Cult of Mac

I’ve been looking forward to the day that I could swap my MacBook for an iPad as a blogging tool. I can write nearly as fast on the tablet as I can on a real keyboard, and I also tend to take it everywhere, unlike the laptop. Until the last week, however, every blogging app I’ve downloaded for the iPad so far has been inadequate. The official WordPress client is just a disaster — I’ve literally never gotten it to work with Cult of Mac’s hosted account. BlogPress has broad compatibility but generates crummy posts that look like they were put together on a BlackBerry Pearl.

So it was with considerable excitement that I ponied up my $3 to download Blogsy, a new app that promises to be the MarsEdit of the iPad. Having used it for nearly a week, I’m extremely pleased. It has serious formatting capabilities, HTML and rich text modes, administration tools for your blogs, and built-in content import from Flickr, Picasa, YouTube and Google Images, not to mention a popover Web browser. Basically, it takes all of the multitasking inherent to blogging and turns it into a single app.

Special credit should be awarded for the app’s genius media layout mode, which involves tapping and holding on an image to convert it into a friendly alien mascot, then dragging the mascot to the exact location desired for the picture. Simple.

That’s the good news. Though I am blown away by the features and user interface of Blogsy, the software is still too unpolished to rely upon. Sometimes when I start it up, it claims my connection to the CoM home base is corrupted. Other times, it crashes while trying to save a draft, wiping out writing with no chance of recovery. It’s really not ready for heavy use yet. I look forward to its improvement, however. Once the bugs get worked out (and they add Tumblr support), Blogsy will become the platform of choice for on-the-go writers.

Until then, it’s a great novelty. I wrote this post in it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t post it, so I had to email it to myself to save the text.

Cult of Mac rated: [xrr rating=5/10]

Dancing at Apple’s retail stores is becoming quite a trend. First there was iJustine, followed by the lip-syncing kid iTr3vor, and now the cast of a Disney TV movie.

Over the Easter weekend, the cast of Disney’s new made-for-television movie, “Lemonade Mouth,” invaded the Apple retail store at The Grove in Los Angeles to dance a number in front of amused shoppers.

Staff eventually gently shoed them out, but unfortunately not before the movie’s title song “Determinate” drives you absolutely f–king crazy.

Via TUAW and IFOAppleStore.

White iPhone this! White iPhone that!

Who’s sick of it already?

[polldaddy poll=4975121]

If you’ve run up against the New York Times‘ new paywall, here is the simplest way to continue reading — guaranteed. This isn’t just a Mac tip: it works on Windows too.

Apple’s reportedly on the cusp of getting all the major music labels signed for their upcoming cloud-based music locker service… but don’t expect it to be free. According to rumblings from industry sources, Apple is planning on charging for their cloud-streaming service.

Apple’s not happy with Amazon for calling their new app store for Android… well… “Amazon Appstore for Android.” In fact, they’re suing over it, claiming ownership over the term Android.

Amazon’s trying to get the suit tossed out, of course. First witness for the defense? It’ll be Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself.

What does Apple’s excess of $65.8 billion in cash reserves mean in real world terms? Well, for one thing, Steve Jobs could walk into any home in the United States, peel off a few bills from his fold of walking-around money and then, merely by fluttering those bills rhythmically and speaking in a soothing tone of voice, convince even the sternest ethicist, most rigidly defined vegan or opulently well-to-do moneybags to eat his wife and children.

Or, put a less prosaic way? Apple’s stock reserves are so great that if something happened and Apple stopped selling anything at all, the company could keep going until 2018 on its savings alone.

Put even less prosaically — we swear this time — Apple’s cash is worth half of Google’s entire enterprise value. Wow. [via GigaOM]

We start off with the iPhone 3G. This handset is unlocked and loaded with 16GB for just $328. Next is a 27-inch Apple LED Cinema Display for $849. We close out the day’s spotlight with a humorous-appearing GOgroove 2.1-Channel BoomBUDDY Music dock.

Along the way, we also check out various accessories, such as FM transmitters and iPad cases. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Got multiple iTunes accounts? Tired of switching manually from one to the other all the time?

If you’re in that position, you might like to check out this thread on Reddit, which offers a few solutions to make your life easier.

Seamless is a fresh new iOS app that solves a problem we’ve all met: you’re in front of your Mac, listening to some amazing music, and you have to get up and leave.

You could find the same song on your iPod or iPhone, and start it again there. You could even try to scrub through it to the same point in the song. Either way, the mood is lost.

The helicopter pilot who rescued 28 people in the deadly Queensland floods in January told an inquiry commission how they relied on an iPhone with Google Maps to navigate.

Pilot Mark Kempton made a statement to the Queensland Floods Commission recalling how his chopper arrived over shortly before 5pm that day and his crew were shocked at the sight of the brown water rushing beneath them, taking water tanks, trucks, boats and an airplane with it.

You’d think this is something Apple would already have locked down already, but the guy who just mindlessly rubber stamps all patent applications at the USPTO apparently lost this one behind some filing cabinets for a few years. No bother, because he found it, and now Cupertino owns a patent for the veritable iPod click wheel… just in time for Apple to eliminate it entirely with the next generation of all touchscreen iPods! Great timing!

It looks like tomorrow will be the day the white iPhone will go on sale, and to prove it, you can already buy one in either 16GB or 32GB varieties… as long as your are one of les Belgiques, that is.

Yup, you can buy a white iPhone 4 now from at least one retailer, but only if you’re in the Benelux region. All of us without a genetic predilection towards marzipan, the collected works of Hergé and finishing off a day with a flagon of Geuze will just have to wait another twenty-four hours. Which is no big deal, considering we’ve already been waiting for an incredible ten months.

As a final, off-hand comment: anyone else the white iPhone 4 looks kind of fat in this pic?

As a massive fan of first-person shooter games, I’m always looking for great iOS shooters that will help me get my fix when I’m away from a console. Thankfully, the App Store is home to some great FPS games from developers such as Gameloft, EA Games, Treyarch and Villain.

Our latest app list is a collection of the best FPS games in the App Store – check them out after the break!

Apple’s got an obsession with thinness perhaps best described as techno-anorexic. They’ll shave millimeters off a device until it seems ready to melt upon the tongue, a communion wafer of a gadget.

I wouldn’t be surprised, then, if the following rumor pans out: Apple is reportedly working with Sharp to create new poly=silicon LCD displays that will allow the sixth-generation iPhone to get even thinner.

Motorola’s Xoom, powered by Google’s Android 3.0 ‘Honeycomb’ OS fine-tuned for tablets, was supposed to be Apple’s worst nightmare and a reawakening for the venerable handset manufacturer. Instead, one Wall Street analyst estimates Motorola Mobility has sold between 25,000 and 120,000 Xooms, recalling Microsoft’s jab at Apple as ‘just a rounding error.’ What’s the solution for Motorola?

Sue ’em. Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdry thinks Motorola Mobility would earn more by suing Google for what he termed the “dead on arrival” Honeycomb tablet software.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkLJbfL16RU

The 15th series of “South Park” is set to premiere in the U.S. tomorrow, here’s a preview that features Steve Jobs launching a “new product that will once again revolutionize the way we use our phones and tablet devices” called the HumancentiPad.

Hmm. Ok. Thinking that a) although they made him look healthy in the clip, Jobs is ill so he’s not a fair target  b) the Human Centipede reference isn’t as incisive a reference to how we’re all connected by tech as they would like.

The Simpsons did it better back in 2008.

What do you think?

Via Deadline.com

Google’s Android smartphone OS now has a double-digit lead on Apple, according to a new survey released Tuesday morning. Android is used by 37 percent of smartphone users, compared to the iPhone, owned by 27 percent of smartphone users, found a March survey by measurement firm Nielsen.

The findings illustrate a dramatic change in consumer attitudes since October 2010. In that survey, the iPhone lead with 27.9 percent of smartphone owners, just edging out the BlackBerry’s 27.4 percent. Android was No. 3 with 22.7 percent. Now, Android is No. 1, Apple No. 2 and BlackBerry is No. 3, with 22 percent of the market.

It’s been a good week for Apple-Star Wars Geekdom. News today of a Death Star desktop screenshot, circa Mac System 6 era. TK-421 is not at his post (again), Darth is urgently looking for two lost droids, and spam exists on Vadernet even Far, Far Away.

Kudos to designer Matt Chase for this awesome vintage mockup of a black & white Safari, Mail and the right-click menu option to Move to Trash Compactor. Complete image (1920×1200) available here.

I suspect Darth has a Steve Jobs in Carbonite case on his iPhone, too. Or would that be Han Solo?

[via TUAW & Neatorama]

Sony surprised visitors to the Consumer Electronics Show back in January when the company announced its intentions to take second place in the tablet market within a year, despite not having a tablet under its name. But at a media launch in Tokyo on Tuesday, the company announced two new devices that will be coming to take on the iPad this fall.

Identified, for now, by the code names S1 and S2, the new Sony tablets will be powered by the latest Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, and will both feature Wi-Fi and 3G/4G capabilities. The S1 will feature a 9.4-inch display and a Tegra 2 processor, with an “off-centre of gravity design.” It will also boast an IR port for controlling Sony’s line of Bravia televisions.

The S2 has two 5.5-inch displays with a foldable design; which can be used independently to display different functions, or together for browsing websites and other tasks.

Sony chose not to reveal any further details about either tablet, disclaiming that “design and specifications are subject to change without notice.” Both devices will be compatible with selected PlayStation games, and are scheduled for a worldwide launch this coming fall.

The S1 certainly looks like a pretty swanky tablet in the picture above, but I’m sure I like the foldable design that comes with the S2. Until we know more details about each device’s technical specifications, it’s hard to determine whether these Sony tablets will worthy adversaries for the iPad 2. However, I can’t imagine Sony would release them if they weren’t strong contenders.

[via AppleInsider]

It seems more and more likely that Wednesday will be the day the infamous white iPhone 4 is launched, finally putting an end to the rumors that have surrounded the device for the last 10 months since it was originally announced. There’s one more before the big day, however: it seems that only the 16GB model of the device will be available when it hits stores.

A UPS shipping invoice obtained by Boy Genius Report shows a shipment of 20 white iPhone 4 16GB units destined for one AT&T store, while there are no 32GB units to be seen. A separate report over the weekend claims that both models of the device were being shipped to Best Buy stores across the U.S., but inventory numbers for the 32GB device could not be confirmed.

If you’ve waited 10 months for a white iPhone 4, it seems you may be stuck with a 16GB model if you have no intention of waiting any longer.

It’s safe to assume the white iPhone 4 won’t be on the list of Apple’s best product launches.

No matter how harmless this whole iPhone tracking feature may be, some people still aren’t happy about it. While many of us have brushed it off and chosen to ignore what seems like something blown way out of proportion, others have decided to take things a little more seriously.

Now dubbed ‘Locationgate’, the issue has been the subject of class-action lawsuits and government investigations. But surely if users are really concerned about their iPhone tracking their every move, they can just turn location services off, right? Wrong.

The Wall Street Journal has revealed that even with location services disabled on the iPhone, the device continues to collect and store users’ location data with the help of cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots. This isn’t a dirty little secret, however; this is well within the rights of every cell phone maker. But what’s interesting, is that Apple seems to lie about it.

The iPhone LocationGate scandal continues to escalate.

Senator Al Franken has summoned Apple and Google to appear before a Senate judiciary hearing on mobile privacy in May.

We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!

Ok, so all jokes aside, it’s no secret that many of us here at CoM are fans of Leo Laporte and his immensely popular all-things-Apple show Macbreak Weekly.

Well, in a moment of questionable judgement, Leo invited me on Macbreak to talk all things Apple for two whole hours, and I humbly accepted.

If you could use a dose of live Apple news and entertaining banter tomorrow between the hours of 11am and 1pm Pacific time, please tune in: https://live.twit.tv.

If you haven’t had a good laugh today, you should check out this video that’s been circulating of “Steve Jobs” rehearsing his iPhone 5 introduction keynote.

It’s absolutely hilarious to me that anyone would think this video is real, especially after hearing Steve say the iPhone 5 is going to have its own version of smell-o-vision. I also didn’t realize Steve Jobs sounded a lot like George W. Bush, but he does in this video.

The best part though is when Steve decides it’s time to suit up in his “go-time” sneakers, does a quick in-place foot shuffle, then compares the airy weight of his newly donned sneakers to the lightness of the new iPhone 5.

[via Tuaw]