Listen up, Mac users! Apple is gearing up to release its first public beta of OS X Yosemite tomorrow, July 24, giving those without a developer account the opportunity to get their hands on it for the first time. Only the first 1 million people who sign up will gain access to the pre-release software, however, so if you haven’t already, submit your details today.
As someone who’s never witnessed any paranormal activity, I’d probably crap myself should I ever come across a ghost in real life. Luckily I’ve got the Blackwell adventure games to give me a tidy little taste of the supernatural.
The episodic game series introduces you to the spirit world through the eyes of Rosangela Blackwell, for whom dealing with specters comes as no surprise, thanks to her family’s long history of strange and unexplained happenings. Her story unfolds over five games that were originally released on PC (and ported to Mac). The first three games in the series, recently ported smoothly and successfully to iOS, introduce us to a brilliantly told story driven by dialogue and character interaction, with many problem-solving elements.
Early doodles on the iPad looked a lot like this generation’s Etch-a-Sketch.
But in just a few years, after celebrated artists such as David Hockney have shown their iPad works in galleries, Apple’s revolutionary device has come into its own as a canvas.
The eclectic group of works above are finalists in the second annual Mobile Digital Art Exhibition (aka MDAC Summit 2014), an upcoming art-packed weekend of workshops and a celebration of digital art in Palo Alto, a stone’s throw from Apple headquarters. Take a gander and vote on them by July 31 for the People’s Choice Award.
Even Apple execs sounded pleasantly surprised as they revealed last quarter’s mostly higher-than-expected numbers Tuesday. But in what’s become something of a refrain in Cupertino, they couldn’t stop themselves from vague and knowing references to the incredible products waiting in the magical Apple pipeline.
Trust us, they seemed to say: Last quarter’s net profit of $7.7 billion — fueled by robust sales of iPhones, MacBooks and a surprisingly strong showing in the iTunes Software and Services category — was totally great, but wait till you see what we’ve got up our sleeves.
“We’re expecting a very busy fall,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer. “We’re very excited about what’s in the pipeline.”
What else did Apple executives have to say during Tuesday’s Q3 earnings call? Here’s our take on everything you need to know from the latest numbers talk.
Tim Cook and newly-apointed CFO Luca Maestri are getting ready for Apple’s Q3 2014 earnings call with investors. The call will reveal just how much cash the company raked in over the past three months and what they should expect later this year. We’ll be right here, liveblogging the whole thing.
Apple hasn’t released a new product this quarter, but investors on Wall Street are still bullish about the future of AAPL, sending the company’s stock price surging 26% since its last earnings report.
Whether Apple was able to beat expectations of $38.4 billion in revenue without an explosion of new sales will finally be known today at 2 p.m. Pacific, and we’ll be ready to dish out all the news and juicy tidbits Tim and the team tell investors.
So keep this page open for the full scoop on how ridiculously profitable Apple was last quarter, as well as what’s to come its “most exciting product pipeline in 25 years.”
With a great quarter behind Apple and massive refreshes of both iOS and OS X in the near future (along with a little something called the iPhone 6) Tim Cook is unlikely to have a lack of things to crow about during today’s earnings call.
If he is, however, maybe he can bring up the fact that — despite increased competition — the iPad is still driving a massive majority of tablet web usage, as measured through ad impressions.
The data was collected by research firm Chitika Insights, who sampled tens of millions of U.S. and Canadian ad impressions between July 1 and 7 this year. They found that the iPad accounts for 78.0% of all tablet ad impressions — up from the 77.2% the iPad represented back in April, and one of the largest quarter-over-quarter increases for any tablet brand.
SITU is an attractive Bluetooth food scale that talks to your iPad. Created by former Apple employee Michael Grothaus — who came up with the idea while sitting in Apple’s Caffè Macs cafeteria — the device lets you see the exact nutritional content of any food you place on it, based on the food’s weight and broken down into calories, sugar, salt, protein, vitamins and minerals. The device itself is beautiful, too, with a simple but pleasing design that could have come straight out of Jony Ive’s workshop.
Preorders will be available on SITU’s official site next month.
In what is quite possibly the strongest indication to date that Apple has been working on a smart watch for some time, on Tuesday the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an Apple patent related to a “Wrist-worn electronic device” referred to as iTime.
The patent was first filed back in 2011, and describes a device reminiscent of the Pebble smart watch — which would act as a notifications system for other Apple devices such as your iPhone and iPad, with information communicated wirelessly between these devices by way of Bluetooth. Alerts such as phone calls, text messages, and push notifications could be sent to your watch, with the user then made aware of these by way of audio, visual, or vibration cues.
Apple is asking its manufacturing partners to make a record 70-80 million units of the iPhone 6 for the holiday season, according to The Wall Street Journal. What’s interesting is that Apple isn’t having suppliers make the 4.7 and 5.5-inch models simultaneously.
While it looks like Apple is expecting to sell more iPhones than ever before in the coming months, new technology used in the iPhone 6 (especially the 5.5-inch version) is still making production difficult.
Don’t expect anything too exciting from Apple’s third quarter earnings tomorrow.
This is Apple’s slowest part of the year. The summer slump means no new hardware, which means no explosive sales growth. But that’s alright, because the best is yet to come.
Tim Cook and co. have promised that truly epic things are coming in the fall, and Wall Street is actually excited about Apple again.
With iOS 8’s expected September release getting closer and closer, anticipation for Apple’s updated mobile software is growing. Beta releases, pushed to developers every few weeks, show off the latest tweaks and new features, and today’s release of iOS 8 beta 4 is no exception.
In today’s video we go hands-on and take a quick look at everything new in the latest version of iOS 8. See a redesigned Control Center, the helpful new Tips app and other key upgrades to Apple’s mobile software.
Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.
Apple has included iTunes 12 in the newest OS X Yosemite beta released today. It’s a pretty clean redesign that focuses on de-chromifying a lot of the interface elements and introducing new icons.
The iconic iTunes icon has also been changed from blue to a reddish pink. Here’s more of what iTunes 12 looks like:
iOS 8 just got a little bit closer to completion for its launch this fall with the release of iOS 8 beta 4 this morning. Apple didn’t add any major new changes (unless you’re a hardcore lover of Control Center), but the new beta is full of tiny little tweaks that will make your iPhone feel like new when iOS 8 drops in September.
We’re still combing through all the new features Apple just added to iOS 8 beta 4, but there are already some big additions like the new Tips app, an improved Control Center, new Handoff settings and little tweaks galore.
Here are all the little features Apple added to iOS 8 beta 4:
Everyone knows that Apple does a stellar job of getting its users to upgrade to its latest version of iOS, but how does it do at convincing customers to buy its latest iPhones and iPads, rather than settling for cheaper older models?
Very well, and getting better all the time, according to new market research from the Chicago-based Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
Looking at consumer data for the calendar quarter which ended June 30, CIRP noted that the flagship iPhone 5s accounted for an impressive 62 percent of total iPhone sales in the quarter, while the iPad Air took 52 percent of all iPad sales in the quarter. Why is this significant?
The iPhone 6 could include a MacBook-style light-up logo, according to new photos uncovered by renowned Apple leaker Sonny Dickson.
The photos show an apparent iPhone 6 case, with a thin plastic space that would allow for a light to shine out. While nothing concrete suggests this, if true the light could be used to indicate at a glance what type of notification a user was receiving at any moment — perhaps pulsating white for a call, or flashing blue for a text message or Twitter update.
When Steve Jobs was still alive, he seemed adamant that the size of the iPhone’s screen was perfect, since it was the maximum width a screen could be and be comfortable to hold while typing one-handed.
With the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 on the horizon, though, it appears that Apple no longer agrees. But why? Why are smartphone screens getting bigger anyway?
We’ve heard a lot of rumors about the upcoming iPhone 6. But which ones are true? With the release of Apple’s latest and greatest smartphones just three months away, we can start synthesizing the likelihood of which rumors will pan out (and which won’t).
This gorgeous infographic exploding the iPhone 6 into its various components does a great job of showing where the consensus is right now.
Inside a New York City morgue, the rich, famous and celebrated rest in the same space with the soldier, the wheat farmer and nuns trained in the martial arts. There’s even a car show model who was mauled by a lion.
Darcy Eveleigh pulls drawers at random and gives these people another day. They’re not dead, just filed.
Eveleigh is a New York Times picture editor who curates the popular Tumblr blog, The Lively Morgue, a collection of historic and often quirky images found in the Times’ photo archive.
Eveleigh will not live to see every photo. The files are believed to hold between 10 and 20 million images. The site reports that if Times picture editors posted 10 new archived photos on the blog each day, they might have every picture online by the year 3935.
“They are all accidental small treasures I did not mean to come across,” Eveleigh said of the serendipity she relies on during her regular visits to the morgue, located three stories below ground level.
Apple today announced the eighth annual iTunes Festival in London with a whole bunch of massive acts already confirmed. Those lucky enough to bag tickets will see the likes of Pharrell Williams, Maroon 5, Kylie, Sam Smith, and Blondie.
So you don't have to slog through a lake of reviews to find something you’re just going to put down after 10 minutes, Cult of Mac has waded through the iTunes Store to compile a list of the best new books, movies and music to come out this week.
This week we've found some soulful garage rock, a book to cure your summer wanderlust and a documentary about the world's biggest movie fan (made by the top names in the industry).
Enjoy!
People waiting for the rumored 12-inch Retina MacBook may just have to keep right on waiting, according to a new report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, which blames the wait on Intel’s delayed 14-nanometer Broadwell chips, which are reportedly used in the computers.
Because of these production delays, the report claims that the 12-inch MacBook may not ship until Q3 2014 or even early 2015, when the chips will be in greater supply.
Concept designer extraordinaire Martin Hajek is a master of taking rumors and images about forthcoming Apple products and using them to create stunning design concepts.
With that in mind, he’s borrowed the new, rounded design language seen in many of the iPhone 6 leaks, and adapted it to show us what an upgraded iPad mini could conceivably look like in the same style. To make it more authentic, he’s also incorporated the reports of added Touch ID, which we’ve heard from multiple sources is expected in the next wave of iPads.
As with pretty much all of Hajek’s designs, the results are outstandingly authentic-looking — and offer a tantalizing glimpse at what Apple’s next miniature tablet might look like.
We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
The onslaught of ridiculous iPhone 6 rumors continues this week with reports claiming a huge megapixel boost is coming thanks to a new camera sensor. We’ve also heard whispers of week-long battery life coming soon, seen glimpses a possible iPhone 6 TouchID, and heard new details on the iWatch coming in different sizes this fall.
There’s even some new reports of production delays with the 5.5-inch iPhone 6, but you’ll have to gaze deep into our crystal ball to find out who the hell really knows what’s going on with Apple’s iPhablet.
The Rumor: New backlight LCD tech will make the iPhone 6 skinnier than any iPhone ever.
The Verdict: Most likely. To make the 5.5-inch iPhone Air as thin as possible, supply chain sources at China Times say Apple will only use one brightness enhancement film for the backlit LCD display. We know Jony is gaga for shrinking his devices and it looks like the engineering team has found the answer. The only question is can they get enough supplies in time.
Production of the iPhone 6 has either just begun, or is days away from starting, according to a new report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily News.
The newspaper claims that mass-production of the eagerly-anticipated next generation 4.7-inch iPhone 6 handset is set to begin during the third week of July — making it either this week or next — while production of the larger 5.5-inch “phablet” iPhone 6 will begin during the second week of August. No sources were cited for either of these reports.
During his 25-year career as a photographer, Dan Marcolina has captured moments of everyday despair and delight, from beaches and backyards to bus stations and wedding celebrations.
His work exhibits the ease of an inside joke or a knowing wink; the images are visual juxtapositions that live up to a high point of praise from Richard Avedon, who once commented that Marcolina makes images that aren’t “trying to be beautiful.”