Sonos has updated its iOS app and introduced the ability to wirelessly stream music AirPlay-style to your Sonos speaker directly from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Until now, users have had to have a Mac or PC acting as a middleman, but Sonos latest iOS apps remove that requirement.
You know, computers aren’t just for getting things done. They’re also for getting your game on. With that in mind, the latest Cult of Mac Deals offer has packed 10 fun games that are compatible with both Mac and PC systems into one bundle known as The Entertainment Games Bundle.
And for a limited time we’re offering it to you for just $29!
Rayman Jungle Run got an update today, adding ten more levels within a brand-new world for the holidays. The app description mentions, “10 new levels, including a snowy jungle, waterfalls, interactive environments, and a new crazy Land of The Dead challenge.”
There is also an updated character pack available for $0.99 as an in-app purchase, as well. It includes new character Globox, and two new Rayman costumes to use in-game.
Apple’s new 21.5-inch iMacs are ridiculously thin and gorgeous. They’re also one of least upgradeable/repairable desktop computers on the market. It’s possible to swap out the RAM on the new 21.5-inch iMacs, but trying to get an aftermarket SSD into the 21.5-inch iMac might be an impossible task.
Teardowns of the new 21.5-inch iMac revealed that in order to get to the hard drive users will have to separate the display from the main body of the iMac. That task isn’t too difficult, but gluing the display back onto the iMac’s body will be pretty tough. On top of that, once you get inside the 21.5-inch iMac there’s literally no room for an SSD and nowhere to plug it in.
Want to see an amazing chart? It’s right above this post, and it shows the rise and fall of computer platforms (including mobile) as a percentage of overall marketshare from 1975 to 2012.
What does it tell us about the state of the computer industry? Even with iOS’s success, Apple is proportionally selling about the same percentage of computers as it has since the early 1980s. Windows as a platform, though, has fallen from a ninety-six percent share of the overall computer market between 1998 and 2005 to a mere thirty-five percent in 2012.
Why? Apple and especially Android are killing WinTel.
The International Data Corporation has published its most recent mobile market forecast and unsurprisingly, they’re predicting Android to maintain its strong market share lead over the next four years. In fact, there’s really not much surprising about the report at all.
Around the time that Google bought Sparrow, the Gmail team was given a mission to completely rebuild the Gmail app for iOS. After months of slaving away, the app has just been released on the App Store today and it comes with a number of new features that may have been borrowed from Sparrow, even though insiders such as MG Siegler claim the Sparrow team had nothing to do with the update.
Gmail 2.0 for iPhone and iPad is faster, sleeker and much easier to use. The minimal UI athestetics of Google Now have bled over with some of the popular features from Sparrow. The free update gives users multiple accounts, infinite scrolling inboxes, better search, and more.
Here are the release notes:
One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.
This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.
Amazon has issued an update to its Kindle app for iOS today, introducing its excellent X-Ray for Books feature which has been a big selling point for the company’s own Kindle hardware. If you’re not already familiar with it, X-Ray allows you to see the “bones of the book,” Amazon says, helping you learn more about its characters, places, and phrases.
Gifted is a one dollar gift-management app for iOS, that helps you track all the gifts for all the people at all the events you might have to deal with. It works, no doubt about that; but using it, I found myself shrinking away from the whole idea. This is not what gift-giving is all about, in my opinion.