In OS X Lion, the Mail, Contacts And Calendars systems pref pane allowed you to choose accounts between iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo, and AOL… but check out how many more options you have in Mountain Lion! We know that Twitter is integrated into Mountain Lion, but you can also log into video sharing site Vimeo and photo sharing site Flickr, presumably to make sharing photos and videos online easier. However, we have yet seen any functionality taking advantage of this deeper integration. There’s also support for a host of new Chinese sites and more.
One of the big marquee features of Mountain Lion is deeply-baked Twitter integration, built right into every Mac apps. If there was any doubt about it after iOS 5, erase it from your mind: after some aborted experiments like Ping, Apple is doubling down on social networking, and the horse they’re backing isn’t Facebook… it’s Twitter.
Apple’s new version of OS X, 10.8 Mountain Lion, bakes in a lot of new features that may make existing third-party apps obsolete. Notification Center, Reminders, Messages and Twitter all step on the toes of independent developers. And worst of all, these apps come from some of the most popular categories in the App Store.
Tweetbot is undoubtedly the hottest Twitter client available for iOS right now, and thanks to its arrival on the iPad last week, there are thousands of new users discovering the app for the first time. If you’re one of them, the first thing you’ll want to know is how to enable push notifications.
Push notifications aren’t setup when you first install the app, so you’ll need to do it manually. Here’s how!
We’ve had a great time this week seeing everyone be so enthusiastic about the Twitter Celebration Giveaway. Five excited winners took home some excellent printers and monitors from HP. We want to give a big thanks to all our readers who participated in the giveaway and who have supported us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and even Pinterest. Also, a huge thank you to HP for being such a great company to team up with and providing all the prizes.
We’ve already shown you jailbreak tweaks like AssistantExtensions that let you tweet using your voice and Siri, and now there’s a way to easily read your Twitter timeline with Apple’s digital assistant. Using a simple keyword, you can have Siri show your recent tweets from within its linen window.
All the features Tweetbot for iPhone users have come to appreciate are present in the new iPad app, and Tapbots has created a very compelling experience that takes advantage of smart gestures, intuitive design elements, and robust third-party service integration.
Tapbots released Tweetbot 2.0 for iPhone in the App Store today. The update brings several significant improvements, including one-tap links, image preview thumbnails, faster performance, and a UI facelift.
Tweetbot was already one of the best third-party Twitter clients in the App Store, and it just got even better with version 2.0.
Crytek, the developers behind the Crysis series of games, are said to be in the advance stages of building a new social gaming network called GFACE that will be capable of some pretty amazing things. In addition to the features you’d expect from any social network, such as the ability to communicate with friends and share your experiences, GFACE will boast an impressive game streaming service that allows you to team up with friends and play together from a number of different devices. Think of it as Facebook meets OnLive… only better.
Wunderkit, a new iOS app from 6 Wunderkid, the developers behind the popular Wunderlist task manager, has hit the App Store today, promising to help you organize and accomplish all of life’s projects, however big or small, on your iPhone.
There are less than 12 hours left on our awesome deal for the Ruby programming course. Head over to Deals.CultofMac.com to check it out
What do Groupon, Twitter, Hulu, and 37 Signals all have in common? They all use the incredibly powerful, dynamic, and highly scalable programming language of Ruby or Ruby on Rails. Why is that supposed to get your heart fluttering? Because this language is the future of the web. Not being a developer myself, I shamelessly Googled to find out why Ruby on Rails is such a popular language/framework and I came across a Quora post from Ian MacLeod that sums it up nicely:
1. The Ruby community moves quickly, adopting new technologies and patterns – and refactoring or throwing out the old. Programmers love being on the cutting-edge.
2. Ruby seems to be one of those languages that maps well to a developer’s mental model. It’s frequently mentioned as one of a few languages that developers find a joy to code in.
3. Ruby is one of the major languages that promotes widespread use of “language magic” to createeasily-readable DSLs. This makes it very easy for casual developers to learn the language.
So, whether you want to start your company or just lock-in job security for the rest of your life…this tutorial is where it all starts.
With more than 27 step-by-step video lectures, this Ruby Programming course is only $79 (normally its 3x that much…and well worth it) and will teach you the ten steps to creating your first web app.
We’ve already shown you how to sync your address book with the Facebook app for iOS to add profile pictures and other credentials, but what if you prefer to use Twitter instead? Well, fortunately for you, you can also sync your address book with Twitter, and it’s incredibly easy thanks to iOS 5’s Twitter integration.
There’s been a lot of ohhing and ahhing about Cobook in the last few days, but spend just a few minutes playing with it and you’re likely to be ohhing and ahhing too. I know I am.
A new jailbreak tweak by the name of Sireet has surfaced in Cydia. Developed by Tyler Nettleton, Sireet lets jailbroken iPhone 4S users tweet natively with Siri.
This week on our Instagram feed we’ve created a new series called #ThisIsWhereiBlog to give readers a glimpse of what it’s like to write for Cult of Mac. As interesting as it is to see how Nicole Martinelli enjoys cozying up in an Eames Lounge Chair, and that John Brownlee blogs in the company of budgerigars, we’d love to see what life looks like from YOUR end. This weekend we’ll be compiling a gallery of reader-submitted photos that reveal where they blog/surf the web. Do you blog in a secret cupboard under a staircase? On the beach? We wanna see it.
To get included the gallery, take a picture of where you blog and post it on either Instagram or Twitter with the tag #ThisIsWhereiBlog. We’ll collect the best ones and display them on Cult of Mac this weekend.
Xobni has brought its Smartr Contacts service to the iPhone today, which a new app that is likely to change the way in which you handle your contacts list forever. The service takes the pain out of maintaining your contacts list by creating profiles for everyone you’ve ever contacted using your emails, calendars, and social networks. It also puts a face to every name and even keeps track of your recent communication history.
Those who are trawling through the source code of Apple’s latest iOS 5.1 beta have discovered references to the company’s upcoming iPad 3, and more interestingly, hints that Facebook integration could be making its way to iOS to accompany Twitter.
TomTom’s navigation apps for the iPhone and iPad are going social with Facebook and Twitter integration that will allow you to navigate to your friends, places, and events more easily. Version 1.10 of the official app, which will launch during Q1 2012, prides itself on using social networks as a source for turn-by-turn navigation.
Kanye West is not known for his modesty. He once appeared on a Rolling Stone cover portraying Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. In 2004, he stormed out of the American Music Awards after not winning Best New Artist, saying “I was definitely robbed… I was the best new artist of the year.” Even President Obama has called Kanye West a “jackass.”
With all that in mind… hey guys! Guess who just declared himself the next Steve Jobs?
All I wanted for Christmas was an iPhone. That’s it. But my parents went off and bought me a stupid Kindle Fire…those dumb bastards. Actually I’d be pretty happy with receiving a new Kindle Fire, and I already have an iPhone 4S with the fancy camera and everything so I don’t need a new one of those, but apparently a lot of people were disappointed on Christmas morning when they didn’t unwrap a shiny new iPhone. Taking the audacity of privileged consumerism to new heights of hilarity, comedy writer Jon Hendren compiled the stream of dejected tweets into a music video to express the world’s ingratidude.
“WTF?! I Wanted An iPhone” is a catchy (but NSFW) tune that captures little treasures of bitterness that bloomed on Christmas morning. The enormous display of ingratitude is a bit shocking. Hey @SamStandsFoSwag we’re sorry mom and dad got you the black iPod Touch instead of the white one, but maybe when you graduate high school and get a job you’ll realize, “Oh dang, spending $200 on a silly music player is not the funnest thing to do in world.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron is having a personalized iPad app built by programmers inside the Cabinet Office that will provide him with the latest information he needs to run the country, The Telegraphreports. The app, which was inspired by advisers after a trip to the U.S., will compile real-time information like NHS waiting-list figures, crime statistics, unemployments numbers, and more all in one place.
Back in the 80s, slacking off at the office was no more rare than it is today, but while these days most of our time that we should be working is spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs (thanks for that, by the way), in the 80s, it was more often than not spent gaming on your company PC.
Enter the Boss Key, a wonderful relic of covert 80s slacking. Let’s say you were playing a game on your company PC, and your boss walked by. By simply hitting a key on your button, you could instantly replace what was on the screen with a quasi-official looking spreadsheet, full of boring figures and dry analysis. When your boss left the environs of your cubicle, pushing the Boss Key again would allow you to plunge back into the game.
Neat, huh? Well, think of CovertChirp kind of like a Boss Key for iOS, except it doesn’t help your gaming stay undetected… it helps you covertly tweet.
Though it wasn’t in our readers’ top 10, Apple named Localscope the best navigation app of 2011. Yeah, well they ain’t seen nuthin’ — its new update adds a whole new exploratory facet to the app that’s arguably cooler than the app’s original focus.
We’ve been having some great giveaways the past few weeks, but this next one is sure to make all our readers happy. We’re teaming up with ThinSkins today to giveaway 20 free ThinSkins to our readers. ThinSkins are great for protecting your iPhone without the need of adding a bulky case, and they come in over 20 different colors. If you’re not sure what to get your Apple obsessed loved on for Christmas, these make great stocking stuffers. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to win this giveaway, hurry up and enter.
Earlier this week we reviewed the Fanny Wang On-Ear Headphones and concluded they’re a pretty great set of cans. One cool thing about the the Fanny Wang headphones we didn’t mention was that you can order a completely customized pair from the Fanny Wang website. Because we know you guys love a nice set of headphones, we’re giving away one free pair of Custom 2001 Fanny Wang On-Ear headphones to a lucky reader. You can customize them however you want and keep them for yourself, or give the coupon to a friend for the Holidays as a gift.
I’ve never been the best at math, but I’m pretty sure there are almost 1.5 million different color configurations possible, so to determine a winner for this giveaway we’re going to be taking submissions to see who can design the best pair of headphones.
