| Cult of Mac

Find Italy’s best restaurants with this must-have foodie app [Awesome Apps]

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Osterie d'Italia app on an iPhone with a fork.
The just-updated Osterie d'Italia app showcases Italy's most soulful slow-food restaurants.
Photo: Lewis Wallace/Cult of Mac
Awesome Apps

The best Italian restaurant app just got better. Osterie d’Italia 2024, the latest app version of Slow Food Editore’s killer guide to Italy’s most authentic restaurants, now serves up its piping-hot recommendations in English for the first time.

Plus, a much-improved search functionality makes it easier than ever to find a great place to eat in Italy. And a new feature lets you store your notes and photos about particular restaurants in the cloud so you can access them in subsequent versions of the annually updated app.

Apple devices top list of ‘most influential gadgets’ of all time

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iPhone
The iPhone is Time's most influential gadget of all time.
Photo: andri333 / Pixabay CC

Apple’s iconic consumer electronics continue to top the record books, fitting into the first (iPhone), third (Macintosh), and ninth (iPod) spots in Time Magazine’s list of the 50 most influential gadgets of all time.

The list is rounded out with the iPad (number 25) and Apple’s original candy-colored iBook (38), the Sony Walkman at number four, Kodak’s Brownie camera at number eight, and several consoles from Atari, Nintendo, and Sony scattered throughout.

It’s a surprisingly mixed list, in terms of historical time period, but it does tend to skew a bit modern, thanks to our rapid advances in our own “gadget” era.

Pope’s arrival in America greeted by a sea of smartphones

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popes-arrival-in-america-greeted-by-a-sea-of-smartphones-image-cultofandroidcomwp-contentuploads20150921646304072_7f298bf6fa_h-jpg
Pope Francis gets engulfed by eager smartphone users in Washington, DC.
Photo: IIP Photo Archive/Flickr CC
pope-cameras-phones-america
Pope Francis gets engulfed by eager smartphone users in Washington, DC. Photo: IIP Photo Archive/Flickr CC

Pope Francis landed on U.S. soil for the first time last week on Tuesday, September 22. He has talked to victims of sexual abuse, spoke out about his views on immigration and gave several moving speeches across the country. However, the pope was also able to impact American culture in a way that is completely unintentional: he put the mobile phone revolution on giant display.

The last time a pope visited the United States was back in April 2008 when Pope Benedict XVI was still at the reigns of Catholicism. A lot has happened in seven years. Modern smartphones were only starting to become prevalent back then. Apple had just released the first iPhone less than a year ago and Android was still in development.

The change in our culture needs no explanation because photos of crowds swarming Pope Francis through his journey across America manage to say it all. Crowds glow with endless displays.

Conan is so metal on his road trip to Comic-Con

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You ain't never seen a road trip like this.
You ain't never seen a road trip like this.
Photo: Team Coco

Conan O’Brien and sidekick Andy Richter head off to Comic-Con International this week on the late night television show.

Instead of taking the train down, Richter decides to take a road trip. Conan is excited!

What happens next is a thing of beauty, as Team Coco blasts on down the Fury Road in a auto-monster straight out of Mad Max’s latest big-screen adventure. Check it out in the video below.

Innovation isn’t dead; people are just slow to catch it

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Setting up
Humans react to innovative things like the Apple Watch fairly predictably.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

If you’re one of the people out there who haven’t taken the plunge on an Apple Watch, you’re not alone. While Apple’s latest wearable has gotten a ton of press and sold really well, a lot of the rank and file out there might think it’s a toy, or only for rich folks.

In fact, says journalist Morgan Housel over at Time, most people throughout history have pretty predictable responses to new things.

He has a list of reactions to new innovative inventions, each of which are reactions we’ve all heard (or had) when the Apple Watch (or the iPad, or the iPhone) was launched.

Want Prince? You’re not getting it from Apple Music — just Tidal

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The Purple One at the Coachella Festival in 2008.
The Purple One at the Coachella Festival in 2008.
Photo: CC Wikipedia

If you were hoping to listen to Prince on Apple Music, thinking that the purple-clad passionate one’s music would be on the service like many other exclusives on Apple’s new streaming service, you’re out of luck.

The artist currently known as Prince has pulled all of his music from streaming services, except for one: Jay Z’s Tidal, which reputedly has the best terms for mega artists like the Purple Rain lead.

Turns out that doves will cry after all, since they can’t listen to Prince on Apple Music or Spotify.

Original show may have tanked, but Heroes Reborn looks genuinely exciting

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Where have all the heroes gone; long time passing.
Where have all the heroes gone; long time passing.
Photo: NBC Universal

Heroes Reborn reboots the 2006 NBC cult-hit Heroes with a whole new cast of characters, and some familiar faces, too.

While the original series ended up being awful after the fantastic first season, both due to the 2007/2008 writers’ strike and series creator Tim Kring’s distraction over the latter couple of seasons.

The big draw of that first season was ordinary people discovering their extraordinary powers, set in a comic-book inspired world just brimming with possibility. You really cared for these characters as they stumbled and fell trying to become heroes in the face of a world — and a super-villain, Sylar, masterfully played by not-yet-a-superstar Zachary Quinto.

Here’s hoping the new reboot will have original creator Kring working at the top of his form again; the new trailer (below) has me pretty excited that it’s true.

Bill Hader’s wacky WWDC vid skewers Hollywood, Cupertino

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An elevator full of Tim Cook-alikes.
An elevator full of Tim Cook-alikes.
Photo: Apple

“Why did I want to direct the WWDC opening number?” asks comedian Bill Hader in the video that opened Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday morning. “Good question. You know, I think I’ve always been attracted to risk, you know?”

Then the production assistant comes to get Hader’s character, “David LeGary,” from his dressing room, and we find out that the pretentious “genius” has just been talking to himself. What follows is an over-the-top rehearsal of a Hollywood-like awards show, full of funny cameos and goofy dialogue. Check it out.

Detroit’s desolated stadium is the perfect playground for this BMXer

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Shred on, Tyler. Shred. On.
Shred on, Tyler. Shred. On.
Photo: Red Bull

This Red Bull-sponsored film of Tyler Fernengel, an up and coming BMX star, shredding through the creepy post-apocalyptic remains of Detroit’s Silverdome stadium is both amazing to watch and poignant at the same time.

The stadium represents with a gravelly-voiced narration, as well.

“I remember it like yesterday,” it says. “The smell of fresh paint. The stands overflowing; a colosseum for the modern age. Forty years ago, I stood for Detroit.”

Check it out below.

Explosions! Intrigue! Casual sex! First SPECTRE TV spot goes full Bond

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That's quite a suit, Mr. Bond.
That's quite a suit, Mr. Bond.
Photo: Sony PIctures

“You’ve got a secret,” says Naomie Harris’ Miss Moneypenny in the new TV spot for upcoming Bond film SPECTRE. “Something you can’t tell anyone because you don’t trust anyone.”

Daniel Craig is back in a new Bond film, this one named after the fictional spy syndicate that figured heavily in the Ian Fleming novels and debuted in the film Dr. No in 1962.

Here’s a full trailer full of the things you’ve come to associate with James Bond, including explosions, intrigue, and plenty of women. Bond is such a slut, right?