Cult of Mac Magazine - page 12

The greening of Apple: it took almost 10 years for the Cupertino company to turn around its dismal eco-scorecard.

But that worm has truly turned: in this week’s edition of Cult of Mac Magazine, author Luke Dormehl talks to former Apple exec John Sculley and other insiders about why this change is all about current Apple CEO Tim Cook.  Apple’s green day means a better future and even better products, they say.

Also this week, we’ve got reviews editor Charlie Sorrel taking a deep dive into underwater iPhoneography, plus his reviews for the best in Apple-related paraphernalia — including a mullet-style notebook (you know: business up front, party in the back.) Our tastemaker Buster Hein has once again sifted through all the offerings in the iTunes store to serve up the most scrumptious offerings in music, books and movies and Evan Killham rounds up what you need in apps.

Cult of Mac Magazine

Image: Wikipedia

Apple has turned even the most modest weekend strummer into a guitar hero.
This week in Cult of Mac Magazine, our games editor and disco band frontman (!) Rob LeFebvre takes you on a magical mystery tour of Garageband’s latest and greatest features. He’ll walk you through a shiny new piece of kit called Drummer, plus get you ringtone making and learning from the pros in the Lessons store.

Rob has also kept his ear to the ground for all the other great gear you need to make your homegrown music making hit the right notes and, well, sound better. And definitely louder. Whether you’re rocking at home or taking your iPad with you on stage.

So. The beat goes on with Charlie Sorrel sifting through MacBook stands to single out the best, plus his picks for the best Apple-related gear and Buster Hein’s top choices from iTunes for music, books and movies you’ll be grooving to all week.

Cult of Mac Magazine

They say that Macworld doesn’t break news as much as soft launch it: Cult of Mac Magazine
begs to differ. This week, we bring you news you won’t find elsewhere from the Moscone floor.

This week, our intrepid Games Editor Rob LeFebvre brings readers of Cult of Mac Magazine all the news from the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

There were dueling VR 3D headsets, discussions about sexism in the games industry, contests, awards and plenty of action on the show floor.

But the million-dollar question this year was: How do I make the next Flappy Bird?

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple fanpeople are gearing up for MacWorld/iWorld 2014 here on March 27-29, and while we’ll be at Moscone West live to cover all the happenings of this year’s show, it’d be so much better if some fans join in on the fun.You can hang out with us at the “6 About To Break” contest and join the mayhem for a live CultCast recording session, too.

No tickets? We’ve got you covered.

We’re giving away two free tickets to Cult of Mac readers to MacWorld/iWorld 2014. To enter, just tweet why Macs rock your world and include a shoutout to our iPad publication, Cult of Mac Magazine, with the hashtag #CultofMacMag.

The contest is open to all readers, but doesn’t include travel or hotel. Winners will be announced Monday morning at 10AM PST.

Good luck!

Update: Our two winners have been selected. Congratulations Andrea Holtz and Paul Burt on winning free tickets to MacWorld/iWorld 2014 and thanks to everyone who entered the contest.

This week  Cult of Mac Magazine looks at vice in the iTunes store.

Reporter Luke Dormehl talks to the devs who are making a living — if not a fortune — skirting the Apple censors, in a store that’s intended to be squeaky clean and suitable for minors.

He also looks into why, despite the Cupertino company’s rigid guidelines and “boob ban” of years past, there are plenty of questionable apps available to all. Sex, drugs and drinking games are the available in app form by the dozens, some of them rated suitable for ages 4+. This cat-and-mouse game to keep the store family-friendly yet appeal to developers with a gold-rush mentality has also given rise to a cottage industry of consultants who help app makers get into the store with more adult content than Apple intends to allow.

If you’ve got some of that content on your device and want to hide it, we take a look into Apple’s methods to put that stuff under a virtual mattress and apps that let you “vault” material you don’t want prying eyes to see.  We also look into some of the outrageous apps Apple has banned over the years after they slipped into the store as well as the risqué ones that are still available today.

As always, send your comments, feedback or any troubles you may have with the app to me via email or using the “send” button top right from our site.

Cult of Mac Magazine

This week Cult of Mac Magazine looks under the hood at Apple’s new CarPlay iOS 7.

Called “smart and seamless” by those lucky enough to test it out behind the wheel of a Ferrari at the International Geneva Motor Show, the system will be coming to a dashboard near you as soon as 2014.

Reporter Luke Dormehl talks to experts about what the impact will be for the rest of us: whether smart driving and whether we’ll all be heading down the road to the quantified ride anytime soon.

There is a lot of misinformation about CarPlay — from Apple’s relationship with automakers to the suggestion that it’s working side-by-side with BlackBerry  — and the analysts we spoke to have an interesting take on what the new system means for Apple and where the Cupertino company might be headed.

As always, we’re here for comments, suggestions and bug fixes, so send ’em to my email below or hit the “send” icon top right.

Cult of Mac Magazine

This week Cult of Mac Magazine looks into why your Mac gets crufty and what you can do about it.

You know how your friendly technician always tells you to just reboot the computer, but there’s got to be more to it than that, right?  

The good news is there are some things you can do. And, perhaps, adopt some more efficient computing practices for yourself along the way to keep those nasty clog-ups at bay. Apple Certified Consultant Adam Rosen, aka our Mac RX columnist, will show you the four most common causes of slow, bogged-down Macs. Going through Adam’s quick fixes will give your Mac a much-needed tune up in less time than it would take to clear a path from your workbench to the car in your garage.

You’ll also get our top picks from the iTunes store for music, books, movies as well as the apps worth downloading, for reals, plus words of wisdom from an actual Apple Genius.

Comments? Suggestions? Complaints? Email me directly or from the “send” button top right.

Cult of Mac Magazine

This week in Cult of Mac Magazine: Can iMacs find a cure for cancer?

Right now, thousands of kids across Kentucky are furthering cancer research while they do their schoolwork, thanks to the DataseamGrid.

Cult of Mac publisher Leander Kahney delves into how this massive grid of educational iMacs are churning data to help find a cure for cancer. One starter fact to make you blink: Every week, the grid processes 300 man-years worth of calculations while kids learn about fractions and foreign languages. Brian Gupton, Dataseam’s co-founder and executive director, talked to Cult of Mac about how this game-changing research is proving rich ground for education, employment and research.

Reporter Buster Heine checks out iPhone apps that can harness the processing power of your device while your run or walk your dog — he has found a bunch of great two-fer apps to get you in shape as you do good. We also bring you the best in new books, music and movies from iTunes and what’s worthwhile in the app store, plus our resident Apple genius dishes on whether the grass is greener, workwise, outside the store.

Cult of Mac Magazine

This week, Cult of Mac Magazine looks back on 2013 with our Year in Review issue.

Apple has once again overturned a few carts and made mincemeat of our best predictions for where the Cupertino company is heading next.

In addition to a rollicking review of the best — and weirdest — news, apps, games, rumors and the like, Cult of Mac’s resident gadfly Mike Elgan opines on what Apple will bring us in 2014.

Elgan also weighs in on whether those iWatches or other gadgets (iGlasses? Yeah or Nay?) will be anything we actually want. Reporter Alex Heath takes a look at Apple’s bumper crop of acquisitions, a record this year, as a signpost of what the new year may bring.

As always, we bring you the best in apps, games, movies and books out of all the stuff our staffers have watched, played with and read this year — but only the stuff that doesn’t suck.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Year in Review.

Cult of Mac Magazine’s Unboxing Issue is a super-sized, mega edition packed full of good advice for your new device, whether you’re giving or getting.

We’ve got guides on how to set up your brand new iPhone and iPad, what apps and games you need as well as the accessories Cult of Mac reviewers won’t leave home without.

Compassion and Tech go hand in hand in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine.

We’re all supposed to be better people around the holidays. Unless we happen to be a hackathon dude who fires off a Facebook rant about how San Francisco is filled with human trash. 

And, sure, you can delete that stupid stuff. But that same technology that enabled you to quickly air your most callous, thoughtless opinion won’t take it back that easily. His subsequent apology did little to smother the flames about how tech needs better PR to convince the world we aren’t the philosophical disciples of Charles Montgomery Burns.

That’s why Facebook is considering a compassion button – so in this case you could sympathize with your hackathon pal for his complete lack of empathy for the homeless? – for example.

This week, Cult of Mac reports from the front line of digital companies and nonprofits with heart and soul from Stanford’s inaugural Technology and Compassion Conference.  The idea behind it is to bring things like mood trackers and compassion training to our iPhones, so we act like jerks a little less. And the world will thus becomes a better place…

We also bring you the best new books, music and movies in iTunes and apps in the store as well as the inside scoop from the behind the counter with our Ask a Genius Column. ‘Cause we’re generous like that.

Cult of Mac Magazine in iTunes.

The iPhone is a great travel tool, but making your smartphone travel actually smart isn’t about packing it up with dozens of apps you never use or that won’t get you out of the plane seat next to the loo on a crowded holiday flight.

Enter Cult of Mac Magazine. In time for your holiday travels (or maybe escaping from your loved ones for some beach or ski resort time?), we sounded out dozens of road warriors to learn what they really find necessary for the daily commute or continental flight. These black tees and easy-to-launder socks of the app world, if you will, include some surprising picks, many of them free.

If your travel is mostly of the four-wheel variety, you’ll want to read what happens when reporter Alex Heath took smart-driving app Automatic for a month-long spin. (Can it reform his gas guzzling, donut-making driving style?)

In our exclusive Ask an Apple Genius column, we answer your questions about how to get your Mac repaired on the road and how to handle assistance when you live in a town without an Apple store.

You’ll also find our picks for the best in apps this week and what’s really rocking the iTunes store when it comes to books, movies and music.

Mosey on over to Cult of Mac Magazine on iTunes and check it out!

This week in Cult of Mac Magazine: how some collectors are making serious money with old Macs.

Well, that and how some are discovering that it may be sentimental value that keeps the old machines humming – as it turns out for our publisher, Leander Kahney, who reminisces on the antiquated machines in his life.

And if you dream of finding an Apple 1 or coming across a Twiggy Mac and making a pretty penny, we’ll tell you what happens when those machines roar back to life and come up at auctions.

We’ll also help you figure out what to keep – and toss! – in your collection and showcase some of the coolest ways Apple lovers have repurposed those aging computer carcasses to give them new life.

Our Apple Genius dishes on how to keep your privates protected when you bring your machine in (it’s not as hard as you think) and the best way to let your technician know you’re not a total moron – so you can get your device fixed and get out as soon as possible.

Cult of Mac Magazine

This week’s edition of Cult of Mac Magazine explores the issue of privacy in the PRISM age. Whether you have anything to hide or not, awareness of what data you are sending out and who can see it as always a good thing.

We’ve got great how-tos to about keeping things locked down in your email, browser, instant messaging and backups as well as what to know about the key privacy settings in iOS 7 and how to cover your privates with social media apps.

For those of you who have, ahem, things to hide from a snooping spouse, roommate or parent, we’ve also got you covered.

And if you think you’re an open book, we talk to an artist who broadcast his life from his iPhone screen to an open web page for an entire year. He tells us what happens when your wife gets in the act and your mother always knows what you’re up to.

Publisher Leander Kahney discusses his foray into the private lives of Apple designers while researching his latest book and our exclusive Apple Genius column discusses drinking on the job and vintage Macs.

We hope you check it out – and let us know what you think!

GMIC – Silicon Valley’s largest mobile internet conference – is about to get underway in just a few short weeks. Over 10,000 developers, executives, entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world will descend on San Francisco’s Moscone Center on October 21-23 to talk about all the latest changes in mobile.  Attendees will get to listen to speakers from Facebook, Qualcomm, Y-Combinator, PopCap, and many more, as well as party as hard as some Silicon Valley nerds can muster.

To hype up the conference GMIC hooked us up with two Golden Tickets (valued at $599) which we can’t wait to send to two lucky readers. But first, we just launched our awesome Cult of Mac Magazine in Newsstand a few weeks ago and would much rather promote it instead, so here’s how to enter our contest to win one of the GMIC tickets:

Gone but not forgotten: this week Cult of Mac Magazine pays homage to late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

We speak to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell who knew Jobs back when he was so difficult to be around he landed on the night shift, hear from Cult of Mac publisher Leander Kahney what it was like to cover tech with such an outsize personality always storming the headlines, share some of the best everyday anecdotes from people who encountered Jobs plus take a look at the best tributes to the man called the Edison of our times.

The latest issue is available in the App Store.

We hope you’ll enjoy it – and keep in touch with comments, questions, shout-outs – we’re listening!

With the release of iOS 7, we’ve prepped a guide to what you need to know about Apple’s new operating system — along with some things you might not already know.

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine we catch up with uber-designer Khoi Vinh who has been using it since the beta, why experts think the new activation lock (aka “kill switch”) won’t stop iCrime and take a light-hearted look at the real-world objects that inspired the new icons.

Once again, we’ve tapped an Apple Store Genius to answer your questions on how to get an iPhone 5 replaced for free and what to do when your MacBook Pro gets all wet.

The latest issue is available for free in the App Store.

Got questions, comments, topics in the Applesphere you’d like us to cover in-depth?

Tweet, email or give us a shout out any way you feel appropriate. (Just FYI, though, smoke signals are hard to read here in foggy San Francisco.)

Thanks for all your kind words and input on the first issue.

And, just so we know, were you guys serious that we should call it a “Macazine?”

Behind the scenes, it’s been a long time coming, but welcome to the first issue of Cult of Mac Magazine!

Cult of Mac Magazine is a weekly news magazine devoted to the world of Apple. Every Saturday, we’ll bring you the best of what the Cult of Mac blog does on the Web, in an iPad-friendly format.