Top stories - page 811

With every new version of iOS, Apple generally leaves some legacy devices behind, but with iOS 7, Apple’s only leaving the iPhone 3GS totally abandoned. That’s not to say that every iOS device is equal in the eyes of iOS 7, though: if you’ve got an older device, you’re going to find some of iOS’s features missing.

Our good friend Camillo Miller over at The Apple Lounge put us together this fantastic chart to show how compatible iOS’s varying devices are with iOS 7. And it looks pretty good! B

Basically, the only things you miss out on if you don’t have a device made in the last year is AirDrop, and if you have any iPad, you don’t get Panorama, which is the same as it was. Apple’s doing a pretty good job keeping iOS 7’s features compatible with every past device, don’t you think?

Source: The Apple Lounge

A new rear shell for the second-generation iPad mini has appared online, and yup, it comes in one of Apple’s new favored iDevice colors: space gray.

We’re just a couple hours away from the launch of iOS 7 where everyone in the world’s iPhone will instantly look different for better or worse. In the past Apple has usually released major iOS updates at 10AM Cupertino, which is 10:00 AM PDT. Apple hasn’t officially confirmed the launch time to the public, so don’t bet the farm just yet, however, Redmond Pie  created the chart below listing the launch time for most major cities across the globe:

The iPhone 5s and 5c go on sale this weekend, and as usual, earlier reviewers have weighed in. AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg thinks that the 5s’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor is “game-changing,” and everyone seems impressed with the 5c’s build quality.

We’ve complied a roundup of the best iPhone 5s and 5c reviews out there for you to check out. Cult of Mac’s official reviews will be posted after the devices go on sale Friday.

If you want to get your hands on an iPhone 5s anytime soon, prepare to work for it. Apple is suffering “severely constrained” supply for the 5s launch, and it’s likely that most models will sell out quickly in stores this weekend.

Would you pay for your favorite app more than once? App Store developers are betting that you will.

When Apple unleashes iOS 7 on September 18th, hundreds of thousands of apps will be revamped for the new operating system in the days and weeks to come.

Each major 1.0 release of iOS marks an opportunity for app developers to go back to the drawing board. And with its radically new design language and hundreds of new APIs, devs are seeing iOS 7 as not only a clean slate, but a chance to earn more money off their existing apps.

It was an impromptu family reunion whose RSVP list grew rapidly. In celebration of the recent rebirth of two prototype Twiggy Macs, many legends of Cupertino relived memories and reconnected with old friends in a private party held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

Attendees, many of whom held Apple badge numbers in the single or double digits, included (among others) Steve Wozniak, Andy Hertzfeld, Daniel Kottke, Chris Espinosa, Guy Kawasaki, Jerry Manock, Terry Oyama, Larry and Patti Kenyon, Rod Holt, Randy Wigginton and Wendell Sander. The soiree was arranged by longtime Apple employee Dan Kottke and Gabreal Franklin, former president of Encore systems and owner of one of the resurrected Twiggy Macs.

Apple’s venerable alumni laughed and reminisced with each other while playing with the rare prototype, commenting on early aspects of the design and who did what. “It’s got an hourglass cursor,” Andy Hertzfeld said. “I don’t remember that. Hey, I wrote that. It seems slow to me.”

Yesterday, we showed you how to record your iPhone or iPad’s screen using Reflector, an app that runs on your Mac and records the iOS device’s screen via a little AirPlay magic.

Today, let’s talk about recording your Mac’s screen. I was surprised to find out that QuickTime Player (which is already on your Mac) will do this for free. Here’s how to make the magic happen.

Are you looking to pick up an iPhone 5s or 5c in person on Friday? Good news: Apple and official carrier and retail partners will be opening their doors an hour early.

We haven’t seen any gold iPad mini 2 cases leak yet, but now that Apple’s announced the gold iPhone 5s, could a golden iPad mini with Retina display and Touch ID be on the way?

Our favorite Apple concept artist, Martin Hajek, has created a new gallery of mockups that showcase a gold iPad mini next to a space gray iPad 5, both of which are also rocking Apple’s fancy new Touch ID sensor. While we doubt Apple will release a gold iPad mini, a gold iPhone sounded crazy just two months ago, so maybe Apple will surprise us again.

Would you be interested in a gold iPad? Take a look at the pics below and tell us your thoughts in the comments:

iOS 7 is coming this Wednesday, September 18, and it’s going to be a fairly simple upgrade. You’ll be able to just update your iOS device without any trouble, most likely over the air or by connecting to iTunes. No fuss, no muss.

However, you do most likely want to make a backup in case things go awry during the update process. Chances are you already have a backup if you use iCloud or iTunes, but here’s how to make a manual backup, just in case.

The M7 Motion Coprocessor (MoCoPro?) in the iPhone 5s is something of a mystery beast. It’s function is clear – it is an always-on low-power chip that processes data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass in your iPhone – but its eventual purpose is still a little unclear. So why don’t we do some speculation?

Apple disappointed Wall Street by announcing an iPhone 5C that isn’t cheap. As a result, Apple’s stock price took a hit.

That’s the polite way to say it. Let’s usher all the financial industry people out of the room so I can tell you the blunt truth. Ready?

Wall Street has systemic blind spots and institutional biases that make it incapable of appreciating where Apple is headed. And they demonstrated all that this week by focusing on all the wrong things.

In general, analysts were expecting a $400 iPhone 5C. But Apple announced one starting at $549 — not a budget or low-cost phone by any measure. Apple’s stock price dropped about 5% and stayed there.

Overemphasizing the wrong information — whether or not Apple would compete in the budget smartphone category — speaks volumes about Wall Street’s myopic, misguided and clueless understanding of consumer electronics and Apple’s role in it.

Here are the five reasons why Wall Street is wrong about Apple. 

Behind the scenes, it’s been a long time coming, but welcome to the first issue of Cult of Mac Magazine!

Cult of Mac Magazine is a weekly news magazine devoted to the world of Apple. Every Saturday, we’ll bring you the best of what the Cult of Mac blog does on the Web, in an iPad-friendly format.

Apple isn’t allowing pre-orders on the iPhone 5s this year, but if all you want is the colorful new iPhone 5c, Sprint and Verizon have already confirmed pre-orders will begin by 12AM exactly… the same time iPhone 5 preorders started last year.

The iPhone 5c is likely to be one of Apple’s most wildly in-demand phones ever, thanks to its cheaper price and variety of colors, and while Apple is attempting to balance the crush on their website by starting pre-orders in the middle of the night, it will, in all likelihood, still be a madhouse when Apple starts selling iPhones later tonight.

Hence this guide. We’re going to walk you through the the most efficient ways to absolutely ensure you get your iPhone 5c pre-ordered at the stroke of midnight so you can get back to sleep and enjoy your device on Friday.

Good news for everyone: battery life for both the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be better than the iPhone 5, if new FCC filings are anything to go by.

More details have surfaced on Touch ID, the fingerprint sensor built into the iPhone 5s’s home button. Apple briefly demoed the feature onstage at Tuesday’s keynote, and now we know a little more about how it actually works.

Security is obviously a hot topic for Apple, and the company is stressing that Touch ID is a more secure form of authentication than simply entering a password.

I watched the Apple iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c special event yesterday. I went in skeptical, not planning on wanting any of the new iPhones. I never upgraded to an iPhone 4S, so why would I want a 5s?

Turns out, I kind of do. I want a better camera. I want Touch ID and a fingerprint sensor. I want a five times faster CPU, a motion co-processor, and up to 40X faster graphics. Yes. Yes I do.

So I did what any self-respecting first-worlder does, I checked for upgrade availability. You see, here in the US, at least, we’re all kind of stuck on a two-year contract system. To get the subsidized prices, we purchase our phones on a two-year cycle.

If you’re not sure whether you are able to upgrade to a new iPhone 5s (or iPhone 5c) when it’s available, here’s where to look.

“In the past, when we’ve announced a new iPhone, we’ve lowered the price of the current iPhone making it even more accessible to more people. But this year, we’re not going to do that,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook during the company’s special event in Cupertino on Tuesday.

Instead, Apple replaced the iPhone 5 with the iPhone 5c, a device with exactly the same internals, but a different, more colorful design. But why did it do that? Could it be because the iPhone 5 is too similar to the iPhone 5s, and that dropping its price would have hurt sales of the newer model?

I think so.

I don’t think Apple made the iPhone 5c plastic to make it cheap; I think the company made it plastic to make it worse and to open up a bigger gap between the entry-level iPhone and the high-end model. Here’s why.

Sir Jonathan Ive likes to recycle good ideas, as the Counternotions blog notes with the image above. The “Blue Dalmatian” iMac from 2001 is “separated at birth” from the brand new iPhone 5c.

Likewise, Jony Ive wanted the original iPhone to be a glass-and-metal sandwich with the antenna running around the middle. But his design and engineering teams couldn’t get the electronics to work. Everything was too new and untested. The design was shelved until things could be made to work, and it was reborn four years later as the iPhone 4.

Tim Cook and company rocked today’s keynote. As expected, the iPhone 5s was announced with a new processor, fingerprint sensor and motion chip alongside the new cost-conscious and brightly-colored iPhone 5c.

Craig Frederhigi spent some time on Jony Ive’s upcoming iOS 7, running through the main features, most of which we’d heard back at WWDC in June, including Control Center, Search anywhere, more textured ringtones and the like.

The two new models of iPhone were the focus of today’s event. CEO Tim Cook said that the iPhone business was getting so big they decided to replace the iPhone 5 with two new models. The iPhone 5c looks to aim directly at kids and perhaps budget-conscious consumers with bright colors and the ability to purchase contrasting soft rubber cases. The iPhone 5s is a tour-de-force of new technology, including the much-anticipated fingerprint sensor, Touch ID, and the new A7 and M7 chips.

The keynote was even more densely packed with info, of course, so we’ve broken everything down into tasty, bite-size nuggets of information so you can get essentials of what happened today without having to read 30,000 different blog posts.

Here’s everything that Apple announced at today’s keynote:

The iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor is officially confirmed. Apple just took the wraps off “Touch ID,” a capacitive sensor that is built into the home button.

Like the rumors have said all along, Touch ID is embedded into the device’s home button, which is now made of sapphire crystal. Apple’s Phil Schiller described the fingerprint as the “key you have with you everywhere you go” during the keynote.

Touch ID will be used for authenticating not only device passwords, but iTunes Store purchases with the user’s Apple ID.

Today Apple’s Phil Schiller announced the new iPhone 5s in three colors: silver, gold, and a new “space gray.” The 5s comes with the same design as the iPhone 5, but it sports a tweaked home button with Touch ID. A new 64-bit A7 chip gives it 56% better graphics performance, and a drastically improved camera.

Apple’s Phil Schiller today announced that the iPhone 5 has been replaced by, you guessed it, the iPhone 5c. The tagline is, “more fun, more colorful.” Colors come in white, green, blue, red, and yellow.

At today’s Apple event it was announced that iOS 7 will be officially released to the public next week on Wednesday, September 18th. The download will be free for everyone, and it will be available on iPhone and iPad, despite rumors that the iPad version would be delayed until October.

Compatible devices are iPhone 4 and up, iPad 2 and up, and the 5th gen iPod touch.

iOS 7 was originally previewed at WWDC in June, and the software has undergone several betas throughout the summer. A final developer GM is expected to drop before the public release next week.