How do you know when a steak is done? You have the finger and thumb trick, the weirder face test, the less elegant “cut it open and look at it” test, or a meat thermometer.
Those wanting a more high-tech way to handle meat cookery might want to try SteakMate, a new app that provides custom timers for your grilling needs. You enter in the cut, thickness, cooking method, and desired doneness, and it tells you what to do, including when to flip and how long to let it rest. It can even track multiple steaks simultaneously.
Plus, it’s way cleaner and less awkward than touching the steak and then your face.
Tilt to Live is one of those high-concept games with a name that says it all. Kind of like Press X to Jason, but not quite as flippant or mocking.
Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous by One Man Left Category: iOS Games Works With: iPhone, iPad Price: $2.99
And it was popular, so a sequel was inevitable. And so we have Tilt to Live 2: Redonkulous, which came out last week for iOS devices and delivers on its name almost immediately.
It’s kind of hard to explain until you’ve played it, though, and you should definitely play it.
There’s a reason that Apple usually invites Epic Games on stage. The developers’ mobile-only series, Infinity Blade and its sequels, shows off the gaming potential of any new iOS device by pushing its graphical potential to the very limits.
Infinity Blade games look beautiful no matter what device you run them on, but there’s a big difference graphically between playing Infinity Blade III on an iPad 2 and an iPad Air. If you happen to have a jailbroken device, though, a new jailbreak tweak will trick Infinity Blade into running at a higher graphical setting… apparently with little degradation of performance.
Fantastical is hands down my favorite calendar app for both the Mac and iOS, and Fantastical 2 for iOS went a long way to bringing the app in line with iOS 7’s major aesthetic changes. Now, just three weeks after its lauch, Fantastical 2 has seen its first app update, and there are some cool new options in here.
I like seeing photos in my Twitter timeline, but I don’t like the painful process of looking at them. You have to tap, and then wait while the picture loads, and while you’re waiting you can’t scroll through and read other tweets as they’re usually blocked by the loading photo.
Photofon doesn’t fix this (the only app that ever did it properly was Loren Brichter’s original iPad Twitter app that kept loading pages in their own independent sheet), but it does turn the viewing of Twitter photos into something you’ll actually enjoy doing.
Anand's graph showing the various color gamuts of current tablets.
Friday afternoon I checked out the Retina iPad mini at a local Apple reseller (spoiler: it’s awesome), and I tried it right after I’d hefted the iPad Air. And I noticed something I hadn’t heard about in any reviews: The colors are way brighter and, well, more colored on the iPad Air. The wallpaper looks more saturated, and the blue/green icons really jumped out at me on the bigger display.
The mini, by contrast, looked just like the old mini, only with higher resolution. And it turns out that my eyes were right. Anand Lal Shampi of Anandtech did the tests and found that the color gamut of the Air is wider than that of the Retina mini.
The smartphone industry is dominated by two companies: Apple and Samsung. Absurdly, Canaccord Genuity recently reported that Apple and Samsung earn 109% of mobile industry profits.
(That impossible percentage results when the losses of competitors are factored in.)
Specifically, the research firm estimates that Apple earns 56% of industry profits and Samsung 53%. (Apple is actually further ahead of Samsung in profits than these numbers show, because some companies count tablet profits and others don’t.)
BlackBerry makes -4% of the profits (that’s negative four percent), Motorola -3%, and Nokia, LG and HTC each had -1%.
They’re weird numbers that don’t add up. But the point is that once again we learn that Apple and Samsung are making nearly all the money, some companies are making zero money and other companies are losing money.
But one of the dominant companies — Samsung — has a creepy approach to business, which is that they steal, cheat and lie apparently because the penalties of being unethical are far less than the rewards.
Affix your party hats, fine friends, and join us for a rip-roarin’ good time as we celebrate our 100th episode of The CultCast—recorded live! We’ll recall some of our favorite moments from episodes past, tell you how you to win a free signed copy of Leander Kahney’s new much-hyped Jony Ive book, plus, we talk the new iPad mini Retina; killer Black Friday iPad deals; and more rumors iPhone 6s with way bigger screens.
Have a few laughs and get caught up on each week’s best Apple stories. Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below adventure begin.
Thanks to Reflector for supporting this week’s episode. Looking for a great way to mirror your iPhone or iPad’s screen on any Mac or PC? You need Reflector.
We’ve dedicated this issue of the magazine to Sir Jony Ive, the Apple designer whose imagination brings us all the gadgets we love.
Inside, you’ll find an exclusive excerpt from publisher Leander Kahney’s brand-spanking-new book “Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products” along with the story of how Leander met Ive for the first time. (It turns out Jony is nice, especially to forgetful reporters.) The book excerpt takes you back to where it all began: in the UK where a young Jony started working with his father in the garage.
As we do every week, we also bring you the best in new apps, picks from what’s worth your while in books, music and movies in iTunes and our exclusive Apple genius column delves into getting hired and what to do if you happen to find love while getting your iPhone repaired.
Apple's marketing chief, Phil Schiller, is ready to shake up the advertising world
Since Apple won a $1 billion lawsuit against Samsung for patent infringement last summer, both companies have been fighting to determine how the ruling will actually unfold. In March of this year, the presiding judge for the case subtracted $450 million from what Samsung owed Apple due to the jury’s miscalculations for damages.
The Apple vs. Samsung retrial kicked off earlier this week in California court, and Apple requested an additional $380 in damages from Samsung on top of the $600 million already owed. Samsung believes it should only have to pay Apple $52 million for infringing on five patents related to the iPhone.
Today Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing, took the stand in court to talk about the iPhone’s importance to Apple, calling it a “bet-the-company” product. He also got pretty snarky about Samsung copying Apple.
Schiller began his testimony by recounting the original iPhone’s launch and the product’s success to date. He expressed frustration that Samsung started making phones that looked just like the iPhone after Apple started seeing success in the smartphone market. Schiller said he was “quite shocked” when he first saw the Samsung Galaxy. “My first thought was, ‘They’ve copied the iPhone.'”
These first few years of the iPhone’s existence have been “an incredibly important time” for Apple, said Schiller. And Samsung’s infringement has made it “harder for us to get new customers and bring them into our ecosystem.” The iPhone is Apple’s biggest money-maker by far. “At this point, it’s fair to say that most everyone at Apple works on iPhone,” said Schiller from the stand. “It’s our biggest product.”
While being cross-examined by Samsung’s lawyers, Schiller gave off a little Jobsian snark with his responses:
Schiller on Samsung gaining while other android makers lost share. “One is copying. the other are not copying… as much.” #icourt
