Cult of Mac

One of the most irritating things about upgrading your version of iOS as a jailbreaker is losing all of the Cydia tweaks you’ve installed. Even if you re-jailbreak the next version of iOS, there’s no easy way to re-download and install all of your favorite apps and tweaks… especially if you’ve been grabbing them from third-party repositories.

Luckily, that seems like that’s about to change. Cydia’s newest feature allows you to re-download all of your apps easily in case you have to wipe and restore your device through the “Manage Account” section, which lets you keep track of your packages and app purchases through a Google or Facebook account.

Surely, there will be some who won’t entirely be comfortable handing over their Facebook or Google login details to a bunch of jailbreakers, but I just can’t wait to if it means I never have to find and download 5 Icon Dock again.

Did you promise yourself that 2011 would be the year that you would take control of your finances and start saving money? Are you having trouble sticking to your new year’s resolution? Well maybe there’s an iOS app that will make things a little easier for you. Here’s our list of the best iOS apps that may help you succeed on your mission to save money.

So that you don’t just forget about your resolution by the end of January, we’ve compiled a great list of apps that will help you stick to your targets and achieve your goals. We’ve divided them up in to the most popular resolutions, and in this post we’ll look at the best iOS apps to help you save money. We’ve chosen apps that will help you track where your money is going, apps that will help you create a budget and stick to it, and apps that will help you find the best deals in town.

Check them out after the break and get help to save money!

T-Mobile has hinted it may be the third U.S. wireless carrier to get the iPhone.

“Ask Apple,” said T-Mobile executives when asked whether it was getting the iPhone 4 at a press conference in New York today, according to Electronista.

Though neither confirming or denying, T-Mobile’s answer suggests that talks between the carrier and Apple are ongoing. Verizon used similar language in the run up to its announcement that it would be carrying the iPhone.

One issue that T-Mobile did discuss was the readiness of the iPhone’s radio chips. To work on T-Mobile’s network, the iPhone would have to support the 1,700MHz 3G band.

T-Mobile president Philipp Humm said while the current iPhone isn’t compatible with T-Mobile’s network, future 3G chips would support more cellular frequencies.

“We’re not part of the [iPhone] chipset today,” president Philipp Humm said. “But we have chipsets which support five, or up to 10 spectrum bands in the market, so we should expect there will be more degrees of freedom going forward.”

T-Mobile may be eyeing the iPhone 5, which is rumored to have a dual-mode chipset from Qualcomm with both CDMA and GSM. If it includes both 850MHz and 1,700MHz, Apple could produce a single phone that works on almost all carriers.

The great iPad 2 screen resolution debate rages on, this time with a downer rumor from Digg’s Kevin Rose.

There will be no change in the iPad 2’s screen resolution, said Rose on Twitter, citing his “iPad source.” (The tweet seems to have disappeared, but Rose posted a screenshot of his IM on Instagram).

Rose, of course, has a spotty record when it comes to predictions. Less than two week’s ago, he was saying it would have a Retina Display. The news is sure to a bummer for those of us holding out for a Retina Display, or something close.

We start the day with deals on applications for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. First up is a new crop of price cuts on apps for the Apple tablet, including “World of Goo,” an entertaining game some might have already seen for the Nintendo Wii. Also, there is a new batch of free applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, including “Ten Drops,” billed as an educational game. We wrap up our spotlight deals with “Pro Zombie Soccer,” a game for the iPhone or iPod touch.

Along the way, we check out deals on iMacs, including a 27-inch 2.8GHz model, bundled with 16GB of RAM and AppleCare for just $2,099. We also take a look at several cases for your iPad and iPhone, as well as assorted accessories for your Apple device.

As always, details on these items and many more can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Behold TankBot, a nifty little robot you can control with your iPhone, iPod or iPad.

Plug in the dongle and you can use your iDevice to control TankBot as it navigates, roams and clears obstacles. Then charge it up with a USB cable instead of batteries, a 30-minute charge gets you 15-minutes of over-hill-and-dale action.

Perhaps the best part: the price should hover somewhere under $20.

Desk Pets International brought it out at the New York Toy Fair, it’ll be in stores sometime this year. They are touting it as the first cheap robot toy that fully integrates with Apple devices.

All I know is that every year, I pretend to buy something for a nephew when it’s really for me. TankBot is going on the nephew wish list.

Via Gizmo Watch

Before Tuesday’s Q1 2011 earnings call, Fortune issued a score card ranking various analysts’ predictions (both pro and amateuralike) on how Apple would do this quarter

Now the results are in, and across the board, the amateurs did far better predicting Apple’s results than the professionals at the brokering houses and banks.

It’s not even close, either. Once ranked, the bottom twenty spots in scorecard accuracy all go to professionals being paid for their insight and accuracy. On average, progessionals were off by a 9.04% margin. Meanwhile, nine out of the ten amateurs made the top ten, and overall were only over by a little under 4%.

Jeez. And to think we bailed out these bozos. Based upon these results, it looks like the average investor would be better off cracking open a blog than employing a pro.

Another intriguing fossil unearthed from the second iOS 4.3 beta is the mention of two new services called Media Stream and Photo Stream, which 9 to 5 Mac’s Marc Gurman speculates is meant to be just one more element of an eventual Apple-run social network which will debut in iOS 5.

If you for whatever reason doubted that the next iPad would be FaceTime compatible, a new screenshot found inside the latest iOS 4.3 beta gives stronger indication than ever that there will be both front and rear-facing cameras in the iPad 2.

Earlier this week, Leander predicted that Apple would sell its ten billionth app this coming Friday, giving the lucky App Store downloader a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card to mark the occasion. CoM Reader Allan disagreed, arguing that it was more likely to happen on Saturday evening, PST.

Here’s some more soothsaying to consider, if you’re holding off on buying some apps in hopes of winning the Golden Ticket: a new website called tenbillionapps.com has launched, and it is counting down to the ten billionth app in projected real time.

When does tenbillionapps.com think the milestone will be reached? Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 at 12:31pm EST.

I have always loved the idea of the iPod Shuffle — an iPod small enough to attach to my keychain and always carry around with me — but unfortunately, the iPod Shuffle just doesn’t fit the way I listen to music. I don’t want to randomly listen to a bunch of tracks — if I want to listen to random music, I want it curated by a DJ or something.

My Shuffle, then, rarely gets used unless I dust it off along with a delusion of jogging. But musician Matthew Irvine Brown’s new project is enough to make me want to pull my old Shuffle out of the drawer: he’s compiled a set of 18 original tracks that are meant to be played in random order on the iPod Shuffle.

Despite losing a bit of its celebrity-like status to the upstart iPad, Apple’s iPhone, which has been around since 2007, brings home more profit for the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant. Earlier this week, Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook told reporters the company makes $625 on each handset, compared to $600 per iPad.

The chief reason for the disparity is the iPhone is subsidized by carriers hoping to use the iconic handset to lure lucrative data plans. As a result, Apple sells the iPhone for about $625 per unit and carriers reduce the price for customers. But will that change when the Verizon iPhone and the iPad 2 appear next month?

The scarcely, randomly reputable boys over at Digitimes are recycling weeks-old rumors by insisting that one of their sources from inside AAPL’s component supply chain says that the iPad 2 will boast a Retina Display.

Well, no, it jolly well won’t. But just in case that doesn’t convince you, how about some extrapolation due Moore’s Law?

Apple’s increasing use of tamper-resistant screws is a form of planned obsolescence, says one critic.

As previously reported, Apple is using proprietary five-point security screws in the iPhone 4 and new MacBooks Airs. The special screws were first used in the 2009 MacBook Pro to stop users from replacing the battery.

The screws are unique to Apple and serve one purpose only: to keep users out.

The plan, says iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, is to force customers to upgrade their gadgets sooner than necessary. They also make them reliant on Apple for expensive repairs and upgrades.

“It’s a form of planned obsolescence,” says Wiens. “General Motors invented planned obsolescence in the 1920s. Apple is doing the same thing.”

Designer Charis Tsevis built this photo mosaic of Steve Jobs for the Italian magazine Panorama. Look carefully: it’s all Apple products. Can you spot the original iSight camera? Check the detail of the eye below.

Wall Street has been falling over themselves singing the praises of Apple stock as the Cupertino, Calif. company smashes sales expectations for its unique gizmos sold at premium prices. However, the average Apple employee salary is about a 10th that of one Wall Street powerhouse, reportedly.

Despite Apple’s returns being much higher than Goldman Sachs (which reported its profit figures Wednesday), the average employee of the tech giant earns $46,000 versus $430,700 at Goldman, according to number-crunchers at the New Yorker.

Waaaay back in Tip #9, I said we’d take a closer look at the Finder sidebar. Let’s do that right now.

A Finder window has the Toolbar at the top. (We looked at how to customize it in Tip #11.) This is where you have controls for what you’re doing with the Finder, as well as (optionally), shortcuts to specific things like files or applications.

Today we’re looking at the sidebar to the left. It’s the place for shortcuts to locations. Here, you can put folders, drives or volumes that you want swift access to from everywhere.

Apple giveth and Apple taketh away after notifying developers that the new multi-touch gestures for the iPad, discovered in the first beta release of iOS 4.3, will not be available to the public when iOS 4.3 is released.

This bit of news was delivered to developers today in the Read Me file included with the iOS 4.3 Beta 2 release.

Now Apple is claiming that these gestures are now simply there for developers to preview and test with their own apps.

You can see how the new gestures work by clicking the read  link below and watching a video demonstration of them.

Apple released iOS 4.3 Beta 2 to developers this afternoon. The update includes a new firmware update for the new Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch.

Registered iOS developers can download these updates as well as a new SDK from developer.apple.com.

Let us know if you find anything interesting in the new beta by leaving a comment.

Precorder (on sale now for $1) from Airship Software constantly buffers a few seconds of video before you hit the record button, effectively eliminating “shutter lag.” It’s a brilliant idea that the developers say they borrowed from the Planet Earth team — who used it to film this amazing spectacle of great whites breaching (note: Your results may vary. A lot).

Remember last week, when we reported on Freecom’s 10mm external drive, the thinnest in the world? Turns out Seagate is planning to release their own super-slim USB hard drive that beats Freecom’s by one millimeter. Seagate’s drive will be part of their modular GoFlex system — which means it’ll mesh with USB 2.0, 3.0 and Firewire. Looks like it’ll also be plenty zippy at 7200 rpm, and cost about $100 for 320MB 320GB. Release date? Seagate says later this year.

This week’s photographic obsession is Dominik Seibold’s Hough Transform Camera, which I can explain in two different ways: the simple way, and the science way.

We start off the day with two deals from the iPhone App Store. First is a number of free applications, including “Taxi Check,” a new way to check prices on taxi rides. Next is a new crop of price cuts on iPhone apps, including “I Just Forgot,” a Little Critter children’s book. We round out today’s spotlight with a deal on Apple’s Remote Desktop 2 software – just $70.

Along the way, we’ll also check out some Xserve servers and some Adobe Photoshop software utilities for your Mac. As usual, you can find details at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak didn’t see Steve Jobs’ sudden leave of absence coming, according to an email he wrote to CNET.

“The news actually frightened me because I did not expect it,” Wozniak said, before trying to look more brightly at the news as perhaps a personal choice on Jobs’ part to downplay his day-to-day involvement with Apple.

“If Steve is tired and wants a bit more normal life, more power to him,” he said.

At the time of writing CNET on Monday, Woz said he had not yet contacted Jobs, but in an email statement to Cult of Mac the Apple co-founder said that he had since reached out to Jobs directly with his best wishes of rapid recovery.

A game developed by a 14-year-old has knocked Angry Birds from its perch as the top free game in iTunes.

The game, called Bubble Ball, is a physics puzzler developed by Utah teen Robert Nay. Nay wrote the 4,000 lines of code using Corona SDK. He did have had a little help from his mom, Kari, who lent a hand with the graphics. Although he’s only in the 8th grade, Nay has been programming for six years and currently codes in languages including HTML, PHP, AJAX and Java Script.

Bubble Ball launched December 29, shortly after iTunes announced that Rovio’s Angry Birds ruled the roost as the top paid and free game.

Nay’s game has had some three million downloads since launch.

What’s it like?

Players try to move  a bubble from point A to point B. To keep things moving along, players use  geometric shapes to create ramps, platforms and catapults to send the bubble to its destination.

Simple, but perhaps that is what catapulted it to the top of the crowded gaming heap on iTunes.

I haven’t played it yet, but looking forward to checking it out: I’ve got three versions of Angry Birds on my phone already.

Source: IB Times