An introduction to keyboard shortcuts in Safari for Mac.

A long time friend of mine, who is also a long-time Windows user, has recently bought a MacBook Air. Like any transition, it’s not been without its hiccups. But he’s really pleased with with his new purchase. He’s also a first time user of Safari, so I’ve been showing him a few keyboard shortcuts to make browsing the web a lot easier.

There are many helpful keyboard shortcuts to be found in Safari. Some simple ones are opening a new tab by hitting the command key (cmd) and T, so cmd+t. Another one is jumping straight to a bookmark by hitting cmd and a number key correspondingly assigned to your bookmarks. For instance, If BBC News is your third bookmark, hit cmd+3 to jump straight there.

Here are a few I regularly use:

• Cycle through open tabs by hitting cmd+shift+left arrow (or right arrow).
• Cmd+click a link to open that link in a new tab. Cmd+alt+click to open a link in a new window.
• Cmd+w to close the tab your in. Cmd+z to undo the last tab closed. Cmd+r to refresh a tab
• Shift+click a link to save a link to Reading List.

There are loads more. I came across Shortcutworld.com, which has 58 keyboard shortcuts for Safari.

With all these shortcuts, some are unusually placed, like adding a bookmark using cmd+d (why not b?), or viewing the downloads folder with alt+cmd+l. You’d think the key D would be for downloads, but sadly, no! Fortunately, you can customize Safari keyboard shortcuts (as well as any other Mac app) to just about any way you’d like by going to keyboard preferences in System Preferences.

Source: TUAW.

The Slide Stand And The AluPen Stylus For iPad Is Style Personified.

If the new iPad Air or Mini with Retina display is on your or a loved one’s list this holiday season – this bundle from the award-winning designers at Just Mobile is a deal that’s too good to pass up.

The Slide iPad stand and the AluPen stylus are winners of nearly a dozen prestigious awards, including Best of Show, Design, and other Category awards from the likes of MacWorld, iF International Forum, Reddot, iLounge, Computex, Spark, and others.

The Slide is crafted from a single piece of high-grade aluminum, the Slide™ is a durable, beautiful iPad stand that goes anywhere. Designed by the award-winning team at tools®, the Slide uses a high-friction rubber cylinder – stored in its base when you’re not using it – to securely hold your iPad at any angle – simply move the cylinder up or down the slide to adjust. It works in both portrait and landscape mode, so you’ll get solid support whether you’re typing, swiping, drawing, or gaming.

The aluminum AluPen™ is a pencil-shaped stylus that gives you precise control over whatever you’re creating on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.
Ideal for artists, designers, and architects – the thick shape and soft rubber nib makes drawing and writing a uniquely smooth experience.

A stunningly designed stylus deserves an equally stunning way to display it: enter the AluCube. Crafted from a single chunk of aluminum, this upright stand has a rubber-lined recess to secure and protect your AluPen™ when you’re not using it.

Source: Cult of Mac.

Element Case Solace iPhone 5/5s case review.

If you’re in the market for a new case for your iPhone 5 or 5s, you’re probably having a hard time choosing. There are so many options out there that you can easily find yourself wanting one of everything. One style of case keeps the metallic quality of the iPhone 5 and 5s while protecting your expensive device. The Element Case Solace is just such a case. It combines polycarbonate with aircraft grade aluminum to make it strong and light, but that aluminum will cost you a pretty penny. Is it worth it?

The Solace is fairly thin. The top and bottom edges of the case are made of T6061 aircraft grade aluminum. The polycarbonate is lightweight and durable (which is why basically every case on the market is made out of the stuff), while the aluminum makes the case feel even slightly more sturdy.

Unfortunately, the Solace might be the most difficult case to install. First you attach the polycarbonate case to your phone. This is actually the vast majority of the case’s surface area. Then you’ll have to attach the top and bottom edges (the aluminum parts). These are held onto the polycarbonate case with four tiny little screws. I had considerable difficulty getting these screws to line up with the case. The included screwdriver isn’t much help either. It, too, is very small and seems to be designed to not be easily twirled in your fingers to drive the screws in with two flat edges instead of a nice barrel. The upside to this difficult installation is that it’s equally hard to get off. In terms of protecting your device, that’s good.

Overall, I found the ElementCase Solace to not live up to its price. Although functional, it’s expensive, hard to install, and doesn’t feel much sturdier than a fully plastic case. Even worse is that the it doesn’t really feel premium like it’s price would suggest. There’s very little metal on the case, which is what makes these metal cases seem like higher quality cases to begin with. If you’re looking for an aluminum case for your iPhone, you’d be well advised to bump up to Element Case’s Sector 5, or look elsewhere.

Source: AppleTell.

Apple invests $578 million in sapphire glass technology for the iPhone 6.

According to reports, Apple’s iPhone 6 could well feature sapphire glass display technology.

The International Business Times is reporting that Apple has paid $578 million to GT Advanced Technologies to further “the development of its next generation, large capacity ASF furnaces to deliver low cost, high volume manufacturing of sapphire material.” Apple would certainly not invest in a technology this heavily unless it had clear designs to incorporate it into a future product. Apparently, Apple’s investment is meant to keep costs of the sapphire technology lower, so that the price isn’t reflected in a more expensive iPhone later on. Sapphire glass can really take a beating, and is purportedly more than 2.5 times more durable than Corning Gorilla Glass. One can break pieces of concrete on sapphire glass and leave no visible mark behind.

The inclusion of sapphire glass on the next iPhone would certainly be a game-changer, with the iPhone becoming near-indestructible overnight. As usual, we’ve already been exposed to a fair share of rumors about the iPhone 6, but anyone can speculate about what features the iPhone 6 will have with absolutely no evidence. This is the first concrete development we have had which may give us some insight into the iPhone 6. At the very least, it’s a safe bet to assume that sapphire glass will become the standard weapon of choice in smartphone displays of the future.

It’s an iPhone-controlled paper airplane – of course I want one.

There are some ideas so silly they’re irresistibly cool. An iPhone-controlled paper airplane? Of course I want one!

The Kickstarter project has already quadrupled its $50,000 goal with 57 days to go.

AAPL goes into the Black for 2013 on Black Friday as it hits $550.

We mentioned a couple of days ago that AAPL stock was approaching a high for the year, and it has now broken the $549.02 at which it began the year.

The company has experienced a roller-coaster ride in its stock price, almost entirely divorced from any product-based reality. The value placed on the company by the market at any given time has more to do with the gap between rumors and product launches, and of course short-term speculation …

Its climb in the latter half of the year was given a boost by a vote of confidence by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who tweeted in August that he considered AAPL “extremely undervalued” and that he’d taken a “large position” in the stock – which later reachedaround $2.5B.

Tim Cook last month told Apple employees that the company had never been stronger.

We’ve just posted financial results for fiscal Q4, including record-setting iPhone sales. I am happy to report that Apple’s business has never been stronger, and we are heading into the holidays within amazing lineup led by the new iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, the stunning iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display. You and your teams work incredibly hard to deliver the very best products in the world, and our customers simply love them. I’m extremely proud of the collaboration going on across the company and everything we’ve accomplished as result of this great team effort.

The company broke $500 following a record 9M iPhone sales in the opening weekend, and high-end guidance for the following quarter.

Apple remains the most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of close to half a trillion dollars ($490B).

Source: 9to5Mac.

Pebble smartwatch now available from Amazon.

First there was Kickstarter. Then Best Buy. Now Amazon. If you’re interested in aPebble smartwatch, and all the newly enabled iOS 7 goodness that now comes with it, now you can order it from one of the biggest online retailers on the planet.

If you grab one, let me know how it works for you.

• $148.99 – Buy now

Source: iMore.

Gneo, A Fresh Paper-Like Take On To-Do Apps.

Imagine that your task list was made up of a bunch of little slips of paper that you can slide around in any order, only these slips can’t blow away. That’s the central metaphor for Gneo, a universal task manager app which starts out looking like the ultra-simple Clear app, but hides a lot of power under the hood.

 I still hanker after the perfect task app. I was an Omnifocus user for ages, but the slow sync-on-launch and the weirdly difficult UI made me leave it. These days I use my e-mail as a task manager, which is supposedly a terrible idea but works amazingly well for me (I can write a post on it if you like. It’s a pretty simple and neat setup).

Gneo takes a few cool to-do list ideas and seems to combine them into an intuitive design. You can drag tasks around the canvas (different “canvasses” correspond to different projects) and also view them on a grid of importance vs. urgency. Natural-language parsing helps with adding metadata (like due dates) to reminders, and two-way Evernote syncing gives both a backup and integration with a whole universe of apps and services.

The only thing I haven;t found so far is a way to add tasks via e-mail, but I expect Evernote could offer a way around that.

The app will cost your $10, which is great news if you turn out to like it, as it means the developer is (hopefully) making enough money to continue improving the app. And today you can get is for just $5 with a Thanksgiving offer.

Source: Cult of Mac.

iPhone 5s production in numbers: 500K phones a day, 600 workers per iPhone.

A WSJ piece on Foxconn ramping up production of the iPhone 5s to meet demand provided an interesting glimpse at some of the numbers involved.

Foxconn operates 100 production lines, which are now operating at maximum capacity 24/7 to turn out 500,000 iPhones 5s handsets per day according to the report. Each iPhone represents the combined work of around 600 people. The unnamed Foxconn source said that this amounted to 100 people more than for the iPhone 5c due to the increased complexity of the high-end phone …

For the iPhone 5C or the iPhone 5, we only have 500 workers per production line as the assembly procedure is less complicated.

While the relationship between Apple and Foxconn is a crucially important one to both companies, each side is reportedly looking to reduce its reliance on the other – Apple looking to diversify its supply chain, and Foxconn keen to retain capacity for other clients. Apple currently represents around 40 percent of Foxconn’s revenue.

Availability of the 5s was initially heavily constrained, especially the gold model whose popularity appeared to take Apple by surprise. It was suggested yesterday that supplies may have almost caught up with demand, but we wouldn’t recommend relying on this if you plan on buying one as a holiday gift.

Source: 9to5Mac.

iHome Unveils Bluetooth Headphones And A Blinker-Earphone Combo For After-Hour Fitness Buffs.

iHome’s iB85 Bluetooth headphones .

If Cult of Mac ever created an award for “Most Prolific i-Gadget Maker,” there’s little doubt it would eventually end up in a cabinet at iHome’s headquarters (or possibly more accurately in a cabinet at their parent company, SDI technologies, which also owns New Balance and Timex).

Of the four new gadgets iHome has just revealed, the two we’re highlighting are a set of Bluetooth headphones endowed with the unimaginative moniker of iB85 Bluetooth Wireless Foldable Headphones and the somewhat more interestingly named iB12 Sport Earbuds with LED Safety Flasher — though the latter’s name is perhaps only more interesting simply because it combines the words “Safety Flasher” and “Earbuds.”

The interesting feature of the otherwise, at least on paper, unremarkable iB85 is its pricetag. There are other Bluetooth headphones out there equipped with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and enough power for a claimed 30-foot range; but $150 for such a pair seems like a comparatively good deal — provided they pass muster, of course.

Then there’s the iB12. In what seems like an effort to grab hold of the exploding fitness technology trend, iHome has created its FIT line, to which the iB12 — a $25 set of canalphones packaged with an LED blinker that doubles as a cable organizer — belongs. It’s laudable that iHome has expanded its offerings to try and reach out to the fitness crowd. But in an era of sweatproof Bluetooth earphones and bike-ready Bluetooth speakers, we’re not entirely convinced a set of earphones wrapped around a blinker is going to cut it.

The iB12 Sport Earbuds with LED Safety Flasher.

Source: Cult of Mac.