Waterfield's Indy bag next to an invaluable ebony statue of an ancient monkey god.
“Nice murse,” the supercilious toad said, burrowing his chin into his neck pouch.
By ‘murse’, the toad meant “man purse,” a condescending diminutive used by a certain sort of person to refer to any sort of fashionable bag a man might choose to wear on a strap. Hypocritically, some bags are off-limits from accusations of mursing — for example, the ugly, bulky laptop bags you see businessmen inexplicably caring at airports, or gym bags — but if you are a man and have ever worn a nice messenger bag or a satchel, the word ‘murse’ has probably been greasily blown in your direction from smug, speckled lips.
As you can tell, the term annoys me, mostly because of the sorts of people who use it: guys who drive everywhere and who don’t carry anything with them anywhere besides a lumbago-inducing wallet and a cell phone crammed into their jeans pockets. To these guys, a satchel just doesn’t make any sense. A bag is something a man only brings with him when he travels, needs to tote around his laptop or hits the gym. They don’t understand a guy like me, who lives in a city, doesn’t have a car and walks or bikes almost everywhere: a guy for whom carrying around a bag with a book, some headphones, and his iPad as just a matter of course, the same way they throw their shit into the back of their car in the morning. And they articulate this lack of understanding by calling such a bag a murse, a word designed to hit below the belt and imply a profound and contemptible lack of masculinity.
As here. Luckily, this time, I had a comeback ready.
“Murse, huh? You know who also carried a murse? Indiana Jones. And it looked just like this one!”
You just can’t argue with Indy. His satchel — stuffed with ancient idols, sacks of dust, scarab-chewn maps, glowing prayer stones and whatever other ephemera might find its way into the bag of a hard-hitting, Nazi-fighting archeologist — is an iconic aspect of the character’s pulp-inspired wardrobe. Indiana Jones is the ultimate man. And he’d bullwhip you into an airplane propellor if you dared to call his satchel anything like a ‘murse.’
Named after Harrison Ford’s best alter ego, the Indy by Waterfield Designs seems almost like a calculated move to reclaim satchels and once again make them an accepted accessory of manliness. The distressed leather exterior implies a man of travel and action, even if the inside holds an iPad and an iPhone instead of a crystal skull. It’s a beautiful, exquisitely well-made bag, with just one flaw.
The Good
The Indy's not big enough to fit a MacBook Air into, but it's the perfect size for an iPad.
Made of supple brown leather (the Indy also comes in black) and then distressed, the Indy feels as great bouncing against your hip as it looks strapped across your torso. And even better, because it comes distressed, the Indy comes out of the bag looking like a satchel you’ve been wearing for years… and gets even better looking as natural wear, tear and oils make their way into it. Indy’s actual satchel may have been canvas, but this looks the part, even if it’s not identical.
On the outside, there are two main compartments: an open diagonal pouch with an accent trim that comes in green, orange, brown, pine, white and black, and a zipper pocket. The zipper pocket
The larger trimmed compartment is easy to access, meant for items you’re likely to pull constantly out of the bag while it’s being worn. This compartment’s just a winner, and makes for a great place to put your keys or anything else you have jangling in your pockets that you might quickly need. Even better? This compartmentcontains a smaller pocket perfectly sized to slip an iPhone in and out of, and because both of these nested pocket is lined entirely with ultrasuede, it not only feels great to sink your hand into… it’ll even wipe your iPhone’s display clean as you put it in or pull it out. As for the zippered pocket, it’s similarly deep and perfect for surreptitiously storing a wallet or any other item that you might want to have easily accessible, but don’t want pickpockets to get at.
The Indy's outer compartment not only stores your iPhone in its own separate pocket, it cleans the screen with ultrasuede!
The main compartment is similarly slick. Measuring about ten inches deep, it’s the perfect size for an iPad and a book, and is lined with a beautiful textured yellow fabric that feels great, keeps your iPad or iPhone from getting soaked through if you happen to get caught in the rain, and makes it easy to see what’s at the bottom of the bag — a deft touch. Additionally, this compartment contains two smaller pockets that are great for organizing. For example, I put my headphones in one, and since it’s right at the top of the compartment, it makes it easy to just quickly access the earbuds if I want to listen to some tunes.
Honestly, it’s a great bag. There’s just one problem.
The Bad
The strap. Yeesh.
Don’t get me wrong, the strap itself is of fine construction, easily adjustable and smart. The problem is that if you’re wearing the Indy without a shirt or jacket that has lapels, the strap is going to cut into your neck like a guillotine.
It’s incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe it was good enough for Dr. Jones, that strap, but he’s also a guy who wore a thickly lapeled leather jacket protecting his neck from being ripped in half. If you don’t wear collared shirts all the time, the Indy’s strap is going to be an issue.
It’s a big problem with an otherwise superlative product, frankly. In fact, it made the Indy so uncomfortable for me to wear a lot of times that I had to invest in a shoulder strap pad off of Amazon, which of course doesn’t match. Waterfield should have caught this in testing.
The Verdict
No time for love, Dr. Jones.
Indiana Jones’s satchel was a straight canvas affair, but if he had explored urban jungles instead of literal ones, and wielded an iPad and iPhone instead of a bullwhip and .38, it’s easy enough to imagine him rocking the Indy. It’s a great bag, and with the addition of a $10 pad for the painfully sawing strap, it’s a bag that is not only fashionable, comfortable, convenient and manly, but should wipe the m-word off the lips of just about anyone.
Product: The Waterfield Indy Bag
Price: $179
Pro: Beautifully made satchel, just the right size for the iPad. Smart compartment and pocket design. Looks like a satchel the raider of the lost ark would be proud to wear.
Con: The strap is painful, needs a shoulder pad, which isn’t included.
[xxrating=80%]
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Apple's HDTV could be a huge windfall for the company
There’s no shortage to information out there about Apple’s HDTV plans, but most of it focuses on specs, designs, and user interface (including coverage from our source who has seen one). With the device being a near certainly, other questions are being raised. Will it be an instant hit? How different will the experience be compared to the existing Apple TV set-top box? How much revenue could it net for Apple?
According to calculations by Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, an Apple HDTV would be a huge windfall for Apple. She sees it as likely to double the money that U.S. households spend annually on Apple products within three years.
In a note to investors, Huberty pointed out that Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled the amount that the average U.S. home spends on Apple products from $150 around the time of the iPhone’s 2007 launch to $295 in 2010. She expects a similar doubling as a result of the iPad. That would mean that the average household would be spending around $635 on Apple products. That seems on target – the average spending for 2011 was $444.
If the Apple HDTV is as a popular as the iPhone and iPad, Huberty expects that by 2015, U.S. households will be spending $888 per year on Apple devices.
Given a 97% TV household penetration and a 61% broadband household penetration in the US along with an expected high price (and value) point, an Apple TV is likely to generate a similar increase in average household spend, with some help from iPad and iPhone growth
As we reported earlier this week, half of all iPhone owners surveyed said that they were likely to buy an Apple HDTV within its first year on the market. If Apple can deliver it at or below $1,000, more than a third of American consumers would consider buying one.
Apple won’t need to dominate the U.S. or global HDTV market to make significant profits from its television. Just 10% of global spending on TVs and related items (hardware, subscription services, and advertising) would represent annual revenues of $60 billion.
Source: AppleInsider
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You know Keynote was made especially for Steve Jobs because all other presentation tools, well, sucked? Right. So wouldn’t you like to know all the secrets of Keynote so you can make Jobs-worthy Keynote presentations (actually I would too)? This is where Keynote for Startups comes in. Think of it more like “learn how to make amazing Keynote presentations and demos that will blow peoples’ minds”. Learn the art (and science) of clickable prototypes, mockups, video demos for only $19!
This video lesson package has 11 videos and over an hour of content taught by a guy who got $25 million from Facebook for his startup (I’m guessing he used Keynote, so you know…). Keynote is one of those apps that I think only a few people really tap into all the coolness of. I’ve known a few folks who really make Keynote rock and I’ve always been envious of their ability to make my hum-drum slides just—pop.
I’m betting that they used these tips and tricks you’ll learn in this deal package.
For $19 I don’t think you can lose. Really. Learn Keynote. Wow people. Blow minds.
Done.
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The best five iPad text editors, according to me.
I write a ton on my iPad these days, which lets me work wherever I like (usually in bed) and concentrate way better than I can working on my giant-screened iMac. Thanks to our complex blogging back end here at Cult of Mac, it’s still easier to add pictures and other bits and pieces with the Mac, but the writing part is so much better on the iPad that I try to do it as often as I can.
I figured I’d show you a few of the apps I used. Below you’ll find my favorite writing apps for the iPad.
This is a list of the five writing apps I still use. Many have passed across the home screen of my iPad, but these remain. There may be new or fuller-featured apps out there, but all of these are worth taking a look at.
First up is Writing Kit, the app I use every day. It works as a Markdown-enabled text editor, but adds in a whole bunch of research tools that make it perfect for a writer of any kind.
It has a built-in browser for research (and you can send links and photos straight to the editor), a “Quick Research” popover window which lets you look things up, perform conversions and a whole lot more, and support for various bookmarking sites.
This last part is great. I can start work in the Mr. Reader RSS reader (in bed) and save any articles that I want to write about in Instapaper. Then, when I start writing, the list is right there. You can also access Pinboard and Zootool bookmarks, or queue the pages from within the app to use later.
Then, when you come to export your words, you can send them just about anywhere (Pastebot, email, Evernote, Twitter, Omnifocus), open them in other apps and choose whether they are sent as a file (HTML or Markdown) or as text (ditto). Or you can just let Dropbox take care of things: Writing Kit saves your file every ten keystrokes.
I remember that I had to come to the app a few times before it clicked, but now I find the app amazingly fast (and absolutely rock-solid) in use. And did I mention the extra Markdown-specific row of keys that even persists when using an external keyboard? Or the TextExpander support?
That’s not to say it’s perfect. Often I can’t copy words in the browser without switching to text view (powered by Instapaper), and I can almost never share a photo from the browser or even save it to my photo roll. And the bookmarks/reading queue interfaces stil confuse me sometimes.
But for a professional writer who wants to get things done fast and cleanly without popping off into other apps and browsers to check on stuff, Writing Kit cannot be beaten. If I could only have one writing app on my iPad, this would be it. Easily.
Byword is unique amongst these editors in that it has an OS X counterpart which syncs with it via iCloud. This makes it incredibly easy to swap back and forth between iPad and iMac for the same article, without really having to think about it.
The file list is over at the left in its own column, and this slides out of view when you start writing. The editing screen is a model of minimalism, and offers nothing but your text, the status bar and a row of buttons on the bottom edge. This has three swipe-able sections: character count, extra keys, and Markdown/navigation.
Yes, Byword is a powerful Markdown editor. Dedicated buttons add links and pictures, header tags or lists, and their behavior is slick indeed. For instance, if you highlight a word and tap the “link” button, the word is then surrounded with square brackets, followed by empty parentheses with the cursor already sitting there, ready for you to past a URL.
Adding punctuation is smart, too. Tap the open-bracket key and it changes to a close-bracket key. Tap the same key when a word is highlighted and that word is wrapped in brackets and the cursor moved outside the closing bracket.
This is all incredibly seamless and makes writing in Markdown a breeze. And even if you’re not writing for the web, the various export options include rich text and plain text, so it’s good even for long-form writing.
If I didn’t need to constantly pop open a browser for research, Byword would be the app I use every day to work.
While Denvog’s Index Card can be used for full-on writing, it works best as a way to plan articles, movies, TV shows or the next Great American Novel. It uses — as you’d expect — an index card metaphor for the interface, and you can write on and shuffle these cards around until you’re happy.
The app is also deeply integrated with the amazing Mac writing application Scrivener, and can sync not only the contents of your notes but also various labels and other metadata.
Open a new project and you can quickly add index cards (natch) to the cork board (which can be changed to a plain color backdrop, or lovely linen). These have fields for a title and for a summary. Pick the “Long Text Field” in options and you get an extra, bigger field useful for fleshing out scenes. All three of these fields sync with Scrivener, making Index Card on of the best ways to edit Scrivener projects on the go. There’s even a basic extra row of keys for easier navigation, and note-specific keys for bullet points and so on.
But Index Card’s strength is in its planning. You can drag cards to reorder them and pile them into stacks, you can rearrange them into a column view, with scrollable columns of cards, and you can even view your cards as an outline (where the stacks show up as children of that stack).
There really is a lot in here, but you never feel overwhelmed. No wonder that Index Card is a favorite of screenwriters and authors. It might be specialized, but if you need this feature set, you’re going to love Index Card.
Writings used to be my go-to fiction editor before Daedalus came along, mostly because it manages to be both gorgeous to look at and low on distraction. It also offers a lot of great features for the writer.
The app mimics a wooden desktop with your documents strewn (neatly) across it, and in later versions you have been able to keep multiple desktops (or “workspaces”), all linked to different Dropbox folders.
Once you have opened a document, the on-screen distractions are few. Using a physical keyboard leaves a row of extra keys at the bottom of the screen, you can display a small and optional word count at top right, and the settings buttons fade out after a few seconds. There are a ton of different fonts to pick from, and paper and ink colors can be changed through a selection of grays.
Text size can be changed just by pinching to zoom, and you can even alter the size of the side margins. And tapping in these margins will move the cursor one character left or right.
Finally, TextExpander is supported, and export options are legion.
Writings certainly isn’t the most full-featured of text-editing apps, but it has what is needed, and what is there is done right. If you’re looking for a reliable place to hole up and get some writing done, this might be it.
This is my second most-used text editor, and my favorite in terms of interfaece design. Daedalus Touch comes from The Soulmen, who also developed the Mac word processor Ulysses.
Daedalus also works with Dropbox, but it can be used with multiple folders, syncing with each. This is great for keeping work and homework separate, for example.
The app uses a stacks metaphor. A folder full of documents is shown as a stack of paper, which you expand by double tapping. The documents just keep getting longer as you type, like an infinitely stretchable piece of paper, but if you do want to make a new document or a new page then you just swipe the current page off to the left. If you give the new sheet a title, it becomes a document. If you don’t, it becomes a new section of the current one.
Another great feature is search, which digs into all documents in all folders (sorry — stacks), and depending on the current view will highlight the stacks that contain the search term, or highlight the terms in the currently visible document. It is incredibly handy, and means you can find anything fast.
Daedalus also has an extra customizable keyboard row, which can be used for writing in Markdown, and a pop-up browser for quick lookups. The browser resets every time you open it though, so it isn’t really that useful.
Export can be done in pretty much any format you like, including PDF and ePub, and Daedalus also supports TextExpander — essential for any writer.
What I really like, though, is the way you can forget about documents and just write. I never really use Daedalus for work, as Writing Kit does so much more. But for penning fiction that nobody will ever read, I love it.
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How do you take a life that was lived so fully, with so much drama, triumph and failure, and condense it into a 2.5 hour movie that will effectively express Steve Jobs as a person? It’s a monumental task that will be nearly impossible for any screenwriter to accomplish.
No matter how great a job Aaron Sorkin does adapting Steve Jobs’s biography into a screenplay, some people are going to hate it and say parts were left out while other were embellished. Sorkin’s not aiming for Sony’s movie to be historically accurate though, so what do you think he should focus on?
Our friend Ken Segall, who worked closely with Steve for over a decade, has some great ideas on what the focus of Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay should be.
Act One. Steve builds Apple with Woz. Following his moment of glory with Macintosh, he suffers a crushing defeat when Sculley outmaneuvers him in a chess game involving moves and counter-moves, conspiracies and alliances. Steve is thrown out of his own company and it hurts him deeply.
Act Two. Steve picks up the pieces. He starts NeXT. He buys Pixar. He matures as a leader, as Apple begins failing without him. He also meets the love of his life. But something is still missing. He needs Apple, and Apple needs him. He hatches an almost unbelievable plan to get back to Apple and become its leader once again.
Act Three. Another chess game, only this time the stakes are way higher. Steve needs to seduce Apple into buying NeXT for over $400 million, gain a foothold in the company, win the confidence of the board and push out the current CEO. There are dark turns and moments when it looks like it might all fall apart. But Steve wins. He’s reunited with the company he created, in the one place he feels truly happy and empowered — with a world of possibilities before him. The end.
Focusing on just a few key moments in Steve’s career is great idea for a movie. You can’t cover all the bases in 2 hours, but focusing on Steve’s passion for Apple and trying to get back in, might make for some great drama that can show the range of Steve’s emotions. What do you think about Ken’s idea for the movie? Do you have something better in mind? Tell us in the comments.
Source: Ken Segall
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That's my kitchen that is
Looking for a “pro” camera app for your iPhone? There’s no shortage of options on the App Store. This week, we’re taking a look at one that has the most descriptive name: ProCamera.
ProCamera’s closest rival has got to be the much-lauded (not least by us here at Cult of Mac) Camera+. So how do the two stack up against each other? Pretty well. Feature-for-feature, it’s a pretty close race. Camera+ has more style, there’s no doubt about that. It’s a better-looking app all round. But looks aren’t everything. Camera+ is cheaper by a couple of dollars, but ProCamera is – at least on my iPhone 4 – noticeably faster.
One thing ProCamera does well is separating the camera mode from the edit mode and the settings mode. Yes, “settings mode”. That’s what I call it, anyway. There are so many different settings and prefs (it is a Pro camera after all), that they are sensibly tucked out of sight. Switching to them requires you to wait a couple of seconds, which can be frustrating if you’re trying to vary your photos frequently and rapidly.
What ProCamera offers is a decent degree of manual control – about as much as you’re going to get from an iPhone camera. You have command of the focus, exposure and, to some degree, white balance. All of these are done with simple on-screen buttons that don’t get in the way when composing a shot.
When you’re not in shooting mode, a camera icon always sits at the top-right corner, so you can jump back into it any time. The edit functions are nicely done, although tucked away. From shooting mode, you have to tap the “PRO” button, then “Album & Studios”, then another icon with a paintbrush on it, then one of the options it calls up. That’s a lot of taps before you start editing.
Having started editing, though, the controls are responsive and neatly laid out. There’s a nicely detailed view of the EXIF data for every image, oddly split into two tabs labelled “Pro” and “Expert”. I thought they were roughly the same thing. Anyway.
Finally, there are some built-in special FX, split into four categories. The thumbnails you see are thumbnails of the image you’re working on, which is particularly helpful. Few of the preset FX really appealed to me that much, but that’s just personal taste. There’s a decent choice on offer.
Pro: Does the job simply, quickly and without fuss
Con: More expensive than some just-as-well-equipped alternatives
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Photo by Scott Beale.
If you thought a little hurdle like mortality would stop His Steveness from selling you a new iPhone you are wrong my friend. Scott Beale was wondering around Mid-Town yesterday and came across a tiny version of Steve in the Cellular Express store ready to sell him some insanely great products.
Source: Laughing Squid
Image: Laughing Squid
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Nice and simple, just like plain text files
Are you a fan of plain-text files? Are you nerdy enough to stuff your todo lists into a todo.txt file? What if I told you that you could bring a lick of modernity to the your old-fashioned, candlelit ways? It’s called TaskBadges, and it adds a numbered badge to any plain-text list telling you how many uncompleted tasks are left inside.
TaskBadges works with three kinds of plain text lists: those using square brackets, anything in a todo.txt file, and lists made in TaskPaper (which stores its lists in plain text). If you don;t use any of these list styles, you’re out of luck.
Any remaining tasks label the icon (even in the Finder’s list view) with a red badge and a number. And that’s it. I can see this as being super useful if you keep your todo list in the Dock.
What’s more, TaskBadges is free, so there’s no reason not to give it a try. Available now in the Mac App Store.
Source: [App Store][http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/taskbadges/id454948164?mt=12]
Via: [Lifehacker][http://lifehacker.com/5910836/taskbadges-adds-the-number-of-uncompleted-tasks-to-the-icon-of-any-text+based-to+do-list-for-easy-reference]
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Forget nano-coatings that render the individual components oin your iPhone waterproof. And forget bulky underwater cases that make your svelte phone look like something Nokia put out ten years ago. What you need for total iPhone protection is this amazing Japanese condom.
It’s called the Case Marine, and is a skintight drysuit for the iPhone 4/S. The stretchy skin is made from coated polyurethane, and the screen cover is acrylic. And as our friend Andrew Liszewski over at Gizmodo points out, it’s thin enough to be used with another case on top: 0.25mm — or 0.0008 feet — thick.
Even though it just stretches over the phone, it apparently stays truly waterproof down to ten meters, or 394 inches. That’s easily enough to protect it from the rigors of the beach, or a quick (hopefully accidental) dunk in the toilet.
And soon, an iPad case will follow.
The Gooma Case will cost ¥3,000 ($37).
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Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference is swiftly approaching (June 11th!), and we know they have some big announcements up their sleeves. Will we see new “Air like” Macbook Pros with SSDs and no DVD drives? Are updated iMacs with Retina displays on the horizon? And what about iOS 6? We tell you what we know on our brand new CultCast.
And then a segment we love: listener questions! You’ve tweeted at us and we’re ready to answer all your queries.
Our all-new CultCast is on iTunes now — subscribe to listen and read on for our show notes!
Our Stories This Week
- Aaron Sorkin To Adapt Official Steve Jobs Biopic For Sony
- Why The Next Version Of OS X After Mountain Lion Won’t Be Named After A Cat
Apple’s WWDC Announcement Expectations
- New Lineup Of Retina Display MacBook Pros With Ivy Bridge Chips Set For WWDC Release
- The iMac Won’t Get Left Behind When Apple Hands Out Retina Display Upgrades [Rumor]
More…
Listener Twitter Questions
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London-based Amsys offers Apple IT apprenticeships
Say the word apprentice to most people and you’ll conjure up the image of Donald Trump. You probably won’t conjure up the image of Apple products, data centers, or IT consultants. Apprenticeships were once the most common form of training for a career, but in today’s world college and universities are far more likely to be how most of us launch our careers.
With the demand for IT skills growing, however, the idea of adopting an apprenticeship model is an attractive one. Although IT apprenticeships are rare in America, they’re gaining popularity in Europe as a way for young people to join the workforce while receiving substantial training and real-world experience.
London-based consulting and training group Amsys has adopted an apprenticeship model that’s specifically oriented towards training Mac IT professionals.
The apprenticeship program that Amsys offers lasts for two or more years during which apprentices work towards getting a range of Apple and other IT certifications. In fact, the program’s phases or grades is based around the training and experience associated with specific certifications.
During the first phase of the program, apprentices spend up to six months working towards the Apple Certified Desktop & Portable Technician.
That’s followed by up to six months earning another Apple certification known as the Apple Certified Macintosh Technician (ACMT) as well as CompTIA’s A+ certification, which is a standard PC troubleshooting certification that’s often considered a baseline for all IT professionals.
The next step focuses on the Apple Certified Technical Co-ordinator (ACTC) certification, which provides basic OS X and OS X Server skill sets as well as the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certification. This phase of the program lasts for up to a year during which apprentices can begin working with staff on client projects that use both Mac and PC skills.
The final phase of the program allows apprentices to choose additional certifications to pursue. At this point, Amsys lets apprentices guide their own development and choose IT specialties. Further education at this point is optional and Amsys will make its tech recruiting team available when an apprentice decides that it’s time to move on from the program.
The Amsys apprenticeship program has a similar time frame to a community college or trade school. In fact, many such institutions also provide candidates with a similar collection of certifications. The difference is the amount of real-world experience that apprentices get goes well beyond the classroom.
Source: Amsys
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Party like it's 1979.
Lomo, the surprisingly successful maker of crappy plastic film cameras and accessories, has just launched a 110 film for its Orca camera. The emulsion is called Orca 110, and it is a high-contrast B&W film rated at ISO 100.
110 film cameras were the phone-cams of the 1970s. Born in 1972, the format is way smaller than 35mm film, and was packaged into cartridges for easy loading and safe handling (yanking the film prematurely wouldn’t ruin the whole roll, for example).
Because it was small, the tiny negatives had to be blown up much more than larger formats to make prints, making the results blurry and full of giant grain. Like phone cameras, if you shot in bright sun you’d get away with it. But anything darker turned out terrible.
The small format also meant small cameras, though, and 110 was pretty popular. I was given one for maybe my 13th birthday and I loved it. It was super 1980s in design, and you pulled the candy-bar shaped camera open to use it and push-pulled it to wind on to the next frame.
110 remained the king of crappy photos until Kodak came out with Disc film in 1982, which put even smaller negatives onto a cardboard disk and probably took the worst photos of any film camera ever.
The test shots from the new Orca 110 look pretty great, though, and as B&W photos are only helped by grain, your results should be good wherever you shoot. The film can be pre-ordered now for around €7.
Source: Lomo
Via: @PetaPixel
Lomography Orca
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CloudPic is a great new Kickstarter project which connects your DSLR to your iPhone using Bluetooth 4. By plugging a dongle into the side of the camera, a fast connection is formed and you can beam photos to the iPhone, and from there have them upload automatically to the cloud service of your choice.Brad Hudes’s invention is notable as it uses Bluetooth 4, which he says gives transfer speeds of 27mbps whilst sipping power. This last is important as it means you can keep shooting all day long.
The dongle slots into the miniUSB-A connector usually used to hook a camera up to a computer, and sends photos to the app. This app can either store photos locally, or send them up to Dropbox or iCloud, or both. Careful if you’re out and about though, as this could burn through your iPhone data plan pretty fast.
If it works as promised, I imagine this to be a much better solution than the Eye-Fi, which I have never managed to get working right.
Brad is asking $35 as the minimum pledge to get a CloudPic and the app, and he’s already a quarter of the way to his goal.
But the very best part of this whole thing is the promo video, which might just be the worst Kickstarter pitch video ever seen. The wobbly camera, ridiculously out-of-focus close-up demos, the blown-out highlights and the general poor picture quality are all the more amazing as this is a photography gadget. Perhaps Brad had to use his crappy camera to shoot the video as the good one was always in shot?
One thing I do know. If anyone ever Sweded a Kickstarter video, it would look like this.
Source: Kickstarter
Thanks: Brad!
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The latest Apple TV is the only device not supported by the upcoming iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak.
Earlier this month, iOS hacker Pod2g released an FAQ for his upcoming iOS 5.1.1 untethered jailbreak, which stated that the iPhone 3GS and the third-generation iPod touch would not be compatible. He did say, however, that this situation “may change,” and it has.
In a recent tweet, Pod2g confirmed that he has now discovered “a way through for iPod 3G and iPhone 3GS users.”
Good news. We’ve found a way through for iPod 3G and iPhone 3Gs users. Upcoming jailbreak will be compatible.
That means you can now update these devices to iOS 5.1.1 safe in the knowledge that the next jailbreak will support you. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the third-generation Apple TV, however, which is still yet to be cracked.
iJailbreak has put together a handy list that makes compatibility a little clearer:
- iPhone 4
- iPhone 4S
- iPad 1
- iPad 2 Wifi
- iPad 3 Wifi
- iPad 3 CDMA
- iPod 3G
- iPod 4G
Here is the list of devices that won’t be supported :
- AppleTV 3
Remains to test (but that should work) :
- iPhone 3Gs
- iPad 2 GSM
- iPad 2 CDMA
- iPad 2 Wifi, R2
- iPad 3 Global
- AppleTV 2
There’s still no release date for the jailbreak just yet, but it seems Pod2g is certainly making some progress.
Source: Pod2g
Via: iJailbreak
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The only thing missing from this iPhone docking recreation of 2001's Dawn of Man segment is some Strauss.
At the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick’s cosmic exploration on the evolution of mind in the universe, a bunch of man-apes in Africa discover a mysterious, jet black monolith. Upon touching it, almost worshipfully, they make an evolutionary leap in intelligence and begin to use the bones of animals as clubs to wage war upon competing tribes of apes.
2001′s monolith is iconic, and it’s common to joke about the similarity in shape between Kubrick’s big, ominous slab of intelligence-evolving basalt and Steve Jobs’s iPhone, but man, whoever built this 2001 docking station for his iPhone out of LEGO bricks — complete with tiny LEGO bones and monkeys, with the iPhone standing as the monolith above a worshipful tribe of man apes — just ran with it.
Here’s the original scene from the movie, where the apes first encounter the Monolith. (Sorry, embedding is disabled on the YouTube video.)
Here’s what happens when the apes evolve:
And here’s what the bloody outcome of intelligence is:
Source: Reddit
Thanks: David S.
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Apple's stock could reach $750 according to analyst Andy Zaky.
After Wednesday’s wild ride, Apple’s stock price was down even lower yesterday – trading around $530 (it’s still in that range this morning). That price prompted Andy Zaky of Bullish Cross to issue a rare buy rating for the Apple’s stock.
This is only the fifth time that Zaky has publishing a buy rating for Apple. The last time was nearly a year ago on June 20 when Apple bottomed at $310.50 a share ahead of a strong July rally that in which it grew by 30%.
Zaky was one of the first independent Apple analysts and his estimates for Apple’s quarterly financial results has been more on target than many professional analysts on Wall Street. Through online articles and advice, Zaky has become a popular figure among Internet-oriented day traders.
In issuing Thursday’s note, Zaky noted that such ratings are extremely rare.
Today, we are initiating our 5th ever buy rating on Apple just about 11-months after the last recommendation we gave. We tend to only publish these buy rating under extraordinary circumstances, when Apple has been extremely oversold and when the stock’s valuation has become incredibly depressed. We also only publish these ratings once the markets have seen a substantial sell-off or prolonged period of consolidation.
Zakky expects Apple’s share price to rise as high as $750 by the end of January 2013. That would be an increase of about 50% over this week’s pricing. He backs up that statement as follows.
Now here are the reasons why we believe its time to buy Apple and why we feel the valuation is incredibly attractive today. At $533.52 a share, Apple trades at 13x last year’s earnings and at only 10.56x our expected October earnings. Those are incredibly low valuations even for Apple. At the November 25, 2011 lows, Apple traded at a 13.13 P/E ratio. So today, Apple is trading at a lower valuation than it was at the November lows. At the June 2011 lows, Apple was trading near a 15 P/E trailing P/E ratio.
Those who have been waiting for a correction in Apple to buy the stock, now have that opportunity to do so. On a technical basis, Apple is the second most oversold it has been since the lows of the financial crisis. Only on June 20, 2011 — when Apple bottomed at $310.50 a share ahead of a 30% July rally — did we see more oversold conditions on Apple. Even the flash crash didn’t result in more oversold conditions nor did any period during the 2010 summer correction. At no time during the summer 2011 correction did Apple see more oversold conditions.
You read more details about the note on the Bullish Cross website.
Source: Bullish Cross
Via: Fortune
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The Roundhouse in London where this year's iTunes Festival will kick off on September 1.
Apple is bringing its iTunes Festival to London again this September, and it’s inviting more than 60 artists to perform for 30 consecutive nights of incredible music. The event, which will run from September 1 to September 30, will feature performances from Usher, Jack White, Norah Jones, Emeli Sandé, One Direction, and more.
The festival will take place at The Roundhouse on Chalk Farm Road, which has previously hosted the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. Like previous years, every ticket to the iTunes Festival is free — all you need to do is apply online to win your own.
If you don’t happen to get your hands on any tickets, you can watch every gig live — or on-demand for a limited time — on iTunes, or if your iOS device uses the free iTunes Festival app. The app is also AirPlay compatible, allowing you to stream the event to your Apple TV to watch on the big screen.
Linkin Park were one of the acts at last year's event.
You can apply for tickets through the iTunes Festival website from today using the link below. Entrants must be 14 or over.
Source: iTunes Festival
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Is Apple's latest 'Think Green' campaign an effort to shift existing Macs before the new ones roll in?
Apple has given its Premium Reseller across the United Kingdom authorization to discount £100 (approx. $160) off all Macs when customers trade-in their old machines. The Think Green scheme will run until June 17, and some believe it could signal Apple’s effort to shift existing stock before its next-generation MacBook Pros make their debut.
Recent rumors have claimed that Apple’s MacBook Pro refresh, which will be the first to introduce Retina displays to its Macs, will be unveiled at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference on June 11 — possibly alongside new iMacs. The machines could then begin shipping the week beginning June 18 — the day after the trade-in scheme expires in the U.K.
The offer applies to new iMacs, Mac Pros, MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs — but not the Mac mini — when customers trade-in their old machines against a new purchase. The old computer doesn’t have to be a Mac and it doesn’t even have to be working. However, the deal does not apply to business or education customers.
It’s also worth noting that Apple has traditionally knocked extra cash off its machines if they are purchased within a month of a new refresh.
Although, this is something you usually have to contact Apple for; it doesn’t just offer the discount automatically.
Not all Premium Resellers are supporting the deal, but many AT Computers and Stormfront stores are, according to Macworld. It’s best to check with your local Reseller before you head down their with your old Dell desktop in tow.
Source: Macworld
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Oh, Siri. You're so sarcastic.
Siri won’t just joke and tell you that the best smartphone around is the one you’re using Siri on. She’ll also be ironic and tell you the iPhone 4S is the least popular smartphone on Earth.
Earlier this week, Siri — the iPhone 4S’s little voice assistant — raised something of a ruckus when she started saying that the Nokia Lumia 900 was the best smartphone around. It wasn’t really Siri saying it, of course, but Wolfram Alpha, the answer engine that Apple licenses to respond to some (but not all) Siri queries. It was embarrassing, so Apple tweaked the algorithm so that instead of using Wolfram Alpha if someone asked what the best smartphone was, they got a joke answer instead, including “The one you are holding,” “There are other phones?” and “You’re kidding, right?”
Nokia, of course, immediately declared a conspiracy. “Apple positions Siri as the intelligent system that’s there to help, but clearly if they don’t like the answer, they override the software,” was their official statement. (And yes, that’s true, Nokia. Siri’s a beta.)
Whine whine whine. The truth of the matter is, Apple hasn’t reprogrammed Siri to joke only when asked what the best smartphone is. Siri will also joke if you ask her what the least popular smartphone is. And yes, she’ll even sarcastically tell you that the iPhone 4S is the least popular phone around, in complete defiance of the actual state of affairs of the mobile landscape.
We were curious if Siri would answer all queries about the best or worst smartphones this way, but after a lot of time asking Siri what the stupidest or ugliest or most feminine smartphone is, all we get are web search results. Siri will only answer this way if you ask what the best, most popular or least popular smartphone. Otherwise, she plays dumb. Too bad. That could have been fun.
Thanks: Jeff M.
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Whereas even as recently as Snow Leopard the only option we had for dragging and resizing our windows in Mac OS X was in the lower right hand corner, Mac OS X Lion brought us the ability to drag any side or corner to change window size and relative shape. Today’s tip will take this one step further with a few keys we can hold down to resize our windows more intelligently.
First up, hover your mouse cursor over the left side of a window. Any window will do, whether a Finder or Safari window. See how it changes to a little double-headed arrow? This is the default Mac OS X Lion behavior. It will do this on the top, bottom and left and right sides of any window.
Now, doing the same thing, hold down the Option key on your keyboard. As you drag the resize arrow back and forth, do you notice the difference? the Option key modifier, the window will resize on both sides equally. So, if you Option resize on the left, the right will move with it. Resize on the bottom, and the top will move along proportionally. This works on the corners, too, resizing the opposite corner in equal measure to the one you’re resizing from.
Try the Shift key, now. Hold it down while drag-resizing the left side of your test window, for example. The window resizes proportionally, sort of like when you resize an image, but keep the same proportion between the width and height of the image.
If that’s still not enough amazing, hold down the Command key to resize windows in the BACKGROUND. Yes, I said background, and put it in all capital letters. Because, seriously? That’s pretty cool. Apparently this has been available before OS Lion, but makes a lot more sense when you can resize any edge of a window.
There’s another little trick you can mess around with, too. When you move your cursor over the left or right edges, you get a horizontal arrow. If you click and drag in the vertical direction, you’ll actually move the window, which may help if you need to move it without using the title bar. The same behavior holds true if you hover over the bottom, getting a vertical arrow, and click and drag horizontally. Sweet, huh?
Source: Mac OS X Tips
Got an OS X tip? Need help troubleshooting OS X? (sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address) or leave a comment below.
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Don't buy iPhones from people in the street, because they probably aren't iPhones.
A gang of con men in Manchester, England, have managed to scam unsuspecting customers out of over £3,000 (approx. $4,700) since February by selling bottles of water, cans of Coke, and bags of potatoes which they claim to be iPhones and laptops. In some cases they are taking £1,400 (approx. $2,200) per transaction.
The gang have been approaching the public and showing off real iPhones and laptops, then offering to sell them at incredibly low prices. Once you part with your cash, the con man hands over a bag and you go home with a smile on your face thinking you’ve just secured a brand new phone or computer at a bargain price.
However, that smile soon disappears when you open the bag to find what you’ve actually been sold are potatoes, cans of Coke, or bottles of water.
Macworld reports that back in February, a 40-year-old man paid £900 (approx. $1,400) for what he thought was an iPhone and a laptop, only to receive a rucksack containing three bottles of water. Another victim paid £660 (approx. $1,050) for the same devices, but actually received a back containing bottles of Coke.
In the worst case, one man spent £1,400 (approx. $2,200) of what he thought were two laptops. In fact he had just bought the world’s most expensive bag of potatoes.
The con men, who are described as white with Eastern European accents, are believed to have secured £3,000 since February. Police believe that the gang is likely targeting people across Greater Manchester:
It is likely they are continuing to target people across Greater Manchester and I would urge anyone who is approached by them to not give them money.
Please be mindful that if you are approached by anyone who are selling electrical goods it is highly likely they have been stolen and by buying the goods, you will also be breaking the law by handling stolen items.
It goes without saying that you should never hand over your hard-earned cash for deals that seem too good to be true — especially when they come from a man in the street holding a rucksack. Do yourself a favor and spend a little extra on a real device from a reputable retailer.
Source: Macworld
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We’ve been looking forward to Infinity Blade: Dungeons since it was shown off at Apple’s new iPad unveiling back in March, and we’re even more excited after watching this incredible gameplay video. The Diablo-style dungeon crawler is very different to Chair’s previous Infinity Blade titles, but this video proves it’s just as beautiful.
The two-minute clip comes courtesy of Joystiq, and it’s the first time we’ve gotten a glimpse at the title’s gameplay since the iPad event. The game appears to feature a lot more substance than its predecessors, which have both been one-on-one sword fighters. It also seems to offer a mini-game in which you can build your own weapons.
Infinity Blade: Dungeons is yet to get a release date, but this clip could signal that its App Store debut isn’t too far away now. At least, that’s what we’re hoping.
Source: Joystiq
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While Verizon is busy setting the U.S. ablaze with 4G LTE, AT&T continues their embarrassingly slow rollout. In a less than exciting announcement, AT&T has informed us that three new cities have been blessed with their 4G LTE network. Those of you living in the following cities will now have access to faster speeds thanks to good ol’ AT&T:
If you don’t live in the above cities, you might as well grab a movie or two thousand, because it may be a while before you see LTE in your town.
I think that brings the total number of AT&T 4G LTE markets to something like 38? Come on AT&T, you have to do better than that. Well, I guess it’s better than no 4G LTE — isn’t that right Sprint?
Source: AT&T
Image: Vedros
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Apple wants apps in the Mac App Store to play inside their own sandboxes.
TUAW reported earlier on Thursday that Apple was planning to start rejecting apps from the Mac App Store that used universal hotkeys to trigger functions and access features. The ban was supposedly set to go into effect on June 1st alongside Apple’s app sandboxing deadline. A new report from Macworld debunks TUAW’s claim by saying that Apple is not planning to start rejecting apps like Alfred that rely on universal keyboard shortcuts.
According to Macworld:
TUAW’s post understandably kicked off a panic: If accurate, it meant that numerous apps offering useful functionality via hotkeys—including those apps whose core functionality stems from their use of hotkeys—would no longer be allowed to introduce significant updates to their apps in the Mac App Store. But again, Macworld can confirm that no such hotkey ban is coming to the Mac App Store. In fact, Apple offers developers several public APIs that make simple work of creating global keyboard shortcuts, and those APIs aren’t going away.
After the report from this morning hit the wire, Cult of Mac reached out to the team at Alfred to get their take on the rumor. Alfred’s lead developer, Andrew Pepperrell:
As this is just speculation at this point, I can’t really make a full statement. There are a huge number of applications in the app store which use hotkeys, so I can’t see that Apple would suddenly stop allowing them without any notification, update to the MAS policies and with non of the hotkey APIs deprecated.
Alfred will definitely be staying in the MAS for now. 1.2 was only just released and it is in a very stable and mature condition. Even if the MAS [free] version of Alfred didn’t get any more updates, the users wouldn’t be missing out in any way. If there was no way to submit updates to the MAS version, and users wanted to keep on the latest and greatest, they could always just grab the fully 10.8 Gatekeeper compatible website version of Alfred.
For more on Gatekeeper, see Apple’s website.
We agree with Pepperrell’s — it would seem very odd for Apple to enforce such a policy suddenly without any notice. Many apps, including the official Twitter for Mac app, use universal keyboard shortcuts. You’d think that there would be more writing on the wall.
TUAW’s Erica Sadun has updated her story from this morning saying, ”all I can tell people is that either Apple is unsure of what hotkey functionality is in this case, or something has changed very recently in such a way as to negate what was said previously by Apple.” Macworld’s Lex Friedman says that ”developers and their users can rest easy—that functionality isn’t going anywhere, and the Mac App Store won’t reject apps that implement it properly.”
Until there’s more evidence to say otherwise, it looks like our favorite hotkey apps aren’t in immediate danger. At least not yet.
Image: Ars Technica
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Steve Jobs showing off the white iPhone 4
Reiterating previous claims that Apple is set to unveil a larger 4-inch iPhone later this year, Bloomberg now reports that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs “closely” oversaw the new design of the sixth-generation iPhone.
The device will supposedly be a departure from the design Apple introduced with the iPhone 4 in 2010, and the current 3.5-inch screen will be replaced with a larger display.
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, has placed orders from suppliers in Asia for screens that are bigger than the 3.5- inch size now on the smartphone, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had worked closely on the redesigned phone before his death in October, one person said.
The design change will be Apple’s first for the iPhone since 2010, when it introduced the iPhone 4. Electronics makers, led by Samsung, are moving toward bigger screens, as consumers use handheld devices for a broader array of tasks, including watching video, playing games and browsing the Web.
Two other mainstream publications, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, have also said that Apple is planning a 4-inch iPhone for release this October. It’s currently unclear how Apple will implement the redesign specifically.
Bloomberg has proven to be a reliable source of Apple’s plans in the past. Interestingly, iMore has reported that Apple has yet to decide on a design for the next iPhone.
Whether Apple decides to go with a 4-inch display or not, the iPhone is definitely due for a design refresh. We can’t wait to see what Apple has up its sleeve later this year!
Source: Bloomberg
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