This week on The CultCast: Jony Ive’s huge sweeping iOS 7 changes; Apple Television and the Ring of Power; our favorite April Fools pranks; and careful, your iPad might be giving you Gorilla Arm… all that and the best listener shout out ever on this minty-fresh episode of The CultCast!
Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.
Show notes after the jump.
Apple is reportedly gearing up to make big changes to iOS 7, changes so big that it’s had to pull engineers away from OS X 10.9 development to help get it finished for its release later this year. I’m just hoping that the Cupertino company adds some of the features included in the latest iOS 7 concept video below.
Designed by Federico Bianco, the concept adds almost every feature we’ve ever wanted in iOS, including quick message reply, quick settings, widgets, Mission Control, and lots more. Check it out below.
Remember PostSecret? That was an app based on the PostSecret website, where people were encouraged to share secrets anonymously, with pictures and words. The app got discontinued due to potential abuses; the founder, Frank Warren, pulled it from the App Store when he thought it had gone too far.
Whisper, then, uses the same idea: allow people to post pictures with meme-like text over the top to anonymously share secret things they can’t get out there on regular social networking sites. What Whisper does differently, though, is to put the private messaging behind a paywall. You’ll need to pony up six bucks a month to be able to message users of the service privately.
Whenever third-party retailers start selling an Apple device at a discounted price, it’s usually a good indication that the next product iteration is on the near horizon. While this isn’t always the case, it’s a historic trend that points towards something new from Apple.
Based on recent price cuts from big retailers and the rumor mill, it looks like the iPad will be getting a refresh soon.
First, remember one thing: this isn’t a full review of the Fujifilm X100S, even though I had to write it up there in the title to please our CMS. I’ve only had the thing for a few days, and even though Cult of Mac isn’t DP Review, a few days isn’t enough to evaluate an iPhone case, let alone a camera like the X100S.
On the other hand, the X100S is So Hot Right Now, and I’ve been staying up tip 3AM since I got it because I can’t stop playing with the thing. Combining those two interesting facts leads me to think that an in-depth first look might be a good idea — especially as you can now convert the RAW files on your Mac using the just-released Lightroom 4.4.
Let’s take a look — You might want to go make a cup of coffee first.
Remember Amazon AutoRip?
It was a cool service Amazon launched earlier in the year which did something pretty cool: if you bought an AutoRip-compatible CD at any point since 1998, it’ll automatically show up in your Amazon Cloud Player, which can be accessed either online or through the free iTunes app
Pretty neat, and now, AutoRip is even neater: it now works with vinyl records you’ve purchased too. For example, I bought a copy of the excellent album Stranger by Balmorhea on vinyl a couple months ago, and it’s now in my Cloud Player.
This is pretty neat. Vinyl is already one of the more savvy ways to buy music, not just because of the improved sound quality and presentation over digital or CD, but because when you buy a vinyl album, you often get the digital version for free as a download anyway. With AutoRip now working with vinyl, buying a record is an even more compelling way to consume music.
Duke Nukem II, the side-scrolling shoot ’em up first developed for PC, is back to celebrate its 20th anniversary on iOS. This is original Duke Nukem at its finest — only it’s been optimized and improved for touchscreen devices.
Android may have a larger share of the smartphone market than iOS, but Apple’s Safari browser is still king of the mobile web. According to the latest market share data from Net Applications, Safari accounted for 61.79% of the mobile web traffic throughout March.
Brian White, an analyst with Topeka Capital Markets, brings us a crazy new rumor about the much-anticipated Apple television today following recent meetings with supply chain sources in China and Taiwan.
White claims that the “iTV” will finally launch during the second half of 2013, and that it’ll come with a miniature device called the “iRing”, which the user will wear on their finger to act as a pointer. The device will enhance the motion detection experience and take over some of the functions of the traditional remote control, apparently.
Bookmarks are a great way to return to the websites you’re most often interested in. However, there are a ton of times when you just want to remember a specific website once, maybe to show to another person or do some research with. There are a ton of online bookmarking services, like Delicio.us and Pinterest, but they have a whole social networking layer that maybe you just want to skip.
If you want to save the URL of any website in an iCloud-synched app, look no further than Apple’s own Notes app.