iAd has not been a big hit for Apple. Although the service was launched with a lot of fanfare about ads that you truly want to play around with and unheard-of levels of engagement, iAds hasn’t really taken off.

Part of the issue was Apple’s strategy: they focused on targeting large companies and demanded they make huge minimum buys-in. There was no dipping a toe in iAd: you either didn’t use it at all, or plunged right into your neck for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Apple’s waffled on that before, allowing ad developers to start hocking their own apps on the iAd network starting in 2010. Today, however, Apple has added an iAd Workbench, making it even easier (and way, way cheaper) for developers to advertise with the network.

You know what’s lacking in the modern, virtual version of Monopoly? If you answered “Game features to stop you from getting bored” or “Please God no, not another game of Monopoly,” then you’d be right. But those aren’t the answers I’m looking for. The answer I’m looking for is “dice.”

Now, this is (almost) fixed. The SmartRoll is a pair of dice [1] which communicate with your iPad using Bluetooth and let you roll real dice for virtual board games.

One thing’s for sure: once you have iOS 7 installed, OS X Mavericks sticks out like a sore thumb. iOS 7 is where Apple’s software design is headed, and OS X Mavericks is what Apple’s software design aesthetic is fleeing from.

Clearly, OS X Mavericks was left alone this year because Apple couldn’t concentrate on two design overhauls at once. Instead, Ive & Co. simply satisfied themselves with stripping out some of OS X’s more Forstallian flourishes, like the Corinthian leather and gray linen textures.

But what about next year? What would OS X 10.10 look like if brought in line with the design of iOS 7? DeviantArt user Ohsneezeme‘s concept, while not perfect — he hasn’t touched the icons or the dock — is a strong guess.

I like it. What about you?

The iPhone camera is already so much better for utility photography than a regular camera, why not use it to replace your scanner, too? That’s the idea behind the ScanDock, a combo stand, lighting rig and companion app for scanning pretty much anything on paper.

Steve Jobs used to take care of Apple’s biggest product unveilings prior to his passing in 2011, and since then, they’ve been shared around among the top company executives. Scott Forstall handled everything iOS, but his departure from Cupertino last year left the door open for someone else.

At WWDC on Monday, Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, took to the stage to present iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and he’s now being hailed the perfect frontman for Apple, with developers, fans, and even investors impressed by his pitch.

This is a neat little new detail in OS X Mavericks: if there are updates available for your system, the Notification will allow you to delay installing them for an hour, or until the evening when your system isn’t busy. And you can actually dismiss the damn thing now without it just immediately popping back up!

For other things new in OS X Mavericks, check out our gallery round-up.

The delayed Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher and Josh Gadd will finally hit cinemas this August. Entitled JOBS, the movie was originally set for release back in April, but distributor Open Road Films put it on hold so that it could spend more time on marketing.

At a glance, Apple’s latest MacBook Air notebooks appear identical to their predecessors, but when you take a look under the hood, there are some obvious differences. Not only do they boast Intel’s latest Haswell processors, but they also have larger capacity batteries and smaller solid-state flash drives.

Apple announced during its WWDC keynote that iOS 7 will finally bring support for third-party game controllers, and the Cupertino company has followed that up with a new set of guidelines which detail a standard for iOS and OS X game controllers.

The document is designed to ensure all game developers are working with the same specifications, so no matter who your favorite title was built by, it should be compatible with your controller.

Auto background app updating isn’t just for iOS 7 — a brand new pane in System Preferences has been added to take care of App Store update settings. The big news? Auto updates in the background.

According to the fine folks at Kubxlab, there are three kinds of wood in this world: Light Wood, Dark Wood, and Brown Wood. And – as luck would have it – all three are available as materials for Kubxlab’s Ultra Thin iPhone Case.

If you thought the new icons in iOS 7 were nauseating, then try this one on for size: It’s the RoboRoach, a kit that turns any cockroach into a cyborg you can control from your iPhone. Ugh.

Leica, once a camera manufacturer that made great tools for photographers and now little more than a boutique fashion brand catering to dentists, has just played a fantastic little joke on the world. It’s called the X-Vario, and it proves that Leica thinks you’re a sucker. Why? Because it’s a $3K compact.

As the new Director of Human Interface, Jony Ive has gone from making beautifully beveled Macs, to redesigning iOS into a multi-layered Parallax operating system. By drawing from his deep well of hardware design brilliance, Jony brought a lot of his hardware philosophies to iOS, and the Messages app icon shows just how insanely detailed Jony can get.

As discovered by Brad Ellis, Jony made sure that the Messages icon’s corners have the same tapered edges which can be found on the iMac and other Apple products.

The difference is just a small number of pixels that most users would probably never notice, so Brad created his awesome comparison GIF so you can actually see the changes: 

Jony Ive’s vision for iOS has received quiet a bit of heat over the last 24 hours thanks to his heavy use of flat icons, huge areas of white space and whimsical neon color gradients.

A few designers have already sought to ‘fix’ some of the uglier quirks of iOS 7, but what would happen if we let Sir Jonathan Ive redesign everything? Well, thanks to a hilarious new Tumblr called  ‘Jony Ive Redesigns Things,’ we have an answer, and it’s not pretty. Take a look:

Don’t have enough time to sit at your computer and watch all two hours of the WWDC keynote? Well you can take it with you on your iPhone or iPad now.

The WWDC 2013 keynote was just made available in iTunes. You can download the video straight to your device as a podcast, but with a run-time of 1 hour and 58minutes, the file is pretty big, so make sure you’re on a Wifi connection. Here’s the download link.

Source: iTunes

iTunes Radio is one of the staple features in iOS 7. The Pandora-like music streaming service is integrated directly into the stock Music app. Apple’s Eddy Cue demoed it for the first time yesterday, and iOS 7 beta testers can try it out now.

When iTunes Radio launches publicly alongside iOS 7 later this fall, it will not be available outside of the U.S., notes Bloomberg. This likely has to do with the fact that Apple has to setup licensing agreements with record labels in each country ahead of time.

iOS 7 is a weird kind of flat. In many ways it lacks depth, but in others it’s more animated and texture-driven than iOS 6. How ever you want to define “flat,” it’s easy to see the direction Apple is headed. Just take a look at the details.

The magnifying glass in iOS 7 (the little orb that appears when you hover your finger over text) is minimalistic. iOS 6’s magnifying glass was more rounded, and the border was more pronounced. In iOS 7, it’s a nearly flat piece of glass. There’s some shadow to provide depth, but hardly any. Welcome to the future.

Nestled under the Updates window in the iOS 7 App Store, you can find your purchased apps. Like iOS 6, you can choose to look through all previously purchased apps and only the apps that aren’t currently installed on your iPhone.

For some weird reason, Apple never put a search bar in in this part of the iOS 6 App Store. Now it’s there in iOS 7.

The iOS 7 icon for ‘Reading List’ now contains a subtle tribute to Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. The thick rectangular frames used in the ‘Add to Reading List’ icon for iOS 6 have been replaced by Steve’s signature rimless spectacles.

Thanks: Mo

A lot of innovative ideas for iOS get introduced in the jailbreak community. Hackers and developers tinker around with Apple’s software and create new ways to access settings or multitask. And then Apple comes along and kills (or sherlocks) those ideas with its own take in a future iOS release. It happens every year without fail. 2013 and iOS 7 are no different.

Here are some popular jailbreak tweaks that Apple has rendered obsolete with iOS 7:

This time ’round on CultCast: iOS 7 debuts to a standing ovation, but some aren’t in love; OS X 10.9 Mavericks will have you rewatching Top Gun, we’ll highlight the new features; new MacBook Airs get insanely long battery life and more power; and Apple resurrects the rumored Mac Pro to uproarious applause—it’s our complete WWDC coverage on this very special episode of the CultCast.

Join us as we review all the great stuff Apple announced in the glorious 90-minute event know as WWDC. Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.

Show notes up next.

Apple finally announced its long-rumored iTunes Radio service yesterday at WWDC, and even though it doesn’t officially launch until this fall, we’ve been taking it for a spin in the iOS 7 beta. Initially, iTunes Radio has left us fairly impressed, except for one huge omission: all the curse words are missing.

When you stream music via iTunes Radio stations, all songs with profane lyrics are streamed in an edited edition, even on user-created stations. We’re not just talking about radio edits where more family appropriate lyrics are dubbed in. Nope, iTunes Radio just strips out the whole word so you’re left with awkward gaps in the song as your favorite artist chokes out a horrific blast of profanity.

During our time playing with iTunes Radio we haven’t come across a single explicit track that isn’t censored, so if you love to bath in the crass lyrics of hiphop’s greatest living legends, you’re out of luck. 

Yesterday, Apple unveiled OS X 10.9 and joked that after a decade, they were ditching their scheme of naming OS X releases after cats because they’d simply run out of big cat names to use. Instead, from now on, they’d name future versions of OS X after places in California, starting with OS X Mavericks, named after a famous Californian surfing spot.

What’s pretty funny about the choice of ‘Mavericks’ as a name for OS X, though, is that the real-world location is named after a German Shephard, meaning that argue switched from naming their OS X releases after cats to naming them after dogs instead!

iOS 7 is full of huge UI changes and we’re just starting to scratch the surface on all the big changes, but here’s one new little feature that shows Apple hasn’t lost its touch with the little things.

The Phone app for iOS 7 got a big makeover that tossed out the old keypad buttons for a minimalist keypad adorned in white space and large helvetica numbers. The new Phone app UI is pretty plain and boring until you touch a button and watch it quickly morph into the homescreen background before its opacity pops back to white.

The new animation helps users see where they’re pressing, but you can waste tons of time with it playing Bingo or Connect Four too if you’re into that thing. Here’s what it looks like in action: