Cult of Mac

It’s not easy to buy good headphones these days. There are so many companies that produce good stuff. Choosing is impossible. Especially when you are OCD and everything has to be perfect. Well, I’ve discovered the perfect headphones: The Beats By Dre ‘Studio’ Headphones, which cost $229. I previously owned a pair of plain old Apple earphones. But after listening to a friend’s Sennheisers one day, I couldn’t tolerate the crappy Apple earphones any more. I have been testing the Beats rigorously for the past three months, and now my friend’s Sennheisers sound like those Apple earphones. ;)

ADR Studio, an Italian design house, posted this great render of what an Apple iWatch might look like. It’s just a concept design, but I’d buy this product: think of what Apple could do with it!

For one, the iWatch concept realizes the promise of Microsoft’s own SPOT operating system in that it would bring widget-distillable information to your wrist in the form of apps. You could pair it with Bluetooth to your phone to display incoming calls, instant messages or text messages. An iWatch could also pretty much replace the iPod Shuffle and Nike+ for joggers: strapped around your wrist, it could easily keep track of the distance traveled or your heart rate.

Wishful thinking? Definitely. But I still want one, and think Apple should make it: if Cuptertino’s ultimate goal is for everyone to have an iDevice on them at all times, no accessory is as ubiquitous as the wristwatch.

Before the iPad was officially announced, Steve Ballmer took the stage at CES and unveiled the HP Slate, a Windows 7 running tablet PC to be released later this year. According to Ballmer, the device was proof that Microsoft could do a multitouch operating system just as well as Apple.

On their part, though, HP seems to disagree. Their recent acquisition of Palm puts them in control of webOS, a fantastic mobile operating system designed from the ground up for mobile phones and tablets. As a result, it looks like they’ve canceled Slate in favor of a forthcoming, webOS-based tablet codenamed the Hurricane.

According to The Examiner, the Hurricane could be released in Q3 of 2010. HP’s acquisition deal isn’t due to be finalized until July 31st, so that’s the earliest possible date we could see a webOS tablet.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HQ2GVMi2tQ

First released in December 1996 for MacOS 8, ReBirth RB-338 was a revolutionary synthesizer by Propellerhead Software that emulated two Roland TB-303 synthesizers, a Roland TR-808 and a Roland TR-909 drum machine. In the late 90s, it wasn’t an easy task even getting a computer to run ReBirth… but almost fifteen years later, it works flawlessly on the iPhone, featuring built-in FX units, some full featured pattern sequences and a scalable interface.

It looks fantastic, and while I think it would probably be a better experience on the iPad, you can’t overlook the cool factor of mixing some fresh, professional quality beats together on the bus. It costs $6.99

According to Macworld.com.au’s sources, several thousand items of new Apple stock with the product number MC516LL/A K87 BETTER BTR-USA are now on their way to Australia… and while they aren’t quite sure what it is, they’re positing it might be an updated MacBook Air.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wklrVOFMKA&feature

The guys over at Redmond Pie have gotten their jailbroken iPad working with the Magic Mouse, thanks to the BTStack Mouse Driver application, which can easily be found on Cydia.

I’m struggling to see the point of this, other than “because we can.” You simply can’t do anything with a mouse under iPhone OS, short of badly emulate the job of a finger. There’s no contextual menus to open, no text to highlight, no windows to move around, no dock to multitask with. Why would you bother?

Using a mouse with a finger-based OS makes about as much sense as using a finger to navigate a mouse-based OS (and we all see the hatchet job Windows 7 did there). If you want a mouse so badly, just buy a netbook already… don’t fool yourself that using a mouse under iPhone OS is anything besides sheer pig-headed folly.

The latest MacBook Pros’ ability to seamlessly switch between integrated Intel graphics and their discrete NVIDIA GPUs is a wonderful feature, capable of saving hours of battery by only employing the more powerful and power-hungry card when an application really needs it.

The problem is, there’s a lot of poorly programmed applications out there that trigger the discrete GPU when Intel’s integrated graphics should suffice. Until these applications are updated, it can be maddening to watch your laptop suck up hours of battery life because it’s treating Tweetie like its Crysis.

gfxCardStatus is a neat open-source menu bar application that allows you to control which graphics card your 2010 MacBook Pro is using at any given time. For the most part, you’ll want to leave it alone and let OS X juggle GPUs, but if you happen to notice your text editor triggering a discrete GPU switch, gfxCardStatus will help you rein it back in.

It’s free to download, so if you have a 2010 MacBook Pro, grab it now.

[via Boy Genius Report]

If you live in Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain or Switzerland, you can now pre-order your very own iPad, just like those cowboys in America have been yodeling about! Just hit up your local online Apple store and register your pre-order for delivery on May 28th.

The previous lines of plastic MacBooks are notorious for developing a wide variety of defects. One defect in particular, cracking plastic, has caused many to aptly refer to these MacBooks as “CrackBooks.”

This article will tell you how to turn that outdated CrackBook into a brand new MacBook. It worked for us. I hope it works for you.

It’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

This time, we review AlphaBattle, Chop Chop Runner, Compression, ESPN Pinball on iPad, Mini Golf Wacky Worlds Free, Opera Mini, Parcel Panic, and Pinball HD.

Things sure have changed for music-lovers in a big way over the last decade; I still remember balking at paying $50 for a pair of Sony earbuds not so long ago. Then the iPod ushered in the age of the portable MP3-player revolution, and things would never be the same — the earbud market exploded, and a wealth of hi-fi earbuds roared onto store walls.

The $200 Ultimate Ears 700s, with their phenomenal performance, compact, whisper-light profile and no-frills approach, could be considered the two-seater sports car in this mass of earbuds; right down to their lack of tolerance for abuse.

Two of my favorite gadgets to hit up when rec time rolls around are my iPhone and my mountain bike. Combining the two together might result in a sort of Shangri-la-like experience, but until now the only option available to me would have been something like the almost surely life-threatening activity of negotiating twisty singletrack while attempting to score the next mining license in Space Miner.

But the new Xtreme Sports: Biker iPhone app seems a saner alternative that’ll have much less impact on my health insurance. The first-person freeride mountain-bike simulator rolls out 25 levels across forest, mountain, urban, winter and park environments — all for a buck. Pretty sick, dude.

I haven’t tried it yet, but if I actually get to the point where my time is free, it seems a good bet I’ll be trading a dollar for a ride.

We close out another week with a deal on a refurbished 2.16GHz MacBook Pro with 17-inch screen for $899. Also at the top of our list: 3 percent off an iMac 22-inch or 27-inch desktop computer, plus the latest batch of App Store freebies, including “Coolrado,” a 3D platforming game.

Along the way, we’ll check out other software for the iPhone and iPod touch, as well as bargains on various gadgets. Details on these and many more items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

A 44-year-old man is in federal custody after using a social networking app to meet and have sex with a 14-year-old girl.

Moses Virgil Campbell Jr., 44, allegedly used the “iDate-Personals Dating Service for Singles of Any Sex” app on his iPhone to hook up with a teen, according to an affidavit written by FBI Special Agent Alicia M. McShane.

This is the third sex case involving minors and iPhone apps we’ve come across — after one in Canada involving Grindr and another unnamed social networking app in Phoenix.  Both Grindr and iDate are free apps and classified as “games,” require users to be 18 or over.

Deals are good; free stuff, better —Macbuzzer currently has both on their site.

We’ve just started playing around with Cockpit, a customizable multi-controller that controls other apps on your Mac; normally $25, Macbuzzer is giving it away for free.

If that doesn’t hit your sweet-spot, they’re also selling a collection of nine Mac apps that includes: time-tracking/invoicing app, recipe manager, Twitter client, Internet radio recorder, information manager, backup manager, book-keeping app and a bookmark utility. The $288-valued package is currently at $20, but the price increases by a dollar per day, so best not waffle if you want ’em.

First quarter iPhone shipments are more than double what they were in 2009, IDC reports.

Apple now has 16.1% of the mobile market share, landing it in the top three smartphone vendors after Nokia and Research in Motion.

The bump in shipments was in part due to iPhones reaching outside North America, the report noted, adding forthcoming developments that may keep the numbers rising:  “CEO Steve Jobs announced the latest operating system update, enabling multi-tasking, folders, enhanced email, iBooks for consumers, and iAd, a mobile advertising platform, for developers. A fourth generation iPhone is expected to arrive this summer.”

The explosive growth isn’t limited to Apple — the report notes 54.7 million units shipped in the first quarter, for a 56.7% overall spurt — but it may change the minds of analysts who said the iPhone would remain a niche product and proclaimed a death watch.

Via CNET

Nokia is again back in court, this time claiming Apple’s iPad and iPhone infringe five patents. The venue — a federal court in Wisconsin — has some people scratching their heads.

In its latest legal jab at the Cupertino, Calif. consumer electronics giant, Nokia alleges the patents involve “enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space, allowing smaller and more contact devices.”

Apple announced Friday the iPad will be available in nine more countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK May 28. International pre-orders for the iPad are set to begin Monday, May 10.

The next round of international launches are expected to be announced in July with the Cupertino, Calif. company selecting Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore.

One wouldn’t ordinarily mention “scalpers” and “Apple developers” in the same sentence, but this time it seems appropriate. The World Wide Developers Conference has sold out the 5,000-seat San Francisco, Calif. venue in just eight days. This, despite a series of limitations Apple imposed on this year’s event.

First, the Cupertino, Calif. company hiked the ticket price from $1295 to $1599. Then the June 7-11 dates were announced a month later than usual. Apple also froze out the Mac, focusing on the iPhone OS 4 and awarding only designers of iPhone and iPad apps.

It can be difficult getting your hands on an iPad. Apple admits it. Analysts announce it. Now the mainstream media are reporting it. Following up on online stories stretching back into mid-April, an investigation now finds Apple retail stores in 13 cities across the country have no iPad inventory.

New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Seattle, Denver and five other areas told Bloomberg Thursday they were out of iPads with no indication when a new supply would arrive.

As an IT consultant you get accustomed to certain problems and complaints from users.  “My computer is running slow” is a universal favorite.  “You said this would only take a few minutes” is another perennial frontrunner.

But one stands out as arguably the most common end user headache: “My Email Isn’t Working.”

Sigh… Welcome to the club.  Email headaches are endless.  Fortunately, many issues are common problems that can be fixed relatively easily.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB9gQgaVJsw&feature=player_embedded

The iPad Camera Connection Kit has always been an intriguing accessory, not just because it allows the iPad to directly interface with cameras and SD cards, but because it seemed like a ripe target for hackers to add third-party support for other USB accessories once the jailbreaks were in. In fact, when it was first announced, I wondered how long it would take someone to figure out how to get their iPad reading data off a USB hard drive.

Not very long, it turns out. Max Shay has just posted an in depth walkthrough on how to hook up an external hard drive to your jailbroken iPad.

It’s not simple: you need a split USB cable to supply enough juice to the hard drive and an external computer with a terminal application to fool the iPad into mounting the external storage. But as a proof of concept, it’s pretty interesting stuff: I wonder how long its going to take hackers to figure out how to use the SD dongle in the iPad Camera Connection Kit to give the iPad expandable storage.

iHome’s pantheon of docks, clocks, and speakers for the iPhone and iPod are pretty hard to keep straight, but their flagship iP90 alarm clock docking station has always been one of their more visible products… and now they’ve updated it with a host of new features that make the iP90 a better buy than before.

Like its previous incarnation, the iP90 will charge and play music from the iPhone and iPod, and functions as a speaker dock, a dual alarm clock and an AM/FM radio. The new iP90’s most immediately obvious improvement, though, is a larger and more clear display, as well as improved sound quality thanks to Reson8 stereo speaker chambers as well as adjustable bass and treble.

In addition, the iP90 now has a Time Sync feature that automatically sets the time on your clock to the more trustworthy time on your iPhone or iPod. A switch for changing the clock to daylight savings time is also there, although if your phone is setting the time for you, I don’t really see the point.

Like the earlier model, the iP90 looks like a good addition to any iPhone owners bedside table. It will cost $99.

In a post on Yahoo’s Mobile Blog, the big purple Y! seems pretty gobsmacked that 10% of iPad traffic is coming from outside of the US, despite the fact that there has yet to be an international roll out of the tablet.

Ostensibly for keeping track of your kids, employees or your child labor’s iPad surfing, Mobile Spy’s iPad Spy is probably really meant for the jealous paramour, the sleazy private dick or the professional identity thief: it allows you to record the email and website visits of anyone using the iPad on which it is installed.

iPad Spy runs as a background process, so it requires a jailbroken iPad to work. When it’s installed, there’s no hint that anything is running, but the software will record all of your emails and website visits and silently upload the data to a website to be perused by the (probably malicious) installer.

Sure, this technically could be used as another level of iPad parental controls, or to make sure your employees aren’t looking at porn on their company iPads, but let’s face it: this is really just for creeps. If you’re paranoid about such things, the best advice is to just not trust any iPad with a Cydia icon on the homescreen.

[via Gizmodo]