Farensius adds weather to your Mac menu bar

by Erica Sadun (May 25th 2013 at 4:00PM)

For only US$0.99, the OS X Farensius app is just adorable. It adds a current weather indicator to your menu bar, and offers an optional 5-day forecast in its drop-down. It's exactly what I've been missing on my desktop. I have it set to update every five minutes, and with a tiny glance up and to ...

Hands-on with the Kensington USB 3.0 Docking Station with Dual DVI/HDMI/VGA Video (Giveaway!)

by Steven Sande (May 25th 2013 at 12:00PM)

The popularity of Apple's MacBook Pro and Air laptops is one of the reasons that Mac sales have increased while PC sales are waning. But if there's one thing that the laptop experience is lacking, it's a plethora of USB 3.0 and video ports. Kensington's USB 3.0 Docking Station with DVI/HDMI/VGA ...

Caturday: Me-WoW!

by Steven Sande (May 25th 2013 at 10:00AM)

We don't have a name for this week's Caturday model, but owner Baz Francis of Adelaide, South Australia says that "he's a two month old ginger kitten who loves watching my partner play World of Warcraft on my 15" MacBook Pro. When he's not intently staring at the screen with his head tilted or ...

iOS-only OnTrees hopes to be the Mint.com of the UK

by Michael Grothaus (May 25th 2013 at 8:00AM)

I've been attending a lot of meetings with various London-based startups in the last few months to learn their stories on what it takes to launch a successful new product. I'm particularly interested in ones that have a heavy slant towards mobile -- and iOS. This interest is magnified when I find ...

Daily Update for May 24, 2013

by Steven Sande (May 24th 2013 at 5:50PM)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires ...

Apple cuts prices on refurbished iPad mini, iPad 4

by John-Michael Bond (May 24th 2013 at 4:30PM)

Apple has further reduced the prices of refurbished iPad minis and fourth-generation iPads. The mini is now sporting a 15 percent discount, while the fourth-generation iPad has a 16 percent discount. You can find the new prices below for each respective model. iPad mini 16 GB Wi-Fi: $279 ...

Friday Favorite: Type2Phone

by Erica Sadun (May 24th 2013 at 3:30PM)

Type2Phone (US$4.99) is one of the most practical tools in my development toolbox. It emulates a Bluetooth keyboard from your Mac. With it, you type to your iOS device using your normal desktop keyboard. While this may not sound like a big thing for many iOS users -- after all, the onboard ...

Judge reportedly leaning towards DoJ in Apple e-book case

by Yoni Heisler (May 24th 2013 at 3:00PM)

In less than two weeks, Apple will head to trial over allegations that it colluded with five publishing houses in an effort to inflate the price of e-books. Indeed, the Justice Department last week released internal Apple emails which it claims supports the allegation that Apple was a "ringleader" ...

Ailing Mac? Try Drive Genius 3

by Ilene Hoffman (May 24th 2013 at 2:30PM)

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 ...

Backblaze Mobile for iPhone provides on-the-go access to file backups

by Steven Sande (May 24th 2013 at 2:00PM)

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 ...

AltWWDC announces AltLabs dedicated lab space

by Dave Caolo (May 24th 2013 at 12:30PM)

No WWDC tickets? No matter. AltWWDC is a free, five-day event that will be held in San Francisco June 10-14, 2013. Today, the group has announced AltLabs, which will serve as dedicated lab space for attendees. Each lab will be staffed by helpful folks who are there to answer your questions or just ...

Smule users record 1 billion songs

by Steven Sande (May 24th 2013 at 11:00AM)

Smule may be only 5 years old, but the California development firm started in part by Jeff Smith and Stanford Assistant Professor Dr. Ge Wang has had an amazing impact on the world. The company shared some stats with Evolver.fm that are incredible -- Smule's apps have been downloaded over 100 ...

Apple expands iOS Maps' 3D Flyover coverage in California, including Disneyland

by Michael Grothaus (May 24th 2013 at 11:00AM)

Apple is continuing to roll out increased Maps 3D Flyover coverage. The latest update was first spotted by AppleInsider and appears to include large parts of California. Specifically, the latest update includes the cities of San Bernardino, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Moreno Valley and ...

Reality Absorption Field: iPod's trail of tears, part 1

by Ross Rubin (May 24th 2013 at 12:00AM)

The recent celebration of iTunes tenth anniversary provided an opportunity to remember that it debuted before the iPod and was initially positioned as a way to get Macs to play well with the CD burners that had come to the iMac as well as to early MP3 players from rivals. Before and (mostly) after ...

Daily iPad App: Frozen Synapse simulates some very impressive turn-based strategy

by Mike Schramm (May 23rd 2013 at 9:00PM)

Frozen Synapse has been a successful title on Steam for a while now -- it's a turn-based strategy game, with the twist being that you're a sort of tactical AI, running these battles on simulations and hardware rather than in real life. As a result, the big draw of Frozen Synapse is that while, ...