Microsoft will release a OneNote application for Mac later this month, according to sources familiar with its plans.
OneNote is already available on iOS and Android — and, of course, Microsoft’s own Windows platforms — and the new Mac app is part of the company’s plans to take on rival note-taking services like Evernote.
A Utah soldier has thanked Apple after his iPhone 5 helped save his life from a suicide bomb explosion while on tour in Afghanistan.
The metal ball bearings from the bomb ripped through the phone casing, but not Shaun Frank. While he suffered several superficial wounds from the blast, his sister claims that medics “did tell him when he got back to base that the iPhone probably saved his life.”
The consensus within the rumor mill seems to be that Apple will release not one, but two larger iPhones later this year. According to a new report from Japanese site Macotakara, the new designs will borrow heavily from the existing iPhone 5c and iPod nano.
While there may be plenty of games in the app store with complicated stories and features, sometimes the simplest of games can be the best. The new app Red Bit Escape is an application that has made it to the top of the charts with its addictive yet simple gameplay. Last as long as you can to get a high score, that’s all. Do you think you can get a high score?
Take a look at Red Bit Escape and find out what you think.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Red Bit Escape brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
Day One has been one of the most popular journaling apps in the App Store for years, and it has always stuck to its guns: privately storing your thoughts and memories. But what about when you want to share something with your friends?
Today Day One is introducing Publish, a way to do exactly that.
Apple might have added a bunch of new features for iOS 7.1, but not all of them are available in every single market.
Thanks to Apple’s “iOS 7 Feature Availability” webpage, however, it is possible for international users to easily check which features are supported in which countries. Apple’s CarPlay, for example, is currently available in just thirteen markets, while Siri’s more advanced features — included restaurant and movie reviews — to limited to even less than that.
Macs are solid machines, but just like their owners they have a tendency to get lethargic as they age. Launching and switching programs takes longer, simple tasks become arduous, and the dreaded beach ball of doom appears more often. The Operating System just starts to feel crufty, and can get worse over time. I see these issues in my IT consulting business regularly.
You may be asking, why does this happen? There are many reasons, but some are more common than others. Sometimes your hard disk (or SSD) gets too full and interferes with normal computer operations. Crashes or misbehaving programs can corrupt the disk directory or application cache files. Remnants from old software may still be running behind the scenes, or you don’t have enough RAM to deal with your OS and workflow.
OK, so is there some sort of tune up or spring cleaning you can do that sorts it out? Your tech always tells you to just reboot the computer, but there’s got to be more than that. The good news: yes, there are some things you can do. And, perhaps, adopt some more efficient computing practices for yourself along the way.
Apple has made some changes to its Customer Loyalty Program, adding new items and increasing the discount offered on existing ones.
The discounts — which quietly went into effect last week — are on offer to people who spend upwards of $5,000 on Apple products in a 12-month period, making this a loyalty program targeted predominately at companies and education customers.
Companies like Apple using specially commissioned shuttle buses to ferry employees back and forth from San Francisco have caused their fair share of problems in the past.
Wanting to find out just how often the buses traveled past his house, Wired writer Kevin Poulsen recently decided to start monitoring the local Wi-Fi environment to see how often the Wi-Fi equipped buses registered.
In a world in which the iPhone camera is good enough to be most people’s primary camera, the days of low-grade cellphones pics are a thing of the past (for Apple users at least.)
But it’s not simply a matter of megapixels, but about the other “value added” touches that truly make the iPhone a camera worth hanging up your SLR for.
One of those touches is Apple’s neat “tap to focus” functionality, which arrived with the iPhone 3GS in June 2009.
It’s a tale as old as time (and, perhaps, a song as old as rhyme): Apple releases a new version of iOS, hackers immediately get busy finding security vulnerabilities to exploit, eventually claw together a jailbreak, only for Apple to then find out about the flaws and fix them for the new iOS version.
Rinse and repeat.
Having released iOS 7.1, Apple has also released a list crediting the individual researchers and companies who helped spot security issues with the previous version of iOS — including jailbreak specialists Evad3rs, the team behind the iOS 6 and 7 jailbreaks.
We all know that Siri has some fun Easter eggs, but according to some Apple’s virtual assistant also has an entire backstory — unlockable by asking just the right questions.
“We developed a backstory for Siri to make sure everything that it said was consistent, and as part of that, we had to answer questions like, is Siri a man or a woman?” says Adam Cheyer, one of the chief engineers for the project. “Is it human, a machine, an alien? Is it an Apple employee? What is its relationship with respect to Apple?”
While popular video games like Battlefield and Call of Duty rule home video game consoles, good shooter games have been hit or miss on mobile platforms. The developers at Glu Mobile aim to solve this problem with their new app Frontline Commando 2, the sequel to their popular third-person shooter title. Will Frontline Commando 2 find its way onto your devices?
Take a look at Frontline Commando 2 and find out what you think.
This is a Cult of Mac video review of the multi-platform application Frontline Commando 2 brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
Months of beta testing has finally culminated with the official release of iOS 7.1 to the public, Apple’s biggest update to iOS 7 since its launch last September.
The update doesn’t come with big new features, but Jony Ive and the software team have made a ton of small design tweaks, most notably in areas like the Phone app, shutdown interface, calendar, as well as a number of Accessibility options that tweak the UI further with Button Shapes and darker colors and improved contrast.
Here’s a rundown of all the design tweaks you’ll be getting on your iPhone today:
Apple has just started rolling out its latest iOS 7.1 update with performance improvements, design tweaks, and more. This is the first major update we’ve seen since iOS 7 made its debut last September, and it’s available on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
Today is Daylight Savings Time in the United States, which is always a hazardous time of year for owners of iOS devices. Why? Because try as Apple might they just can’t seem to release a version of iOS that does not have that are triggered by the switch to Daylight Savings Time.
No joke: Apple has had bugs come up in iOS after the switch to Daylight Savings Time in 2010, 2011, and 2012, while 2013 saw a similar New Year’s Bug screw up Do Not Disturb for device owners. Now here we are in 2014. Does iOS 7 contain a Daylight Savings Time bug?
It does! If you open Calendar on your iOS 7 device, you will notice that while the time of your operating system is set correctly, the line marking the time in Calendar is an hour old. It’s a minor bug, but hey, how would we remember Daylight Savings Time at all if our iOS devices didn’t go wonky once a year because of it?
Thanks: Shane C!
From “no-button” design and multi-touch controls, to wireless technology and laser tracking, Apple mice have seen a lot of changes over the past decade or so.
Although Apple computers have come with mice since the Lisa first shipped in 1983, the company has constantly changed the look and feels of its mice over the intervening years to suit changing tastes — as well as the different ways in which we interact with our machines.
In terms of the biggest changes with Apple mice since 2000, there are few better people to talk to than Abraham Farag, Apple’s former Senior Mechanical Engineer of Product Design.
Today the owner of successful product development consultancy Sparkfactor Design, Faras was part-responsible for many of the big innovations with Apple mice named above — and was able to shed light on how they came about.
Corning — or at least a representative executive of said company — did its best this week to shatter excitement around Apple’s Sapphire embrace — or, at least, make the benefits of Apple’s glass strategy less clear.
Corning Glass senior vice president Tony Tripeny laid on the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) pretty thick during a Morgan Stanley conference this week.
Here’s what Corning doesn’t want you to know about sapphire iPhones.
If you love the iPhone 5c, here’s a painful chart, courtesy of analytics platform Mixpanel: Growth of the iPhone 5c is pretty much stagnant at just around 6% (roughly where it’s been since Christmas), even as the iPhone 5s has achieved a 20% share of the iPhone market, overtaking the iPhone 4 and approaching the iPhone 4s in popularity.
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.
The House That Mario Built isn’t any closer to bringing Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, and the others to iOS anytime soon, but what would Nintendo’s classic games look like if they were originally built for iOS?
Rather than waiting for Flappy Mario to hit the App Store, Red Bull decided to re imagine some of our favorite Nintendo games with a iOS twist that mashes up the likes of Donkey Kong with Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga with Dr. Mario, and Nintendo’s own Temple Run knock-off starring Link.
Take a look:
Men can be quite particular when it comes to their clothing and with so much being offered in stores, shopping can be nothing more than a headache. Luckily the app Dapper is an application that categorizes clothing for men to check out. Always learning from what you like and dislike, Dapper just may become your new shopping buddy.
Take a look at Dapper and find out what you think.
This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Dapper brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”
We’ve seen so many iWatch concepts that at this point we really just wish would Apple to show their cards, but here’s a concept of a traditional wristwatch we wouldn’t mind them aping a few features from.
Gábor Balogh says he was tired of all the super geeky looking iWatch concepts, so he whipped up this clever beauty that features modern smartwatch features re imagined in a classic, traditional analog watch way.
Check it out:
Remember the recent bizarre Steve Jobs statue, depicting what looked to be the decapitated head of Apple’s late CEO?
Well, a new Steve Jobs sculpture may have it beaten in the weirdness stakes.
Urban explorer Darmon Richter found the above hexagonal blue sculpture — depicting Jobs’ profile against the iconic Apple logo — during a recent trip to Ordos City, China.
Apple’s surprise announcement of CarPlay turned a lot of heads. Bizarrely running on Blackberry’s QNX platform, of all things, CarPlay will launch through partnerships with Volvo, Mercedes, and Ferrari. But how hard will it be for other developers to add CarPlay support to their apps?
The good news is the answer is: ‘not very.’ But the bad news is, Apple’s the gatekeeper to when that happens, and they won’t open up access until they are convinced CarPlay is safe.