I thought I’d heard everything there was to hear from wireless speakers. I have tested everything from the smallest, crappiest pocket speaker to the big booming Big Jambox. Then I “hooked” the Libratone Zipp up to my iPhone, and I started to enjoy music again.
Cult of Mac Deals has partnered with 6 of the world’s finest indie gamer developers to bring you The Name Your Own Price Indie Gamer Bundle!
You pay what you want for three cross-platform, DRM-free games that will keep you gaming for hours on end including: The Journey Down, Aztaka, and iBomber Defense, and if you pay more than the average price, you’ll also receive Spades of Time, SpaceChem, and Cubemen.
Your purchase will also do some good. We’ve chosen three charities, Child’s Play Charity, World Wildlife Fund, and Creative Commons, that we believe make a significant positive impact across the globe. 10% of your entire purchase will go to help one of three charities of your choice: Child’s Play Charity, World Wildlife Fund, and Creative Commons. You get to help choose which charity raises the most!
Bill Karas isn’t your typical biker. Yes, he’s got the type of facial hair that would make ZZ Top proud. He’s even got his own custom shop where he can build you anything your bike or hot rod needs.
But behind all the facial hair, metal music, and hot rod loving exterior, Bill Karas and his crew at Karas Kustoms have found something far more exciting and lucrative than building hotrods: making iPhone cases.
How does a group of bikers go from building custom steering columns to iPhone cases? It was pretty much a compete accident, but it starts with a pen and Kickstarter.
Okay, this is interesting: Apple has published a patent for a Smart Cover with a battery inside, that would wirelessly charge an iPad when it was connected to it or used as a stand, and could also potentially wirelessly charge, say, an iPhone when rested on top of an iPad.
Apple’s latest iMac can’t be mounted to a wall like its predecessor can, at least not if you buy the regular version. However, the Cupertino company has today updated its online store to add new iMacs that come with a built-in VESA mount adapter for an additional $40 fee. The feature is available on both the 21.5- and the 27-inch models.
Whenever rumors about a new product from Apple begin to pop up, so do the concept drawings, 3D renders, and mockups. The latest rumored Apple device to get the mockup treatment has been the iWatch, Apple’s supposed foray into wearable computing.
Already, I’ve seen no less than half a dozen concepts illustrating what people think the iWatch might look like. Some play heavily off of the design of iOS, others take design influences from the iPhone and iPad, and others yet attempt to emulate the 6th generation iPod nano, the closest thing that Apple has made to a watch so far. While all of these designs take influence from what Apple has already created, none of them take into consideration the external influences that shape the way Apple designs their own products.
Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, has called out Android multiple times recently. It’s only been a few days since Schiller warned Android users to “stay safe out there,” and now he’s gone on the offensive in a brief interview with The Wall Street Journal.
None of Schiller’s comments are particularly surprising, as Apple executives (Schiller included) frequently make jabs at the competition from the stage of a new product keynote.
Martin Hajek creates concepts of imaginary Apple products that I always think look pretty good, but have no thought given to usability. For example, his iWatch concept the other day, which basically shrinks an iPad mini to the size of an inch and doesn’t even try to imagine how such a design wouldn’t suck… but hey, it has a leather band!
His new iTV concept for Dutch site iCreate is a similar affair. The black, chamfered design of the device looks very beautiful, but nothing after that makes any sense. It’s like this guy has never even used a television before, right down to the fact that he envisions the iTV as having a Camera app (why?) but not one for either TV or Videos.
More pictures after the jump. I advise Apple to perhaps take the look, but not the UI.
There has been an ungodly amount of talk in recent months about how Apple is losing its edge to Samsung. Even some of Apple’s most faithful analysts have said that Samsung is more innovative now than Apple, but is that really true?
In the Cult of Mac chat room this afternoon, we found this video of Gene Munster saying Samsung is innovating faster than Apple. Some of us agreed with him, while others didn’t. What followed was a great discussion of what innovation really means, and whether Samsung is beating Apple. Rather than composing it into an article, we’re just going to post our chat and see what you guys think. Does Samsung really innovate faster than Apple now?
Heads up. Steve Jobs will be the subject of a new Japanese manga series by artist Mari Yamazaki of Thermae Romae manga fame.
When Apple launched its new Maps app with iOS 6 last September, one of its headline features, Flyover, only supported a handful of big cities. But the Cupertino company has been hard at work in the background to extend its reach, adding support for additional locations all over the world.
In the past few months, Apple has brought Flyover to an additional 16 cities, plus extended its coverage in 14 of the cities already supported.
Google Now, the intelligent personal assistant that was introduced to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean last June, appears to be gearing up to make its debut on iOS. The feature will be integrated into the Google Search app for iPhone and iPad, according to a promotional video that was allegedly posted to Google’s official YouTube channel prematurely — before quickly being pulled again.
A questionable rumor from Digitimes suggests that Intel might make 10% of all of Apple’s A7 processors. If the rumor’s true, though, here’s how it would probably play out.
Apple is edging closer towards a settlement with Brazilian telecommunications firm IGB Eletronica over the “iPhone” trademark. IGB owns the brand Gradiente, which obtained the trademark in 2007 — the same year Apple announced its popular smartphone. The company has been keen to prevent Apple from using it, but it appears it’s now willing to reach a deal.
The Apple TV, Cupertino’s “hobby” of a set-top box, is often used to test out new fabrication process for the A-series chips that go into iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. The last Apple TV ran a 32nm A5 processor built by Samsung with a single-core disabled, which eventually ended up (in a dual-core capacity) in the iPad mini.
With the new third-gen Apple TV, Apple’s at it again. The new Apple TV is functionally and physically identical to its predecessor, except for one detail: it features a 28nm A5 chip built by TSMC. But what does it mean?
As the story goes, before the iPhone was even a glimmer in Steve Jobs’s eye, Jonny Ive came to him with a prototype for a tablet based on some new touchscreen technology he was working on. Steve Jobs took one look at it, and said it was the future, but “let’s make a phone with it first.” And that’s how the iPhone was born.
Now, an early prototype of a very iPad-ish iPhone prototype from 2005 has turned up, and it’s a marvelous beast, filled with USB, Ethernet and even serial ports.
Apple was caught last year selling Apple Certified refurbished hardware on eBay using the pseudonym Refurbished-Outlet. Allegedly.
The prices and details of these products were generally the same as refurbished products sold on the apple.com site. The products come with a one-year warranty and mobile devices contain a new battery.
But this week it emerged that Apple is lowering the prices on eBay, sometimes by quite a bit. For example, Apple normally charges $999 for a refurbed MacBook Air with 128 GB. But that same system with the same Apple inspection and one-year warranty went on sale in the eBay store for $899. Prices on other hardware products were slashed similarly.
(In addition, we learned, the company as been apparently working with “power sellers” on eBay to sell Apple hardware. For example, until they ran out of the 500 units put up for sale of 13-inch MacBook Pros selling for $999. These are new devices, not refurbished, and Apple is probably using the “channel” to clear out inventory.)
It seems to me that Apple is working behind the scenes to experiment with different models for selling refurbished and excess inventory. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple was also trying other channels for doing the same thing that we don’t know about. And I also wouldn’t be surprised if refurbished gadgets vanished from the Apple site altogether, and for those items to be sold in the darker alleys of the Internet (like eBay) exclusively instead.
But I think there’s a ginormous opportunity here for embracing “used” in a big way — and it’s something only Apple could pull off.
This review is slightly unusual: We already published a review of the same device a couple of weeks ago: the Logitech Easy-Switch keyboard. I liked the look of it so much that — on Killian’s recommendation — I went out and bought one of my own. Or rather, I bought one, returned one and searched the internet high and low for another one.
So why the “duplicate” review? Because I use a keyboard in a different way than Killian. Where he sits at the dining room table surrounded by iDevices and Macs, I work not only in different rooms but in bars (cafes), on buses, wherever I might be. So I figured I’d write a very different review.
Interested?
Last week we had a lot of fun coming up with our vision for the next Mac operating system, OS X Lion-O. We then turned to our amazing readers and asked you guys to dream up the the perfect mascot for the next version of OS X.
We had a ton of readers submit their entries to our new Flickr Group, and the results were amazing. We’ve selected five winners who will get a free copy of Photoshop Touch for iPhone or iPad, along with our grand prize winner, who will get a free copy of OS X 10.9 when it comes out.
Here are the best mascot ideas for OS X 10.9:
This week on The CultCast—finally—it’s time to talk iPhone 5S and iPad 5! We’ll tell you why April and August might be bringing you the tasty new iDevices, and if they’ll be drastically different than the models we’ve already got.
Then, is Apple is a innovation lull? Ex-Apple CEO John Scully thinks so. We’ll tell you what we think is really going on.
Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Show notes up next!
Intel and Apple, teaming up to make A-series chips for the iPhone and iPad? That’s what the rumors are saying, with a recent Reuters report going so far as to claim that executives from both companies have actually met to discuss the possibility of the x86 maker pumping out ARM chips custom designed by Apple!
“Intel Once Again Rumored To Be Working On iOS Device Chips With Apple,” read our headline this morning. But would Intel really cash in on its x86 heritage to make ARM chips? And if Apple did switch, would that really be a win for everyone?
The short answer? Yes, Intel would make ARM chips for Apple. But no, it probably wouldn’t be a win for either company. Here’s why.
Apple has been using Intel’s desktop processors in the Mac since 2005. The next-gen Haswell processor is expected to come in the next iteration of the iMac.
For years, a reoccurring rumor has been that Intel will eventually provide mobile processors for iOS devices. But Apple has been designing its own ‘A series’ of chips for the iPhone and iPad based on ARM. Would Apple really abandon what it’s doing on ARM for Intel, a chip maker that’s been really struggling on mobile?
Now another report claims that Apple and Intel have recently discussed a mobile partnership.
Miguel de Icaza isn’t a casual PC user. He’s a life-long Linux user whose main claim to fame is the creation of GNOME, a completely free desktop environment for Linux and other Unix operating systems.
But de Icaza no longer bothers with Linux. He’s abandoned the platform for a Mac.
Use Evernote on iOS? Wish it had proper saved searches? Or note links? Wish it was a little faster to browse and find what you’re looking for? Then you might want to take a look at the rather excellent Clever HD for iPad, a full-featured Evernote client which could even replace the official app on your iDevice.
The Rumor: Apple is going to kill the headphone jack in favor of Lightning connected headphones.
The Verdict: You're kidding right? Forbes writer Gordon Kelly laid out his argument why the headphone jack is going to get axed after seeing Apple's MFi specifications for headphones using the Lighting port.
Apple's never been afraid to kill old tech, but there's not a single Lightning cable headphone set on the market yet. How's Apple going to placate millions of unhappy customers who now have to go buy Lightning headphones?
According to Gordon, Apple will just sell everyone an expensive Lightning port to 3.5mm headphone adapter, which isn't totally unprecedented, but there's a huge difference between swapping a proprietary port for another (30 Pin for Lightning) and ditching the world's most popular audiojack. Ditching the headphone jack in the next two years is about as likely as Apple releasing a hologram iPad next year - not gonna happen.
Yesterday, reports hit that Tim Cook and Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine had met to talk about ‘Project Daisy,’ Beats’ secret project that, in some form or another, seems to involve music discovery.
No one’s quite sure what Project Daisy actually is, but Cook seems interested in it. It could be a music discovery engine, à la The Echo Next. It could be a streaming service like Rhapsody or Spotify. No one except Iovine and Cook know for sure.
The story about Apple and Beats’ CEOs meeting made me wonder. Apple has been a major player in the digital music business for 12 years now… yet they have never once delivered a pair of premium headphones the likes of which Beats has become known for. Why not?