“What? No way, that’s not my Enrique Iglesias track. How’d that get on my iPhone?” Have you ever had your musical tastes harshly criticized by a friend who’s browsing through the music library on your iPhone? Apple’s now enabled users to avoid those awkward moments of friends discovering your guilty pleasures by allowing you to delete songs from your iPhone or iPad.
We’re back at it again today. After yesterday’s highly successful Twitter Trivia Giveaway we’ve decided to give everyone another chance to win the Twitter Trivia Giveaway. We’ve been giving out free stuff all week via Twitter, but we’re nearing the end of our weeklong giveaway. With only two more chances to win you got to make each try count. If you’d like to join our three other winners and receive a free iMainGo X we’d be happy to have one sent to you as long as you play by the rules.
We’ve been giving out free stuff all week via Twitter, and while today is no exception we’ve decided to spice things up by having a Twitter Trivia Giveaway. If you’d like to join our two other winners and receive a free iMainGo X we’d be happy to have one sent to you as long as you play by the rules.
Apple’s new iMessage app was one of the biggest surprises at WWDC yesterday. Once I got iOS 5 and Lion installed on my devices, I asked our Twitter followers what they wanted to know about the new OSes and we got a lot of questions about iMessage and how it works. There seems to have been a bit of confusion regarding the new service, so let me help explain how iMessage works on iOS 5.
Did you hear the fantastic news that Cult of Mac is hosting a weeklong giveaway to celebrate our Twitter followers? Well, if you missed the post in the mountain of news that we unleashed yesterday in our WWDC coverage we’ll forgive you and give you a second chance to win. Today we’re holding another giveaway contest, where one lucky winner will receive a free iMainGo X, the powerful portable speaker system that lets you blast music from your iPod/iPhone wherever you go. You gotta enter to win though, so here’s how to submit your name for the drawing.
Last Thursday we told our Twitter followers we would throw a weeklong giveaway party if we reached 50,000 Twitter followers by the end of the week. Well, our fans heard the call and exceeded our expectations by boosting us up to 53,000! To show our gratitude for our fans we’ll be giving away an awesome iMainGo X (along with some other stuff) every day this week, starting today. Entry into each daily contest will be varied depending on the day, so keep an eye out for the giveaway posts so that you can ensure you win. Here’s how to enter today’s giveaway:
Is your head still spinning from the smackdown of new details Steve Jobs and the Apple crew just slammed you with? Apple’s iCloud page just went live so you can get all the details on the new software that Apple is bringing to you for free later this fall. Of course, Cult of Mac will be posting all new material throughout the day breaking down iCloud and it’s features, so don’t stray too far.
“If something ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a phrase Etymotic must have taken extremely seriously, judging by a look at their now-mythic, $99 ER-6i. The set has been around since their release in 2004, after which they quickly became the standard against which all other sub-$100 IEMs were tested. But seven years is an eon for a product to have remained essentially unchanged in the gadget world. Are they still as good now as they were then?
iPods and marathon runners are still on shaky ground. Kelly McClure had a good run at the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon on Sunday, coming in unexpectedly in fifth place. Instead of basking in the achievement and the $500 prize, McClure was disqualified for wearing an iPod.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w85fxNueX4g
Apple has provided us with some of the best ads ever created. The Mac vs PC Campaign ads have been some of the most memorably entertaining advertisements to grace the television. Unfortunately Apple pulled the plug on the fun banter between Mac (Justin Long) and PC (John Hodgman) last year. However, should you feel so inclined to walk down memory lane with the plethora of Mac vs PC advertisements, Adweek has compiled all 66 ads for your viewing pleasure. They’ve even got them ordered out chronologically.
[via Adweek]
update: you can also view the ads in a much more pleasant layout on Squrl.
Have an old iPod Nano? Want to spruce up its interface and software a bit? You’re in luck! This post is going to tell you how to really Pimp Your Pod! It’s rather straightfoward, and shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes to complete from start to finish. Please be aware that the iPodWizard portion is using software that’s Windows only, so you should get that virtual machine or Boot Camp install cookin’ for a little while. Read the rest of the post for more information.
Your iPhone does more than just make calls. It’s the perfect companion for almost every situation because there’s an app for almost everything. Having taken my iPhone 4 with me on a couple hikes to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, I can attest that it’s an amazing tool to keep by your side during outdoor excursions. Of course that is until you see your battery meter dip below 3%. At which point the iPhone 4 becomes just an expensive piece of metal and glass. To aid your charging dilemmas on your next camping trips, Solio has created a great line of portable solar chargers.
Solio’s Mono Charger ($60), combines a high-efficiency solar cell, with a long life lithium-ion rechargeable battery in a solid impact resistant casing for all those adventurers who need battery power no matter where they journey. The design of the device is incredibly simple. Nothing detracts from the solar panel, and it’s very easy to use. To begin charging simply place it in the sun and press the Start button on the back of the device. A red LED light will blink to indicate that it’s collecting energy.
The iPhone is a phenomenal tool for a bit of tromping about in the bush; navigation, stargazing, photographing/filming and even staying alive can all be accomplished with the help of the little gadget. That is, if it’s got any juice left.
Solio’s Rocsta ($80) — a solar panel mated to a thin slab of a battery in a sleek, flat, user-friendly housing — seems to have been created with a nod to minimalist adventurous types who want a rugged, no-fuss solar charger aong on their next Iditarod or photo shoot for National Geographic.
Port police in Los Angeles busted a counterfeit iDevice operation with a warehouse full of fakes with an estimated market value of $10 million.
“This was a well-funded operation, and the counterfeits looked very authentic,” said Ron Boyd, chief of the approximately 200-member L.A. Port Police force, adding that a buyer might not have noticed anything awry until he or she got home and tried to hook up with iTunes.
Police believe the fakes were shipped in from China as replacement parts then reassembled them. The two brothers arrested and charged with felony counts for the sale of counterfeit goods in charge of the operation may have thought they could fly under the radar with older-model fakes, still in demand by some consumers. (Personal aside: I still have both of those iPod Nano models and am clinging to them because of the storage, battery life and light weight.)
When President Obama gave his annual State of the Union speech Tuesday night, he dedicated a significant portion of it to the dismal state of America’s education system.
Some educational experts responded by noting that that mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad could potentially improve the American education system’s “productivity.”
I wonder whether this is a valid point, or yet another manifestation of Americans’ infatuation with technology.
Lawyers defending a pair of brothers accused with murdering for the mob want to give them iPods so they can review the evidence against them, ensuring they have adequate time and means to prepare a defence.
Fotios “Freddy” and Ty Geas, brothers and reputed mob enforcers, are accused in the 2003 murders of organized-crime boss Adolfo Bruno and henchman Gary D. Westerman.
Their lawyers say they have had only two hours per week over four months to pore over thousands of pages and hundreds of hours of audio recordings, all of it potential evidence offered by prosecutors for a trial at U.S. District Court in Manhattan beginning March 8.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — Pioneer launched its SmartCradle for the iPhone at its CES presser today, further proving that the aftermarket auto industry seems to be embracing the iPhone with rapidly increasing gusto.
They really pulled out the stops on this one, hardware-wise: a dedicated GPS receiver with an external antenna, which they said will give even newer iPod Touch models GPS capability; an accelerometer and gyro sensor for better location awareness; hands-free calling an integrated amplified speaker with the ability to vary volume based on ambient noise; and audio/video output. Of course, it’ll also charge the iPhone; Ted Cardenas, Pioneer’s director of marketing, made of point of this — but since the iPhone won’t last long with location services going, any dock even remotely similar already includes charging ability. Nary a whiff on price or availability yet.
LAS VEGAS — After hours of driving through the cow-infested flatness of California’s Central Valley, CultofMac Editor Leander Kahney and I have finally arrived in Vegas, primed to report from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The doors only officially open on Thursday, but here’s some of the sparkly new stuff we saw released today that we’re mega-pumped to get our hands on at this year’s show:
You got another Apple gadget for Christmas, didn’t you? And you love it, don’t you?
So at what point do you officially declare yourself to be one of those Cupertino Kool-Aid-guzzling, Steve Jobs-worshiping, pathetically devoted Apple fans you used to loathe?
Ten years ago, there were two kinds of people: PC users (a.k.a. “regular people”) and Apple fanboys. At least that’s how it looked from the PC side.
Macs were pretty, but considered by us PC users to be overpriced, underpowered, insufficiently supported by either software or hardware, too hard to customize, optimize or repair and completely devoid of key application areas, such as games.
The world was black and white. You were either a PC or a Mac. Then things got complicated.
Instead of trying to ban iPods and cell phones, one school district is telling kids to bring their own tech to school.
In the Green Bay area of Wisconsin, officials tired of trying to regulate the use of iDevices. Now at the Pulaski School District, for example, kids are encouraged to bring their cell phones, iPods and computers to class.
“Teachers can post questions, and kids can respond using their phones or their own computers,” said Amy Uelmen, instructional technology coordinator for the Pulaski district. “In the old days, we would take students to a computer lab; now you can bring it all into the classroom.”
A teenage girl reportedly listening to her iPod survived getting clipped by a freight train in Ohio.
According to police reports, 16-year-old Isatu Kanu was late to school on Friday morning, making her way from home to Olentangy Orange High School at about 10:30 am. She had the hood of her coat up and headphones in, they say.
Police report that train engineers saw the teen and sounded the horn to warn her of the train’s approach. They say she did not appear to react.
If you’re in the netbook, notebook, PC, hand-held gaming, newspaper or DVD business, Apple wants to eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti — at least according to a huge number of observers who don’t know what the word “cannibalize” means.
For example, Microsoft’s general manager for Windows product management, Gavriella Schuster, said this month that the netbook market is “definitely getting cannibalized” by the iPad.
Wait, “cannibalized”? What does that mean, exactly? And why is everybody saying it?
A study conducted at the USC Marshall School of Business found that attachment to brands like the iPod “can even be strong enough to induce separation anxiety when… replaced” by another brand, according to the university’s press release.
To test their hypothesis, researchers used three completely different consumer products, and one of them was the Apple iPod. Attachment to some brands can be so strong that “consumers are willing to sacrifice time, money, energy and reputation to maintain their attachment to that brand.”
The researchers determined that “the greater the attachment, the greater sacrifices a consumer will make to connect with or remain connected to the brand.”
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ifrXlloH9s
Cult of Mac was asked by CNBC’s Street Signs to contribute our thoughts on the current market debate of whether it’s wiser to invest in Gold or Apple. Even though we don’t masquerade as financial advisors, the debate in the short-term seems fairly straightforward to us, and here are a few of the major points:
If you’ve ever participated in any kind of canvassing for a political party or for pet causes, you know what an excruciating experience it can be on every level.
From having to put on a cheesy smile as you approach busy strangers in the street to having to put all the information together back in the office, it’s just one of the most tedious tasks around, apart from, say, taking out the garbage.
The Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America have gone a long way to address all of that with their thoughtfully-designed iPhone/iPAD/iPOD Touch canvassing and organizing application, which was launched earlier this month. It’s one of the best tools I’ve seen.
