Cult of Mac

We start off with two headlining games for the iPhone and part of the latest bargains from the iPhone App Store. “2012 Zombies vs. Aliens” is a strategy game marked down to $0.99, while “Duke Nukem 3D” is a classic first-person shoot-em-up that is free. We also have a deal on a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook for just $850 after a $125 mail-in rebate.

Also on tap are cases for your iPhones, iPads and a deal on a 27-inch LED Cinema Display bundled with the Apple TV. As always, details on these and many other items can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Don’t have an AppleTV, or even a TV, but interested in beaming some of your iPhone’s videos to that inviting 27-inch iMac display? TUAW’s always ingenious Erica Sadun has put together a tricky new piece of software that fools your iPhone or iPod Touch into thinking its an AppleTV.

There are some great iPad apps out there (Evernote is one of my personal favorites). The tablet form factor and the touch screen make for some incredible mobile computing experiences.

But – as Poison said – every rose has its thorn. For every Star Walk, there is a box of virtual chocolates. For every Marvel Reader there is an iFart.

One would think that app developers would always strive for excellence and innovation in their work. Sadly, this is not always the case. One would further think that market forces, evolutionary pressures and/or iTunes executives would remove all terrible apps from the Apple App store. This, also sadly, is not the case.

So for fans of terrible iPad Apps and developers looking to cash in on low hanging fruit (pardon the pun), here are 10 tips for creating a terrible iPad App.

The iPad, and other tablet computers have more than legs, they have teeth. Or, so says a Wall Street analyst with charts showing cannibalization of notebook PCs at a growing rate. With nearly 55 million tablet expected to ship next year, the new platform will consume 35 percent of notebooks — or 19.1 million units — in 2011.

“We suspect December quarter retail data is likely to provide even more interesting tablet cannibalization data points,” writes Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope. Here’s a hint what the data might show: more bad news for notebooks.

The iPhone’s impressive GPU is supplied by Imagination Technologies, and it’s already powerful enough to run advanced 3D graphics engines like the Unreal 3 Engine. Unbelievably, though, it’s slated to get a lot better, after it was announced that Imagination has just acquired Caustic Graphics, a company with even more impressive 3D graphics technology to boast of.

Sick of waiting for Apple to make up its mind on when its going to pilot iTunes into the cloud? Skeptical that Google’s going to do it any quicker? Recognize Spotify in the United States for what it is: a pipe dream that the music publishers will never let happen?

Time to throw your collected tracks online yourself, and cloud-streaming music service mSpot is here to help you make that happen, in conjunction with a free, just released iOS app.

Judging by the video above, mSpot’s actually got me interested: $3.99 for 40GB of online storage is actually a pretty decent price, especially given the slickness of their web interface. I’m about to move, shipping my iMac over and working entirely on my 64GB MacBook Air for the next month… maybe it wouldn’t be a shabby idea to throw my music collection up on mSpot before I leave.

In these topsy-turvy tech days, when some media titans are betting that digital will bring the end of print publications as we know them, the iPad is playing a pivotal role.

Apple’s “magical” tablet is one of the first consumer electronic devices to act as an unobscured window for the transmission of words and ideas.

“The iPad’s design is attractive, but without flourish or adornment: masterfully subtle construction and invisible tech forms a unibody frame to a vaster world that it both conveys and crystallizes. Every iOS device features only a single interface button, so it’s minimalist to the extreme.

With every app you call up, you gaze into a different world… sometimes local to your device, sometimes transient, sometimes alien and far beyond. The device itself, though, is only meant to be a complimentary and attractive frame, perfectly realized to the purpose of conveyance.”

CoM’s own John Brownlee has much to say about Chrome, the iPad and the Crossroads of Civilization in his maiden column over at Gearfuse, check it out.

The US Army wants to equip soldiers with smartphones as a part of their standard equipment – leaving it up to individuals to decide which one they want.

The Army would issue these smartphones just like any other piece of equipment a soldier receives and pay the bills, too. Two types would be offered, the iPhone or an Android phone.

“One of the options potentially is to make it a piece of equipment in a soldier’s clothing bag,” said Lt. Gen. Michael Vane, director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center.

It wasn’t surprising that the first iAd to appear on the iPad is a movie trailer for the nerd nirvana ‘Tron Legacy’ and produced by Disney, where Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder. The iAd won’t be officially released until 2011, but the trailer gives iPad owners a glimpse of things to come.

Available within the TV Guide iPad app, the iAd is “chock-full of the rich graphics, touch navigation and video native to apps,” according to an Ad Age report. The iPad version includes “close to 10 minutes of video, images from the movie, a theater locator with showtimes, and a preview of the movie soundtrack with the option to purchase on iTunes without leaving the ad.”

Apple’s Camera Connection Kit for iPad is a pretty useful set of dongles for the on-the-go photographer, but it does seem somewhat redundant: why did Apple need to display two different dongles when it could have designed one dongle that read USB and SD cards simultaneously?

Such was the thinking that lead us to admire August’s 2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad, which smashed together both dongles into one converging, dual-purpose accessory.

Pretty neat, but the fancy lads over at MIC have just one-upped the 2-in-1 Camera Connection Kit… literally. Meet the 3-in-1 Camera Connection Kit for iPad, replete with a USB port, an SD card slot and a microSD card reader.. all for only $29.90. Take that!

Yesterday, we reported that Toshiba would be building new facility in order to supply Apple with high-res displays for future iPhones and iPads… and that Cupertino itself might have sunk some cash in to the project to get it off the ground.

Today, Toshiba’s denying Apple’s involvement.

If you love Chair’s Infinity Blade as much as we did but have played it so much that you’ve simply maxed out what there is to do in the game, great news: Chair’s Donald Mustard has just announced that the first update to the masterful sword fighting game will be coming out next week, just in time for Christmas.

Piper Jaffrey analyst Gene Munster has a spotty history of prediction, but we think his latest pronouncement is probably right: if Verizon’s the next network that gets the iPhone, it will only be at AT&T’s expense.

Combining equal doses of high tech gadgetry and holiday schmaltz, members of the North Point iBand in Alpharetta, Georgia staged an entertaining performance of holiday classics utilizing only iPads and iPhones as instruments. An infectious selection of holiday ditties, combined with Casio’esque sonic fidelity, ensured that a good time was had by all!

Classics performed include Carol of the Bells, Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, and Feliz Navidad. Apps used include SoundGrid, NLogFree, Melody Bell, Guitarist (Nylon String & Electric), iGog and Bassist.

Apparently these guys also didn’t get the memo about iPads being only for consumption…

[via VisualNews]

We’ve already reported how Apple is working on a remote computing system that will be enabled by the iPhone 5.

Equipped with a Near Field Communications (NFC) chip, the iPhone 5 may allow user to load their Home folders on guest Macs when they travel, or log in at school or work. All the user would have to do is tap their iPhone 5 on a NFC-equipped Mac, and the machine would load their Home folder files, settings and preferences.

But if Apple equipped all of its products with NFC chips, which are used for short-range authentication, the technology could be used for super-easy set-up of a new Apple gear, or for easily transferring files and media between different Apple devices.

For example, users could easily connect a new iPad to their home Wi-Fi network, say, just by bringing the tablet within four inches of a NFC-equipped AirPort base station.

“Imagine you touch an AirPort with a new iPad and the Wi-Fi is connected — with full security — in less than a second,” said Gerald Madlmayr, a NFC expert based in Vienna. “No configuration is necessary any more. This makes this technology pretty useful.”

Stuck for a gift for the Mac lover in your life? How about our brand new, limited-edition MILF T-shirt?

Just in time for the holidays, we’ve launched our first venture into fine geek apparel: a limited-edition shirt designed just for fans of the Mac. (If you don’t get it, hit the jump for a clue).

Just $22.99, the shirt is limited to 100 copies, so it’s super exclusive. Order it before the 19th you’ll get it in time for the big day.

We’ve teamed up with MightTees, the Seattle-based t-shirt empire famous for classics like His Steveness and Say Anything.

The CultofMac MILF shirt is totally custom branded. 100% designed, made, and printed in the USA. 100% sweatshop free. It’s awesome. A very fine tee indeed.

With only 11 days left till The Big Day (if you’re celebrating Christmas; if you’re Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or other, the Big Day/s are variously coming up shortly, already passed or don’t actually exist). And with free shipping on many items ending this week, we thought a subtle, timely reminder was order.

Why are you still reading this? Go go go!

We’re torn on pointing this out, because it’s one of the crummiest iOS ports in recent memory, but if you’re willing to wrestle with some truly terrible on-screen controls in the pursuit of ultraviolent, misogynistic nostalgia, 3D Realms’ classic FPS Duke Nukem 3D is now free on both the iPhone and the iPad.

Honestly, free’s free, though, and the core game’s excellent enough that, with some patience, this is still a game very much worth playing… the rare game title that manages to transcend its own pan-offensive stupidity.

If you count on MobileMe especially during the midnight hours, be warned: MobileMe is going down for maintenance tonight.

Apple is under fire in Japan today after a group of the nation’s top publishers have claimed that Apple is approving apps for sale on the App Store when they violate the copyrights of many famous Japanese authors.

We start out with a couple hardware deals and the latest crop of free iPhone apps. First up is a 27-inch iMac running a 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor for $1,499. Then comes a number of free apps from the iPhone App Store, including “A Christmas Santa.” Finally, we wrap up the deal spotlight with a Mac Pro Xeon with qud 2.66GHz processors for $1,749.

Along the way, we’ll also check out several other items of interest to Mac owners, including another iPad cover, an iPhone bumper, a bargain on the iod touch and gaming software. As usual, details on these and much more can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

As we previously reported, Apple has ambitious plans to put users’ Home folders in the cloud to make them available on any machine.

The system will use the iPhone 5, which will likely include a Near Field Communications chip, as an authentication mechanism. Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless connection technology that would turn the iPhone into an electronic wallet or security passkey. Bump the iPhone 5 near a compatible NFC-equipped Mac, and the computer will load the user’s home folder and preferences.

However, it was unclear whether users would be able to load all their files onto the host machine. After all, iTunes and iPhoto libraries can get pretty large. Loading a massive iTunes library onto a guest machine from the cloud could be a lot of heavy lifting. And how about the applications to run them? What if the host machine didn’t have Photoshop installed?

Apple’s solution is that only a subset of user’s data and content libraries will be made available, according to a source familiar with a test version of the system. Specifically:

Apple looks like it will break another record for Mac sales, shipping 4.3 million Macs during the December quarter, according to consumer researchers and financial analysts. This comes on the heels of the previous quarter, which revealed a record 3.89 million Macs.

Despite the apparent record, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster views the NPD sales figures as a “neutral data point” because they mirror Wall Street expectations. However, Munster said the figures show international Mac sales are stronger than domestic demand for the Apple computers, indicating the Cupertino, Calif. company is on track for between 22 percent and 28 percent year-over-year growth.

Verizon has been rolling out its new LTE mobile broadband service across America over the past couple months in a move that is thought to herald the introduction of a future 4G iPhone to their network, presumably next year. Either way, right now, there are no Verizon 4G smartphones… instead, they are selling a series of LTE 4G modems, which are regrettably only for Windows PCs… no Macs accepted.

Luckily, it seems that the plucky hacking community has already managed to put themselves together an unofficial workaround to the situation, bringing 4G support to OS X for the first time… at least for the Pantech UML290.

Epic Games, the company behind such diversions as “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Gears of War 3″ is releasing tools for developers to meet demand for iPhone and iPad games.

The company will launch the latest version of its game-development tools, called the Unreal Development Kit, to the public Thursday. The free to download kit will include new tools to create high-quality graphics and animations on iOS, which should simplify and speed up the development processes for games.

“Apple’s App Store is the most vibrant market for mobile gaming,” said Epic Chief Executive Mark Rein. “If you’re going to make a game for a mobile device, and you want to make the most money, you’re nuts not to make it for iOS.”