Mods Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

eMac converted to self-tweeting cat bed

by Dave Caolo (Dec 1st, 2011)

What do you do with an obsolete computer the size of a huge, plastic canned ham? Let your cat use it to tweet her naps, of course. The eMac was a behemoth of a computer, released by Apple in 2002. Originally meant for the education market, Apple ...

Control Siri with your mind and lots of hardware

by Steven Sande (Nov 11th, 2011)

What's better than controlling your iPhone 4S with Siri? How about just thinking about something and having it happen? That's what a group of hackers have accomplished with Project Black Mirror. They've connected an iPhone 4S up to a setup ...

Intensive surgery on an old MacBook Pro yields huge performance gains (Updated)

by Chris Rawson (Aug 19th, 2011)

Installing OS X Lion on a 3 1/2-year old MacBook Pro made it clearer than ever just how slow my old machine had become. Beachballs left and right, UI lag, incredibly long reboot times, dismal application load times... as someone accustomed to ...

A giant white iPhone table with no multitouch

by Dave Caolo (Aug 12th, 2011)

German enthusiast and iPhone fan Benjamin Bachmeier has constructed a table-sized computer called the iTableous. This behemoth was entirely hand-built and runs a hackintosh version of Mac OS X 10.6.7 as well as Windows 7 Professional. Dual boot, ...

Hack adds NFC payment to your iPhone

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jul 29th, 2011)

Apple is rumored to be adding NFC support to the iPhone at some point in the future, but here's a way you can add wireless payments to your iPhone right now. You don't have to solder an NFC chipset, install any applications or even apply a ...

eMac becomes cat bed

by Mike Schramm (Apr 16th, 2011)

This eMac-turned-cat bed is the product of a friend of mine here in LA named Colin Hughes. A little while back, he got a new computer to replace his old (though still working) eMac, and instead of junking it, he decided to clean out the hardware ...

Turn an iPod touch into an iPhone with its own packaging

by Dave Caolo (Feb 4th, 2011)

Here's a nice bit of ingenuity. Lifehacker reader Kevin explains how he used a VoIP app (Viber and Line 2 are two nice options) with his iPod's packaging and earbud speakers to create a DIY handset. After smoothing the edges of the plastic backing ...

Apple TV clock mod makes up for the lack of an iPad clock

by Steven Sande (Jan 21st, 2011)

Do you have an old first-generation Apple TV lying around collecting dust? Would you like to turn it into something useful and attractive? TUAW reader Antonio Worrall had purchased a second-generation Apple TV, and his old unit had gone to "join the ...

Fantastic transparent iPhone 4 case mod

by Dave Caolo (Jan 20th, 2011)

We love a good mod, and this one is stellar. An enterprising iPhone user got his hands on a clear case mod kit for the iPhone 4, (Google translation) put it together and posted the fantastic results online. It's wicked geeky, and reminds us of the ...

iPhone receives push notifications from real-world mailbox

by Steven Sande (Jan 20th, 2011)

Sure, push notification is nothing new for iPhone users. But when was the last time that you received notification that real-live mail -- the kind made of atoms, not bits -- has shown up in your mailbox? One of the new evil geniuses at Make Magazine ...

Apple G4 turned into a mailbox

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jan 17th, 2011)

We love mods of older Apple hardware and the resurgence of this oldie but goodie is no exception. Spotted and photographed in the Te Atatu suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, this classic mailbox features a gutted G4 that has been modified into a ...

Metal cover serves as DIY iPhone backplate

by Steven Sande (Oct 19th, 2010)

Worried about the glass back of your iPhone 4 getting smashed? If you have $13 and a few minutes, Hong Kong manufacturer CNN (Cellular Nationwide Network) can supply you with a nice looking aluminum backplate to replace the glass. According to the ...

Finally -- multi-windowing under iOS

by Steven Sande (Oct 11th, 2010)

I'm sure that all of us have had this dilemma at one time or another. You want multiple windows open on your iDevices, so you get 'em all going at once, laid out on the couch around you. You're watching a movie on your iPhone and surfing the web on ...

Found Footage: The $900 'Mac Pro' in a cardboard box

by Steven Sande (Oct 5th, 2010)

Plato said, "Necessity is the mother of all inventions." He must have been talking about the guys at One Block Off the Grid, which is a cooperative of sorts for buying photovoltaic solar panels at a group discount. One of their staff members was ...

Hacked MacBook reborn as a tablet

by Dave Caolo (Oct 4th, 2010)

Here's a clever repurposing of an older MacBook. Matt of Enigma Penguin took it upon himself to convert the MacBook into a touch-based tablet with interesting results. After taking the MacBook apart and removing non-functional hardware, Matt ...

Apple Newton to be reborn as iPhone case

by Dave Caolo (Sep 9th, 2010)

Isn't it nice when siblings get along? Here's an idea for using a dead, hollowed-out Newton Message Pad as an Phone case. Case hacker Charles Mangin has had success with other projects, like the Mac Plus G4, the Mac mini stuffed into an Apple Disk II ...