Macenstein

Did Apple’s “Black Friday” specials leave you hungry for more? Try a “Mac Feast”

As usual, Apple’s “Black Friday” specials ended up being much ado about nothing, with price cuts on the order of what most people who have even a tenuous relationship with a student can accomplish on their own. However, there is good news for those Mac fans left wanting from these “deals”. Aquafadas did some networking at this year’s WWDC, and managed to line up a slew of the biggest and brightest European Apple developers for their “Give... Read More

Break your expensive gadget? Just tell them the ads told you to do it

So what’s the deal with expensive electronics being used as dominoes in ads? If you watched this September’s Apple Special Event address, you may remember this shot of Steve Jobs standing next to the new nano’s ad campaign pic (approx. 24:13 in). That pic was also used that week on the Apple homepage to promote the new nano, and while I thought it was certainly cute, I was a little surprised in this age of “suing a company for spilling coffee on yourself”... Read More

6 degrees of Steve Jobs: Round 9 – Turducken

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! As we reflect on the the past year, and look for things to be thankful for, many of you likely are thankful it’s been awhile since we last played 6 Degrees of Steve Jobs our thrilling game where we try to link Steve Jobs to almost every famous person in history (except, oddly enough, Kevin Bacon) through a series of past events. Well, all good things must come to an end, so welcome to Round 9! Let’s play! In honor of Thanksgiving, we’d... Read More

Freeverse launches MacFun website with free game

Do you like free stuff? Do you like games? Do you like playing… “Hearts”? Odds are you only answered 2 of those 3 questions with a “yes”, but, if you’re like me, you’ll be wanting to head over to Freeverse’s newly launched MacFun website anyway to pick up your free copy of 3D Hearts Deluxe, whether or not you plan to ever play it. As someone who downloads every free song they can find on the iTunes store (even the Latin ones I... Read More

Review: iPhone USB Sync and Charge Cradle by Wireless Ground

The iPhone’s battery boasts an impressive 8 hours of talk time and a whopping 250 hours of standby time, yet I personally find I have to recharge my iPhone daily. No, I don’t use up the battery gabbing with friends (faithful Macenstein readers will recall I have no friends), instead I primarily use the iPhone as an iPod, listening for 10 or more hours a day while at work. This near-constant use means there have been more than a few times when I have received a call... Read More

Some things should not be…

…and one of them is Duck Hunt on the iPhone. I was actually quite the marksman back in the day on the original NES version of Duck Hunt, so I was pretty excited to see Jirbo had ported the game to the iPhone. Sure, giving a young child a light gun and letting him kill virtual animals for hours on end, alone in his basement, is perhaps a recipe for disaster, but damnit, I was good. I was a dead shot from across the room (or as far as the cords reached, anyway). I even could... Read More

Review: Bowers & Wilkins’ Zeppelin iPod Speakers

If you’re anything like me, you live in a mansion, drive a Mercedes and eat lobster 3 times a day. Yes, life is good. In fact, the only downside to my fabulous life is that my iPod is shackled to plebeian-priced iPod speakers. Many is the time I have wished I could spend $600 on something to truly set my iPod apart from the speakers my hick relatives and low brow college friends use… Enter the Zeppelin Ok, so pretty much everything in the above paragraph is a... Read More

The least successful sign in history?

I came across this Flickr pic of a Clearwater, Florida Verizon store on Digg, and just had to share. Hmmm… Freudian slip? It actually seems to say “see and sell your iPhone here.” Perhaps Verizon employees want to buy iPhones? I’m actually curious as to what would happen if someone were to attempt to go in and “cancel their iPhone.” Does that sign mean they will just smash your iPhone with a hammer? I assume the geniuses at this store meant... Read More

Get your own personal Apple.com username

Like most of you, I like to pretend I am an Apple employee, occasionally dressing up as one and standing outside the entrance to my local Apple store greeting customers and dispensing advice. And now I have discovered a way to further encourage my deranged fantasy. Simply add the text ?user= to Apple’s url, and you can create the illusion that you have special access to Apple.com, complete with the username of your choice. Imagine how proud your parents will be when you... Read More

You can never have too many friends, or can you?

Tonight I’m working late, and I’m so bored I’m going crazy. In order to help pass the time between renders, I figured a great time waster would be hitting the “approve friend” button in various social websites. To that end, if you are bored, and don’t mind diluting your friends lists with people you’ve never met, friend me up on MySpace, Virb, and Facebook. Thanks!  Read More