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NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim has reversed his earlier prediction that Apple would add a Retina resolution to its iPad mini at some point before 2014.

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NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim has reversed his earlier prediction that Apple would add a Retina resolution to its iPad mini at some point before 2014.

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Just over one week following its sneak preview at WWDC 2013, the radically redesigned Mac Pro has supposedly shown up on a popular Internet based benchmarking site running what appears to be a specialized build of OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

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Not to be outdone by Instagram’s reported video product that’s set to debut tomorrow, Vine has started teasing upcoming features and design tweaks. Co-founders Dom Hofmann and Rus Yusupov have posted a couple of Vines that seem to point towards some pretty big additions, like the ability to record multiple Vines at once and save drafts.

Special video categories also seem to be in the works, allowing users to browser content based on different genres that would assumedly be curated by Vine/Twitter staff. Instead of letterboxed videos within the Vine app, a future version will likely bring make videos fill the full width of the iPhone’s screen to create a more immersive experience.

Take a look at the Vines below and use your detective skills to uncover what’s coming:

Via: AllThingsD

The post New Vine Features And Designs Teased By Creators With… Vines appeared first on Cult of Mac.

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Seriously, I’m kind of tired of playing the typical RPG in which I take on the role of the savior of the world. This kind of power fantasy, wish fulfillment story has its place, but boy would it be nice if we could see some different stories out there.

The developers behind Kickstarter project, Unrest, must have felt the same way, as their new online RPG is set in ancient India, for one thing (not a Tolkeinesque forest complete with Orcs and Elves), and will let you play as the ordinary folk struggling to maintain their freedom, safety, peace, and keep their children fed and happy.

World of Warcraft, this isn’t.

Unrest will let you explore drought and famine via an ancient Indian city, with a discontented populace struggling through hunger and poverty. There’s an extensive conversation system that you’ll be able to use to influence other non-player characters to gain allies.

If you die, say the developers, the plot continues and your dead character becomes part of the story of the region. You’ll have to make tough decisions along the way to make sure you don’t die, of course, but most people do, right? Combat will be brutal, the artwork will be immersive, and the soundtrack will amaze, says the Kickstarter page.

The project, currently over-funded at almost $30,000 of an asked for $3,000, has 47 hours to go. The team is looking to reach some impressive stretch goals (things they will do if they bring in more pledges), like a huge new city to explore, or two additional story lines to follow. With such a huge funding amount already pledged, it’s apparent that the gaming community wants something different, too.

Unrest will be available across many platforms, including the Mac, and will not contain any unwieldy, insulting DRM of any kind. Head over to the Kickstarter page to learn more about this upcoming RPG, and pledge your support if you do that sort of thing. We all need to back projects that have the potential to change gaming for the better.

Source: Kickstarter

The post Unrest, An Online RPG Set In Ancient India, Lets You Play As Ordinary Folk appeared first on Cult of Mac.

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While Apple offered a sneak peek at its dramatically redesigned Mac Pro at its Worldwide Developers Conference, the new machine is not scheduled to launch until “later this year” and the company has yet to reveal detailed specs and pricing information.

But if a new Geekbench result is authentic, it appears that the new machine is already starting to show up in public benchmarking databases. Rather than showing up as a “MacPro6,1″ as would be expected for Apple’s next-generation Mac Pro, the new machine is dubbed “AAPLJ90,1″, perhaps a reference to a J90 code name following Apple’s usual format.

Also supporting the authenticity of the entry is the listing of a custom build of OS X Mavericks, 13A2054, running on the machine. The listed motherboard ID is also one which was discovered in OS X Mavericks as corresponding to the new Mac Pro.

The machine in question is running a single 12-core processor from the upcoming Ivy Bridge E family, specifically the Xeon E5-2697 v2 running at 2.7 GHz. It is also equipped with 64 GB of RAM.

A comparison of this new Mac Pro entry with Apple’s current high-end 12-core Mac Pro running a pair of 3.06 GHz Westmere processors reveals improved performance on Geekbench benchmarks by most measures, ranging from slight improvements for certain tasks to substantial improvements for others.

We chatted with John Poole of Primate Labs, who highlighted the substantial improvements in many single-core measures and in memory performance, suggesting that lower multi-core scores later in the Integer Performance testing run could be indicative of thermal issues.

Poole notes that with a public launch of the new Mac Pro likely still many months away, it is entirely possible that Apple is still ironing out both software and hardware issues on the new Mac Pro and that the company’s work could lead to even more substantial performance gains once those issues are addressed.

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Apple has launched an iPhone repair pilot program for Apple Certified Service Providers in Canada that will allow certain certified centers to offer iPhone repairs after store technicians have completed Apple-required iOS Certification.

According to a tipster, the third party service sites will be able to offer repairs for the battery, camera, speaker, and more, after the program launches in the next few weeks. In addition to passing an iOS Qualification exam, Service Provider technicians have also been required to attend several training sessions to learn how to disassemble the iPhone.

While the program is currently limited to Canada, it seems reasonable to suspect that it may roll out to other countries in the future should the test run prove successful.

Documents given out to technicians suggest that Apple is aiming to provide a quality alternate repair option for its customers in Canada, while cutting down on unauthorized Apple repairs.

Program Overview – Goals
1. Provide APR with authorization to provide iPhone repair service to walk in customers as alternate channel
2. Provide same service level for iPhone as our Apple Retail Stores
3. Reduce proliferation of unauthorized repair centres and third party parts

Apple has furnished its Apple Certified Service Providers with a detailed set of rules and requirements that must be met, including troubleshooting all cases and providing same day service with a maximum of six hours in turn around time for devices with a warranty.

Out of warranty requests follow similar rules, with a 12-hour deadline for potential repairs. While the documentation estimates that the majority of repairs will be replacements, it requires each repair location to hit a Same Unit Repair rate of 10% or higher.

In early June, Apple began offering in-house iPhone 5 display replacements in an effort to cut down on repair costs. The company is also planning to offer additional same device repairs later this year, which could save more than $1 billion per year.

Apple’s move to allow Apple Certified Service Providers to offer iPhone repairs is likely part of the same initiative, designed to cut down on overall repair costs while providing greater convenience to customers who might otherwise seek out unauthorized repairs. Even in the United States, few Certified Repair centers are able to offer iPhone service at this time, which could change as Apple continues to expand its repair options.

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DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim is going back on statements he made back in May, when he said the next model of the iPad mini — expected this fall — would come equipped with a Retina display and an updated processor. In an added twist, before he made that statement, Shim said the Retina iPad mini would not ship before 2014.

Now, Shim writes that Apple will refresh its iPad mini line later this year, but the Retina display will not make an appearance before 2014.

Apple is expected to refresh its iPad mini in the second half of the year. The new iPad mini will continue to use a 7.9-inch display with a 1024×768 resolution, but it will use the iOS 7 operating system and an A6 processor, in a slimmer design than the current generation. Another iPad mini is also planned for production but not until early 2014. That device is expected to feature a QXGA (2048×1536) resolution display and the iOS 7 operating system.

It’s unclear which DisplaySearch report is correct, though it’s widely expected that Apple will ship a Retina-display equipped iPad mini at some point.

More notably, Shim does expect the iPad mini update this fall to bring a thinner case, regardless of whether it has a Retina display or not. Apple CEO Tim Cook did warn analysts and other Apple watchers to take rumors from the Apple supply chain with a grain of salt.

Apple is expected to introduce new versions of the iPhone, iPad mini and iPad this fall.

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Best Buy announced on Wednesday that it is recalling 5,100 MacBook Pro batteries built by third-party manufacturer ATG after a number of users reported their units caught fire.

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A map plotting the location and device platform of over a quarter billion mobile tweets show predominate use of iPhones in affluent areas and Android in poor regions, with scant representation of Blackberry outside of major cities and its strongholds in Africa, Central America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

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