 460,000+ followers.

Today, Apple has created another account for the iBookstore. Following @iBookstore on Twitter will give you updates from the US iBookstore, including exclusive offers and featured titles.

A young gentleman from Buffalo, New York who goes by the name of Supreme General @HustleGameBoss on Twitter just released a rap song titled “Steve Jobs.”

A pair of new goodies from Logitech were revealed today; we actually snagged a little time to check out both when Logitech lifted the curtain for us at a sneak preview a couple of months ago.

You can fly a plane with an iPad but airlines still won’t loan you one to watch “Friends with Benefits” on it while sitting in coach.

Australian airlines Qantas is once again touting its iPad-inflight entertainment scheme– it has been talking about getting it on board since June 2010 – but the concept has still failed to launch in any meaningful way.

Back in 2008, the Malibu Beach Inn billed itself as the world’s first iPhone hotel.

Now apps like that one are helping people get more comfortable (or complain more quickly) in hotels around the world.

The California hotel offered guests loaner iPhones or iPod Touch devices to order room service, set wake up calls, request dry cleaning, extra blankets or replace forgotten toothbrushes, check messages or set “Do Not Disturb” notices plus shopping, eating and cavorting info.

The whole shebang runs on an app called “Hotel Evolution” from Los Angeles software firm Runtriz.

We’re starting a new reader submitted series called “Me and My Mac.” Instead of just showing your Mac setup, we want to see you with your Apple hardware.

We told you to get creative and send in submissions for the first round. And like usual, the Cult of Mac audience did not disappoint. To start off, lets meet the world’s youngest Apple programmer.

Given the hilarious nature of HTC President Martin Fichter’s recent comment on the iPhone’s cool factor, it’s only fitting that a web comic be put together to summarize the event.