In this era of heightened security fears, when headlines routinely shout about hackers stealing millions of personal records in a single digital heist on some of the nation’s biggest companies, you should never be handing your Apple ID and password over to anyone who isn’t Apple. Yet that’s just the permission that the new Sunrise calendaring app asks when you first load it up, and not only is there no rule against apps doing so in Apple’s internal guidelines, but Cupertino’s actually awarded Sunrise with a coveted spot in the “Featured” section of the App Store.
For any longtime Apple fans, it’s amazing to think that today marks 30 years since the January 22, 1984 airing of the Nineteen Eighty Four-inspired Macintosh commercial, directed by Ridley Scott.
Not only did the commercial usher in Apple’s most famous desktop computer brand, but it also served as a perfect articulation of the Apple identity: an identity that continues along the same lines three decades later.
Despite the lack of concrete news available on the subject, we’re hardly short of concept designs for Apple’s eventual iWatch.
This one, by San Francisco UI designer Todd Hamilton, is among the best yet — a sleek design that resembles a cross between the Nike Fuelband and an iPhone.
Developer Steven Troughton-Smith has uncovered screenshots of Apple’s unreleased interface for iOS in the Car, a feature that integrates an iOS device with a vehicle’s in-dash system. According to Troughton-Smith, iOS in the Car is in the current, public release of iOS 7.0.4. He assumedly found it after digging through the software’s code.
When Apple unveiled iOS 7 at WWDC last June, it teased iOS in the Car with a design that is pretty different from what Troughton-Smith has leaked. The screenshots reflect the iOS 7 aesthetic, and could very well represent the design Apple will ship to the public.
iOS in the Car has been labeled as “coming soon” since it was originally announced last summer. Apple has said at least a dozen automobile partners are on board with the technology, like Honda, Nissan, and Acura. It has been reported that iOS in the Car will go live alongside the release of iOS 7.1 in the coming months.
Some more screenshots provided by Troughton-Smith compared to Apple’s current materials:
When Steve Jobs first debuted the original iPhone back in 2007, he promised the audience a device that was three major devices in one: “a widescreen iPod with touch controls,” a “revolutionary mobile phone,” and “a breakthrough Internet communicator.”
At the time, those three things seemed pretty impressive, but if anything, Steve Jobs the Showman was underselling himself. In fact, if you look at this 1991 circular from Radio Shack (which now does quite a bit of business selling the iPhone), Apple’s smartphone is pretty much fourteen devices in one.
Apple’s entire beef with Samsung is that the Korean electronics maker keeps on shamelessly ripping off the design of their devices, so is anyone surprised that the latest roadblock in the Apple vs. Samsung case has to do with an anti-cloning clause that Samsung is trying to be tricky about?
There was a rumor early this morning that iOS 7.1 beta 4 was coming to developers to tomorrow, but it looks like it’s here now. Apple just made iOS 7.1 beta 4 available to developers as an OTA update. You can also grab it from the Dev Center.
Along with the iOS 7.1 beta 4 release, there’s a new beta for Apple TV as well. We’ll update you with all the new changes once we get it downloaded on our devices. Feel free to yell at us on Twitter (@cultofmac) if you come across anything yourself.
In the meantime, get to downloading. Here are all links:
Preliminary Macintosh Business Plan from 1981 (photos: Digibarn)
On Friday, January 24, 2014, the Mac turns 30 years old. As we look back on three decades of Macintosh, there are some stories that have largely avoided the light of day for some time. One of these tales involves the production of the Macintosh Business Plan back in the early 1980s.
The tale was told by Mac design team member Joanna Hoffman to Bruce Damer, curator of the Digibarn Computer Museum. In 1981 Apple was beginning development on their new product lines, Lisa and Macintosh, and Hoffman was helping develop the business plan. She presented multiple drafts for Steve Jobs to review, but Jobs repeatedly kept sending her the plan back saying he didn’t like it.
After a few rounds of this Hoffman realized that it was not the contents of the business plan that Jobs objected to but rather the appearance of the document itself. What he was reviewing looked just like every other business plan, nothing special. Jobs wanted the pages of the Mac business plan to look like the screen of the computer they were creating – WYSIWYG graphics, fonts, and pages with menus and submenus for section headings. The problem with this request was that Apple did not yet make any computers or printers which could produce the document Jobs desired.
Apple has reportedly seeded its fourth iOS 7.1 beta build to testing partners ahead of a possible developer release tomorrow. The update is said to include “various fixes” for keyboard issues and problems with the Contacts app, as well as some more changes to the user interface inside the Phone app.
Apple has chosen LG Electronics as its sole manufacturing partner for the iWatch, according to a new report from Korea. The device is expected to use the same curved OLED display technology LG recently debuted with its G Flex smartphone, and production could begin during the third quarter of this year.
Apple fans with a penchant for gaming have been able to use their PS3 controllers on the Mac for a while. A new jailbreak tweak now adds that functionality to iOS devices.
Called Controllers for All, the $1.99 jailbreak tweak is available in the Cydia Store, and adds iOS 7 gamepad compatibility to Sony’s PS3 DualShock 3 controller.
Having relaunched the iPhone 4 to help grow market share in India, new reports are now suggesting that Apple is also slashing the price of its 2012 iPad mini in an effort to make inroads in India’s mid-range tablet market.
While everyone obsessed yesterday over Apple finally launching on the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile — and the Chinese market in general — smart companies are starting to focus on the smartphone market of the future: India.
The country’s 1.2 plus billion people are kinda hard to ignore. Also: India is so much more than the “other China” when you dig into the details of that smartphone market. Everything about India is an opportunity for smartphone companies and providers of mobile anything. And the major companies are each taking radically different approaches.
I think Apple’s strategy is the best one, and I’ll tell you why.
This week, Cult of Mac Magazine explores how Apple will reboot China, and why you, the aficionado, should care.
2014 is the year of the horse: seen as an auspicious symbol for swift success, it bodes well for Apple. The Cupertino company launches its deal with China mobile around the same time as the year changes over, a deal Tim Cook called a “watershed” moment.
Author and reporter Luke Dormehl delves into the factors that will shift Apple’s strategy there as it hopes to reach over 700 million potential fanatics and why this year we may begin to see the transition into “designed in California, built for Asia.” Hong-Kong based tech reporter Truman Au takes a look at local iPhone culture and why the gold iPhone is the choice of device – and matching cars, bags and shoes — for the country’s new rich.
As always, we’ll have the best in new apps, music, books and movies plus answers to your most pressing Apple-related questions from an actual Genius.
If you have a 2011 MacBook Pro that is wonking out like it was haunted by a Japanese ghost, you’re not the only one. It appears that a massive number of early-2011 MacBook Pro owners with AMD graphics are having issues with system crashes and hardware problems, with failure rates reaching a critical mass in recent weeks.
While Touch ID saves you the pain of writing in a passcode to unlock your iPhone, until now Mac users haven’t been afforded the same ease of use.
A new jailbreak feature is looking to change that, however, since it gives users the opportunity of using their iPhone 5s’ Touch ID feature to unlock their Mac computer.
China Mobile, the largest carrier in the world, officially partnered with Apple last year.
After years of speculation — and some incredibly drawn-out contract negotiations along the way — China Mobile finally began selling iPhones today.
Tim Cook was in Beijing for the launch, where he handed out autographed iPhones to customers, alongside China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua. Cook tweeted the following:
Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday — and had a few things to say about the state of the high tech nation.
Isaacson — who is currently crowdsourcing editorial comments for his new book on digital innovators throughout history — claimed that Google is outgunning Apple when it comes to innovation.
Don't watch the Simpsons on your iPhone while driving. Photo: 20th Century Fox
It may not be close to what it was in its heyday, but the news that The Simpsons is set to finally be available for legal streaming in the U.S via iOS devices is enough to have most people saying “Mmm… Apple” — followed by a gargling sound.
The City College of New York is investigating its use of former Apple exec Scott Forstall’s photo in advertisements for the school’s student ID card.
Cult of Mac contacted the college Wednesday afternoon about Forstall’s strange appearance on the promotional materials. “I’m not commenting,” said Ellis Simon, City College’s public relations director, who added that he was aware of the situation but needed time to “get all the facts straight” before talking about the apparent mixup.
After negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission for months regarding the use of in-app purchases in the App Store, Apple has reached a consent agreement with the agency, according to a company-wide email Tim Cook just sent employees.
Apple’s in-app purchases practices have frustrated regulators since debuting in the App Store back in 2009. In his letter to employees, which was obtained by Re/code, Cook says a host of complaints from customers led Apple to investigate its practices. Last year Apple emailed 28 million App Store customers regarding their in-app purchases and subsequently refunded more than 37,000 in-app purchases that parents claim were unauthorized. The FTC announced that Apple will refund $32.5 million to customers as part of the settlement.
The settlement also requires Apple to change its billing practices by March 31 to ensure customers give their informed consent before billing them for in-app purchases. Apple also has to add an option for customers to remove that consent at any time.
Cook says “it doesn’t feel right for the FTC to sue over a case that had already been settled. To us, it smacked of double jeopardy,” but the FTC’s deal isn’t going to require Apple to do anything extra, so they decided to sign it and move on.
The iOS gaming experience is about to get a whole lot more interactive, thanks to Israeli startup Umoove.
With its new app Umoove Experience, downloadable free of charge from the App Store, gamers can have a go at piloting a 3D avatar flying over a village — enabling them to control navigation entirely by face and head gestures.
That got one German thinking. If the Mac Pro looks so much like a trash can, why not build a Hackintosh out of a trash can. Which is exactly what he did, crafting his Mac Pro out of an Authentics Lunar bathroom trash can that comes with matching toilet brush. And while the replica isn’t anywhere near as powerful as the real thing, it certainly looks the part. Check out more images below.
Ozzy Osbourne has admitted to being influenced by The Beatles growing up — so is it any surprise that his band, Black Sabbath, would follow the Fab Four when it comes to dealing with iTunes?
According to Tim Cook there is good reason to feel excited about the possibilities offered by Apple’s deal with China Mobile.
Cook — who is currently in Beijing ahead of the iPhone going on sale on the China Mobile network this Friday — said he is “incredibly optimistic” about Apple’s partnership with the world’s largest mobile carrier.
