This one puts the “cult” back in “cult of mac:” someone is auctioning off a broken piece of glass from Apple’s Fifth Avenue store on eBay. It’s a step from the retail locale’s elegant glass staircase, to be precise.
“They replaced it with a new one after a customer dropped a Snapple bottle on it and cracked it. I picked it up before it could be thrown out over a year ago, figuring it’s a collectible.
UPDATE: The gentleman in the video above is Daniel Eran Dilger, author of the Roughly Drafted blog referenced in the post below. I regret any confusion my failure to identify him may have caused. – Lonnie Lazar
Don’t just take Steve Jobs’ word for it. Full-time Flash developer Morgan Adams articulates good reasons why Flash should never come to Apple’s iPad and anyone interested in the Apple-Adobe conflict on the matter of Flash would do well to pay attention to his commentary.
Adams, an interactive content developer, wrote to the Roughly Drafted blog to explain in terms more measured than those used by Mr. Jobs with editors of the Wall Street Journal last week why Flash won’t ever work well on any mobile touchscreen platform:
It’s not because of slow mobile performance, battery drain or crashes. It’s because of the hover or mouseover problem.
Many (if not most) current Flash games, menus, and even video players require a visible mouse pointer. They are coded to rely on the difference between hovering over something (mouseover) vs. actually clicking. This distinction is not rare. It’s pervasive, fundamental to interactive design, and vital to the basic use of Flash content. New Flash content designed just for touchscreens can be done, but people want existing Flash sites to work. All of them—not just some here and there—and in a usable manner. That’s impossible no matter what.
Adams goes on to detail several fundamental incompatibilities between touchscreen operating systems and Flash content on the web, showing why current Flash content can never work well on a touchscreen platform.
In addition, workable alternatives exist for delivering the video content many wrongly believe is unobtainable without Flash, according to Adams:
imagine my embarrassment as a Flash developer when my own animated site wouldn’t work on the newfangled iPhone! So I sat down and made new animations using WebKit’s CSS animation abilities. Now desktop users still see Flash at adamsi.com, but iPhone users see animations too. It can be done.
UPDATE: Daisy Mae has returned to the App Store. It is unclear what if any changes have been made to the game. The game is currently rated 12+.
Nicole posted on the 19th that Apple is pulling ‘sexy’ apps, due to deciding that it’s operating out of a fictional puritanical Victorian utopia, rather than the USA. While Apple’s making the case by saying it doesn’t want porn on the iPhone, it’s now decided that ironic cartoon smut within a videogame is also a step too far. Yes, Touch Arcade reports that IUGO’s Daisy Mae has been unceremoniously pulled from the App Store, because—SHOCK!—it features a sassy cartoon woman with a penchant for short shorts as the lead character. Seriously.
***SARCASM WARNING!*** You know, Apple should really deal with this by coming up with some kind of system on the App Store for rating content, so you know whether an app is suitable for someone of a certain age. That would deal with games like this that you don’t want to warp fragile little minds (even though they almost certainly wouldn’t, because any kid with an iPhone who wants to look at boobs just needs to use APPLE’S OWN SAFARI)! ***END OF SARCASM WARNING!***
So, iPhone developers, the message is clear: don’t have any women in your apps unless they’re covered in some kind of burqa-style clothing, otherwise Steve and Tim and Phil will kill it until it’s dead (with virtual knives, guns, bombs and death-rays, all of which are fine, unless they are associated with any kind of vaguely risque clothing that’s within forty feet). And don’t even think of a game startting Jessica Rabbit, unless you turn her into an actual rabbit.
While Apple has relaxed its grip on a few things recently, no, the image above isn’t a sign that One Infinite Loop has let all hell break loose.
Apparently, it’s an example of an alternate-reality iPhone the friend of blogger Steve Cassidy over at the UK’s PC Pro bought for £25 (about $38) — in a pub, no less. The dual-SIM, dual-battery thing apparently looks and feels much like an iPhone (apart from the icons, which look too bizarre even for a jailbroken unit), says Cassidy, down to the “iPhone” and Apple logo emblazoned on the back.
In the 1980s, a Mario-like platformer was reportedly brutally slain by Nintendo lawyers. Two decades later, the game has made its way to iPhone and iPod touch (and, presumably, Nintendo’s lawyers have chilled out a little). The game in question: Giana Sisters. Cult of Mac spoke to Nico Kaartinen of developer Bad Monkee about how and why a cult 8-bit classic was remade for Apple handhelds.
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 Card Shark Solitaire Free, DigiDrummer Lite, Dog Piano Jr, easyBeats LE, Met Office, Revs!, Rudolph’s Kick n Fly, Spoke Groove Machine Free, Trace, and Twin Blades.
Joby, maker of the Gorillapod flexible camera tripod, Thursday unveiled two more innovative products for photographers seeking the best shot in trying circumstances. The Gorillapod Magnetic flexible tripod is perfect for those times when you just can’t find a flat surface for a traditional tripod. Meanwhile, the Ballhead X for Gorillapod Focus will help professionals when that standard tripod would fail under the weight of a heavy body plus zoom lens.
The Gorillapod Magnetic tripod is equipped with magnetic feet, along with the usual flexible legs. This permits you to shoot from a metal bar – even a tree limb. The Gorillapod Magnetic can support camera or mini video cameras weighing up to 11.5 ounces. Yet, the tripod itself weighs only 2.5 ounces and is just six inches tall; just right for the crowded gadget bag and long treks. The tripod will be available in April, according to the company.
We close out another week with a trio of Apple deals. First up, the Apple Store is selling a 27-inch iMac powered by a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo for $1,449. Next is another round of App Store bargains, including the RemixMonkey Pocket DJ application for your iPhone or iPod touch. Last on our list of top deals is the iHome, a pair of 15w stereo speakers for your iPod.
Along the way we’ll take a look at more Apple hardware (like Belkin’s car stereo kit for your iPhone), software (such as EasyBurner 3 for your Mac) and storage options.
As always, for details on any of these items plus many others, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
I’ve always been fond of the Rolando series by Ngmoco: I think they were the first App Store games that showed me that the iPhone could be just as serious a gaming platform as the Nintendo DS or PSP.
I really liked the first couple of games, which is why it’s a shame that Ngmoco is now telling IGN that they are cancelling the third game, essentially because they can’t make it a “freemium” title.
What they mean by that is that Ngmoco wants all of their games to be free to download through the App Store, and they will make their money selling in-app purchases like extra levels, characters, etc. They’ve had great luck with this model with their Eliminate Pro shooter… but they just can’t figure out how to make this model work for Rolando 3.
It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me: surely, Rolando 3 could make its development budget back even without the “freemium” aspect, and I don’t really understand why Ngmoco can’t just sell expansion levels and different skins if they are intent on the freemium model.
Either way, it’s sad: the Rolando games are still really cute, and I’ll always remember them as the titles that first got me to take the iPhone seriously as a gaming handset.
The online video service Hulu probably will not be available on the iPad when Apple’s recently-introduced tablet begins shipping in March. Along with technical hurdles due to the device lacking Flash support, lawyers may need to become involved to reclassify the iPad as a mobile device.
Additionally, when Hulu does become available for the iPad, don’t expect the service to be free. “The most likely scenario is one where access to Hulu on the iPad comes as part of a subscription package,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital, citing “multiple people familiar” with the situation.
You can always count on Apple to be secretive. Trade Privacy LLC, a trade data protection company, has determined that Apple has successfully managed to block public access to their shipping freight import records in the lead up to the iPad launch.
What this means, essentially, is that it should prove impossible to guess when the iPad is actually in the country and slated for launch based upon publicly available US Customs records.
That’s not a big deal, because we roughly know when the iPad is going to hit these shores (late March), but it will also make it harder to predict future new products and product line refreshes based upon Cupertino’s freign import data. That’s previously been one of the more valuable sources of concrete data about what products Apple will suddenly say are “available in stores now,” so this is a pretty big victory for the obsessively secret Apple… if less so for professional Apple rumor-mongers like me.
Well, that’s certainly nice: in the span of a couple of months, Apple has been making a lot of progress bringing iTunes to the web browser, including letting users see item information and even preview tracks without launching iTunes. Now Apple’s taken it to the next step: you can now browse actual categories of the iTunes Store in HTML.
This isn’t likely to be a feature you’ll use regularly, but it’s indicative of an ongoing trend, where Apple has brought iTunes, piece-by-piece, to the web. Maybe it means nothing, but I think what we’re looking at here is the beginning steps of the online, cloud-based iTunes we’ve all been waiting for.
[via TUAW]
Apple’s claims of patent-infringement against Nokia will be reviewed by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Washington, DC-based agency announced. The commission could decide in just over a year whether imports of handsets made by the Finnish company should be banned from the United States.
The announcement comes on the heels of the ITC agreeing to investigate claims by Kodak against the Cupertino, Calif. electronics maker. In January, Kodak sued Apple, claiming the iPhone infringed its patent on previewing images.
Apple’s policy on what constitutes content too risqué for the iTunes store vacillates more than one of those iBoob apps.
Case in point: developer Jon Atherton says he received a letter that Apple pulled his wildly popular Wobble iBoobs app because Apple “decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store” following customer complaints.
Now we’re really confused. Many of the apps that wiggled, jiggled or writhed past Apple censors in our last iSmut app story have been pulled (Bikini Ispector, Peek-a-Babe, Crazy Eights with Hooters Girls). But if they’ve put a firm hand on iJiggles, there’s plenty of exposed flesh still available on iTunes.
iTunes is a strong service for music and apps, but it’s video offerings are far shakier, especially when it comes to television shows.
The biggest issue is the price: the average show costs $1.99 on iTunes.That seems to be more than most people want to pay for something that can watch for free on television, or wait a few months to buy on DVD for 25-50% less.
Apple’s been hinting they want to drop the average price of television shows on iTunes for awhile now, but it looks like they’ve finally convinced a network to go along with the plan. According to All Things D, CBS is planning on marking down the price of some of its show (but not all) to $0.99.
It’s a smart move, but the wording makes it clear that CBS still intends to charge full price for their more popular shows. With partners like this, Apple’s got a long way to go towards threatening the cable industry.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LQNNv7MFLE
Lots of folks have proposed at Apple stores or even had Apple-inspired wedding cakes, but do you love Apple enough to say iDo there?
This might be the first couple to get hitched at an Apple retail without permission, flash-mob style, by a celebrant dressed like Steve Jobs who pronounced the solemn vows from an iPhone. The news was first tweeted by an Apple employee of New York’s Fifth Avenue store.
The Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer bag is designed specifically to get your MacBook through an airport security screening.
No more pulling out your MacBook and putting it in a plastic bin. With the Checkpoint Flyer, you can leave your MacBook inside the bag and breeze through the X-ray machine.
How? The Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer is a fold-out, “Checkpoint-Friendly” design, approved by the Transportation Security Administration.
The bag has three compartments designed to be folded flat on an X-ray scanner bed. Laid flat, the bag gives the X-ray operator a clear view of the MacBook and anything else inside the bag. There are no pockets or metal components to block the screener’s view. Pretty cool!
Note: It’s Bag Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest bags on the market. Read all the bag reviews here.
So, you think you have the legs to take on Lance Armstrong. One way to go about it would be to race against his time in the latest ingenious use of Twitter, the Twitter Time Trial (and for the cycling-illiterate, a time trial is where riders leave the start gate one at a time, in an attempt to set the best time over the exact same course and distance).
But a better way would be to race Lance using TrailBlazer Challenge.
Steve Jobs unloaded on Flash during a meeting with Wall Street Journal executives last week, according to Gawker.
Jobs met with editors of the Journal to show them the new iPad. The Journal make widespread use of Flash on its website for video, infographics, etc., and editors raised concerns about the absence of Adobe’s plug-in.
According to Gawker: “Jobs was brazen in his dismissal of Flash, people familiar with the meeting tell us. He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy.”
We wind down the week with a deal on four iMacs from the Apple Store, including a 22-inch 3.06GHz model for $999. Also, there is a deal on a 22-inch iMac with 3.06GHz processor, along with 6GB of memory and a three-year AppleCare contract for $1,328. Finally, there is a deal on an 8-core Mac Pro 2.26GHz workstation with 8GB memory for $3,299.
Along the way, we check out bargains on iPod classics, Time Capsules and the latest batch of App Store price drops. As always, details on these and many more items can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
Unfortunately, Gizmodo seems to have pulled the story, but before they yanked it down, they posted a fascinating screenshot of Best Buy’s system showing several new dummy SKUs for new Apple products with a release date of February 19th, 2010…. in other words, tomorrow.
Unfortunately, Gizmodo yanked the post before I could grab a shot, so the image attached here is a lower resolution copy pulled from this scraper site. Sorry about that.
Either way, if this turns out to be true, Apple still tends to release new products on Tuesday, so it’s unlikely we’ll see anything new. The $1,999.99 price shown in the shot probably implies a 27-inch Core i5 2.66GHz iMac, presumably a restock. Still, given the display issues plaguing the 27-inch iMac line, the fact that Apple thinks it’s gotten a good enough handle on the problem to start shipping new machines is worthy of note.
I guess we’ll know tomorrow if this is just random database junk or the first glimpse of something more..
FatMan’s latest high-end audio couple is the Wi-Tube and Fat Dock, a combination that allows you to use the Wi-Tube valve amplifier to stream music wirelessly from a docked iPod, iPod Touch or iPhone to anywhere in the house.
The Wi-Tube and Fat Dock handle other media players, of course, thanks to a standard 3.5mm input, but Apple products are this duo’s bread and butter. The Fat Dock not only will stream music wirelessly, but charge any iPod slapped into it, while also offering syncing ability to a Mac or PC through USB.
As for the Wi-Tube amp, it can accept input through RCA as well, while the FatDock can output by RCA, USB, Video or S-Video in addition to its wireless functions. The whole thing is controlled by a bundled remote control.
It’s an attractive combo, but unfortunately it’ll cost you when it hits stores in late April: $599 is a hell of a lot to pay for an iPhone dock.
Apple continues to loosen up the restrictions on app developers using the iPhone’s 3G connection: a little less than a month after Apple finally started to allow VoIP applications to make calls over 3G, and a couple of weeks after Slingbox’s video-streaming app was finally granted 3G-capable status comes the news that Apple has increased the maximum app size for download over the 3G network from 10 megabytes to 20.
That’s not exactly a huge bump, but it should be enough to suck down almost any application that isn’t heavily media based (for example, larger games). It’s almost definitely a move meant to give iPad app developers more wriggle room as they put together apps catering to a larger and more high-resolution display, but iPhone owners should see some tangible benefits as well.
It’s great to see Apple getting less restrictive about exactly what developers can do with the 3G radio. Let’s just hope AT&T’s beleaguered 3G network is up to the task of handling the upped bandwidth usage.
[via Macworld]
Esquire magazine has a marvelous profile of film critic Roger Ebert, who has lost his lower jaw and voice box after several years of cancer treatments.
Having lost the ability to speak, Ebert is pouring himself into writing instead.
His astonishing online journal runs to more than 500,000 words on topics as disparate as his life, the afterlife (none-he’s atheist), alcoholism, travel, books, and friends, living and dead.
To communicate in everyday life, Ebert uses text-to-speech on his MacBook Pro, Stephen Hawking-style.
Tough times for Julie McCoy: who will take disco lessons when there’s an Apple reseller on board the ship?
The iLounge, aka a cruise director’s worst nightmare, will be making waves on a new Celebrity Cruises fleet launching in April. The upscale cruise ship company already offers onboard computer training as well as wine tasting courses and art auctions.
This new seafaring iLounge will be kitted out with 26 workstations for passenger use. It’s also an Authorized Apple Reseller where you can check out the latest MacBooks, iPods and accessories. (No word on whether it will also have iPad, yet). It also has a classroom plus an “enrichment center” where trained staff offers tips.
Easy to imagine promising your beloved a true holiday with a computer fast, then being caught sneaking off the sun deck to get a monitor tan in the iLounge.
