| Cult of Mac

Facebook Messenger Gets In-App Notifications, Image Sharing Enhancements & More

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You can now see who's online when beginning a new message.
You can now see who's online when beginning a new message in Facebook Messenger.

Facebook has updated its standalone Facebook Messenger app for the iPhone this morning to deliver a nice selection of new features, in addition to some bug fixes and performance improvements. Highlights include in-app notifications, the ability to delete individual messages, and support for larger images.

These High-Res NASA Images Make Great Wallpapers For Your Retina MacBook Pro [Gallery]

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Space never looked so good.
Space never looked so good.

The downside to buying a new Mac with a 2880 x 1800 display is that it’s not easy to find content that matches such a high resolution. All of your old Charlize Theron wallpapers you found on Google Images are going to look blurry and pixelated and just awful.

Fortunately for you, we’ve put together a gallery of high-resolution NASA images that look terrific on the new MacBook Pro’s Retina display.

One Manufacturer Is So Convinced By Leaked iPhone Images That He’s Already Making Cases For It

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One manufacturer is certain your next iPhone will look like this.
One manufacturer is convinced your next iPhone will look like this.

I’ve lost count of how many “iPhone 5” images we’ve seen in the last few weeks, but until Apple unveils the device itself, it’s hard to be sure any of them are genuine. But one manufacturer is taking a huge gamble on them. He’s so convinced by these images that he’s already producing and selling cases for the sixth-generation iPhone. And if he’s wrong, he’ll replace every single one for free.

Rotate Groups Of Images All At Once With Preview [OS X Tips]

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Rotate in Preview

Let’s face it, rotating a bunch of images can be a time or a money sink. You either have to open each image one at a time, rotate them manually, and then seave them, one at a time, or you need to purchase an image editing program like Photoshop or Fireworks. And don’t get me started on figuring out how to do this in Gimp, a free, open source image editing program.

Turns out, though, you’ve already got all you need right on your Mac. Batches of image can be rotated all at once with Preview.

Even Stanley Kubrick Would Love This Epic ‘2001’ iPhone Dock Made Out Of LEGO

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The only thing missing from this iPhone docking recreation of 2001's Dawn of Man segment is some Strauss.
The only thing missing from this iPhone docking recreation of 2001's Dawn of Man segment is some Strauss.

At the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s cosmic exploration on the evolution of mind in the universe, a bunch of man-apes in Africa discover a mysterious, jet black monolith. Upon touching it, almost worshipfully, they make an evolutionary leap in intelligence and begin to use the bones of animals as clubs to wage war upon competing tribes of apes.

2001’s monolith is iconic, and it’s common to joke about the similarity in shape between Kubrick’s big, ominous slab of intelligence-evolving basalt and Steve Jobs’s iPhone, but man, whoever built this 2001 docking station for his iPhone out of LEGO bricks — complete with tiny LEGO bones and monkeys, with the iPhone standing as the monolith above a worshipful tribe of man apes — just ran with it.

Forget Swipe To Unlock! Fold To Unlock Concept Brings A Smart Cover To Your iPhone’s Lock Screen

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Like a virtual Smart Cover for your iPhone.

There’s nothing that really needs changing about Apple’s patented “Slide to Unlock” functionality, but ever since Apple introduced the Smart Cover for the iPad 2, there’s been a conceptual disconnect between how you unlock an iPhone — by sliding — and how you unlock an iPad — by unfolding an origami-like cover off of the display.

It’s not really anything Apple needs to fix, but short of releasing a tiny little iPhone-sized smart cover, I think this “Fold To Unlock” design created by Anton Kudin is just an excellent conceptual bridge between the lockscreen and the smart cover.

Check out the concept in its full, high-res glory below.

Picture This! The Phenom Photo Album Bundle [Deals]

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CoM - Photo Bunlde

Don’t have fun and beautiful pictures on your company’s website? Tired of the dull album your using for your blog? Don’t even have a website?

The latest Cult of Mac Deals offer has got you covered.

For only $59, The Phenom Photo Bundle will grant you unlimited access to hundreds of ad-free skins with the jAlbum Pro license, and you’ll also get you up to 20 GB of photo storage with jAlbum’s Power Storage. That’s enough space for 40,000 photos — so even the biggest photo snappers can take advantage of this special offer.

President Obama In The Oval Office Getting Briefed On An iPad 2 [Image]

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According to this official White House picture, “President Barack Obama receives the Presidential Daily Briefing from Robert Cardillo, Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Integration, in the Oval Office, Jan. 31, 2012. Part of the briefing was done using a tablet computer.”

Oh really? I assert that President Obama isn’t using a “tablet computer” in this picture at all. A tablet computer is a vague term for some crummy, half-baked Android thingie like the Motorola Xoom or Transformer Prime. No, what President Obama is using quite openly and proudly here is an iPad 2.

Hey, Android fans! Does your president use an Android device? Ha, just kidding, obviously the answer is no.

[Thanks, Tim!]