Cult of Mac

I’m beginning to wonder about people these days. We all seem preoccupied about the various ways we can destroy our beloved electronic devices.  Devices that are not exactly cheap either.

I’ve seen three interesting ways to destroy an iPhone 4 by blending, microwaving, or shooting it. Now I’m seeing interesting ways that an iPad can be destroyed.

The first example was proof that the iPad doesn’t make a very good fly swatter, since it rates about one kill per iPad. Or is that one killed iPad per swat? Regardless it has been shown that swatting flies is one way to destroy an iPad.

Now someone has found another way to destroy an iPad — a shotgun.

FreeTaxUSA posted the YouTube video above with the claim that “Paying too much for tax preparation is a lot like…throwing money away. ” The video demonstrates what happens to an iPad that has been shot with a shotgun in time lapsed and real-time video photography.

I think shooting your iPad with a shotgun is another good example of throwing money away. So, I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on trying this one out at home.

Anyone ready to kill some zombies? At long last, Valve is finally bringing one of the last of their Source-engine games to the Mac with Left 4 Dead 2, which the Seattle-based game makers say will be released through Steam starting tomorrow, October 5th. Watch the cool trailer below.

The Left 4 Dead series of games are co-operative based zombie survival shooters, and Left 4 Dead 2 is Valve’s most recent game and based upon the most advanced version of their Source engine. As usual, if you already own it on the PC, there’s no reason to re-download it: it’ll also be slurped down to your Mac.

Usually, when Valve releases a Mac version of one of their games, they accompany it with a savings deal, and it looks like Left 4 Dead 2 will be no exception: they are offering all four add-on missions (or DLC) for free along with every purchase of Left 4 Dead 2 for Mac. We might also see a price drop.

I’ve been looking forward to this for months. Who’s in for some zombie-killing tomorrow? Join us for some gaming on the official Cult of Mac Steam group.

As for Left 4 Dead 1? That’s still forthcoming: Valve says they had a couple last minute problems getting the Mac version up to snuff. How weird to see a sequel come out on the Mac before the original.

I gave up running a long time ago, when I realized that, well, bicycles were just plain faster. But if I were to start running again, an app that figured out my pace and looked through my library for music with a beat that matched might be a pretty cool running partner.

We start off another week of deals with a blast from the past: a 1.26GHz G4 iBook with 12-inch screen and software for $250. Next is a Kensington Battery Pack and charger for your iPhone or iPod. This unit includes a dock connector and flip-out USB tip. Finally, to help keep your private personal information secure, there is a deal on “Hands Off!”, personal information security monitoring software from MacUpdate.com for just $12.50.

We’ll also take a look at other items, along the way. As always, details on these and many other gadgets can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

Panasonic today proffered up what sorta looks like an iPodaphone-powered mini home theater for the bedside table, complete with Lilliputian hi-res 9-inch screen and audio whiz-bangery.

The MW-20 can display a digital clock/calendar, photos or play movies on its adjustable-angle screen from an iDevice resting in an attached cradle. Stereo sound is enhanced via a 5.6mm “super slim” semi-dome speaker that incorporates a digital-signal processor which optimizes sound for the small speaker, and hopefully makes the MW-20 sound as tantalizingly good as it looks.

No bedside table? The unit is also wall-mountable, includes a SD-card slot and generous 2-gig internal memory, and will automatically adjust the brightness of the screen to match the ambient lighting. The MW-20 hits stores in late November, priced at $250.

Finally! After years spent missing a gold opportunity as geeks everywhere scraped out the guts of their own pocket notebooks in order to protectively ensconce their iPhones or purchased knock-off simulacrums like the Dodocase, Moleskine has finally come up with its own set of iOS device cases, allowing you to officially disguise your iPhone or iPad as one of the “legendary notebooks” favored by “Picasso, Chatwin and Van Gogh.”

The only problem is that Moleskine seems to have retained the notebook functionality of their cases, making these awkwardly shaped and conceived. Open any of these cases to use your iOS device and you’re going to be dealing with an irritating sheath of pages fluttering around. It’s bulky and it’s awkward.

Look once and this 5.25 floppy drive looks exactly like the device that accompanied your old Apple IIe, but look again and you’ll see the Attenborough brand… denoting it as the creation of Chambers Judd.

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Attributed to the Attenborough Design Group, a fictional collective whose raison d’etre is to imbue natural self-defense and survival-of-the-fittest mechanisms into gadgets, the “Floppy Legs” has one major trick up its sleeve that Apple’s own disk drive didn’t: if you spill a liquid in its vicinity, it will quickly spring to its feet with an air of alarm.

I’ve got to tell you, I wish modern Apple equipment did this. The ever encroaching flood of a freshly-spilled beer has drowned not one, but two of my Apple Wireless Keyboards to date.

[via Technabob]

We admit, this table isn’t for everyone. Heck, it’s not even for me: the only thing growing out of my coffee table are several blossoming fungal pillars where slices of pizza were once let to be.

Even so, we can’t help but admit this conceptual modular table designed by Roberto Delponte of Stratodesign, which — I think — really does a lot to highlight the iPad’s almost zen minimalist gorgeousness of aesthetic.

Could Apple displace Exxon on the top of the Standard and Poor’s 500? That’s the opinion of one analyst who believes the Cupertino, Calif. company may overtake history’s largest corporation in terms of market capitalization as soon as October 18, when it reports earnings.

Unless Exxon shares rise, Apple will likely gain 12 percent to make up the $60 billion difference, according to Brian Marshall, analyst with Gleacher & Company. The move will mark only the second time a tech company takes first place on the S&P 500. Microsoft, which briefly held the top spot in the 1990s before falling to second place on the S&P, was overtaken by Apple in May.

Place that laptop on your lap for too long and you may get burned, doctors say. Though computer manufacturers warn against placing portable computers on skin (see Apple’s MacBook Pro manual excerpt above), people do it — and toast their skin.

Medical researchers recently reported on cases of skin blotches caused by hot laptops on legs. In one, Swiss researchers found a 12-year-old boy developed a criss cross blotch on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day over a period of several months.

‘He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position,’ Swiss researchers wrote in the respected medical journal Pediatrics. This is the youngest of 10 reported patients with what is known as laptop- induced dermatosis, nicknamed “toasted skin syndrome,” since its first description in 2004.

Here’s a bit of fun for any would-be street magicians among you. Card2Phone lets you do tricks with playing cards and common American, British, European and Australian coins.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZGskdaJww0&feature=player_embedded

Back in the days before the iPad, there was the ModBook, a MacBook-to-tablet conversion that could be expensively undertaken by those willing to send off their laptops to the plucky boys over at Axiotron along with a check for $900 bucks. I imagine the iPad has killed off a good chunk of their business, but there are always going to be some people disappointed that Apple’s tablet took the approach of a “big iPhone” when what they really wanted was a convertible OS X tablet / notebook.

If you’re one of those individuals, great news: instead of giving Axiotron your $900 bucks to convert your MacBook into a tablet, a hacker over at Enigma Penguin has come up with a DIY approach that costs just $50.

For years, Colorware has made a business by taking the prized gadgets of individuals with — perhaps — more money than taste and slathering them in multi-chromatic hues as if they were color-blind hussies. It’s strange, then, to see them entering the iPad case market, but so they are with their latest product: Grip for iPad.

Another sign that Kindle should beware: iBooks is the most popular free application for the iPad and iPhone.

According to Distimo, a start-up that analyzes app stats, iBooks has made the top ten list of free apps available on iTunes from July to September. This constant hovering in the most popular category is a ranking Distimo believes may be “influenced by the fact that Apple pushes this application to iPad users.”

Games are still less popular on the iPad than the iPhone, Distimo notes. In the Q2 version of the report, half of the top ten paid iPad apps were “productivity tools” like note taker app Penultimate and presentation app Keynote. In the Q3 report, the trend continues:  there is still just one game — old school classic RealSolitaire —  among the ten most popular free applications  for iPad, compared to four in the Apple App Store for iPhone.

While Target may be the latest brick-and-mortar retailer to begin selling the iPad, now comes word giant online retailer Amazon is also stocking the popular tablet device. Amazon, which also makes the rival Kindle e-reader, until recently offered customers Apple’s latest product via third-parties.

According to the Seattle-based company’s website, Amazon directly ships and sells the 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi versions. The move was made unannounced, except for various online news sites, such as 9 to 5 Mac, which picked-up on the change.

How much can being a control freak cost Apple’s iAd program? In the case of Adidas, the price reportedly was $10 million. That’s the figure one publication this weekend reported the Cupertino, Calif. company lost because “Apple CEO Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak.”

According to Silicon Alley Insider, Apple rejected three advertising concepts proposed by the sporting goods maker, causing the iAds campaign to hit the showers. “Advertisers complain about the lack of control over visibility into where their ads appear, lack of third-party ad serving tools, and other issues,” the report said. Although Apple plans to open up the process in the future, “some advertisers have lost their patience.”

Meet Paolo Tosolini. He’s a blogger and podcaster in Italy.

And this? Well, this is Paolo’s idea for a “video jacket”.

Stuck for inspiration for something different to do with his iPad, Paolo thought of a way of wearing it at special events, for what he calls “guerilla marketing promotion activities”.

Which sounds to me like the modern equivalent of the sandwich man, wearing someone else’s advertisement while prowling the streets.

I predict that the iPad sandwich man will soon be a common sight in our cities, walking the streets with animated ads playing at front and rear.

Anyway, that gives me another idea.

My idea depends on the next iPad having a user-facing camera. You could set up two iPads just like Paolo has done: one on your back, and one your front. Send the image captured by the front camera to the rear iPad; and send the image captured by the rear camera to the front iPad: behold! You’ll have an iPad-shaped hole right through your body!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOnUmO7oLgA

ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection is a new ZX Spectrum gamer for the iPhone that’s made its way in to the App Store today. The application features 6 full games, each with game-specific controls, and it’s only $0.99!

The six games included in the first release are:

• Turbo Esprit #3 on top 100 best games, voted for by visitors to World of Spectrum
• Saboteur #10 on top 100 best games
• Chuckie Egg the classic, developed by Nigel Alderton
• Harrier Attack inspired by the conflict in the South Atlantic
• Frank Bruno’s Boxing the UK #1 Best-Seller
• Buggy Boy the arcade original driving game

Each game is 100% original, and is accompanied by authentic Spectrum sounds. There are extensive playing instructions for each game built-in, and you can play in both portrait and landscape modes.

Elite Systems, the developer of ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection, has explained in the description of its app that volume one is still a little rough around the edges, and that any issues you may experienced will be ironed out in future updates. Some of its plans for future updates include a further six games with volume 2, which will be released within a month, and then an in-app shop to purchase more games with volume 3. And Elite’s plans don’t stop there:

Commercial agreements have already been reached with two more publishers (including one of the 80s biggest) taking to more than 200 the number of games available for inclusion in the forthcoming updates or volumes of ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection. (This will keep us busy through to Vol. #6 and beyond). Also, we’re in discussion with the owners of 100s more, including some of the most well known, with the aim of bringing them to you too.

Check out the video at the top of this post to see ZX Spectrum: Elite Collection in action.

IS Drive is an application that allows you to manage downloads on your ImageShack Drive account from your iPhone. It was recently approved for sale in the App Store, but did the application slip through Apple’s tight approval process?

If you’re not familiar with ImageShack Drive, it’s a paid service that allows you to download files using a torrent. So, with the IS Drive application on your iPhone, what you have is essentially a BitTorrent application for iOS, something Apple would normally frown upon.

According to TorrentFreak, they have spoken to the developer of IS Drive who has confirmed that the application is clearly intended to help users manage their torrents through their ImageShack Drive account, as well as managing torrents from sites like ISOHunt or Mininova. The developer also mentions that he intentionally chose not to use the word ‘torrent’ in his app’s description. Could this be why it slipped through Apple’s net?

Some users may familiar with IS Drive from Cydia, where it was previously available under the name ‘Jack Torrents.’

Is this another application that has slipped through Apple’s strict approval process that’s soon to be removed when its full functions come to light? Or has it been accepted as a result of a change in Apple’s guidelines that’s seen third-party Google Voice applications reappear in the App Store again recently?

IS Drive is currently still available in the App Store at the time of writing this, with a price tag of $4.99. But don’t forget, you’ll also need a paid account from ImageShack to use the application.

Vintage Macs come and go, Vintage Mac Museums typically tend to Grow.  One particularly impressive Museum is Moving On. The Mac Museum of Franklin Park, NJ has been put up for sale on eBay:

Due to the owner’s pending relocation, The Mac Museum of New Jersey is closing its doors, and this wonderful collection of vintage Macs and rare Apple products is being sold.

This famous collection and its curator have been featured on CNN, MacAddict magazine and The RetroMacCast podcast. The auction of consists of more 20 rare and distinguished Apple products, several books, manuals, installer floppy disks and CDs, along with nine framed posters, speciality items and more. Note: This collection will only be sold in its entirety as a complete collection. [eBay]

Models include the Lisa, Mac 128k, Plus, SE/30, Color Classic, Mac Portable, TAM, Newtons, etc., along with lots of posters, peripherals and paraphernalia.  A trove of Mac lore indeed; if I had the room, and the money, I’d love to add this all to my own collection.  How much is all this Mac history worth?

We’ll know on October 7, when the auction ends. Some lucky collector will take the prize – then need to pick it all up in a big truck themselves!

[via RetroMacCast]

This week’s top iOS games features EA Sports’ latest addition to the Fifa series in Fifa 11, which delivers console quality gaming to your iPhone. Offering an outstanding visual experience on the Retina display, and improved controls that make for fluid gameplay, Fifa 11 gives other soccer games in the App Store some great competition for 2011.

BIT.TRIP BEAT HD is an arcade game from Namco that fuses Pong with interactive beats in a colorful, pixelated environment. Listen to the different beat progressions and try to survive the onslaught of spectacular retro visuals as you bounce back beats from where they came. BIT.TRIP BEAT also features an intense multiplayer mode that allows you team up with your friends.

The incredibly addictive 0.03 Seconds Pro tests your reaction time using various different puzzles over 24 challenging stages, and then rates your score out of 5 stars. The puzzles seem simple, but you’ll be tearing your hair out as you try to beat the reaction time for each level and grab a 5-star score.

We also have an awesome augmented reality game that’s probably the best yet for iOS, and a chance to win one of the games featured in this week’s post.

This week’s must-have iOS apps features a new application that allows you to have free, high quality video calls over both Wi-Fi and 3G. Tango Video Calls is free a application to download, and works on other smartphones as well as the iPhone.

PDF Expert for iPad is Readdle’s latest application that delivers the ultimate solution for all your PDF needs on your iPad. It lets you read and annotate PDF documents, highlight text and make notes. You can also edit the documents you have stored on your Dropbox, iDisk, and Google Docs accounts.

PlainText is a free text editor compatible with all of your iOS devices that uses your Dropbox account to save your work. It has a paper-like interface that provides a nice, simple feel, and it’s a great substitute to iOS’s built-in Notes app.

Hot on the heels of the new Apple TV , Google is launching its own set-top box next week.

Made by Logitech, the Android-based will be unveiled next Wednesday October 6 at press events in San Francisco and New York (see the invite below).

Like Apple’s device, the Google TV is black, although it’s quite a bit larger than Apple’s diminutive box (see David’s photos comparing it to the old Apple TV). The Google TV will run on a 1.2-GHz Atom processor with 4 GB memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, two HDMI-out ports, Dolby 5.1 surround sound and a pair of USB ports. It will also offer video-chat at 720p if you connect a webcam.

It promises an innovative search-based interface. Search for what you want, and it displays content from the Web, cable, satellite and compatible DVRs. Here’s a trailer showing how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25X8yD0SCpM

Check out Steve Wozniak’s fun cameo on The Big Bang Theory last night. There’s actually a couple of good jokes.