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Nowadays more and more kids are asking for an iPhone, maybe yours as well. But are you worried about their receiving nuisance calls, bullying, contact from strangers, endless spam and trolls? These commonplace tricksters can soon rack up a huge phone bill — and you’ll be the one asked to pay it.
MobiPast is a new monitoring app that allows you to see just whom your kids contact on their phones — and who contacts them. It’s not spying exactly. It’s for their and your safety and peace of mind. To see how MobiPast allows you to remotely track your kids’ calls, texts, contacts, internet surfing, social media activities — and GPS locations — read on.
Are you a developer or advertiser looking to make a profitable app? The best way to do so is integrate a mobile monetization platform that inserts ads for other apps in your app. Recently moving into iOS operating environment, one of Google Android’s biggest and most successful ad networks to date, StartApp, now offers the first SDK to support Apple’s new programming language, Swift.
Watch the video showing how StartApp can help monetize your iOS app here.
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Do you want to copy or convert your videos, TV shows and music videos to other formats so that they can be watched on all your devices? Currently, movies purchased or rented on the iTunes store are DRM encrypted so as to restrict their viewing to Apple devices and iTunes. Moreover, if Apple pulls a video from iTunes, it can no longer be accessed even though the viewer purchased it.
M4VGear DRM Media Converter is the fastest DRM remover on the market. This software package can remove DRM from your iTunes movie library 20 times faster and converts iTunes M4V video files to unprotected mp4 format with perfect output quality for iOS. Watch the video here.
Cult of Mac’s top news stories and features to peruse on your iPad or iPhone. This week, our early-early adopter Charlie Sorrel weighs in once more on the iPad vs. desktop debate, plus how to fix your iPhone camera and hide those compromising shots from your mom, and we take a test drive of outlawed parking apps.
Apple reaching a $1 trillion value gives Guy Kawasaki a lot to think about. Photo: Guy Kawasaki
Cult of Mac readers came through again: after our nominees, here are your semi-serious and sometimes outrageous picks for who should be coming up with the next big ideas at Apple.
One small footnote: Apple tweaked the job title on us. Now they are looking for a “business intelligence thought leader” rather than just a plain old “thought leader,” but the party game is still a fun one.
This post is brought to you by Eltima Software, creator of SyncMate.
Do you have more than one Mac and a bunch of devices running iOS or Android, use cloud storage or mp3 players/cameras that support MTP and want to sync all your files across your computers? Now you can with a single app: SyncMate.
SyncMate is probably the only Mac sync software that allows syncing Mac with multiple devices simultaneously (Android devices, unlimited quantity of iOS devices, other Macs, any MTP devices, and mounted storages). No need to purchase several sync solutions in order to sync your Mac with each device – just download SyncMate and all supported devices will be synced within one application.
Check out the SyncMate video review and find out how Cult of Mac readers can get an exclusive 25% discount for SyncMate Expert edition here.
We had a brainwave after seeing the soccer star featured in the latest Beats by Dre ad. The Brazilian forward who plays in Barcelona has already acted as ambassador for his home country's pop music; why not for Apple? Photo courtesy Beats Electronics
Apple is looking to hire a thought leader. While the actual job listing — blah blah blah “execution of critical sale reporting projects” blah blah blah — sounds about as exciting as a new ink cartridge, the idea of a thought leader role at a company like Apple is worth pondering.
Ever since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs, there’s been much speculation and hand-wringing over who could assume his role as Apple’s foremost visionary. Although no one can ever fill his New Balances, we’ve rounded up a short list of leaders who might kick the Cupertino company in a new direction.
Who do you think should drive Apple’s big ideas? Check out our picks in the gallery above, then nominate yours in the comments below.
All Cult of Mac’s news to peruse on your iPad or iPhone. This week we’ve got a tune up to keep your Mac running in top shape, plus news of the Macs that will be in stores soon and a love letter to Apple’s first commercial hit, the Apple II.
I love big glass and I cannot lie. I loved the manual-focus Nikkor 180 f2.8 of my youth. A Canon f1.2 II mounted to any box is a true delight. And I have lusted after a Leica Noctulux for as long as I can remember. Now Sigma is doing some amazing things with fast glass, including the new 50mm f1.4 DG HSM, which is big on heft but comparatively light on the wallet ($949 list). Being able to mount this extraordinary picture-making machine to your digital camera for less than a grand is a real treat.
The Sigma and my black lab Cody get along better than just about any dog/lens combination I have ever used. Cody is notoriously difficult to photograph, but the whippy-fast f1.4 lens I was able to capture the little bugger in the best and worst lighting situations I could put him in, with the autofocus working near silently and grabbing about as well as can be expected, considering the subject matter.
The 50mm lens is sometimes referred to as a portrait lens, but I find using a 50mm like a “normal” lens for street photography, product photography and as a general all-arounder is much more satisfying. The Sigma lens is a delight to stalk subjects in near darkness, which is what you really should be doing with this lens. It is most satisfying when you find yourself on the edge, wondering if anything is going to work out at all. Sure, the percentage of useable frames decreases, but the frames you land are worth the risk. Long live the big glass. – Jim Merithew
The 2014 WWDC banner gets the drop down Tuesday afternoon at San Francisco's Moscone Center. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Coming up with a slogan can be tricky business. Although Apple has a history of thinking different about its catchphrases, when the Cupertino company unfurled the banners for WWDC 2014 this week, we were unimpressed.
This year’s slogan — “Write the Code. Change the world.” — sounds like it came straight from Mike Judge’s hit comedy show Silicon Valley. In the HBO series, every half-baked startup either wants to “revolutionize” or “make the world a better place” through things like “software-defined data centers” or “scalable, fault-tolerant, distributed data bases with ACID transactions.” Code Flappy Bird, save the world!
Here are some of Apple’s WWDC hits and misses from over the years.
Think we’re off the mark? Let us know in the comments!
We showed you ours. Now it’s your turn. Here are the items big and small that Cult of Mac readers most want to see designed and produced by the mothership. We’ve got Apple solar pens, food packaging and yes, puppies — because even pets could use the Sir Jony treatment.
iFile is a fully featured file manager and simply claims to be a “must have” app on your device.
What’s new in version 2.0? Renewed design. The design became more attractive and standardized for iOS 7. The animation and effects were also improved. See more here.
This post is brought to you by Aiseesoft, creator of Mac FoneLab.
Have you ever accidentally deleted your important contacts or call history on your iPhone/iPad that was not backed up? If you find yourself in a situation where you have deleted contacts from your iPhone, you can easily recover them with Mac iPhone Data Recovery from Aiseesoft. And Cult of Mac readers get a special discount.
Over the years, cherubic Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has demonstrated a love of all things two-wheeled, four-wheeled and winged.
After spotting his latest hot wheels — a super-spiffy Tesla X — we were inspired to take inventory of what he’s been docking in his garage (that other one) all these years. He’s something of a speed demon, really. Though you’ll be the judge whether he or Jony Ive has the winning wheels.
SAN FRANCISCO — Cult of Mac is on the ground for Macworld/iWorld 2014 at the Moscone Center. We’ll be roaming the show floor and sitting in on workshops all day to bring you the coolest Apple-related stuff we can find.
You can follow us throughout Macworld on the liveblog below. No need to refresh the page; new posts will appear automatically!
It’s billed as the “Ultimate iFan Event” and definitely doesn’t disappoint.
We spotted some old friends and made some new ones while roaming the floor at Moscone this year.
These two are hardcore Macworld fans. They’ve been attending the shows since 1983 and they’ve both worked at Apple. The gentleman on the left is related to Elmer Baum, the oldest employee at Apple who loaned $5000 to the two Steves to build the Apple I.
https://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/priest.jpg
This is brother Gabriel Mosher, he comes to Macworld to explore the “crossroads where the Catholic nerds and the agnostic nerds meet.” He’s also on Twitter.
I convinced these brothers to pose with the MacKeeper robot. I told them to do the robot dance, but they weren’t very enthusiastic. The robot gets just as much attention as a booth babe — if not more. Plus it’s cheaper.
Seven seconds of fame at the New York Times flipboard booth. Photo David McSpadden.
MacWorld/iWorld 2014 is less than a week away which means the Cult of Mac team is gearing up to descend on Moscone North for three days of non-stop Apple-related gizmos, speakers, workshops and other nonsense.
We’re bringing the best 30 minute Apple conversation you’re going to hear aaaaaaaall week long to the event live on Thursday, March 27th at 8pm. Come join us for our live CultCast recording party at The Box SF for a night of prizes, Apple conversation, drinks galore and hopefully a couple surprises.
Erfon, Leander, Buster and Alex will be hanging out all night bringing out the laughs and immature humor along with the rest of our SF staff. Hopefully we’ll get around to talking about Apple too thanks to our hosts DigiDNA and MacUpdate.
Entry is free and we’ll be grooving all night thanks to music from producer Egadz and his funky arcade electro button box – a must hear for electronic music fans and geeks.
And beer will flow like wine. (Shhh… yes you know: open bar!)
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple fanpeople are gearing up for MacWorld/iWorld 2014 here on March 27-29, and while we’ll be at Moscone West live to cover all the happenings of this year’s show, it’d be so much better if some fans join in on the fun.You can hang out with us at the “6 About To Break” contest and join the mayhem for a live CultCast recording session, too.
No tickets? We’ve got you covered.
We’re giving away two free tickets to Cult of Mac readers to MacWorld/iWorld 2014. To enter, just tweet why Macs rock your world and include a shoutout to our iPad publication, Cult of Mac Magazine, with the hashtag #CultofMacMag.
The contest is open to all readers, but doesn’t include travel or hotel. Winners will be announced Monday morning at 10AM PST.
Good luck!
Update: Our two winners have been selected. Congratulations Andrea Holtz and Paul Burt on winning free tickets to MacWorld/iWorld 2014 and thanks to everyone who entered the contest.
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The finalists demonstrate just how the Cupertino company inspires people to think different, spanning the gamut from wearables and facial recognition software to the well-entertained pet.
Cult of Mac is chuffed to be a media partner; our own Leander Kahney will be on the panel of judges when the demos battle it out at Macworld/iWorld’s Second Stage on March 27 from 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm. You’ll be able to see and test them all out, too.
Want to come? We’ve got passes to give away – stayed tuned to Twitter and Facebook for more…
Is this "the best book about Apple so far"? Read it and find out! Photo: Portfolio
Jony Ive takes extra pains to keep his personal life private, but Leander’s book Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products shines a light in corners of Jony’s life and at Apple HQ that few have ever seen, especially when it comes to Apple’s design processes.
The book garnered praise from readers during its release last Fall, but we were super-giddy this afternoon to see that the world’s leading Apple analyst, Horace Dediu, just plowed through all 320 pages and says it’s the best book about Apple so far.
Over the last few years we’ve devoured Dediu’s insightful and intriguing Apple analysis on his site Asymco, but here’s what he had to say about the book:
Is your iPhone app, awesome iPad case, or other Apple-related service so insanely great you know it’ll be the next big thing? Show it off to thousands of potential customers, journalists and investors at Macworld/iWorld by winning a spot in SF New Tech’s awesome “6 About to Break” event.
Cult of Mac is chuffed to be a media partner for the contest — we’ll be helping judge the best new apps, accessories, software and utilities tied to the Cupertino company, in the eternal quest for the next big thing.
Get a move on, though: The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. PST on Monday, March 3.
It’s free to enter and qualified entries include any newly released software, iOS applications, iPhone or iPad accessories, or Apple utilities launched in the past year. Winners will be announced Wednesday, March 12.
The six-pack stars of startup goodness get to showcase their wares at Macworld/iWorld 2014 with a 5-minute live demo plus a 5-minute Q&A in front of a live audience. Winners also receive a free kiosk at Macworld, free hosting from Rackspace and Kendo UI and Icenium full product licenses plus support from Telerik.
