Clear and Clear+, the popular list-keeping apps from Realmac Software, have been updated to take advantage of iOS 7’s new background refresh feature. This allows the apps to update even when they’re closed, ensuring your lists are up-to-date and ready for you when you open them up.
It’s a little hard to describe what exactly Device 6, the new project from developer Simogo, is, exactly.
It’s kind of a visual novel. It’s also kind of a puzzle/escape game. But it’s also its own unique animal, a challenging artistic experiment unlike anything I’ve seen before. It will confuse you, impress you, and ultimately provide one of the most memorable experiences the App Store has to offer.
So, yeah. It’s pretty good.
Pocket Casts, now my favorite podcast management client for iOS, now supports the new 64-bit A7 processor built into the iPhone 5s and the new iPads, thanks to its latest update that’s available to download today. The release also brings back the ability to skip back and forth between podcasts by tapping artwork, unplayed episode counts, podcast sorting, and more.
Back in OS X Lion and then again in OS X Mountain Lion, Apple hid access to the user Library folder to prevent neophyte OS X users from messing around in the areas of the file system that could cause some damage to their Macs.
That’s fine, of course, but it took a lot of messing around in the Terminal to get that access back, and who remembers Terminal commands from last year? Not us, that’s for sure.
Luckily, Mavericks has a much easier way to turn Library access on.
Last week, we reported that cutesy-wutesy-fuzzy-wuzzy-wumpus-bear (and Apple co-founder) Steve Wozniak was unimpressed with the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina Display. His supposed complaint? 128GB just wasn’t enough for a man with a huge media collection like him!
It seemed uncharacteristic for Woz to publicly bash the company he helped create. Woz is an innocent, and usually reacts to every new Apple product with wide-eyed glee, so his complaints seemed strange. For good reason, too, because Woz says he was misquoted, and actually likes the new iPads just fine.
Understandably, the latest point-oh release of iOS always ships with quite a few bugs. Hey, it’s complicated making an operating system for millions of devices, things break! Almost invariably, though, there is one particular bug that repeats itself every year: an Daylight Savings Time bug that comes up time after time after time after time.
Guess what? iOS 7 has a Daylight Savings Time bug too.
Chromic is both an video-grading app for the iPhone and a demonstration that we are all living in the future, carrying powerful supercomputers in our pockets. How else do you explain the fact that you can instantly apply any of Chromic’s filters to your video in real time as you watch it? You can even – and this is totally rad – scrub through the video and the effects are still applied as if a coat of paint had already dried on your pixels.
This week’s Cult of Mac Magazine is all about apps that push boundaries – enabling us to share, connect and get stuff done.
Think back: When was the last time you hitchhiked? Crashed on the couch of a stranger? Did you get your last job on the street corner? Or meet that special someone there?
You’ve probably used your iPhone recently to couch surf, catch a ride downtown, find a date or maybe even source a freebie for dinner.
We talk to experts to understand why we feel comfortable doing things with our iPhones that were traditionally “Stranger, Danger” territory and our intrepid reporters find out what happens when you catch a ride, look for work, open up your house and try to get rid of Cheetos snack packs to perfect strangers.
There’s a crazy gallery of apps that pushed Apple’s boundaries too far — remember Baby Shaker? — and an update on why you can still find your dictator of choice in the iTunes store.
Our exclusive Ask An Apple Genius column weighs in why Mavericks scrolling seem so sluggish and why the geniuses sometimes don’t seem as smart as you are.
Check us out on iTunes.
We aim to please – and read all of your comments and questions – so keep ’em coming!
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This week, we have something to keep you from getting lost, something to let you combine your photos, and another thing to help you breathe again after your traumatic shopping experience.
Here you go:
InstaPhotoBlend – Photo & Video – $1.99
If you’ve ever looked at two of your photos and wished that you could somehow transmogrify them into one Frankenphoto, you might want to check out InstaPhotoBlend. It’s image-editing software for your iOS device that uses a simple interface to let you combine and blend two photos together.
You start by selecting two pictures — one top layer and one bottom layer — and then fiddle around with the controls to control opacity and adjust color until you’ve created the perfect thing that used to be two things. After that, you can post your masterpiece to social media, email or text it, or just hang onto it until the time is right. It’s a fun little app to play with, and it’s not hard to create some interesting effects.
Backstep – Travel – Free
If you’ve ever traveled to an unfamiliar city, found a new café, or parked at a SuperTarget, you know the value of being able to get back to where you were. Backstep wants to help. It’s a new app by developer D Leak that lets you drop a waypoint at your current location with a single tap on your screen. You name the waypoint, then call up your various pins individually, and Backstep will show where you are in relation to it and update as you head back to your starting point. It’s a simple app with the cleanest of interfaces, and it might save you a few fights over which arbitrarily named row your car is in.
Calming Breath – Health & Fitness – Free
Breathing is simple, right? In, out, repeat? It is if you’re a normal, healthy person with a positive outlook on life and no major stress, but if you’re an anxiety-ridden mess like I am, you occasionally have some difficulty.
Enter Calming Breath, a simple, one-screen app that sits you down and times your inhales and exhales. It works on a four-second inhale, six-second exhale system and includes an animation of a pair of lungs that fill and empty in time, if you’re a visual person.
If you prefer to have your eyes closed, you can also set the app to vibrate at the beginnings and ends of breaths, and all of this sounds completely ridiculous, but if you’re in the middle of a panic attack, you need all the guidance you can get. Calming Breath is simple, easy, and it does what it needs to do.
Rather than slogging through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 30 minutes, Cult of Mac has compiled this list of the best new movies, albums and books to come out this week.
Enjoy!
Ryan Hemsworth – Guilt Trips
Canadian DJ and producer Ryan Hemsworth has made a name for himself by producing a mountain of spacey instrumentals for rappers like Deniro Farrar, Shady Blaze, and Berkley’s 100s while also creating some hot remixes from artists such as Kanye West, Frank Ocean and Cat Power, but Guilt Trips marks Hemsworth first solo record, and what a joy it is.
Hemsworth’s sound teeters along the edge of hip-hop and dance music without fully crossing over into either for a truly unique and grounded sound that’s sprinkled with enough R&B to keep it away from being “too experimental” for casual listeners without drowning in pop.
After releasing his Still Awake EP in May, Hemsworth’s Guilt Trip focuses on adding clarity to his sound by reining in his wandering instrumentals and giving vocals a stronger emphasis. You won’t find any superstar guest appearances on the album, but featured verses from spitters like Haleek Maul and Kitty prove that Hemsworth can produce hit pop tracks like the best of them.
Poliça – Shulamith
If Shulamith proves anything, it’s that the Minneapolis group’s sudden success is no fluke. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon once famously said that POLIÇA was the best band he ever heard, and he sings along to the mysterious lyrics of “Tiff.”
The ambling percussion of “I Need $” shares the brio and aesthetic of hip-hop as Channy Leaneagh glides and freestyles over the song’s icy plains. Her haunting processed vocals meld with the echoing effect of two drum kits, a super-funky bass guitar, and the trip-hoppy exhalations of an alien synthesizer. I wall makes a potent statement: to be a modern creature is to reside in the surreal space between the digital and the organic.
Katy Perry – PRISM
A lot’s changed since Katy Perry catapulted into superstardom with her breakaway hit “I Kissed A Girl” in 2008. Marriage, divorce and an ocean of fame have led to some of Katy’s bluntest lyrics to-date on her third album.
PRISM is chock full of the bouncy pop tunes Perry’s become famous for while also covering some rocky ground in the singer’s personal life. As the lead songwriter of the album’s opening track, “Roar,” Perry kicks off her third studio endeavor with stadium-sized guitars, a stomping beat and an epic sing-along hook. Perry’s assertive return is underscored by other early tastes from the album, including “Dark Horse,” which features a menacing bass line, crackling beat, and a sharply styled guest verse from Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia fame. PRISM’s parade of singles continues with the banging house-influenced groove and whistling hook of Perry’s euphoric, party-all-night anthem “Walking on Air” while tracks like “By the Grace of God” divulge into the heartbreak of Perry’s failed marriage to Russell Brand.
by Donna Tartt
“The Goldfinch” starts off with a bang – literally – as a 13-year-old New Yorker named Theo and his mother are rocked by an explosion at a New York museum. Theo survives the blast, but his mother doesn’t, leading to 800-pages detailing the aftermath of his experience over the course of a decade and a half.
Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him and tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small 17th-century painting that he jacked from the museum during the chaos of the explosion.
The book moves us through the life of Theo as an adult, as he drifts between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of antiques in his shop. He is alienated and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle as the novel unfolds with a healthy serving of suspense.
by Veronica Roth
Teens who have been sucked into Veronica Roth’s Divergent series will be ready to lock themselves away to finish Roth’s final book in the Divergent trilogy – “Allegiant.”
The story picks up with Tris Prior who’s witnessed the downfall of the faction-based society she’s believed in her whole life. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.
But Tris’s new reality is worse than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.
If you liked “The Hunger Games” and “Twilight” and are looking for a new teen series to dive into, try this. But get started now if you want to finish before the Hollywood adaptation hits theaters in March 2014.
Provence, 1970
by Luke Barr
“Provence, 1970” is about a singular historic moment. In the winter of that year, more or less coincidentally, the iconic culinary figures James Beard, M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, Richard Olney, Simone Beck and Judith Jones found themselves together in the South of France. They cooked and ate, talked and argued, about the future of food in America, the meaning of taste and the limits of snobbery. Without quite realizing it, they were shaping today’s tastes and culture, the way we eat now.
The conversations among this group were chronicled by M.F.K. Fisher in journals and letters—some of which were later discovered by Luke Barr, her great-nephew. In “Provence, 1970” he captures this seminal season, set against a stunning backdrop in cinematic scope—complete with gossip, drama, and contemporary relevance.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Cut)
Just in time to prepare fans for the wide-release of the “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” Apple has released an exclusive extended cut of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” this week that contains tons of new Extras that almost double the length of the original film.
Set in Middle Earth 60 years before the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, the movie follows the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, who is conned swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom from the fearsome dragon Smaug.
Hardcore LotR fans might take offense that the plot of the movie doesn’t exactly follow the details of the book, but casual fans will be enthralled with Bilbo’s journey after he’s approached by the wizard Gandalf to join a company of dwarves set on retaking their homeland. What follows is steady medley of action and suspense as Bilbo and the dwarves find themselves caught in a series of goblin tunnels on their march East. Oh yeah, and Gollum and his Precious make a brief appearance too, so you finally find out where Bilbo got the all-powerful One Ring in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Conjuring
Halloween is fastly approaching, which means its time to gather your friends and load up the scary movies at night to scare the living shit out of each other. Classic horror movies are always a great choice, but if you’re looking for something freaky and new, try “The Conjuring.”
The film details the horrifying “true story” of world renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorrain Warren who are called out to help a family terrorized by a dark presence on their secluded farm. After waking up with a mysterious bruise and finding their dog, Sadie, dead, mom Carolyn calls the paranormal investigators for help. As you can imagine, all hell breaks lose once Ed and Lorrain arrive at the house, making for a truly terrifying movie experience.
Turbo
Over the last decade Hollywood has given us animated movies about rats, Kung-Fu pandas, dragons, ants, and clown-fish, so why not give a nitrous oxide-charged snail a shot at the big screen?
Voiced by Ryan Reynolds, “Turbo” is a tale about a misfit snail with a need for speed as he strives to earn a slot in the Indy 500. While Turbo craves speed all of his fellow snails — including his brother Chet (voiced by Paul Giamatti) — seem to savor the slow life. At one point, Turbo gets sucked into the intake valve of a speeding muscle car. After getting spit through the volatile nitrous oxide that fuels the car, Turbo is imbued with new masterful speed powers that allow him to travel at speeds up to 200 miles per hour.
Armed with his speedy new powers, Turbo’s journey is far from over as he realizes his dreams are finally within reach, but runs into a number of obstacles on his way to the Indy 500. Other actors appearing in family-friendly movie include Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Peña, Bill Hader, Luis Guzman and even Snoop Dogg