Check out the Gravity X Car Mount for your iPhone or Android device. It connects to your car via an adhesive pad, and then holds your device with gravity. If you look at the picture, you can see how your iPhone’s weight will hold it in place. Pretty cool, and it’s $19.99 through us.
Bryan Chaffin
Bryan Chaffin is the cofounder of The Mac Observer and currently serves as Afternoon Editor. He has contributed to MacAddict and MacFormat magazines, and co-authored the last two updates of iPad and iPad Pro for Dummies with Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus and Ed Baig. You can find out more about Bryan at his personal site, GeekTells, or find his Twitter link below.
Articles by Bryan Chaffin
Panic Releases Transmit 5 File Transfer Utility for Mac, Supports Panic Sync and Cloud Services
Panic announced the release of Transmit 5, seven years after the release of version 4 of its popular file transfer app.
Apple Just Made It Easier for App Developers to Support Their Customers
By adding a “Customer Support” role to iTunes Connect accounts, developers can designate an employee to respond to App Store reviews without also giving them access to download and financial data.
RoboForm Everywhere 1-Year Subscription: $29.99
We have a deal on cloud-based, password manager RoboForm Everywhere. It works across Mac, iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS. A 1-year subscription is $29.99.
Eye Level In-Car Smartphone Holder: $19.99
We have a smartphone holder for your car that hangs from your rearview mirror. It fits iPhones or Android devices with 5.5″ displays and smaller, and it’s $19.99 through us.
Tim Cook and Eddy Cue Attend Media Mogul Sun Valley Retreat
Allen & Co. Sun Valley media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, is a retreat for tech execs, media moguls, and venture capitalists to kick back and wheel and deal.
Apple Pushes watchOS 4 Beta 3 to Developers
As with other operating systems in Apple’s developer beta program, each seed is a mix of bug fixes, tweaks, and various stages of feature rollouts.
The Walking Dead: March To War Pre-Launch Gameplay Trailer
Disruptor Beam launched a new gameplay trailer for The Walking Dead: March to War, a strategic multiplayer war game coming to iOS and Android, According to the company, it takes place “just before Volume 20 of [The Walking Dead] comics, All Out War.” Players will build up their bases, recruit survivors, and fight against other factions. It looks great, too! There’s more gameplay info in the company’s blog post.
The Speed Reading Bundle: $19
Check out the Speed Reading Bundle, a package that includes a training course on how to speed read and an app designed for speed reading. It’s $19 through our deal.
The Apple of Tomorrow, and the Wild West of Home Automation - ACM 419
What exactly is “Apple?” The company is changing dramatically, and Bryan and Jeff explore where Apple might be going. They also talk about home automation, and how we are in the Wild West days of this future technology.
Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 35 with Speed Improvements, More
This release includes performance improvements, as well as a host of bug fixes, tweaks, and other changes.
Apple Releases macOS High Sierra Public Beta 2
The release comes on the heals of developer beta 3, and includes changes in that release.
Clemens Habicht's Colour Puzzles with 1,000 Pieces: $39.99
Who doesn’t love a good puzzle? We have a deal on one of Clemens Habicht’s Colour Puzzles, a 1,000 piece one called simply Colours. (There’s also Vibrating Colours and Halftone Colours available on the deal listing). It’s $39.99 through us.
Leather MacBook Sleeves from Woolnut
I’m a sucker for nice leather, especially for my Apple devices. There’s a company called Woolnut making nice MacBook sleeves. I haven’t tested them yet, but Jeff Gamet and I have a couple of them on the way, and I’m looking forward to it. They make different sleeves for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro (including with Touch Bar), starting at €68 (US$78). Sleeves are made from full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather, and the interior of the sleeve is wool. They also make leather wallet cases for iPhone.
Apple Cofounder Ron Wayne Offers Insight on Original Newton Apple Logo
In an interview with Vice’s Motherboard, Mr. Wayne discussed where the idea for the Newton logo came from, and said he knew at the time that it was old-fashioned.
Want to Be Terrified? Watch This University Demo That Fakes a President Speaking
I know it’s coming. I know it’s unavoidable. But that doesn’t keep me from being terrified of this inevitable future when fake things are indistinguishable from reality. Adobe has its VoCo technology in testing—and that’s scary enough, but now University of Washington researchers have demonstrated the ability to to match speech to a generated video. In the demonstration video, they used real speech from former president Barack Obama and matched it to artificially generated video of him speaking those same words. It’s easy to see this tech being used to match falsified speech to falsified video. And while there are some aspects of UW’s artificially generated video that look fake, this is a demonstration, not a finished product. Within a few years, the ability to perfectly fake video and speech together will be available on our smartphones. The end result will be an ever-greater cynicism towards never believing anything you see. It’s inevitable, scary, and the technology is impressive as all heck. It will also be a huge test of democracy. Not only can someone anyone be made to say something they didn’t, anyone could also deny saying something they really did say, claiming to be the victim of this technology. The Atlantic has a good story with a lot more information on the university project.
Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones
We have a deal on a pair of active noise cancelling Bluetooth headphones for those looking for an alternative to Bose or other high-end offerings. They’re Bluetooth 4.0, feature 12 hours of playtime, and have 40mm drivers. They’re $79.99 through us.
Apple Seeds Third Developer Beta of Xcode 9
As with the other developer betas Apple released Monday, this release will be a mix of bug fixes and other tweaks to new features in these developer tools.
Apple Seeds macOS High Sierra Developer Beta 3
In this early phase in the developer beta cycle, Apple is using each release to squash bugs, tweak the interface, and try different approaches in new features.
Apple Seeds iOS 11 Developer Beta 3
This early-phase build is likely to contain a mix of bug fixes, as well as tweaks and different implementations of new iOS 11 features.
Apple Building 2nd Data Center in Denmark, Will Be Powered by Renewable Energy
Apple is building its second data center in Denmark, according to Reuters, citing Apple itself as the source. Like Apple’s other data centers, this one will also be powered entirely by renewable energy. Apple has committed to having 100% of its global operations powered by renewable energy. This data center will be located in Aabenraa, a town in southern Denmark near the German border, and Apple plans to open it in the second quarter of 2019. It will drive the company’s iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps, and Siri in Europe.
Disconnect VPN 1-Year Premium Subscription: $19
We have a deal on Disconnect, a VPN service that specializes in tracker blocking. Our deal is for a one year subscription for $19 (regular price is $50), and it’s good for use on up to three devices. Check out the details on the deal listing.
InVID Says It Can Help Detect 'Fake News' Videos
InVID’s Chrome plugin is the front end to a sophisticated backend that sifts through metadata, information from the videos themselves, and social media information that a journalist—or anyone—could then use to determine whether a video is “fake.”
Neutron C Magnetic Car Mount: $16.99
We have a deal on the Neutron C Magnetic Car Mount for your iPhone or other smartphone. It attaches to your car’s dash via a special adhesive tape, and you use the same tape to attach a magnetic disk to your device or its case. That disk then sticks to the mount, and you’re good to go.
