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Some fun with iOS keyboard shortcuts
It's easy to have some fun with novice iPhone users who are not aware of the keyboard shortcut feature of iOS. This nifty feature allows you assign a text phrase such as "On my way home" to a set of characters like "omw." Every time you type "omw", iOS will automatically fill in "On my way home." Hilarity can ensue when you choose a common phrase and replace it another word like this prankster daughter did to her unsuspecting Mom. [Via Imgur]
An act of pure treason
This Mac is forever tainted, and should be quarantined until it can be properly disposed of. Preferably with napalm and a lot of swearing. [Photo credit: Djenan]
Live improv saves the day when Witcher 3 SDCC panel goes awry
Pop quiz, hotshot. You're at the San Diego Comic-Con panel for The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. A demo showing live gameplay has started, but none of the characters' voices are working. You've got a packed room full of fans who want to see the game in presentable condition, and not enough time to start over and try again. What do you do? What do you do? Well, if you're Doug Cockle, voice actor behind Witcher series hero Geralt of Rivia, you start performing your lines live. Despite the potentially embarrassing circumstances, Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt RED has taken its technologically-challenged SDCC panel and made it available for viewing in a video showing Cockle's live improv outtakes. If you've ever wanted to hear Geralt call a big, burly bald man "cute," well ... now's your chance. [Image: CD Projekt RED]
Prankster fools passers-by with fake iPhone 6
Jonathan Morrison from TLD took to the streets with an iPhone 6 clone in order to prank people into believing it was the real deal. Unlike UrAvgConsumer who was upfront his iPhone was fake, Morrison really convinces people he has Apple's next generation iPhone. You can watch his humorous ruse in the video clip below.
Steve Jobs is a Japanese manga star
The life of Apple guru Steve Jobs is already a book and a Hollywood movie, so why not adapt it into a Japanese comic as well? That appears to be just what has happened. It's noted that the book is "based on" the official Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, though just how close it stays to the source material is anyone's guess. [Photo credit: Daniel Rehn]
Former Apple employee Sam Sung auctioning off his business card for charity
Update: With four days to go, Sam's little charity auction is doing pretty well... the top bid is currently a hair above US$80,000. High-end luxury automobile vs. framed t-shirt and business card, you choose! If you've ever happened upon a list of the most interesting business cards, you've undoubtedly stumbled across the business card of an Apple employee named, of all things, Sam Sung. For a little while, Sung worked as an Apple retail store specialist in Vancouver before leaving for a recruiting agency last year. Now comes word via Pocket-Lint that Sung found one of his last remaining "Sam Sung" business cards and is auctioning it off on eBay in an effort to raise money for charity. The eBay listing reads in part: I came across one of my old business cards the other day when it fell out of a book. So, with a view to raising money for a very deserving charity, I'm auctioning the only "Apple Sam Sung" business card I have left and I'm going to donate ALL of the proceeds [minus eBay fees] to Children's Wish, BC & Yukon - a not-for-profit that grants wishes to sick children. ... I had a great time working for Apple and would recommend it to anyone. I hope my old business card will go to another fellow Apple enthusiast with a sense of humour and the desire to help raise some money for a good cause. Although the auction is for my business card alone, I have framed it alongside my old uniform [as seen in the picture] and I will arrange to courier it [frame, t-shirt and lanyard INCLUDED] to you. Good luck. The auction ends in 9 days and the winning bid at the moment stands at $1,000, a marked increase from an initial bid of just $0.99. Here's what the card looks like up close. And lastly, you might recall that Sung even received a subtle shoutout in Samsung's well-done Super Bowl commercial starring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan a few years back.
iShadow?
It's been a while since Apple sued someone for copying its iOS design copyrights, but it looks like department store makeup could be the next target. iShadow, anyone?
The Status of Apple's Ecosystem from 'Facepalm' to 'Getting There'
An amusing look at Apple's ecosystem inspired by Apple's System Status page. Image originally created by The Joy of Tech.
Perfect Ten: Why MMOs need to give up their dragon addiction
If a genie ever appeared to grant me three wishes, I would not hesitate. I would not be selfish by asking for more wishes or focus on my own well-being. No, I would think of you all when I said, "Mr. Genie, I want you to eliminate all Elves from MMOs, preferably via boiling acid. I want you to make all online giant spiders obey the cube law. And I want all developers to be stricken with a specific form of amnesia that will make them forget, now and forever, that dragons are a thing." You're welcome in advance, online gamers. Yes, I will gladly take up the mantle of your king and protector. Dragons are not cool. Dragons have never been cool. And yet, for some reason unknown to me, MMO developers lose their collective minds over the fire-breathing lizards. They're not just a trope that infests MMOs to the detriment of original storytelling and world building; they're cheesy villainous centerpieces that devs prop up while deluding themselves that the other couple of thousand MMOs aren't doing the same thing. MMOs need to give up their dragon addiction, and I am not short on reasons why. I am also so dead serious that dragons need to go that I'm contemplating getting a chest tattoo of one just so that I can laser removal it right off the next day.
Breakfast Topic: No two birds are not on fire
The above screenshot stands, to me, as the funniest one I have ever taken. Eagle-eyed readers might recognize the location as the flight tower in Nethergarde Keep, with some colorful flames added to make the Blasted Lands extra unappealing. Without spoiling things too much, the flaming flight tower is part of a series of introductory quests in Warlords of Draenor. Apparently those poor gryphons still haven't got the memo that they are literally on fire. They're just hanging out in their straw beds, cool as cucumbers, while they presumably burn to death in the onslaught. What's the use in having the power of flight if you won't even use it to not be on fire? I have seen many odd and interesting things in my time in the World of Warcraft, but I think that this one right here takes the cake--so far at least. I mean, who knows what Warlords of Draenor has in store? What are your best, most bizarre moments in WoW, and what would it take to top them?
How to assemble an iPad the Conan O'Brien way
Conan O'Brien's Team Coco DIY series recruits comedic actor Matt Walsh to show you how to assemble your own iPad using only household items. One word of caution -- don't try this at home. Save it for the garage.
"Apple Clickbait Generator" is amazing
The iPhone 5c is a bust. Tim Cook doesn't know what he's doing. Apple can't innovate. The iPhone 6 is delayed. The sky is falling, Apple is doomed... dooooomed! Despite Apple's long and arguably unparalleled track record of releasing innovative and successful products, not to mention its penchant for generating billions in revenue each and every single quarter, many pundits would still have you believe that Apple's demise is just a matter of time. As Horace Dediu astutely stated last year, "no activity by Apple has been seen as sufficient for its survival." And so, even in 2014, there are no shortage of vapid, shortsighted, and laughably uninformed articles detailing Apple's impending demise. But why send pageviews to the undeserving when you can create your own "Apple is doooomed!" article with just the click of a button. Introducing the Apple Clickbait Generator. Created by Kirk Lennon and Owen Evans, this lovely tool creates a new clickbait Apple article with each refresh. The results are delightful. Here's an excerpt of what came up for me when I tried it. Many analysts are telling Apple to cut prices, reduce margins and to chase market share, but Apple's Cook refuses to budge. And yet there are clouds on the horizon. Existing iPhone owners may love their handsets, but they aren't winning over new owners. The move signals a fundamental change in philosophy, the philosophy that made Apple great, which was to innovate. Innovation is what made Apple great. It may take a few years, but you will slowly see the erosion of the Mac into an elegant OS for launching crappy apps. As authentic as it gets.
Stephen Colbert reviews the Kim Kardashian app
Don't look now, but the "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" app has already generated tens of millions of dollars in pure profit and currently occupies the #5 spot on the App Store's list of Top Grossing apps. There's no shortage of opportunities for jokes here, but why not let a master comedian show you how it's done? Earlier this week, Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report ran a hilarious review of the Kim Kardashian app that will have serious iOS developers cursing the heavens and everyone else laughing up a storm. The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,The Colbert Report on Facebook,Video Archive
An iPhone 6 case we can believe in
Here at TUAW, we will usually pass on the emailed tips that come in from readers showing a Mr. Blurrycam rendition of purported next-generation iPhone or iPad parts. But when a case manufacturer we know and trust sends us a bunch of well-photographed images of an upcoming iPhone 6 case, we take notice and risk the wrath of our very own Chris Rawson, the Rumor Slayer. Our source notes that he's making a new line of phone cases and that "my case guy sent me the latest batch of samples for final inspection and they included, to my surprise, an iPhone 6 'Phoneblet' case. I say 'phoneblet' because it's bigger, but not Samsung big." The image at the top of this page shows a bamboo version of the wood case for iPhone 6 (left), an iPhone 5s (center), and a cherry wood case for an iPhone 5s for comparison. Other photos are included in the gallery below, with one section pixelated to conceal pricing information. When the iPhone 6 is officially announced, we'll reveal the name of our source. Until that time, we're keeping the manufacturer name anonymous.
1985 Macintosh Office ad reminds us how much space software used to take up
"Now there are more than 500 software programs for the Macintosh Office, so no matter what business you're in, you're in business." In just one sentence this 1985 Macintosh Office ad explained to viewers why it was going to change the way they worked on a computer. In 2014 this ad sends a dramatically different message: "Holy crap, isn't it great that we don't have to keep track of giant boxes of software anymore?"
Dog Days of Summer: Remington, the iPhone retriever
Sometimes we don't need to look very far to find candidates for Caturday and the Dog Days of Summer. For TUAW editor Kelly Hodgkins, she just had to chase after new family puppy Remington (AKA Remy). According to Kelly: I was on the porch, drinking coffee, when he (Remington) came up to me for a pat, or so I thought. Instead of sticking around, he grabbed my phone from the floor and took off with it. After about a 5-minute chase through the woods around our house, he thankfully got bored with the pursuit and dropped my phone on the ground. Kelly's had a string of "incidents" with her iPhone recently, but it's still working fine: The iPhone is a really amazing device... mine has been stepped on by a 100-pound German Shepherd, bent in my back pocket just enough to slightly crack the screen and dropped almost daily by myself or one of my brood. This week alone, the puppy ran off with it in the woods, and I dropped it in the lake while docking my kayak. Guess what? After all that, it STILL works! If you have a Dog Days nominee to share, let us know via our feedback page (and please remember that the photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple and its products -- don't just send us a photo of your canine buddy). For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link.
Stuff I really, really hate
I'm 'Mister Apple'. Mr. Mac. Mr. iOS. A tech writer, a 'help desk' for friends and family. But that doesn't mean I give everything my favorite fruit company does a pass. There's stuff in my 'digital life' that drives me bonkers. Some of it is from Apple, some is just the internet in general. Time to vent... iOS is a major nag. I'm tired of being asked for my password at inconvenient times. Hey Apple, it's me on this phone. It has fingerprint recognition. I know you've had some security issues in the past, but fix it on your end. Don't visit this hell on your users. At times I feel I am living in a Bosch painting. Relent. Reduce. Now i"m using iOS 8 beta 4 and it has it's own set of nags, like letting me know a particular app is location aware. I answer OK, and it asks me about several other apps. Ask me once, and then go away forever. Control Center: I don't hate it, but I'm getting there. It could be so much more than it is. Half the things on it I will never use. How about some customization here? Let me use it as an app launcher, or get me access to system preferences I want to toggle often. If you were holding out hope for this in iOS 8 you will get no joy. They changed the transparency. Big deal. Apple has been good about not filling Macs or iOS devices with crapware. But on iOS it does provide some of its own. If you don't want Game Center or Stocks or Newsstand or any other Apple App you are out of luck. Yes, I can hide them in a folder, but I want them off my phone. Gone. Deleted. Vaporized. OS X: I've been watching that 'pinwheel' or 'spinning pizza of death' for more than a decade. Surely there is some trick to eliminating this torture. We use computers to save time. But OS X often gets into a brain freeze when I try to open a folder or switch to another website. I know that resources like RAM are limited, but you can fix this. Try harder. On the web there is another set of frustrations, not caused by Apple. Sometimes I share a web page with someone using that site's built-in sharing buttons. Often, these sites pre-compose the email for me. "Here's a really worthwhile article from the Manure Journal that I thought you would like to read." The problem is, I don't think it was worthwhile. I found it a travesty, inaccurate, and worthy only of ridicule. So give me a blank email form and let me add my own message. Easy. Forced video playback: I hate this. You are looking at a web page and suddenly you hear voices. You have to scroll around and find what the offending video is. Safari Team -- just give me a button that prevents videos that I haven't clicked on from running. I know people like to advertise, but completely aggravating a potential customer is no way to start a relationship. I don't want to be sitting in a public place and have my laptop start talking about erectile dysfunction or anything else. I need a 'no video option' as soon as possible, maybe even yesterday. Those are some of the major gripes from my list. You likely have some of your own, so feel free to chime in by adding your comments, or you can argue about mine.
Jimmy Kimmel convinces people that a $20 Casio is Apple's iWatch [Video]
Jimmy Kimmel may not have the late-night comedic chops of Stephen Colbert or even Jimmy Fallon, but the man sure knows a thing or two about a good old fashioned prank. During yesterday's broadcast, Kimmel and Co. were able to convince a few passersby on the street that a cheap $20 Casio watch adorned with an Apple sticker was in fact a newfangled smartwatch. The amount of credit Apple gets here for a watch that displays both the time and the date (!) is pretty hilarious. The action starts about a minute in. The best is the woman who enjoys that the watch is always in airplane mode as it really works to preserve the battery life.
iPhone-yielding, Pope-shaped Cheetos curl will forever change your view of the cheesy snack
Cheesecurlsofinstagram is a wonderful Instagram account that posts pictures of oddly-shaped Cheetos snacks with witty descriptions that nail their appearance. Take, for example, the above shot of Pope Frances curl. "After a Sermon, Pope Frances, Wearing a Miter, Prepares to Get in the Pope Mobile, but not Before Taking a Quick Selfie Using the Forward-Facing Camera on his iPhone 5s" The account is the brain child of Andy Huot, who is a self described "mechanical engineer with a creative mind." In an email to Yahoo Canada News, Huot explains his trek into pareidolia, which started last year when he stumbled upon a Sasquatch-shaped curl. "Last spring I was working on an invention at home. I would get so into the project that I didn't want to stop to prepare food, so I reached for a bag of Cheetos. I normally eat healthy but hadn't had them in years. I found Sasquatch in my first bag along with other interesting pieces." Hout is still going strong with his cheesy hobby, accruing more than 60 images of the curly snack on his Instagram account. Disclaimer: While the images of the Cheetos are benign, some of the descriptions may not be safe for work or for children.
Journalist picks up Galaxy S5, discovers it is, indeed, larger than the iPhone 5
In a shocking turn of events that is sure to send ripples through the technology world for years to come, Business Insider's Jim Edwards has confirmed that, as has long been rumored, there are smartphones out there with displays larger than that of the iPhone 5. "Until recently, I was a loyal Apple customer," Edwards writes in a new exposé that is sure to send Apple stock tumbling and iPhone users questioning their faith. Everything changed when he decided to examine something called a Galaxy S5. But what exactly is a Galaxy S5? It turns out it's a smartphone, and not only that, it's made by a company that appears to be completely separate from Apple. Clearly puzzled by the discovery, Edwards pushed the device's power button and found that the screen was actually -- brace yourselves -- larger than the screen of the iPhone 5. "The big screen makes a huge difference," he explains. "When I went back to my old iPhone I was struck by how bizarrely small it is." Indeed. Further testing confirmed Edwards' "Larger Screen" theory, and officials currently estimate the display on the device to be as large as 5.1 inches, though that has yet to be firmly nailed down. Curious as to what such a screen could be useful for, Edwards began testing the Galaxy in a number of ways. "I can actually see my pics once I've taken them now," Edwards claims, referencing his inability to actually view photos on the impossibly tiny 4-inch screen of the iPhone 5. But what about video? Can this so-called Galaxy S5 play those as well? Edwards claims it can. "On the Galaxy, video just plays." That sounds pretty slick, especially once Edwards reminds us what video is like on the diminutive iPhone. "First you can't see anything because the screen is small," he once again notes, puzzled as to why Apple would even bother putting such a minuscule display on a smartphone. "Instead of just playing the video on the screen, the background goes black and then the video boots up in full-screen mode. The experience is... OK." A shocking account. Edwards clearly has Apple's number here. Why would anyone want to watch a video on the entire screen? It's a pointless feature. Obviously, if you have a big-screen gadget like Edwards' new Galaxy S5, you'll surely want to use the massive display real estate to watch videos in a tiny window embedded on a mobile web page. For Apple to just assume we want to watch the videos in as large a format as possible is presumptuous, and, if I can speak personally here, a bit insulting. He goes on to speak of something called "Swype," but as he accurately points out, "iPhone users have no idea what this is." He's right, and frankly I have to admit that I didn't even understand this part of his article because it literally blew my mind. "You swish your fingers across the board instead of pecking out letters one by one." I don't even know how to process that level of majestic amazingness. To wrap things up, Edwards brings things back to the key point of it all -- which we never really left to begin with -- and that's the fact that the Galaxy S5 is, again (again, again... again) bigger than the iPhone 5. "Size matters," he says succinctly. Quite. "The Galaxy S5 isn't perfect, but it's probably better than Apple's iPhone are right now," Edwards adds at the very end. I don't really think he's giving himself enough credit here. "Probably better" is the understatement of the century. Clearly Samsung is prepared to dominate Apple's smartphone business in every conceivable way once Edwards' discovery of the larger screen hits the mainstream. Years from now, when electronics archeologists look back on when smartphones really evolved, we'll remember the day that Jim Edwards discovered the Galaxy S5 and showed us all the light.
