OS X Lion Turned Me Into A Ranting Bitch [Opinion]

It seems as if I’m the only person having issues with Lion–it’s like I am trapped in Brain Candy and I’m the only one not taking the happy pill. I’ve been a Mac user for a long time, and every new upgrade brought butterflies to my stomach. This time around I was so excited I thought I was going to have a heart attack, but the excitement wore off quite quickly. Since then I have turned into a ranting bitch.

Read the rest of this post »

605 comments »

Sleek and Powerful, the New 11-Inch MacBook Air Will Blow You Away, Again [Review]

Apple’s new 11-inch MacBook Air is simply incredible. Of course you probably already knew this puppy was light, and gorgeous, but the power that this tiny machine packs is truly breathtaking. Optimized for speed and portability, the new MacBook Air improves on its predecessor to prove that it’s the best notebook computer Apple’s ever made.

Read the rest of this post »

44 comments »

Snow Leopard Is The New Retro [Opinion]

Unlike the majority of my esteemed colleagues here at Cult of Mac – indeed, unlike almost everyone in my profession, it seems – I’ve not upgraded to Lion just yet.

Read the rest of this post »

56 comments »

Wired Correspondent Suffers Through the Downside of Cloud-Delivered OS X Lion

Today is a huge day for Mac users. For the first time ever, Apple is offering a major Macintosh operating system upgrade exclusively over the Internet. The company has also discontinued much of the boxed software it offers in a clear signal that it hopes and expects to see the vast majority of applications for the Mac delivered through the App Store from this day forward. Just as it did with music (and to limited degree with DVDs), Apple wants to eliminate all physical artifacts from its computing experiences other than the hardware it makes.

But there are downsides to this. Immaterial purchases don’t carry all the same property rights that physical ones do. When the iTunes Music Store launched, users quickly learned that it’s a lot harder to return or resell an album bought from Apple than it is to do the same with a CD. With the iOS App Store, we all know that it’s not easy to get your money back if you make a foolish purchase.

Read the rest of this post »

44 comments »

Which Mac mini To Buy? Get The $799 2.5Ghz Intel Core i5 Model With 4GB Of RAM. Here’s Why

Apple’s refreshed 2011 Mac minis are a tempting choice for users who want a roc solid, low-footprint desktop machine on a budget. But exactly how much of a budget do you need to allot yourself?

No matter which Mac mini you buy, you’ll be getting a deceptively small machine, absolutely packed with some top-of-the-line tech, like Thunderbolt. But if we had to recommend just one, we’d recommend the $799 Mac mini with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM.

Here’s why.

Read the rest of this post »

25 comments »

Which MacBook Air To Buy? Get The 128GB 11-Inch Model With 4GB of RAM. Here’s Why

Today, Apple released new Sandy Bridge MacBook Airs with Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards and all-around upped specs. Any MacBook Air you get will, in all likelihood, be the best laptop you’ve ever owned, but how do you know which MacBook Air is right for you?

After nine months of using and loving our last-gen MacBook Airs, we know which one we’d recommend to most people: the 128GB 11-inch MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM. Here’s why.

Read the rest of this post »

93 comments »

Fifteen Days in the Wilderness (Experiments with Android and Windows Phone)

I’ve recently had the opportunity to carry a second phone (a while with Android, awhile with Windows Phone) in addition to my trusty and increasingly busted 3GS (missing volume buttons, broken lock button). I say “opportunity” largely because I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t buy an iPhone 4 when I had the chance, and now it’s looking like the fall before I’ll get to upgrade to an iPhone 5 or whatever Apple chooses to call it. This makes now an ideal time to take a close look at what the competition is up to. The worst kind of fan is the unthinking, in my view, so I jumped at the chance to know whether my iOS admiration was warranted, and, if not, actually get to preview a handset I could contemplate switching to at some point (for obvious reasons, I would not run the same experiment with other tablets. The iPad really is the only game in town).

Join me, then, for the Apple maniac’s up-close tour of the distinguished competition, through peril, triumph, and confusion, as I take a long, hard look at life with a Nexus S 4G and an HTC HD7, representatives of the very mature Android (Nexus) and the practically beta Windows Phone 7.

Read the rest of this post »

11 comments »

Things To Admire In The Nokia N9 [Opinion]

Nokia’s N9 is an interesting new challenge to the iPhone. Its had a lot of criticism since it was announced a couple of days ago, but I want to concentrate on something I think it does pretty well: simplify the touch screen interface.

Read the rest of this post »

81 comments »

Opinion: In Praise of the File System [Have your say]

Over at GigaOm, Alex Layne asked the question: if Apple killed the Finder, would you miss it?

Hell yes. Yes I would.

Read the rest of this post »

75 comments »

Five Things Apple Killed at WWDC 2011

As promised, Steve Jobs and Apple made sweeping software-related announcements at the WWDC keynote in San Francisco Monday.

While much of the functionality previewed by the Cupertino, CA technology behemoth will not be available to users until sometime this fall, several companies and technology purveyors have got to be quaking in their boots as a result of seeing Apple’s roadmap to the future.

Read the rest of this post »

32 comments »