Cult of Mac

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1sdtiwCJ9s

Voters in Santa Clara County can now register via iPhone and iPad for upcoming elections.

An Oakland company called Verafirma has been pushing an app that collects signatures via iPhone, iPad and other touchscreen devices. First touted as a way to sign petitions, Verafirma works much the same way bank technology does to accept digital John Hancocks. It doesn’t store signatures electronically.  Once sent, they are printed out and when the ballot is cast, that paper signature is compared to the electronic one.

Verafirma’s efforts paid off, if just in the nick of time: the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters decided last week that voter signatures collected via electronic devices as well as those on paper are also valid. Voter registration ends May 24 for state primary elections taking place on June 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prf5Oy1n7iM

Think you already know all the new iPhone 4G will do?  A tip-o-the-hat to Cult of Mac reader Mario Baluci, who wrote to tell us about this short rendering of the upcoming iPhone (or what it may look like) that he created as a promo for his Make Coffee iPhone app.  Silly, but the video is nicely done.

Perhaps rev2 will control one of the webcam coffee machines still dripping away on the internet…

We here at Cult of Mac receive a ton of email asking “What’s the best _____?” or “I just got a new iP___,  tell me what sweet apps I should purchase!” Though we try to cover the vast realm of the best of Apple products, software, and accessories we know that crowdsourcing it to you guys will give us some interesting results.

We’re posting questions on our Facebook Page or Twitter profile and taking your answers into consideration. Here’s the first question of our Nerd Debates: “What’s the best iPhone case out there and why?”

Our favorite app for the iPhone, Tweetie 2, has made a quick getaway from the App Store. It looks like Tweetie 2’s new owners, Twitter, might be replacing it with it’s Twitter for iPhone app in mere moments (or this week).

The recent update to Tweetie 2 included a slot machine pop-up that would run if you pulled down to refresh. It was pretty cool the first time I experienced it-actually the first two times since you had to pull twice to see the message “Coming Soon: Tweetie will be Twitter for iPhone.”

But soon after I hated everything about it and I never wanted to see the message again. It took me a while but you can actually pull down to refresh gently enough so as not to disturb the slot machine monster that I wish would die.

Twitter for iPhone should be released tomorrow. Keep it here for the details.

Over at Gadget Lab, our favorite yoga-practicing nicotine golem of a gadget blogger, the pseudonymous Charlie Sorrel, has posted a fantastic guide on how to transfer your existing Stanza e-book library into iBooks.

The process is tricky, but as Charlie points out, since Stanza was purchased by Amazon last year, the likelihood of a native iPad port is in question as Amazon focuses on Kindle for iPad. Right now, then, this is the only way to transfer your existing library, along with cover art and keywords, to the iPad’s native e-book reading format. For guys like me, with an extensive Stanza library, this is a must read tutorial.

Software makers Avataron are now ready to turn your iPad into a functional mini-monitor for your Mac with their latest app, Air Display.

The app uses your iPad’s WiFi connection to transmit video data between it and your Mac (although you’ll first have to install a System Preference pane on your desktop or laptop machine). The app even allows the iPad’s touchscreen to be used as a mouse, so you can “click” icons with your fingers on your iPad’s extended desktop.

Pretty neat. Air Display isn’t out yet, but it will be submitted to the App Store next week, and if there aren’t any hiccups, you should be able to download it soon for the price of $9.99… significantly cheaper than even the cheapest of secondary displays.

In theory, the iPad can use the same 30-pin dock donnector to interface with any existing iPhone or iPod accessory, the practicality is that there’s simply no way you’re going to smash it into an existing speaker dock’s iPod port.

The Cerulean RX Stereo Bluetooth Receiver can help with that: it’s a simple wireless adapter that is small enough to fit in any iPod dock and, once connected to your iPad (or any other iPod product), it will happily stream music from across the room over A2DP, no batteries required. And if you’re using it with an iPhone, it’ll even pause and resume music during a call.

A cool accessory that would go a long way to making an iPad work well with a high-end speaker dock, but unfortunately, it’s not cheap: expect to pay $89.99.

Over at 9to5Mac, Jordan Golson put together this simple but illuminating pie chart illustrating Apple’s revenue breakdown by category for Q2 2010.

It really just makes everything immediately clear about Apple’s business, does’t it? The Mac and OS X are also-rans now: Apple’s present and future is the iPhone OS, which accounts for almost as much revenue as Apple’s Mac and iPod units combined. Cupertino’s moving to a mobile future, not one defined by thirty-year old, desktop-oriented expectations.

I can’t wait to see Q3’s numbers. My guess is it’s going to contradict what Apple has been saying in its advertisements all along: the iPad isn’t the future of computing. It’s the present.

When it comes to throwing their muscle around Congress, where does Apple stack up compared to the other big names in tech?

Business Insider has taken a look at the numbers.and the answer is surprising: not that much. In fact, they spend the least of most of the big tech companies when it comes to lobbying a percent of revenue. In fact, compared to Google, which spends half what it spends on advertising on lobbying, Apple’s barely rubbing elbows with politicians at all.

That makes sense though: Google mucks about in the murky waters of privacy, and that means they need to be conscious and have regulators on their side. Apple, by comparison, doesn’t have such a big target painted on their chest… although I imagine that lobbying budget will go up if it seriously looks like the DoJo is going to investigate Apple for anti-trust violations in regards to Adobe’s recent complaints.

[via 9to5Mac]

Fantastic news. Mac gamers! PopCap Games’ entire library of 13 incredible Mac games is now available for the lump sum of just $50.

Well, score one for the Vietnamese. As rumored yesterday, Apple has stealthily upgrade the entry level plastic unibody MacBook to bring it more up to line with the specs of the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Here’s what the new MacBook looks like: on the outside, it’s the same, but its electronic innards now contain a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB 5400RPM hard drive and an NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated GPU.

The biggest update is actually the battery: it now gets the same 63.5 watt hour batter as the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which gives it up to 10 hours of wireless productivity. That’s actually netbook range, now.

The new MacBook is a better deal than ever, and as usual, it only costs $999.

Passwords. Loathe them or detest them from the depths of your innermost soul, they are a fact of life on today’s internet. And so many people use the same one everywhere.

1Password is aptly named. Once you give it control of your passwords, you don’t ever have to worry about remembering passwords again. You’ll only have to remember one – the one that unlocks 1Password itself.

We start out another week with a new crop of App Store deals. First up is the latest App Store freebies, including “Turn the World,” a puzzle game. A memorization puzzle game, “Mindshapes” leads off the iPad app price cuts. Finally, we round out our featured deals with an Apple Store offer: 8GB iPod nano for $99.

Details on these and many other items ( such as unibody MacBook Pros starting at $929) are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Sure, the app store is swimming in trivia quiz games, but Qrank is different — and ever since the game raised its shiny little head up off the App Store floor earlier this month it’s had us hooked like sugar junkies to a candy factory.

the free app cranks (you knew it had to be in here) out a fresh quiz every day, and you’re only allowed one crack at it per day, which is one big reason why it’s as addictive as, well, crack. That, and the way the game connects players socially — everyone has to answer the same questions, which makes it easy to let your friends know you’re smarter than them.

If you don’t have friends, the game publicly ranks you against everyone else playing that day, so you can be smarter than your state, the nation — or the whole world.

We all know that Flash movies can be a PAIN sometimes, and the SWF and FLV Player Pro takes away all of those frustrations. SWF & FLV Player PRO version delivers even more functionality to you: ability to save currently played Flash movie no matter whether it is loaded from web or locally; switch to full-screen viewing mode; capture the current frame of the movie and produce a series of screenshots out of your favorite FLV or SWF movie, and more!

The great folks over at Eltima Software are giving away 20, yeah, I said TWENTY FREE licenses of the SWF and FLV Player Pro. Here’s what you gotta do to get your hands on a copy of one of these licenses that retails normally at $19.95.

1. Follow us on Twitter (this is MANDATORY, or else we can’t DM you to send you the code if you win)
2. Tweet this between 1:30pm May 17th and 1:30pm May 18th: “Check out @CultofMac and @EltimaSoftware giving away 20 FREE SWF/FLV Player app codes! https://ht.ly/1M8ae #cultofmac”
3. We’ll randomly pick 20 Twitter accounts that tweeted the proper message and send the app code to you through DM.

Again, make sure that you’re following us on Twitter, because if not, we’ll skip you and move onto another Twitter user to give the code to. You must be 18 years old to enter the giveaway. Good Luck!

The urge for YouTube fame got the better of a trio of three teen crooks, whose iPod recording of an assault and robbery of another teen got them arrested.

Two 14-year-olds and a 13-year-old in Waldorf, Maryland approached a 13-year-old on a neighborhood basketball court at 5:30 pm. They reportedly tried to pick an argument with the victim, who packed up his stuff and tried to walk away from them.

The suspects attacked him, striking him on the back of his head. One of the suspects recorded the assault on his iPod while the other two stole the victim’s backpack.

Free Radical Software has just released Rhythmic for iPhone and iPod Touch. Rhythmic allows one user to transfer song information, including relevant song data and cover art, from their device to another with the same technology used to transfer contacts in the popular iPhone app Bump.

Once a track is Bumped, the recipient can choose to download the track from iTunes.

I could see this app working well at iPod nights at your local beverage dispensing establishment. Can you think of other instances when this might come in handy? I can’t. I’m also weary of the negative comments in the App Store. Fun idea, though.

Little doubt remains that Apple will introduce its next-generation iPhone next month. The latest evidence: a report that Apple’s key iPhone supplier is set to ship at least 24 million iPhone 4Gs this year, starting in June. Many believe Apple will unveil the new iPhone at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference June 7.

According to Tiawan’s Digitimes, Foxconn will ship 4.5 million iPhone 4Gs in the first half of 2010, with 19.5 million devices ready for the remainder of this year. If correct, the shipping timetable would resemble the iPad, where Apple first pushed the tablet device out in limited quantities, then opened the flood-gate as manufacturing increased.

If you think Apple’s dogged pursuit via a police raid of blogger Jason Chen’s was a little extreme, you’re in good company.

Uber geek and Mac user Bill Amend’s Fox Trot strip offered one explanation for Apple’s dogged pursuit of the lost iPhone.

In the Sunday strip, 10-year-old Jason Fox gets a fake ID, to use as bait for attracting tech bloggers.

But the joke’s on them and knee-jerk fan-folks, although some of us (and many of you) haven’t defended at least the superficial, brick-like looks of the lost iPhone.

Amend did say, via Twitter, that there was at least one situation where the said 12GV iPhone might come in handy…

Bill Maher might be on to something. The politicomedian made a bold statement last night that suggested Steve Jobs (aka Sven Jorbs) should make a run for the Oval Office.

Last week, President Obama admitted to being technologically challenged. Maher, noting that the President’s historic run for office was fueled primarily by social networking, refused to take Barry’s ignorance as adorable. Video and transcript after the jump.

The Todo app for the iPad was released recently, and to celebrate Appigo is offering this gorgeous little piece of productivity for $4.99; 50% off of its everyday $9.99 price tag.

About Todo:

Todo is a powerful set of tools that makes task management simple and fun. Use Todo on your iPad or iPhone alone or synchronize your tasks to your desktop (iCal or Outlook) using Appigo Sync (free download) or to the web using the popular online todo list Toodledo. Todo helps you focus on what matters most and allows you to integrate the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology or your own.

Appigo has noted that future updates to Todo for iPad are free.

The first sales figures of magazines testing the iPad are coming in and so far they are muted. Conde Nast says it has sold 365 iPad editions of the December 2009 Men of the Year issue, so far.

“This costs us nothing extra: no printing or postage,” GQ vice president of publishing Pete Hunsinger told reporters. “Everything is profit, and I look forward to the time when iPad issue sales become a major component to our circulation,” he added. GQ, which began selling the iPad version in April, sees the period as a testing phase, where the publisher can test the waters on pricing, advertising and ways to offer a digital version of the print publication.

Details are now emerging about how closely-involved Apple’s co-founder became during the search for a stolen next-generation iPhone that later was splashed across the front page of a prominent gadget blog. According to court records released Friday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs contacted the site around April 19, asking for the phone’s return.

Soon afterwards, Gizmodo editor Brian Lam e-mailed Jobs, telling him the blog would return the device only after Apple acknowledged it came from the Cupertino, Calif. company. A letter asking for the return of “a device that belongs to Apple” was sent to Lam by Apple attorney George Riley. Talking with lead San Mateo County Sheriff’s investigator Detective Matthew Broad, the lawyer had said the prototype’s return was “invaluable” and the potential damage from its loss “was huge,” according to an affidavit.

Quickerteck has done it again! First they brought us a charge monitor for the iPad that indicates if you’re getting enough juice to charge your pad. Now they’ve brought us a 10 watt foldable solar panel for the iPad that comes with the aforementioned charge monitor.

Quickerteck states that the panels will charge your iPad as fast as using a wall charger and they can be yours for a cool $250.

The name of the product is the best part: Apple Juicz.

My questions to you: Would you use this? Is it reasonably priced?