Top stories - page 856

No matter which presidential candidate you’re voting for, today is a day to be proud for America. As Americans across the country come together to decide the direction of the country, we should relish the freedom we have to vote and elect a new president every four years. Democracy is one of the greatest aspects of the good ‘ole U.S.A.

Politics surrounding elections are always crazy, so we think the best way to celebrate Election Day is a bunch of wallpapers showing famous American presidents and historical figures doing crazy things as they fight for America’s freedom (literally). Check ’em out. Download them to your iPad or iPhone, and get out and vote. 

Think your new iPad mini’s the perfect tablet for gaming on the go? Well it may have some stiff competition ahead. Microsoft is said to be secretly planning a 7-inch “Xbox Surface” tablet that will be developed specifically for touch-based gaming. The slate is expected to make its debut before Microsoft announces the Xbox 720.

Well, that was fast. The Apple online store has already caught up with the pre-order demand of the fourth-generation iPad, and it’s now saying the device is “in stock.” That means customers will no longer face a shipping delay when placing their order for the new device online.

It’s all come down to this. Today is Election Day, and your vote is going to help determine the United States’s destiny over the next four years. This is one of the most important elections in years, and that means it’s more important than ever for you to stay organized with supporters around you and live on the cutting edge to keep up-to-date with all the latest Election News.

Get out the vote, Blue States (and Blue People) with these useful iOS apps for Democratic Party Supporters. If you’re looking for Cult of Mac’s Election Day App Guide for Republicans, click here. 

It’s all come down to this. Today is Election Day, and your vote is going to help determine the United States’s destiny over the next four years. This is one of the most important elections in years, and that means it’s more important than ever for you to stay organized with supporters around you and live on the cutting edge to keep up-to-date with all the latest Election News.

Here are Cult of Mac’s top picks for conservative readers who want to follow the 2012 elections with their iPhones and iPads… and influence them too. If you’re looking for Cult of Mac’s Election Day App Guide for Democrats, click here. 

You can’t just get by with an average design, especially in a world where retina displays are becoming popular and the blogosphere is becoming more critical of things like how an app and website looks – all the way down to its icon. You need to make sure that anything you create doesn’t just perform well, but it looks even better. With all that is offered in The Awesome Design Bundle courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals, you’ll be able to design better than ever before.

This Awesome Design Bundle is a collection of excellent design resources that will help you achieve new graphical heights – and you can get it here for only $39!

For years, the rumor mill has been saying that Apple is looking to ditch Intel’s processors in the Mac lineup. Since the rise of iOS, Apple’s own “A” series chips have powered products like the iPhone and the iPad. Apple is a company known for wanting complete control over every facet of product design, including the innards of its iPhones and Macs.

Apple has partnered with Intel on the Mac for the past seven years, but internal changes within the Cupertino company could see the Mac move to ARM-based processors in the near future.

SAN FRANCISCO, GIGAOM ROADMAP CONFERENCE — Hurricane Sandy was the largest event ever documented by cell phones, said Kevin Systrom, co-founder and CEO of the photosharing app Instagram.

Speaking at the GigaOM Roadmap conference, Systrom said there were nearly one million photos on Instagram with the #Sandy hastag, making it the largest event documented by ordinary people using their cellphones.

“Sandy was a really interesting event for us,” said Systrom, who grew up on the east coast. “Sandy was the single largest event captured on Instagram — and the largest event captured on cell phones ever.”

Apple’s much-anticipated iPad mini went on sale last Friday alongside the new fourth-generation iPad, and the Cupertino company just announced 3 million units were sold during the launch weekend alone — breaking its previous iPad launch record.

Steve Jobs was a Buddhist, a religion founded on the concept of the impermanence of all things.

And everything is impermanent. Especially Apple products.

A lot of users complain about Apple’s everything-is-temporary philosophy. But I think Apple will increasingly embrace it — and even launch a social network whose main feature is the deletion of your posts. 

Gorgeous body; super slim profile; al-lu-minium backside; yes, we’ve been fondling Apple’s new iPad mini for hours and hours now, and on our just-recorded special edition CultCast, we report what we like, what we don’t, and our overall first impressions of Apple’s brand new much-hyped tiny tab.

But we also had to ask the question: without a retina display, is the iPad mini a worthy replacement for its larger, retina-pixeled brother?

We cover all that and more this special edition CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

I think PDF is one of the best file formats around. I send client files in PDF. Invoices in PDF. Resumes in PDF. Reports in PDF. The problem is when I get PDFs…and I want to do something else with them.

Yeah, that’s where PDF files can fall down. PDF files are awesome if the folks on the receiving end just need to read or review the content, not build on it. Sure, I can mark up PDF files. I do it all the time for galley proofs of my books, but when I get data or large chunks of text that I need to use in some other document…I can be up a creek.

This is exactly the situation PDF2Office is for—Edit PDF Files with PDF2Office Professional v6: Convert PDF & Windows XPS files into Editable Information

I just got an iPad mini a couple of hours ago from the UPS guy. I took it to lunch and we’ve been playing around with it here in the office.

Couple of observations:

The screen is not great: John is absolutely right about the quality of the screen. It is manifestly lower resolution than newer Retina Displays.

The iPad Mini is here, and it is lying naked and vulnerable on your desk/bed/lap/passenger seat. And that’s ok, because today is all about tweaking and configuring your settings, installing apps and seeing which of your pants have back pockets big enough to carry it (don’t sit down!)

But what of tomorrow? Soon you’ll start searching for cases, speakers, docks and other accessories for the latest tiny addition to your family, and that’s where we come in. Yes, you can use most of your iPad and iPhone accessories with the new Mini, but here are some add-ons which work particularly well with Apple’s littlest tablet.

Here are the two things you need to know about the iPad mini. The form factor’s perfect, it’s beautifully designed, you will love holding it… but the screen’s awful and the performance is lacking, especially in graphics. Even at the price, it’s a deeply disappointing product that most people should think twice about buying right now.

This week at Apple, two important executives just got picked off the tree, and on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you what the departure of long time exec Scott Forstall and the just-hired John Browett means for iOS, OS X, Apple Stores, and all the great Apple products you adore. Plus, Jony Ive’s about to get even more design control over all the Macs you love to own, but the question is, is that a good thing?

Then, get out your lightsabers and prepare the X-Wings, we’re diving deep into the Disney acquisition of LucasFilm and what that means for everyone’s favorite space movies.

If this doesn’t end in another Spaceballs movie, we’re gonna be upset.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App. And please note, if episode 40 isn’t yet showing up for you, subscribing will fix that problem right quick.

Read on for the show notes!

I have a plan for trouble. When it rears its ugly head again, I’m grabbing my all-hell-has-broken-loose list, dumping the items on the list into my trusty backpack and hauling ass. I figure there’s still the zombie apocalypse and the Mayan whatsit (which may well be the same thing) to worry about, so I might as well be prepared.

I’ve populated the list with things I would need in a disaster scenario: things like a sleeping bag, first-aid kit and rum. Of course, my iPad is also on the list. Oh, I’ll be taking my phone for sure — but the iPad’s large screen will be invaluable in any disaster situation as a navigation tool, for work (yes, even in a zombie apocalypse, blogs must be updated) or just keeping up with current news; mine’s a wifi+cellular, so I suppose wifi-only versions would be somewhat less useful in that last role.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “A disaster zone, Eli, is no place for an iPad.”  That’s true only if you don’t have the right gear to accompany it. The following list will show you how to turn your iPad from a liability into an asset when things go very wrong.

Starting November 2nd, Apple fans will finally be able to buy themselves an iPad mini, Apple’s diminutive new 7.9-inch tablet with an A5 chip, a 1024 x 768 display, a 5MP camera and that comes in the usual flavors of between 16 and 64 gigabytes and in white or black.

So which iPad mini is right for you?

We’ll make it easy for you. Across the board, for almost everyone, the cheapest iPad mini — the $329 Wi-Fi only model in black — is the one most worth considering. There are some exceptions worth considering though. Here’s why.

Apple has just released iOS 6.0.1 for all compatible devices (including the new fourth-generation iPad and iPad mini). Right now, you can get it using the direct download links below, or OTA using Software Update on your iOS device (if you have an iPhone 5, you will have to update your Software Update first by going to General > Software Update, which will install a new Software Update app to your homescreen).

The change log isn’t online yet, but will eventually be here. Improvements include numerous bug fixes, including an issue that prevents the iPhone 5 from updating itself over-the-air, a bug where horizontal lines are shown on the keyboard, sporadic issues with camera flashes, improvements with Wi-Fi reliability for iPhone 5 and 2012 iPod touch, and more.

The changelog and direct download links can be found below:

Although Hurricane Sandy passed through the Northeastern United States on Monday, the aftermath is still being felt three days later. Not only is New York City still flooded and thousands still without power and electricity in many states, but FedEx and UPS are still experiencing disruptions to their delivery services.

What does this mean? If you live in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., or West VirginiaJersey, there’s a chance your iPad mini preorder won’t get delivered to you tomorrow. And if you live in New York or New Jersey? It’s pretty much a certainty you won’t get it.

So you didn’t pre-order your iPad mini, huh? It’s ok. Even though online orders aren’t shipping for 2 – 3 weeks now you can still get an iPad mini tomorrow if you gear up and go brave the launch line

Yes, it’s a huge time investment, and no one really wants to sit outside an Apple Store for a couple of hours before the break of dawn, but we’re here to help you make the most of your iPad mini launch line waiting experience. In fact, this could even be a lot of fun. Just follow this guide and you’ll be in and out of the store and cradling your iPad mini in no time.

It’s November, and you all know what that means: No, not the growing of wispy, creepy mustaches. November is National Novel-Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for (almost) short.

NaNoWriMo is the annual attempt by many tens of thousands of people to finally get that novel out of their head and into the cloud storage option of their choice. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight on the 30th November, and you can get there by fair means or foul. The rules? It has to be a novel, it has to be 50,000 words (or more) long, and it has to be written in November.

The tools you will need most to write your NaNoWriMo novel are inspiration and a lot of perseverance. Luckily, apps can help you with both. Here’s the definitive guide to NaNoWriMo apps on the Mac and iOS. If you can’t drag that novel kicking and screaming into the world with the help of these apps, you can’t do it at all.

A court of appeal has reprimanded the “non-compliant” statement Apple published on its website regarding the case against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab in the United Kingdom. Apple now has 48 hours to correct the statement, which must then be displayed on the homepage of its website until December 14.

iFixit is currently in the processing of tearing down the new iPad mini — a full day before the tiny tablet goes on sale in Apple retail stores the world over. Having already torn down the iPhone 5 and the new iPod touch, iFixit hasn’t too many surprises with the iPad mini; it’s just as difficult to get into as its siblings, and not at all easy to repair.

To Amazon’s displeasure, the teardown has also confirmed the presence of stereo — not mono — speakers, a Samsung display, and more.

Over the course of the last five years, there have been a lot of movies with the gimmick that they have been shot on the iPhone, but few have pulled it off as well as this incredibly scary little short film made by Clement Deneux for the 2011 Disposable Film Festival, a film festival dedicated to short films shot on smartphones and either pocketable cameras.

It’s called Les Ongles, or The Nails, and it would be a discredit to describe the plot in much detail, except to say it’s a found-footage-style short that takes place during a party in Paris in which one guest is compelled to quit a nasty habit. You’re going to want to watch this.