Apple’s new Podcasts app, with its skeuomorphic tape reels and beautiful interface, is an absolutely brilliant way to discover, manage, and listen to podcasts. And on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you how Apple’s new gem will finally bring podcast entertainment out of the shadows and into the hands of the masses.
And then, did you know Google just released their beloved Chrome browser for iOS? We’ll tell you what we think and if it’s going to give Safari a run for its money.
All that and our answers to your Twitter questions on an all-new CultCast! Subscribe now on your shiny new Podcasts app, then catch the show notes after the jump!
Here at Cult of Mac, we love Google’s new Chrome browser for iPhone and iPad… love it so much, in fact, that for many of us, we’re now using it as our default browser on our jailbroken devices using a Cydia tweak.
That’s all well and good if you’ve got a jailbroken iPhone or iPad, but what if you’re living on the straight and narrow? How can you make using Chrome as your default browser an easy experience when iOS wants to open every link in Safari instead?
BrowserChoose is a free tweak that makes Chrome your default browser.
Google finally released its hugely popular Chrome web browser for iOS yesterday, and just as we had expected, it’s the best third-party browser so far. In fact, in many ways, it’s also better than Apple’s built-in mobile Safari browser. And you can now use Chrome as your default browser on your jailbroken iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, thanks to the BrowserChooser tweak.
Gizmodo reported today that their new MacBook Air was crashing something fierce. They turned to their own forums and the Apple Support forums and found that many other users of the MacBook Air also had the crashing issue. Both parties saw improvements when they stopped using Google’s star web browser, Chrome, but no one could be sure.
They even checked on the MacRumors forums, finding the same issue. Then, they heard from Google.
In a post on the official Google Mac blog today, editor Scott Knaster wrote a final piece that closed the Mac-centric web log for good. Citing the current mainstream popularity of Apple, Macintosh computers, and of course the iPad, iPhone and iOS, Knaster says that he realizes that a special Mac blog is no longer needed.
If you were asked to name a company who would finally solve all of your password woes, who would it be? Apple? Google? 1Password? Lastpass?
Good guesses, but no. The company who’s going to end all of your password juggling problems is Detroit carmaker Ford. And they’re going to do it with an iOS app and a Chrome extension that means that just sitting down in front of your Mac with your iPhone in your pocket will be enough to unlock all of your accounts and profiles on the web, instantaneously.
After a long week of tips on how to make your Mac look more like iOS, how about a tip on how to make it ACT more like iOS?
On the iPhone, it’s become de rigueur to use a tap and pull to refresh motion. I first noticed it with the Twitter apps, and now more and more apps are using this style of refresh. I wish I was able to do it on my Mac. Oh, wait, I can – at least in my browser. Here’s how.
Google’s latest Stable release of Chrome now includes the ability to sync tabs across multiple devices. As long as you are signed into Chrome, you’ll now have the ability to take your tabs with you when switching between work, home, mobile (with Chrome for Android beta), etc. Accessing them is quick and easy thanks to the new “Other devices” menu located on the New Tab page, and even the back and forward buttons will work, allowing you to pick up browsing right where you left off.
Chrome is in beta on Android, and it's coming to iOS, too. (Image courtesy of Wired.)
Google Chrome is quite possibly the best web browser you can install on your Mac or PC, and it could soon be the best browser on your iOS device, too. According to one analyst, Google is “definitely” bringing Chrome to the App Store this year — possibly before the end of this quarter — which is bad news for Apple.
The Flashback infection could have generated more in 7 days than most will earn in a year.
The Flashback malware which was found to be infecting over 650,000 Macs at its peak was earning its creators up to $10,000 a day, according to security specialists Symantec. The OSX.Flashback.K trojan, which is believed to be the largest Mac infection to date, is designed to steal page views and advertising revenue from Google.
We’ve all done it. Half-way through a marathon browsing session, with 15 tabs open in this window and another 24 open in the window behind, and you tap Command+Q when you intended to just close one tab with Command+W.
Pow! Your browser quits and you have to wait for it to restart and re-load all those tabs again. So. Annoying.
This past week finally saw the unveiling of Google’s long-awaited Chrome OS. Surprising few to none, the big revelation is that Chrome the browser is actually the entire operating system. Using cloud web applications, it will be possible to run a bunch of desktop-ish apps on a Chrome-based netbook at home, then go to work, fire up Chrome on Mac or Windows on your work laptop, and have the same experience there. Pretty snazzy stuff.
It’s yet another take on what cloud-based consumer computing could be (insert “network computing” if you’d like to relive 1996), an heir to the promise of Java and so many others. And it looks to have some legs, even if we’re still quite some ways from seeing commercially available hardware ready to run on it. Many developers will create apps for the platform, and its write-once, read-anywhere (WOMA!) promise is mighty seductive. It would be very easy to imagine a world in which no one develops for traditional desktop operating systems anymore, except for professional applications like video editing and design work. Sounds like bad news for Apple, right?
Chrome started life as a browser, now it’s an OS. Well, sort of an OS. If you’re only running one application, you don’t need much OS.
The Chrome Notebook is Google’s very early foray into the world of hardware – backed, of course, by its extensive existing online software products. Here’s an overview video:
The Chrome Notebook has a full size keyboard, 8 hour battery life, a built-in webcam, and both wifi and 3G connectivity. You log in with your Google Account. The Chrome browser treats webapps the way the iTunes Store treats iOS apps: you can browse them, and “install” them. Each app runs in a separate tab.
I’m still not entirely sure what I think about Google Instant, Google’s new search-as-you-type feature that updates your page with search results in real-time, but I do love the Chrome browser, so I guess I’ll have to get used to the new behavior of Chrome’s Omnibar, which now has Google Instant baked right in.
Released over a year ago for the PC, Google’s wonderful Chrome browser has been purgatorial on the Mac for far too long, but now that’s all over: Google has finally released Chrome in beta form for OS X.
Mac users have a duty to download the beta and help Google finish it — it’s a great piece of work.
It’s a feature light release compared to the PC and Linux versions. For one, the Mac version is missing its Bookmark Manager and Bookmark Syncing; it also omits the App Mode, which allows Chrome to run web apps in their own basic browser window. Google’s Gears is also off the table for Mac users, but Gears won’t work under Snow Leopard anyway, so this isn’t a big deal: anyway, Google has announced that they will cease developing Gears because HTML5 is now suitable for the same purposes. Finally comes probably the biggest omission: the Chrome Beta for Mac totally omits Firefox-like extension support.
All together, it feels like something of a phoned-in affair, and it’s hard not to feel a bit bitter that Google delivered so little of the full Chrome user after a year of keeping Mac users waiting.
That all said, I’ve been using Chrome’s developer nightly builds for months, and its combination of extreme simplicity, the effortless amalgamation of the address bar and search engine support, and its sandboxed security mode that prevents single tabs from crashing the entire browser have quickly made Chrome my favorite browser for Mac. Despite my enthusiasm for Chrome, though, I’ll be keeping Firefox as my working browser until Chrome finally builds extensions into their Mac version… and, more importantly, some plucky developer comes up with a Chrome alternative to Tab Mix Plus.
