Leander Kahney's Blog, page 1441

Fun Game: Remember Your Greatest Fears as a Child? They're About to Come True!

Every week Mac Games and More features a fun, casual game you can play over the weekend. This week's selection features your worst fears as a child…coming true – and I'm not talking about having to wear that ugly holiday sweater from your aunt. Merry Christmas, everyone! Download it now

Haunted Halls: Fears from Childhood (hidden objects/adventure) – The evil Dr. Blackmore has invented the most horrific atrocity ever introduced to mankind and it's sending shivers down all kids' and adults' spines. The invention transforms the world into a place where children's worst fears become a reality. Remember the fears you used to have as a kid? Yes, imagine. Your very worst nightmares coming true. Frightening. Dive into this gripping hidden objects adventure game for Mac, help the innocent victims and send them back to their normal world.

Download it now Similar Posts:5 Fun Games: A Bride MIA, Maroon 1, Kid Explorers and More Fun Game: Foggy Ghost Stories Fun Game: Curse of the Pharaoh: Napoleon's Secret Fun Game: Digging in the Dirt for Kidnapped Kids Fun Game: A Prematurely Pre-empted Reality Show

Apple More Popular Than Wal-Mart On The Web [Report]

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comScore is reporting that Apple was ranked as the 13th most-trafficked web source during the month of November, attracting more hits than companies like Wal-Mart, eBay, VEVO, and ESPN. Apple saw 79 million unique US visits while Wal-Mart saw almost 59 million.

Apple sat right under New York Times Digital in its web rankings for November.

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The iTunes Store was reported as accounting for 30% of Apple's traffic, thereby putting the data into perspective. Wal-Mart is considered the largest physical retailer in the United States, and Apple's web traffic is substantially greater.

Overall digital sales have doubled since last year, with comScore noting that the week between Christmas and New Year accounts for the most digital downloads all year. Christmas Day is the biggest day of the year for digital downloads (dubbed 'Download Day').

Stay tuned to Cult of Mac for plenty of how-to's and recommendations for Apple gear over the holidays.

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Here Are The Top Apple Products Of 2011, Now Choose The Best [Best Of 2011]

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2011 has been Apple's most incredible year left. Heck, they've released more revolutionary products in this year alone than most companies manage in a generation. So we knew it would be difficult when we asked you to help us choose Apple's best products of 2011. Now the results are in, and we've whittled the list down to just the finalists. Check out the finalists below, then help us choose just one of them that we'll declare to be the best Apple product of 2011 in next week's Cult of Mac Best Of 2011 awards.

iPad 2

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The iPad 2 wasn't a radical departure from Apple's first-gen tablet, but it perfected almost everything about it. The iPad 2 was thinner, faster, had more battery life, came in both black and white, supported Verizon's 3G network, and boasted some truly ingenious magnet technology that made using a case with your iPad literally as easy as pulling back a Japanese bath lid. The iPad may have created the modern tablet market, but the iPad 2 is the device that popularized it.

Siri

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The headlining feature of the iPhone 4S, Siri is the eerily powerful amalgam of best-of-field voice recognition technology, the revolutionary Wolfram Alpha search engine and a natural language interpretive AI. As Apple describes Siri, "Ask Siri to do things just by talking the way you talk. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back." Siri's not all the way there yet, being officially labeled a Beta, but the writing's on the wall: Siri is the future of how we interact with our devices.

MacBook Air

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Apple technically released the new MacBook Airs in late 2010, but 2011 was the year they really caught on. If the iPad was the knockout punch for netbooks, the MacBook Air was the kick in the side when the netbook was groaning on the ground. With the Air, Apple proved that it was possible to deliver and portable form factor in a laptop with a sub-$1000 price without compromising on speed and battery life. Not only is the MacBook Air Apple's best-selling model of Mac for 2011, it represents the future of Macintosh laptops: slim devices with great power management, solid state storageand no optical media. Expect the MacBook Pro to become a lot more Air-like in 2012.

iOS 5

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iOS 5 was Apple's most ambitious software update since the original Macintosh OS. With iOS 5, Apple was out to prove to everyone that the umbilical between iOS and a PC could be cut, bringing us into a post-PC world. With iOS 5, Apple stores all of your data — your mail, your calendar, your address book, your photos, your music, your ebooks, even your Doodle Jump save games — in the iCloud. iTunes Match hurls your complete music collection onto Apple's servers, available to download anywhere and anytime without pulling out your Apple Connector cable. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi Syncing makes sure that if your iPhone or iPad does need to talk to your PC, it can do so just by being plugged into a wall socket and within stone's throw of your PC. And that's without mentioning Twitter integration, Newsstand, over-the-air updates, Notification Center, iMessage and more.

OS X Lion

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Unbelievably, we somehow left this off our initial poll, but it needs to go in: OS X Lion was indisputably one of the most important products to come out of Apple in 2011. As we wrote in our review, "OS X Lion is not only the best version of OS X yet, but the first great PC operating system for the post-PC age. Not only does it fix a lot of long time niggles with OS X, not only does it leave behind even more of OS X's legacy cruft than Snow Leopard did, but it anticipates an entirely different kind of Mac in the future… one that is as much a Mac as it is an iPhone or iPad."

iPhone 4S

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For a lot of people, the iPhone 4S was a disappointment, for a number of reasons: from an uncharacteristically long sixteen month wait since the last iPhone, to rampant rumors saying that the next iPhone would be radically redesigned with a larger 4-inch display. Instead, what they seemingly got was an iPhone 4 with a spec bump. You have to look beyond the on-sheet specs, though, to see how really good the iPhone 4S: not only does it have an incredible 8MP camera that is better than the vast majority of point-and-shoots, but it's a world phone, capable of running on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. And, of course, the iPhone 4S is the only phone that runs Siri. At the end of the day, all you need to know about the iPhone 4S's quality is that, after sixteen months, Apple was able to release the most advanced and best-selling smartphone on earth just by updating the specs of the previous model and giving it a new software feature. That's just how ahead of the competition Apple is.

What About You?

Okay, you have our finalists. What is your favorite Apple product of the year? Vote in the poll below so we can name the best Apple product of 2011 next week as part of our Cult of Mac Best of 2011 round-up.

Best Apple Product Of 2011

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The Batman-Inspired Kevlar Gauntlet Is Both An iPhone Dock And Wearable Body Armor

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Oh man, it's too bad it's too late to add this to my Christmas list. The Armstar is a gauntlet ripped straight from the forearm of Batman himself, featuring a working stun device, camera, flash light and iPhone / iPod dock, all in one piece of Kevlar arm armor. And Kevin Costner helped build it!

If only we'd found out about this a couple months back, I know what would have won our best of 2011 accessories award!

[via Obama Pacman]

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Boy Hacker Uses Apple Store's Own Secret WiFi Network To Show Stormtroopers Humping On Every Apple TV [Video]

Henry D. is an awesome boy hacker out of the UK, and this video of him "pwning" a local Apple Store is just too cute and funny for words.

Using the secret gesture used to reset the Smart Sign iPads at the local Apple Store, Henry was able to use Apple's own secret, hidden WiFi network to push AirPlay streaming video on all the Apple TVs around the London White City Apple Store.

Being a pre-teenage boy, Henry chose to demo his exploit using an Internet meme video of a Stormtrooper humping. He's posted full instructions on how to perform the exploit at your local Apple Store over on his official blog, which includes Apple's "secret" iPad unlocking gesture: a long tap at the top left of the screen.

Thanks for sharing your exploit with us, Henry! You're a weird kid, it's true, but this was the best video we watched all morning.

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Is This What Apple's 7.85-Inch iPad Mini Would Look Like?

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In a collaboration with Macrumors, CiccareseDesign has produced a papercraft mockup of what the rumored 7.85-inch iPad Mini would look like… and you can even print it out and hold it in your hands yourself.

So will Apple really release an iPad mini? I seriously doubt it. There's a perception that Apple needs to release a 7-inch tablet to compete with the Kindle Fire, but it's not the 7-inches that makes the Kindle Fire popular. In fact, the 7-inch form factor is widely reviled by users and reviewers alike, proving the wisdom of Steve Jobs, who once said that 7-inch tablets were "tweeners" and Apple wouldn't release one. All Apple really needs to do is come close to the Kindle Fire in price, and all Apple needs to do there is either figure out a way to subsidize the current iPad, or sell last year's model at a much lower price, similar to how Apple offers the iPhone 3GS for free. Heck, even the analysts agree.

What do you think? Does Apple really need to release a 7.85-inch iPad mini?

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Android At CES: What We Can Expect And What We'd Like To See

With CES only a few weeks away, we're preparing ourselves for what is surely going to be an Android extravaganza. With Android activations surpassing 700,000 devices per day, it would be unwise for any company to ignore its strong market presence. This leads us to believe CES 2012 will be chock full of Android goodness. We're going to dive into a few products and announcements we expect to see this year, along with a few things we're keeping our fingers crossed about.

Ice Cream Sandwich

With Ice Cream Sandwich fully unwrapped and ready to go, we fully expect a plethora of devices to be showing off Google's latest and greatest mobile OS. You can fully expect to see plenty of tablets, smartphones, and possibly even TVs to be running the tasty Android 4.0.

Quad Cores

CES 2012 will be the year of the quad-core. NVIDIA made a huge splash this year with its Tegra 3 (Kal-El) quad-core chipset, and was first to make it to market inside of the ASUS Transformer Prime, but don't expect the other chipset manufactures to take a back seat. Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and even Intel have big plans for getting their chips into future Android devices. The problem will come in the form of "buzz words." It's certainly going to be hard for manufacturers like TI to convince others to adopt their multi-core processors with Tegra touting a much better sounding "quad-core" Kal-El (even if they offer similar benefits). I have to admit, I'm also guilty of getting excited over the word "quad-core." Expect quad-core to shine, specifically NVIDIA's Tegra 3.

- Quad-Core Tablets
- Quad-Core Smartphones

Smart HDTVs

The way of the dumbTV has passed and it's time for the future. Almost every TV manufacturer has plans to integrate some form of "smart" into their TVs, and at the forefront of the movement is Android. A next "big" selling point for TVs will be whether or not they can connect to the internet, access apps, and whether or not they are fully integrated with mobile devices. Now I'm not talking about set top boxes (such as Google TV) but full fledged, Android integrated, Smart HDTVs. Expect to see almost every major TV manufacturer showing off a new Smart HDTV, and expect it to be running some form of Android.

In-car Infotainment and Smartphone Integration

Here's something we're hoping to see as there will be a couple of keynotes by top auto makers regarding the future of in-vehicle infotainment systems. This year there are over 480 "automotive electronic" exhibitors with in-vehicle technology exhibits at CES spanning more than 95,000 square feet of floor space. We're hoping to see more Android involved and it's certainly a possibility with Dr. Dieter Zetsche of Mercedez Benz expected to show off integration with Google's Street View in its new vehicles. A vehicles dashboard has come a long way since the days of am/fm radios and with voice-activated telephony, GPS, information and entertainment technologies, the "smart" car is the wave of the future.

Of course we are barely scratching the surface of this gigantic exhibition and there is plenty more in store for Android at CES 2012. What Android related products would you most like to see at CES 2012?

CES 2012

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Replace The Glossy Text Bubbles In iChat With Something Less Aqua-ey

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I've never particularly cared for iChat. It's less full-featured than free alternatives like Adium, and since it can't easily be skinned, if you hate all the bubbles and aqua in the UI, there's not a lot you can do about it. Luckily, over at OS X Daily, they've put together a fantastic and simple way to replace the iChat Aqua Text Bubbles with a flatter, less idiosyncratic matte version. Check it out: this is really the way iChat should look by default.

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Get A $50 iTunes Gift Card For Just $40 In Time For Christmas [Last Minute Deals]

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Still don't have a Christmas present for a loved one? Cash running low, so you need a good deal? You're not going to beat this: Walmart is offering a $50 iTunes gift card for just $40, essentially giving you an extra $10 in downloads for free. Not only can the card be used on apps, music, ebooks, movies or even television shows, but the code is delivered to you digitally, meaning that you don't have to wait for the post-office to deliver it to you: it'll be available instantly. Slap that code into a Christmas card and you're done!

[via 9to5Mac]

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Steve Jobs Was A "Flakey Joker" According To Early Silicon Valley Investor [Letters of Note]

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These days, Steve Jobs's business acumen is legendary, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, when Steve first went on a fund-raising expedition to get money for the original Apple I in natal Silicon Valley, he was described as a secretive "joker" who couldn't trust anyone and had a "flakey" partnership with Steve Wozniak.

The letter was written by Mike Rose, who back in 1976 ran an advertising agency in Los Altos. Bloomberg notes:

The note is wonderful in part because it reveals how much Silicon Valley has changed in 35 years. In 1976, two guys trying to launch a tech company from a garage in the heart of Silicon Valley were flakes. Today, someone in Rose's position might well ask for a piece of the action — payment in the form of a small bit of stock, perhaps?

The note also shows us that in some ways, the 21-year-old Jobs was not too different from the man he later became. Jobs may have struck Rose as a "joker," but the young entrepreneur is concerned about secrecy ("Wouldn't trust me," Rose writes) and drives a hard bargain ("wants it for nothing").

[via MacTrast]

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