Cult of Mac

I haven’t eaten watermelon in what must be going on a year now, but I’m sure this dollar-app is a must-have for serious watermelon afficionados (the clip looks like it was filmed in Israel, which is notoriously watermelon-crazy).

The developer claims iWatermelon Deluxe can determine if a watermelon is ripe just by having the user set the iPhone onto the melon in question, selecting the melon’s color and size, and tapping its rind a few times.

A somewhat odd description on the dev’s website additionally suggests that “iWatermelon is also fun to try on more Hollow [sic], round objects.” Not sure what they’re suggesting, but plopping an iPhone on someone’s head, rapping on that head and then explaining that you’re using an app made for watermelons to determine whether they’re ripe or not is sure to be a conversation starter.

In a post yesterday about CoPilot’s new iPad navigation app, I remarked that I’d like to see more iPad car mounts than the custom dash fabricated by Soundman Car Audio; turns out, while it doesn’t look as if anything is available yet, there are a few companies working on solutions which should be available soon. Here’s a quick look at what’s coming.

We start off with a roundup of iPad apps, including “Glyder 2 for iPad.” In the same vein, we have the latest batch of App Store price drops, including the “Chop Chop Ninja” action game. Finally, the Apple Store offers a number of unibody MacBook Pro laptops, starting at $929 for a 2.26GHz model with 13-inch screen. (There’s also a deal on a fully-loaded Core i7 MacBook Pro with AppleCare for $2,699.)

Along the way we’ll also check out software bargains and other deals on gadgets. As always, details on these and many other items can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page which starts right after the jump.

Even if you don’t jailbreak, step on or otherwise open up your iPad you can always wear the innards on your chest with the Exploded iPad tee.

This is the latest model in the Exploded Apple series — like the 128K and iPhone —  from artist Garry Booth and Dion Briggs.

Also available in a poster version, the design is printed on American Apparel tees in 100% cotton. You can snap up either one for $19, plus shipping.

Beats the heck out of the jokey iPad tees that have flooded the market so far.

Federal antritrust regulators are taking a keen interest in changes Apple made to its iPhone developers agreement, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting.

Steve Jobs is at it again — emailing Apple customers with answers to their questions.

This one was sent to CultofMac.com by reader Paul Greenberg, who asked Jobs about a missing MobileMe feature that’s been bugging him for three years: the inability to sync notes via MobileMe.

As Microsoft’s Internet Explorer falls to just under 60 percent of the browser market, Google’s Chrome has jumped ahead of Apple’s Safari, indicates a new survey released Tuesday. Although Mozilla’s Firefox took the largest percentage of the market lost by Microsoft, Google’s Chrome took 6.7 percent, versus 2.5 percent for Apple’s Safari.

Internet Explorer declined to 59.95 percent of the browser market, down from its high point of 80 percent in 2008, according to Net Applications, which analyzes Internet traffic trends. Firefox picked up about nine of those lost percentage points, with Google’s Chrome snaring 6.7 percent of IE’s share (up from 0 before 2009), and Safari took 2.5 percentage points for 4.72 percent of the browser market.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCU0RcoxKxE&feature=player_embedded#!

Italy’s Justice Minister used an iPhone to cite a wiretapping law during a prime-time talk show.

Minister Angelino Alfano, best known outside Italy for a controversial immunity law meant to save the bacon of beleaguered Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, pulled out a patriotic iPhone to consult an app called Laws and Codices (Codici and Leggi).

The €19.99 euro app promises to guide users through Italy’s notoriously complicated legal system, which often makes the old quip true that “in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.”

Alfano used it on the show to quote verbatim a  much-debated law on wiretapping, the talk show was about the “war over wiretaps,” which has again exploded recently.

While there’s no shortage of politicians who use Apple products — of late iPad aficionados Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Russian premier Dimitri Medvedev — this may be the first time one relies on an app to get it right in public.

Via iPhoner, hat tip to  Andrea Nepori

If you took the plunge on the Spirit jailbreak over the weekend, no need to wait for AT&T to fulfill their long ignored promise to bring data tethering to the iPhone in the United States: the MyWi App will turn your iPhone into a wireless 3G modem right now.

The app costs $10 on jailbroken iPhones and it looks pretty simple: you just launch the MyWi app, flip the “WiFi Tethering” switch to “On” and then you can connect any WiFi-capable device to your iPhone.

This would be a great way to make your iPad WiFi 3G capable while saving yourself $130 bucks. If you want to try MyWi, you can grab it now through Cydia.

[via Gadget Lab]

Apple’s iPad might have sold one million units in just a month, but that’s not impressing Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who thinks that the iPad’s touch-only input approach will ultimately lose to pen-based tablets… at least with students:

“Microsoft has a lot of different tablet projects that we’re pursuing. We think that work with the pen that Microsoft pioneered will become a mainstream for students. It can give you a device that you can not only read, but also create documents at the same time.

While I agree there’s a place for styluses with tablet computers (and, in fact, wish Apple would officially release a pressure-sensitive one for use with the iPad), Jobs is ultimately right: if uses have to reach for a stylus then a touchscreen device is a failure. I don’t think that changes whether you’re a casual user or a student.

The real reason Gates is saying styluyses are necessary for touchscreen devices has more to do with the fact that Windows 7, the operating system Microsoft would like tablets to run, was designed with mouse input in mind. A stylus does a better job at simulating a mouse than a finger, and Windows 7’s stylus support is more robust than its hatchet job multitouch. I wonder if Gates will change his tune when Windows 7 catches up with the iPhone OS, at least when it comes to touch.

Unlimited wireless data plans usually have invisible quotes around them. Although you’d be forgiven if, like Noah Webster, you thought that “unlimited” meant “not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity or extent,” mobile carriers usually define it as meaning less than 5GB of data per month. Does AT&T’s unlimited iPad 3G data plan have a similarly illogical definition of “unlimited?”

Not so far, according to Zach Epstein over at Know Your Cell. He’s pumped 31GB of data over AT&T’s network over the past few days, trying to see at what point Ma Bell will cut him off. They haven’t yet.

“If I can hit 100GB without being shut off by AT&T, I think it will be safe to say that users can consider the $29.99 iPad data plan to be “unlimited”. Considering I’m currently at six times the 5GB soft cap placed on smartphone data plans after just two days of usage, things are looking good,” writes Epstein.

I don’t know about that: it’s just this sort of data usage that is going to cause AT&T to clamp down on their iPad data plan. Still, for now, at least, rest assured that your iPad 3G can be used to pump a truly sick volume of data.

Dropbox, the indispensable document syncing app for the Mac, PC and iPhone, has now come to the iPad, thanks to an update that makes the program universal across all iDevices.

Don’t expect anything different: all the core functionality is the same, including the ability to access, edit, sync, download, upload and share files with others through Dropbox. The iPad version does look better than the iPhone app, though, and comes with a useful dual-pane mode.

If you’re a Dropbox user, you can grab Dropbox for iPad now for free over on iTunes.

[via Gizmodo]

China’s government has finally approved the sale of iPhones with Wi-Fi, removing one of the last barriers for Apple to fully introduce the handset to one of the world’s largest mobile populations. Until now, Apple’s exclusive carrier in the country, China Unicom, could only offer the iPhone 3GS with WAPI, a homegrown version of Wi-Fi approved by the government.

The official announcement comes after the CEO of one mobile carrier said in March the iPhone would gain Wi-Fi in the near future.

Reversing their long-embraced policy of buying other companies rarely, Apple’s been on a shopping spree the past six months with the acquisition of Quattro Wireless, Lala, Intrinsity and Siri. What’s behind it?

Bloomberg has an interesting overview of Apple’s evolving acquisition strategy. What it comes down to, at the end of the day? Staying ahead of Google in the mobile space.

According to analyst Brian Marshall, Apple “learned a good lesson with AdMob.” Apple let the acquisition process linger too long, allowing Google to outbid them. Instead, they had to settle for “second-fiddle Quattro.”

It’s not new that international data plans are pecuniary disembowleings, so it’s natural that AT&T’s official pricing for the iPad would be for the sadomasochistic only. Expect to spend as much as $200 a month for a slice of bandwidth exceeded by many App Store video games, or just a couple of downloaded iTunes albums.

According to the Wall Street Journal, industry insiders are predicting that Apple will cave on the terms of the iPhone 4.0 SDK rather than be dragged into an antitrust battle over them.

Happy Sex with Maryline, a sexuality coaching and education guide for adults from La Roche Communication hit the iTunes App Store Tuesday, intimating a new, more comfortable, perhaps an even more mature approach to Apple’s understanding of the relationship between the iPhone and Sex.

After nearly two years of sophomoric inconsistency regulating which kinds of sexually charged material could legally be powered by its iPhone OS, Apple seems prepared to grow beyond the “Whose Boobs” era into one in which iPhone users might legitimately ask, “is that a sex coach in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”

As a contributor to Cult of Mac, you can probably guess that I’m an Apple fanboy. I showed up to the Apple Store at 5:45 AM on April 3rd (iPad Day for you civilians) ready to have my mind blown. Little did I know that I would soon be returning my iPad to that same Apple store.

I blame iPhone OS 4.0 and here’s why:

At a posh dinner party, Steve Jobs eats a plate of raw vegetables with a blonde bombshell sitting on his knee. Instead of going to Macworld and plugging the Mac, he’s too busy partying with Tina the nymphette.

Part 13 of Macworld founder David Bunnell’s personal history of the first Mac: “My Close Encounters With Steve Jobs.”

Picture copyright CNN

This weekend market the White House Correspondents Association, an annual black tie dinner when a large number of political insiders gather to smile politely while a washed-up comic offers up lame impressions of Jimmy Carter. (With the lone exception being that time that Stephen Colbert shot everybody in the face)

During the dreaded run-up to Jay Leno’s observations about the foibles of modern life, CNN’s Ed Henry convinced First Lady Michelle Obama to send her first-ever Tweet from his iPhone. Except she couldn’t — because she had no idea how to type on it.

“How do you type on this?” she asked, before handing the phone back to Henry and dictating the highly inoffensive “from flotus: ‘here at dinner this is officially my first Tweet. i am looking forward to some good laughs from the potus and jay'”.

There you have it. No word on whether Steve Jobs is sending the White House the entire collection of “This is how you…” ads from when the iPhone was first introduced.

CNN via The Awl

Jean-Louis Gasseé, gather of the Macintosh II and the BeOS, is a canny thinker and doer in tech. Even though he doesn’t quite have the track record of, say, Steve Jobs (by inches), he does know what he’s talking about, he guided not one but two great PC platforms, and he’s worth listening to when he has something to say about the rising trends.

On his blog today, he writes about “Very Personal Computing,” the arrival of the smartphone as the most profitable sector of the tech industry. As he notes, the PC is finally moving toward a state of less relevance, at least from a business perspective. Despite being No. 1 in PCs, HP realizes around 1/6th of the profit from that business that Apple does from the iPhone. That, as should be noted, is despite the fact that Apple isn’t even one of the top 5 manufacturers of phones on the planet.

This is absolutely essential reading, especially in thinking about the next big wave of mobile innovation. HP’s acquisition of Palm is really one to watch…

Via Daring Fireball

Yes, we have an official replacement for the MacQuarium as the best use for a 25-year-old Mac: Cut a slot into it so it can serve as the ultimate past-meets-future iPad stand. Great work from Flickr user Mapgoblin, though you might want to consider washing the front of your old Mac if you decide to emulate him.

(And yes, I know the photographer thought it was a Mac Plus — I’m pretty sure it’s actually a 512k Fat Mac)

Flickr via Unpluggd and TUAW

An update to ABC’s iPad app that adds 3G video streaming has already been submitted to the App Store.

The popular app will likely win Apple’s approval and will shortly be available as a free download. Since its launch a month ago, ABC’s app has been one of the most popular on the iPad, all owing users to enjoy high-quality streams of ABC’s hit shows, like Lost.

However, as we noted last week, the app works over Wi-Fi only. It will not stream video over AT&T’s 3G cell network. This came as a shock and surprise to new iPad 3G owners, who were also beginning to discover that other video services, like Netflix and Youtube, severely downgrade video quality when streaming over the cell network.

Silicon Alley Insider: ABC iPad App Update With 3G Video Streaming Already On Its Way

One of the coolest roles of the 3G iPad has to be as that of navigator. No more squinting at the iPhone’s tiny screen while trying to navigate the spaghetti-bowl of the NYC-area highway system; no more ending up in the wrong Springfield because of accidentally tapping in the wrong place.

The relatively inexpensive ($30) CoPilot GPS iPhone app now has an iPad version, CoPilot Live HD North America — currently the only iPad GPS app out there. The good news is that unlike most apps, the HD iPad version is the same price as the iPhone version. The bad news is that so far it’s only available for North America.

Now if only someone would make a car mount requiring less commitment than this one.

I’ve been infatuated with Iron Man ever since I was wee — so give me any reason to mention the red and gold-clad champion and I’m as giddy as a mad scientist in a repulsor-equipped, titanium-alloy exoskeleton.

Iron Man Central, a collection of all-things Iron Man, has just come to the iPhone. There’s a lot of content for fans to play around within the free app: videos, background information on the character, real-world news about Iron Man titles and events, wallpapers, social media interaction — and of course, the obligatory pimp for the new movie.

Yes, the app’s release coincides with that of the new Iron Man flick, but Zumobi, the app’s developer (and creator of a number of media-related apps like NBC’s Meet The Press and FHM magazine apps) says the updates won’t fade when Iron Man 2 finally does from theaters. iPad version’s coming soon.

[via Mashable]