Apple has launched a new replacement program for customers with white MacBooks who have seen their rubber base separate itself from the plastic casing and leave their notebooks with an exposed undercarriage.
A refresh to the MacBook Air lineup appears to be imminent this week as retail sources worldwide report that supplies and shipments of Apple’s ultraportable notebook are beginning to diminish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNtV9dLUNAs
Check out this Kickstarter project — it’s a really smart clear polycarbonate iPad 2 case (called the iLoqk — hey, we’ve heard worse) that comes with a removable clamp that doubles as a tripod mount, which is yours for a pledge of $40. An extra $20 will bag you the XShot, an extending arm that attaches to the tripod mount and comes with a wireless shutter release for the iPad’s camera. It’s a pretty nifty idea, and seems like it’d helpful in all sorts of situations.
“If something ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a phrase Etymotic must have taken extremely seriously, judging by a look at their now-mythic, $99 ER-6i. The set has been around since their release in 2004, after which they quickly became the standard against which all other sub-$100 IEMs were tested. But seven years is an eon for a product to have remained essentially unchanged in the gadget world. Are they still as good now as they were then?
Illusion Labs – the team behind the hugely successful Touchgrind skateboarding game – have taken everything that made their first hit such a success and used it to create Touchgrind BMX. Put the skateboard to one side and become a BMX pro – performing spectacular tricks in beautifully crafted locations all over the world.
The Heist is currently famous for its overwhelming popularity that has helped it knock Angry Birds off the top spot of the App Store’s paid chart. Featuring a collection of mind-bending puzzles that you must solve in order to get your hands on the valuable prize inside the vault.
Siege Hero boasts gameplay similar to Angry Birds, in that you must destroy a group of enemies protected by glass, rocks and timber. However, instead of taking aim at a group of ugly pigs, vikings are your enemies, and rocks replace the birds as your ammo.
Find out more about the games above and check out the rest of the week’s must-haves – including Back to the Future: Episode 3 and To-Fu: The Trials of Chi – below!
We knew this was going to happen. Stung by a judge’s recent decision to allow Apple to look through Samsung’s upcoming phones to look for IP violations, Samsung has just asked a judge in their own patent infringement case against Apple to make Cupertino fork over the prototypes of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3.
Next time you type a search result in Google on iOS, prepare for a little surprise.
Next time you install OS X? You’ll be slurping it down through the Mac App Store, not loading it up through an optical disc like some sort of caveman.
Already famous for its excellent Pro Messenger IM application, eBuddy has taken real-time messaging to the next level with eBuddy XMS – a free, real-time messenger that enabled you to chat with text, pictures, emoticons and more. It features a highly-polished user interface and an experience guaranteed to give apps like WhatsApp and PingChat! some real competition.
In addition to the recent launch of ‘Apple Store 2.0′, the Apple Store application for iPhone also got a much-needed revamp. The latest version of the app works internationally and boasts some great new features.
Opera Mini has been the iPhone browser of choice for many since it launched, promising to be the fastest, most cost-efficient web-browsing experience for your iOS device today. Its recent update made it a universal application delivering all its Opera goodness to the iPad, which impressed Cult of Mac’s Giles Turnball in his recent review.
Find out more about the applications above and check out the rest of this week’s must-haves – including Contacts Journal and Aelios Weather – below!
While the iPad’s onscreen virtual keyboard is nice, it still doesn’t compare with a physical keyboard in usability. Fortunately, Apple includes some relatively hidden features which can greatly improve typing speed as well as usability on the iPad’s keyboard. In this video you’ll find out how to enable these features and use them to their full potential.
There’s something fishy about this, but iPad 3G has supposedly been hacked to make phone calls and send SMS messages — just like a giant iPhone!
Check out the video of the supersized iPad/iPhone in action:
Seems like just yesterday that the Swoosh introduced its Nike+ iPod kit to the delight of iPod-toting runners everywhere. It wasn’t yesterday though, it was five years ago (and one week). To celebrate, Nike has been giving away free copies of its Nike+ app (regularly $2) at the App Store. The app uses the iPhone’s GPS and MotionX technology — the same tech found in Jawbone’s stunning new Era Bluetooth headset, btw — to track your run (the GPS works well outdoors, the MotionX tech takes over where GPS signals are weak). And then there’re all the great motivational features and post-run sharing options.
Better make a dash if you want a copy, though — it’ll probably revert back to $2 soon.
With the Arab Spring turning everyday citizens with cell phones into witnesses — sometimes the only witnesses — on tumultuous events, the time for the citizen journalism app has definitely arrived.
There are currently dozens of apps in iTunes available for people to submit news tips; some simply offer a way for people to send in local story ideas, others target specific networks and users can send pics and video directly to newsrooms.
Most are free — which speaks to how badly news organizations want no-cost, on-the-ground global coverage.
Like the brilliant Insight we reviewed a month or so ago, Belkin’s Conserve Valet comes form their new line of green-angled tools created with the idea of saving energy. Unlike the Insight, the Valet — a $40, four-port USB hub designed around the idea of smart organization and energy conservation — isn’t as well executed, and not nearly as effective.
For the first time pretty much ever, sales of Microsoft’s Windows OS are about to shrink… and the iPad is to blame.
Say hello to Hound, a new free app from the people at SoundHound. What’s it for? It’s a voice search app for music and musicians. But it aspires to greater things.
The guys over at Alphonso Labs have put a lot of hard work into their iPad app Pulse. Despite the plethora of reader apps out there, Pulse really stands out with its sleek interface that allows users to read vast amounts of content without feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of sources.
As fans of the app, we’re stoked that the Pulse team has decided to include Cult of Mac under their main “Featured” section. If you’re looking for another way to get your Apple and Cult of Mac fix on your iPad or iPhone, then Pulse is definitely an app that you need to check out. And make sure you add our feed while you’re at it.
When Apple debuts iOS 5 at June’s WWDC, it will indeed feature Nuance voice recognition tech… but counter-intuitively, it won’t be baked into iOS’s existing Voice Control feature. If that disappoints you, though, we hope this will be a consolation: iOS 5 will radically re-imagine iOS’s sketchy notifications system, as well as add widgets to the mix.
Yesterday, we reported that Apple had taken the unusual step of both suing and filing-to-dismiss its own lawsuit against the Fei Lam, the teenager who sold Steve Wozniak along with hundreds of others their own white iPhone 4 conversion kits.
That was weird enough. Even weirder? This is the first Fei Lam himself has heard about the case being settled.
We close out another week of wheeling and dealing with three hardware items. First up is a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo iMac with a 24-inch screen for $1,180. Next is a number of Mac minis, starting at $599 for a 2.4Ghz model. Finally, a blast from the past with a 2GHz Core 2 Dup MacBook with 13-inch screen – just $470.
Along the way, we look at several other hardware products, including a Xeon Mac Pro workstation, a G5 PowerMac and an 8Gb iPod touch. Like always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Apple’s one-year standard warranty is a pretty good deal for U.S. consumers, but for their European counterparts the glass is half empty.
The standard warranty in the E.U. for consumer goods is two years and that’s what is getting the Cupertino company into trouble with AppleCare, the paid extended warranty program.
Cult of Mac talked to Carlo Piana, a lawyer who worked on the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, about why Italian regulators are after Apple now.
Remember the gnashing of teeth from the television industry when the DVR was first introduced – it would kill TV ads. Well, the real threat to TV advertising is your iPhone.
The iPhone and other smartphones account for 60 percent of the distractions from TV ads, according to a behavioral survey. The study participants reported turning away from the TV – and the advertising – whenever they received a text or a call.
With the DVR, even if you hit the ‘fast forward’ button, the advertising message registers with you.
How will Hollywood react to the findings? Will we see campaigns similar to that against distracted driving? Perhaps the industry will create an iPhone app that disables your phone when ads appear?
U.S. record labels are dragging their feet in negotiations to bring music streaming service Spotify to American shores, a move reportedly aimed at give Apple a first crack at a similar subscription plan.
You know the drill. Every year, Apple gives students a special incentive to buy a new Mac in the form of a cheap iPod.
This year, though, the deal might be a lot spicier: students might get a couple bills off a new iPad instead of an entry-level iPod Touch. And Cupertino might just be so excited about this that Back to School will prominently be mentioned at next week’s WWDC.
RIM never did shake its button-down image in attempts to expand into the consumer market dominated by Apple. Realizing its failure, the handset maker is ready to surrender to Apple in the consumer ring, and focus on its business roots… an arena which iPhone is also increasingly dominating.
