Cult of Mac

Could this be the iPhone 5? The picture was posted to MacRumors’s forums, and was snapped at the office of a French cell phone company, according to the forum member who posted it.

I’ll be honest here, I really want HP to do well in the tablet space Theoretically, HP has many of the same advantages with webOS as Apple has with iOS: the two companies totally control both their software and their hardware… a potentially huge advantage over the competition. Plus, webOS is genuinely an awesome, exciting platform, and if it ever gets off the ground properly, iOS will benefit from some real competition.

That said, their first tablet, the TouchPad, was very much a beta product. Featuring a bulky design and a serious derth of tablet-optimized apps, not many people chose a TouchPad over the iPad. No wonder, then, that HP’s had to slice $100 off its asking price.

As BlackBerry-maker RIM clings to life-support, more than half of the smartphone’s owners have Apple’s iPhone on speed-dial. More than half of BlackBerry users intend to switch to the iconic iPhone as Wall Street experts pull the plug on RIM’s recovery plans.

Been holding out on buying Lion until you can get it on officially sanctioned physical media? According to 9to5Mac, Lion USB recover media is now available for fulfillment… an it’ll even be handed out free to those of us who aren’t able to use Lion’s built-in recovery tools to restore their hosed Macs.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXDCR41huhQ&feature=player_embedded#t=0s

Following this morning’s discovery of a new Apple patent for inductive charging, MacRumors points to a video from WiTricity, the company that develops magnetic resonance charging technology, which demonstrates a much better method for wirelessly charging our Apple gadgets using our Macs as a power source.

Apple’s intentions to introduce a wireless system to its iOS devices has been well documented over the past few months, but just exactly how it plans to do it remains to be seen. However, a new patent application published by the U.S. Patent & Trademarks Office today could reveal all.

Beware Android users, malware authors are picking Google’s platform as their first foray into mobile mayhem, security researchers say. Interestingly, there’s no mention of malware using Apple’s iOS.

Of all the things we expect to see from Apple’s iPhone 5 in the coming months, it isn’t super-speedy LTE capabilities. However, China Mobile says that it has struck a deal with Apple to bring the next-genearation iPhone to its 4G TD-LTE network.

Mac OS X Lion looks a lot different from its predecessor Mac OS X Snow Leopard and one of those differences is the sidebar in Finder and Mail. The sidebar looks a lot different because it displays different elements in Lion and the icon it displays aren’t even in color now.

Although its public release isn’t scheduled until this fall, Apple has already begun approving apps for its upcoming iOS 5 software for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — suggesting the firmware could launch as early as next month alongside the iPhone 5.

Google’s Gmail web app for the iPhone delivers a nice new update this morning that makes it even more iPhone-friendly, introducing the iOS trademark pull to refresh function, and an enhanced interface.

After recently giving developers access to the web apps and syncing capability of iCloud.com, Apple has also turned on the Find my iPhone and Find My Mac features for those with early access to iCloud’s web portal.

Developers can now login to iCloud.com and view the location of their registered iDevices and Macs in a map view.

Kanex just unveiled its SnapX today, a $69 switch that connects a single 24- or 27-inch Apple Cinema Display to a pair of Macs and allows toggling between the two.

Smart Cover? IntelliCase? Yeah, there’s no product-naming rivalry going on there. And just like its name, Griffin’s IntelliCase, is a cooler version of Apple’s ubiquitous iPad 2 Smart Cover, because it adds something sorely missing from Apple’s version: a back.

In Mac OS X Lion, Mission Control unifies Spaces and Exposé. Along with this unification comes changes to how Spaces and Exposé work. In this video, I’ll show you the changes with Mission Control and how to use them to your benefit.

“I just bought this iPad, but I’d like to return it.” OK, the Walmart clerk must have thought.

Duh. Who would buy an iPad, then return it a few minutes later?

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), founded in 1901 as the nation’s first federal physical science research laboratory, launched a pilot program for the iPad 2.

Review by Jordan Trimas

The Arctic P311 Bluetooth headset ($40) is an excellent option for those desiring a pair of über-comfortable Bluetooth stereo headphones without having to hock a family heirloom to afford them. My first impression, naturally, was that I probably wouldn’t get a top-performer for $40, so expectations weren’t high. But it was love at first listen when the P311s emerged from their packaging.

Apple’s no stranger to lawsuits, but this one’s a bit bizarre: a New York photographer is suing Cupertino for using one of her copyrighted photos in an iPhone advertisement. But does she have a case?

Remember a time when people still talked about an Apple tax with a straight face? It’s been laughable for years, but with the debut of the iPad, became a self-evident joke: if Apple overprices their hardware, why the heck can’t the competition make an equally specced, sub-$500 tablet?

The disparity between what Apple can make and sell a product for and what the competition can has only grown more pronounced since the debut of the $999 MacBook Air.

It’s such a big disparity that Intel has launched what it calls the UltraBook initiative to help laptop makers release capable MacBook Air competitors… but even with Intel’s help, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that any first-gen UltraBooks will be able to beat the MacBook Air in price.

According to Digitimes:

The sources pointed out that Intel’s ultrabook concept is not a brand new innovation, but a design to allow first-tier notebook players to quickly catch up with Apple’s advances in the ultra-thin segment and help the notebook industry recover from the impact of tablet PCs. The sources pointed out that the new MacBook Airs are priced at about US$999-1,599 with rather strong demand in the US; however, designing an ultrabook based on Intel’s technical suggestions will still be unable to reduce the machine’s price level to lower than the MacBook Air’s unless Intel is willing to reduce its prices, which already account for one-third of the total cost. If Intel does reduce its prices there is a chance for vendors to provide pricing below US$1,000.

So the so-called Apple Tax, in the case of the MacBook Air, is actually an Apple Discount: they’ll sell you a $1299 top-of-the-line ultraportable with unparalleled build construction for $300 cheaper.

Expect this disparity to only get worse as time goes on: Apple’s using its cash hoard to build up a portfolio of future products that the reactionary competition can’t even hope to touch.

This year’s MacTech Conference will open with Guy Kawasaki in Los Angeles from November 2 to November 4. The event will feature sessions from more than 30 speakers, and if you register your place nice and early, you’ll save $200 off your booking fee.

Believe the rumors that we’ll be seeing a Retina Display iPad 2 HD in October of this year? Don’t believe those rumors, but still think Apple’s bound to put a Retina Display in the iPad 3?

It might be time to think again: it’s looking unlikely that Retina Display panels suitable for the iPad will be produced in sufficient quantities until the iPad 4.

This video by the self-declared Final Cut King probably goes on a bit too long, but some of the imagery I could see Apple, in a more whimsical mood, adopting to emphasize just how light, portable and wafer-thin the MacBook Air actually is to people who have never picked one up… although I think it’s more likely that one of Apple’s competitors will just steal this idea to advertise their so-called Ultrabooks.

The iPad is being trounced in the enterprise. Good news for Apple, the iPad’s rival is another Cupertino product: the iPhone. The competitors are single-digit cellar-dwellers, according to a new study of business-oriented mobile devices.

We’ve seen a lot of iPhone accessories here at Cult of Mac, but it’s rare that one leaves us absolutely speechless. Yet when I consider the Hand iPhone Case by Rakuten, my eyes bulge a little, my mouth goes dry, my tongue seems to swell and all I can do is mouth the consonants “W….T…..F……” to myself.

As you can see, the Hand iPhone Case is a disembodied hand… lopped off with an axe, cloned from latex and grafted onto the back of your iPhone, like a human ear growing on the back of a mouse. And hey, if that’s not utterly weird and creepy enough for you? You can pick up a version that pastes a child’s severed hand on the back of your iPhone instead of an adult’s, no additional charge!