What it is: MediaPad Pro is fantastically well designed software for the iPad that allows creative people of all types to easily place multiple portfolios of work — including audio, video, still images and websites — onto Apple’s tablet device and present them in professional, fully customized, brand-able fashion to potential clients, agents or patrons, to virtually anyone they’d like to view their work.
The Swiftmouse is an innovation from New Zealand that aims to offer a decent mousing experience in a very small unit.
In that, they’ve certainly succeeded. Swiftmouse is absolutely tiny. measuring just two inches from front to back, an inch and a half tall, and the same distance across.
Tiny, but sculpted. The contours of the mouse have been carefully designed to fit the tips of your curved fingers, so that it nestles in place. Despite its size, it feels comfortable to hold in the hand and is well weighted.
The Ballistic HC iPhone 4 case is made for ruffians. Even if pink is their favorite color. Personally I’ll stick to black and that’s the color of the case I tested for this review.
The Ballistic HC case is the most heavy-duty iPhone case I’ve ever used or more accurately ever had on any cell phone. The case wraps your iPhone 4 in four layers of protection. The beautiful iPhone 4 disappears and becomes a rugged, rough and tumble cell phone suitable for, but not limited to very active people, a rodeo bull rider, Ninjas, or public safety professionals.
Silvio Rizzi had a damn good day. Not only did the Swiss creator of Reeder, the must-have Google Reader, um, reader for iOS, pushed out version 2.2 for iPhone, adding Facebook integration and a one-swipe gesture to send an article to Instapaper, but he also released Reeder for Mac Draft 1, a beta but still extremely polished RSS for everyone’s favorite non-touch OS.
Here’s a great way to fulfill your hunger for new and entertaining ringtones for your iPhone.
RingtoneFeeder is an inexpensive paid subscription service from which you will download short songs, sounds, and other unique audio files that you can use as ringtones. Subscribers will receive two new ringtones weekly on Tuesdays via iTunes on their computer.
The Black Friday weekend means sales and discounts galore, and iOS developers are offering some crazy reductions on the some of the App Store’s best downloads.
We’ve compiled a list of some of the greatest apps on sale, such as Readdle’s Printer Pro & PDF Expert; the Quickoffice Mobile suites, AutoStitch Panorama, and many, many more.
Check out our extensive list of apps on sale after the break, and grab yourself a bargain for your iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch.
The Black Friday weekend means sales and discounts galore, and iOS developers are offering some crazy reductions on the some of the App Store’s best downloads.
We’ve compiled a list of some of the greatest games on sale, such as EA’s NCAA Football, Need for Speed & Madden NFL; and Gameloft’s Shrek Kart HD, Hero of Sparta 2 & Let’s Golf 2 HD.
Check out our extensive list of games on sale after the break, and grab yourself a bargain for your iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch.
Neuhaus Laboratories recognizes that many people’s music collections are on their computers, not racks of CDs.
And so unlike other amplifier manufacturers, Neuhaus’ tube amps are designed first and foremost to be hooked to a computer as their main music source, not a CD player or turntable.
Now Neuhaus has taken the next logical step. It’s the first company to add Bluetooth to an audiophile-quality tube amp. Now you can enjoy super high quality music streaming from an iPhone or iPad.
Trust me, it’s the best thing you’ll ever hear from your iPhone, ever.
At the top of our must-have iOS apps list this week is the official Google Voice application that has finally made it in to the App Store. It’s a free download, and it’s claimed to be faster than the Google Voice HTML5 web app.
Also on our list this week is ComicStrip – an application that allows you to create your own comic book using the photos in your device’s camera roll. It’s a universal app so you can use it on your iPhone and your iPad, and it features a great collection of fun and unique layouts and caption bubbles to help you tell your story.
Other applications this week include AVPlayer – a great new media player that supports multiple file formats, and Notica – a beautiful visual memory companion that lets you add notes, photos and videos to beautiful postcards. Check them out after the break!
Our must-have games list this week is packed with some huge releases that are guaranteed to be a massive hit in the App Store.
At the top of our list is Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, a brand new game from Warner Bros. that lets you experience Harry’s first four years at Hogwarts in a wonderful world made of Lego. Based on the Harry Potter books and movies, you can play as Harry, Ron, and Hermione as you explore Hogwarts and engage in countless hours of enchanting gameplay.
Also among our favorites this week is the graphically impressive first-person rail shooter, Rage HD. This much-anticipated game casts you in the staring role of a post-apocalyptic game show in which you’ll be stalked by hungry mutants as you attempt to survive each level.
UFC Undisputed 2010 is the only mixed martial arts video game that delivers the action, intensity, and prestige of the Ultimate Fighting Championship to your iPhone and iPad. Step in to the virtual Octagon and see if you have what it takes to be the ultimate UFC fighter.
Other games in our must-have list this week include Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Astronut, and Star Battalion HD – check them out after the break!
It’s Education Week on CultofMac.com. How’s Apple doing in schools these days? What are the best education apps? Is iTunes U worthwhile? Join us as we learn more about Apple in Education.
As part of Cult of Mac’s ‘Apple in Education’ week, we’ve trawled through the hundreds of thousands of app in the App Store and compiled a list of the best applications for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, that we think will help you make the most of your device while studying.
The applications we’ve featured will help you to study for your exams, remind you of when your assignments are due, and make it easy for you to create and manage your notes in class. We also have 4 sections dedicated to different subjects, and a few applications designed to help you in these areas, including English, Math, History, and Science.
At the top of our favorite iOS apps list this week is Time Flies – a simple but useful application that helps you keep track of how long it’s been since you last completed a chore or task. It’s now even easier to remember when you last called your parents, bought flowers for your wife, or cleaned the house.
Our second must-have app is a quick and powerful to-do app called SpeedTask. It features a simplistic, easy to use user interface, with free ‘cloud’ syncing that allows you to access your tasks from any device, or sync them with iCal on your Mac.
Also featured this week is the redesigned ReBirth, which is now available on the iPad, emulating the classic Roland TB-303 Bass synth and the Roland TR-808 & 909 drum machines. Making music on your iOS device has never been so powerful!
At the top of our favorite games list this week is the second instalment of Amateur Surgeon – the game that lets you attempt surgery with a pizza cutter. With new patients, new surgeries, and a whole slew of medical ethics violations, this sequel sure packs an entertaining punch.
Gobliiins is another of our must-haves this week. Relive the Gobliiins adventures in this blast from the past that redelivers the original screenplay and soundtrack from the classic puzzler.
Also on our list of must-haves is the fantastic LEGO Creationary and Spider-Man Total Mayhem in HD. Check them out after the break!
Don’t you hate it when you’re watching some streamed video in your web browser, and just when it’s getting interesting your screen dims, or the screensaver activates?
It happens because your computer doesn’t consider video playing in the browser to be “activity”. It doesn’t care what the browser is showing; if it thinks you’ve wandered off to make some coffee, it will do what you’ve told it to do in the Energy Saver preferences. Hence those mid-stream dimming moments.
Caffeine is a tiny utility that solves this problem in a single click. It sits in your Menu Bar, doing nothing until you need it. When you start watching some video and you want the screen to stay alive, you just click the Caffeine icon. Now your screen will stay bright no matter what, until you click Caffeine again to put things back to normal.
The aptly-named Caffeine gives your computer a temporary boost, keeping it alert enough so you can watch your video uninterrupted. It’s free, it’s great, and you should go get it now.
(You’re reading the 21st post in our series, 50 Essential Mac Applications: a list of the great Mac apps the team at Cult of Mac value most. Read more.)
You might not remember his name, but when you see his pictures, you’ll probably recognise the work of Eadweard Muybridge.
I have an embarrassing confession to make: I wear out headphones the way most people wear out socks. Whether from Shure, Ultimate Ears, Sony, Koss, or 99-cent Chinatown bootleg, one of the ears won’t be playing sound within the first three months I own them. Fraying cables, rusty headphone jacks from rain, shorted audio drivers from running-induced ear sweat (?!), and many more have kept me from my music collection. I can’t help it; I wear my headphones everywhere. Consequently, I’m increasingly interested in durability as a key design consideration beyond just audio quality and a comfortable fit.
And I might have finally found the ideal iPhone headset for the active, occasionally irresponsible urbanite: V-Moda’s Vibrato headphones.
TextWrangler is a well-named application. It’s there to do a particular job, and that job is wrangling text.
So you’ve got your iPhone 4 and you know it has not one, but two cameras inside it.
“How I wish it could take pictures with both of them at once,” you cry.
Well, your plea is answered in the form of 2Side Cam, a $1 app for iPhone 4. In “2Side” mode, it takes two photos – first one with the outward-facing camera on the back of the phone, then a second later another with the user-facing camera.
We know you like to shop. We know you like gear. And we know there’s a honking big holiday season coming up.
Over the past year or so, we’ve run across some drool-worthy gear we think would make perfect gifts for the holidays. And, in the spirit of holiday sharing, we whipped up this handy guide you can print out, laminate and take with you while out foraging. (Come to think of it, laminating can be expensive. Maybe just put it in a binder.)
The name might not be giving too much away, but Coconut Battery should be installed on everyone’s notebook Mac. If it were called “Free Battery Health App”, it would do exactly what it said on the tin.
It shows you, with numbers and helpful colored charts, exactly what condition your notebook battery is in. It shows in an instant the current charge, and how much more you can charge it if you try; and more usefully, it shows the original capacity of your battery, and its capacity right now.
If you click the little disclosure triangle at the top right, you can save the current data for future reference. Keep saving snapshots at regular intervals, and you’ll be able to see at a glance how your battery is slowly degrading. Because that’s what happens, folks: over time, everso slowly and gradually, the battery in your Air or your Pro or your plain old MacBook is going to decline. As time goes on, its capacity to hold charge will decrease until the time comes to replace it. This is inevitable, I’m afraid, just like the death of your hard disk. It’s one of those things you need to plan for; and Coconut Battery is one of those apps that helps with that.
(You’re reading the 19th post in our series, 50 Essential Mac Applications: a list of the great Mac apps the team at Cult of Mac value most. Read more.)
After the success of its stunning, minimalist laptop stands, U.K.-based Pendle Products has turned its talents to the iPad, and has produced a stand that boasts a functional, stylish design, that helps you to make the most of your tablet device.
Whether you’re watching a film, typing up a document, or you’d just like to show off your holiday snaps on your coffee table, the iPad stand from Pendle will let you do it all.
TextExpander turns short text snippets into longer ones, saving you a great deal of time if you spend a lot of time in front of a keyboard.
You define your own snippets, and the shortcuts you’ll use to trigger them. Every time you type the trigger, the snippet takes its place instantly.
Skyfire Web Browser is a full-featured web browser and the first application for iOS that converts Adobe Flash videos in to HTML5, allowing you to play them on your iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s been incredibly popular in its first week and has rocketed to the top of the paid chart in the App Store. It’s also one of our favorite apps for iOS this week.
Also on our list of must-haves is iDJ – an application from Numark that makes it simple to create seamless, synchronized playlists using you iTunes music library on your iPad. iDJ’s patented technology allows you to assemble customized soundtracks to accompany and enhance every occasion.
AppSwitch is another great app that deserves a place in our favorites this week. It has been described as “the missing app that should have been in the box,” and allows you to monitor all apps and processes running on your iOS device so you’ll always know what’s running in the background.
Check out our full list of iOS must-haves after the break!
One of the App Store’s must-have games this week is Floop – a highly entertaining physics-based puzzler in which you shoot acorns in to the mouth of a squirrel. It sounds easy, but you’ll need to practice your skill and accuracy to complete each level.
NBA Elite 11 by EA Sports is also a Cult of Mac favorite this week, and it’s also the only true 5-on-5 NBA game for iOS. Delivering authentic basketball action with graphics made to maximize your device’s Retina display, and EA’s trademark impressive gameplay.
Revolt is a dual-stick 3D shooter that boasts advanced, fast-paced gameplay, sharp 3D graphics, and killer music & sound effects – also on our list and guaranteed to blow the socks off any shoot ’em up fan!
Magic Launch is an OS X application that attempts to solve the creator codes problem that was introduced with Snow Leopard (see our original coverage here.
The issue didn’t affect everyone, only people who work with certain files in a variety of different applications.