Apple

With iBooks on your iPhone or iPad (or iPad mini, my favorite reading device), you can download electronic books from the convenient privacy of your very own iOS device. You never need to enter a bookstore again (sorry, Barnes & Noble!), making purchases of guilty pleasures and important intellectual tomes equally simple. A real bookstore, though, lets you browse through the books before you buy them. Heck, you can pick one off the shelf, riffle through the pages, and even (gasp!) read some of it without paying for the book. iBooks has a way to allow you to see inside a book before purchasing it, as well, and I can’t believe I keep forgetting that the feature is there. If you’re like me, and constantly forget about sample iBooks, here’s your reminder. When you’re looking at your iBooks Library shelves, tap on the Store button in the upper left corner of the screen (on the iPad–the iPhone Store button is in the upper right hand corner, go figure). This will take you to the wonderful world of the iBooks store, which is like iTunes or the App Store for books. Now, via a combination of searching and/or browsing, find a book you want to read a bit of before you commit to the purchase. Tap on the cover of the book there in the iBooks store, and it will pop up a detail page. Right next to the button with the price on it? That’s where you’ll find the Sample button in all its ALL-CAPS glory: SAMPLE. Tap that button and a lovely little sample will download to your iPhone or iPad, ready for you to look through. It will even have a cute little red Sample sash diagonally across the right top corner of the book cover on your iBooks shelf, so you can be sure not to mistake it for a full length book. Whew. Tap the cover to read the sample iBook as you would any other title in your collection. You’ll get a nice bit of the whole thing: the sample I downloaded of Iain M. Banks’ science fiction novel, Matter, came through with a full 76 pages. Via: iMore The post Frugal Readers Can Access Free Sample iBooks On The iPhone And iPad [iOS Tips] appeared first on Cult of Mac.Related StoriesSlide On The Dotted Line To Riffle Your Way Through An iBook [iOS Tips]Verizon Cloud Backup App Comes To iOSMake Your Mac Send Sound Output To Your Giant HDTV [OS X Tips]Judge In Apple E-Book Antitrust Case Thinks Apple Is Guilty, Even Before Trial StartsHow You’ll Use The iWatch With iOS Or Google Maps [Image]

Weather woes continue at Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City, as rain is once again seeping into the retail location, and now Apple's SoHo location is said to have been suffering from the same problem.

When your Mac starts acting unreliably your first line of defense is Apple's Disk Utility, but that solves a small number of problems, such as permissions and disk verification and repair. A good second line of defense is Drive Genius 3 for Mac from Prosoft Engineering. Drive Genius offers repair and maintenance utilities you can use to make sure your hard drive runs at maximum efficiency. This US$99 suite of programs includes the following modules: Information, Defrag, DriveSlim, Repair, Scan, DrivePulse, Integrity Check, Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred, Benchtest, and Sector Edit. When you launch Drive Genius you can choose any one of the available utilities from a set of icons displayed across two screens. Each module presents an option to choose a drive, volume or files and folders on the right, depending on the utility's purpose. Options available for each utility appear in the main window with simple instructions. A question mark icon on the bottom right opens the help file. The simple Preferences offer three options. You can choose to show the custom animation of data moving around a disk as a tool works, check for updates, and turn on email notification when a tool finishes its task. This last preference is a subtle reminder that many of the functions take a significant amount of time to run. The Modules The Information module provides a complete description of your hard drive, probably more information than you want. The balance of the modules are best run after you backup your data, in case of unexpected problems. Scan, Integrity Check, and Benchtest run read and write tests on your hard drive. They check for bad blocks, the health of your hardware, and in Benchtest, test the drives read and write speeds. As these tests sort of hammer on your drive, any electrical interruption or serious drive problem can result in data loss. That's one good reason to make sure you have a good backup or copy of your drive on hand. The Duplicate module can create a backup for you, but as with many of these tools, it will not copy your current start-up drive unless you start from a different drive. Duplicate creates a bit-by-bit copy of your drive, so you must use a blank drive of equal or greater size to use it. Personally, I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to backup my drives, but including a backup module in Drive Genius just makes sense. It's actually best to use the Drive Genius startup disk from which to run most of the tools. These tests chew through quite a bit of time, so make sure you run the programs when you don't need the machine for a number of hours. The problem I often solve using Drive Genius 3 is a slow drive and one that mysteriously is eating up space at a surprising rate. That's where DriveSlim and Defrag come in handy. DriveSlim is useful to search for large files, duplicate files over 1 MB, Unused Localizations (language files you don't need), Universal Binaries, and Cache and Temporary files you no longer need. I'm not quite sure I understand how it works though. I wasn't happy with the way DriveSlim displays the information, I found that it showed duplicates that were not, but only with files over 320 MB. On one drive, using Mac OS X 10.6.8, it listed both duplicate files and on another, in OS X 10.8, it listed only one file and I had to search for the duplicate in the Finder to see where it was stored. I then manually removed the file stored in the wrong folder. I'm sure that's not the way the tool was designed to work, but I was not confident to just check a box next to the DriveSlim found file and have it decide which file to keep, where to alias that file, or where to back up the file. You can choose which of the files to locate, but if you choose to act on only one type of file, you must run DriveSlim again to work on another type of file. Time consuming to say the least. Even though most people claim you don't need to defragment a Mac-based hard drive, the OS actually onl

Backblaze, the online backup company that has made TUAW headlines with its innovative open-source 180 TB Storage Pods and drop-dead simple Mac backups, today announced a way to get mobile access to your backed-up data. Backblaze Mobile for iPhone (free) works for any current or future Backblaze customers running an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 5.1 or later. After logging into a Backblaze account with user credentials, users are presented with stats for each computer backed up on the service including the number and size of files stored and when the last backup was performed. There's a browser for going through backups to look for specific files, and any file can be downloaded to the iOS device to be used or shared with others. The Backblaze service is priced from as low as US$3.96 per month when pre-purchased for a year or more, or can be subscribed to on a monthly billing basis.Backblaze Mobile for iPhone provides on-the-go access to file backups originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Gmail for Android may be seeing a redesign in the near future, after a slide from a Google I/O showed a new navigation drawer. The revised and larger drawer, spotted by Android Police, is anchored to the left hand side and pulls in instead of dropping down from the top, and the action bar at the bottom of the screen is removed and replaced by buttons that perform the same tasks elsewhere in the interface....

Hip industrial table with screws not included. AL13 iPhone Bumper Case – designed by m Category: Cases Works With: iPhone 5 Price: $79.99 What It Is The AL13 Ultrathing bumper case for the iPhone 5 is a precision-cut aluminum bumper case that shows off the beautiful design of your iPhone 5 while providing some additional protection along the way. The bumper case comes in a gorgeous metal box, cushioned in with black foam, with a design aesthetic that matches the AL13 itself. The case is in two slim pieces; the iPhone 5 slides into the back of the cushioned sides of the larger bit of metal, which has smaller cut outs for the sleep/wake, volume, and mute buttons, and a larger cut out area on the bottom that lets the iPhone speakers, headphone jack, and Lightning port breathe. The second, slimmer piece slides into a small groove along the back of the case for a tight fit. The finish on both pieces of the review unit is a dark matte grey, evoking an extension of the iPhone 5 itself rather than an extra add on. The Good The AL 13 enhances the elegant iPhone 5 design rather than detracting from it. The entrepreneurs who make the AL13 wanted to create a premium bumper case for the iPhone that was both simple and elegant. They’ve completely succeeded here with the AL13, which adds a layer of protection to the front and back of the iPhone, keeping it from touching any flat surface it is set on, as well as from any drops to the ground. The case allows the beauty of the iPhone 5′s industrial design to shine through, adding only a bare minimum of thickness. It continues to fit into my pocket and the holder I have for my iPhone on my car’s dashboard, something bulkier cases do not. Perfectly fitted engineering. The slide-on back piece is a perfect fit, and slides behind the iPhone to provide a snug but not too-tight fit. There are no screws or clamps or snaps to worry about, and nothing scratches the iPhone, an initial concern when seeing the design. The soft cushioning material inside the front piece nestle the iPhone in safely with no metal-on-metal rubbing, a detail of some importance. The overall look of the AL13 enhances the iPhone 5 without detracting from it; I’ve had several questions about whether I’m toting around a new iPhone prototype, that’s how well the bumper case matches the design. There is a small logo on either side of the bumper case, one that says AL13, the other the design by m logo: a lower-case m within a circle. The Bad The bottom of the AL13 can be a bit on the sharp side, and boy does it vibrate. Honestly, the only two issues I have with the AL13 are minor. The material of the bumper case is metal, which tends to transmit vibrations from the iPhone a bit more than other rubber or plastic cases I’ve used in the past. That’s not a bad thing when it’s in a pocket, but set that baby down on a glass or metal table and you’re going to hear it. Such a pretty case for your case. In addition, the bottom edge of the back slide-in piece is a bit sharper than the rest of the bumper case, which can lead to a bit of a sore pinky when holding the device in a portrait orientation, at least the way I do it. I tend to brace the bottom of the iPhone 5 on the inside of my smallest finger on my right hand when checking email first thing in the morning or late at night before sleep claims me. It can get a bit uncomfortable after prolonged use in this manner. The Verdict Ultimately, unless you own nothing but glass tables, the AL13 is a delightfully simple, minimalist, elegant design for an iPhone 5 case, and provides just enough protection while allowing the gorgeous design of the iPhone itself to shine forth. While $80 might be a bit on the steep side for many of us, for those to whom design matters, it’s a small price to pay for such a well-crafted and delightfully Apple-like iPhone case. Recommended. Product Name: : AL13 Ultrathing Bumper CaseThe Good: Beau

Moshi has announced that it will be releasing a second generation of its Codex MacBook cases later this summer. Designed in variants for the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro, the updated Codex case features a new binding for added durability and is now fully approved by the TSA. Other features include full access to all ports, a water-resistant coating, and soft interiors for protection from shocks and scratches. Codex will be available in both Steel Black and Brushed Titanium for the 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro for $75. It will be available in Steel Black for the 11-i...

  When rumors of the iWatch first surfaced, most insiders pegged its launch date for somewhere around the end of 2013 and everyone got super excited that our wrists are going to get blinged out by Apple really soon. However, lately we’ve been hearing that that might not be the case, and we won’t be able to slap Apple’s magical wrist watch on until 2014. The unreleased iWatch isn’t the only timepiece Apple’s ever made though, so if you’re really desperate to get a watch made by Apple you totally can, but it might cost you more than your iPhone. Here are 11 of the coolest retro Apple iWatches you can buy right now. We’ll start with the cheap stuff and work our way down: The Trash Bin iWatch   $68.99 The Mac OS iWatch   $99.95   The Weird Mouse iWatch (for kids) $109.99   The Apple Bomberman iWatch $159.99   The European Stainless Steel iWatch $299.99 The www.apple.com iWatch $399.99   The Newton iWatch $399.99     The iMac iYum iWatch $399.99   The Apple IIGS iWatch $399.99     The Classy Apple Computer iWatch (for ladies) $399.99   The Holy-Shit-You’ve-Been-An-Apple-Employee-For-Five-Years iWatch $799.99   The post Forget The iWatch, Here Are 11 Apple Watches You Can Buy Right Now [Gallery] appeared first on Cult of Mac.Related StoriesApple Will Double Its Lobbying Efforts This Year To Simplify U.S. Tax CodeApple Stops 24-Hour Dispatch For Some International Online StoresApple Store Drops Prices On Refurbished iPad Minis And iPad 4Did WWDC Really Sell Out In 2 Minutes, Or Is Apple Covering Up?AT&T Adds iPhone, 4G LTE And Visual Voicemail Support To GoPhone

Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple could face a difficult time winning its court case against the U.S. Department of Justice over e-book pricing, according to the federal judge overseeing the trial. 'I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books,' U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said during a May 23 pretrial hearing, according to Reuters, 'and that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that.' Apple's legal counsel is a bit perturbed over her comments. 'We strongly disagree with the court's preliminary statements about the case today,' Apple lawyer Orin Snyder wrote in a statement also reprinted by Reuters. The Justice Department has asserted that Apple, along with those publishers, conspired to raise retail e-book prices in tandem 'and eliminate price competition, substantially increasing prices paid by consumers.' Apple battles Amazon in the e-book space, with the latter company achieving great success over the past few years by driving down the price of e-books and Kindle e-readers; while Apple co-founder insisted in emails to News Corp executive James Murdoch (son of Rupert Murdoch), that Amazon's pricing was ultimately unsustainable, the online retailer shows no signs of flagging with regard to its publishing-industry clout." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AT&T's prepay GoPhone service is to include an iPhone purchase option as of today. The service will also gain the addition of 4G LTE and HSPA+ support, according to MacRumors. GoPhone lets users sign up for AT&T service without joining a contract. Previously, iPhone owners could sign up for the service but they would have no access to cellular data. With the update expected to roll out today, iPhone owners will be able to access all of AT&T's services on a GoPhone contract, including 4G LTE and Visual Voicemail. MacRumors says that iPhone owners will have three options for GoPhone service. The highest priced one is a US$65 plan that offers unlimited texts and calls and one gigabyte of data. AT&T is also offering $50 and $25 plans that include text and calls, but users will have to add additional data plans on top. When choosing a GoPhone plan, users can bring in their existing unlocked iPhone or they can buy an unlocked iPhone from AT&T in the store. MacRumors says that current existing GoPhone plan owners will be automatically updated with cellular data support for their iPhone on June 21, but the site says that those that want to see cellular data support before then may be able to have their plan manually upgraded first.AT&T's GoPhone prepaid brand to fully support iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 24 May 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments