Appletell

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 15, 2008:

• Your iPhone 3G can now Wave to the iPod nano 4G, iPod touch 2G and iPod classic 80/120GB thanks to Griffin.
• If you’re going to play air hockey on your iPhone, shouldn’t you play the version that’s “best of breed?” And free?
• iLove College Football 2008 is available on the iPhone, but do you really want to get football scores on an object you can throw?
• It’s getting cold out. Shouldn’t your new MacBook or MacBook Pro be wearing a jacket? An Ultrasuede Suede Jacket, perhaps?
• Car Spotter for iPhone is on sale for $4.99. Now, if I could only find my iPhone Spotter...
• Funtastic Photos is an “evolutionary photo editor” for the Mac, so don’t use it at school or you’ll anger the “intelligent design photo editor” people .
• Final Cut Pro preferences hassles got you down? Losing sleep? Having trouble making friends? Not anymore, thanks to UserMatic!
• TextSoap 6 is cool and all, but I’m holding out for TextBubbleBath.
• Q: What did Typinator 3.2 say to the grammar police? A. “I’ll be backspace.”
• “The ultimate flying reptile battle game for the iPhone or iPod touch.” I am, like, soooooooo there, dude.
• Share your vCards on your iPhone with Sharecard. You know you want to.
• Not to Marware: One press release per day, please. Let’s not get greedy.
• That Dougie Moo’s back up to his usual Aqua Antics.
• Final Cut Pro is a media app, so why do you need Loader to streamline the media importing process? Wouldn’t that be like needing a special app in order to bring photos into Photoshop? Any, Loader’s available.
• Mail Act-On 2 puts Apple Mail organization at your fingertips. I’m thinking that was a good place to put it.
• WiFi Radar will help you maximize use of your wireless network. Or, better yet, help you bogart your neighbor’s.
• Big Bang Board Games for the iPhone/iPod touch now allows for two player “hot seat” play, which is good, because your friends aren’t as smart as your iPhone.
• Those new MacBook and MacBook Pro screens sure are nice. Now cover them up.

MORE »

Adobe has announced the immediate availability of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family. The update promises “… radical breakthroughs in workflow efficiency ...” and “… advances the creative process across print, Web, interactive, film, video and mobile.”

This launch is the largest in Adobe’s history, and includes brand new versions of Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver CS4, Fireworks CS4, Contribute CS4, After Effects CS4, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Encore CS4, Soundbooth CS4 and Adobe OnLocation CS4.

Customers can choose from six new versions: Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, Web Standard, Production Premium and Master Collection. The combination of Creative Suite and the new capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 10, also available today, deliver new levels of creativity and expressiveness across media channels. Designers using the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family will gain unprecedented creative control using the new expressive features and visual performance improvements in Adobe Flash Player 10 to deliver breakthrough Web experiences across multiple browsers and operating systems.

For more information on Adobe CS4, check out the Applelinks preview.

Product [Adobe Creative Suite 4]

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 13, 2008:

• DataMind tries to combat Photoshop functionality with Jade 1.3. You go, DataMind!
• Air Mouse turns your iPhone into a mouse for your Macintosh. Sadly, it’s perhaps the best Apple labelled mouse to come along in nearly 20 years.
• Thank God! Someone has finally redefined the ring toss!
• Baseline helps you efficiently scan your Time Machine backups? Scan them for what? Well, we leave that to you.
• PopCard allows website owner to add Apple “iCard” style greetings to their site; doesn’t explain to website owners why they should bother.
• The iLuv IMM173 is two, two, two docks in one!
• An iPhone app that helps you calculate your chemical solutions? Yeah....surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre it’s scientific.
• The mind mapping application MindNode Pro has been updated to v1.0.2. I think it now includes Google Map-like street view photos of your brain.
• My Apple Space will have a live chat up during tomorrow’s Apple event so you can all log in and whine to each other about the lack of a MacTablet announcement.
• Learn how to use Office 2008 for Mac...so you’ll be certain that giving it up was the right thing to do.
• Caboodle allows you to organize various bits of random info...things like, “What does this Caboodle app do?”
• Bebosoft has released Forms to Go v4.1, but should really just get together with Caboodle and execute a hostile takeover of the Doodlebops.

MORE »

Steve Ballmer runs the world’s largest software company. They make the world’s most-used operating system, and the most-used office productivity software. His job is to sell more of this software. And he would like you to know that the Mac version of the software his company sells, well, it more or less stinks:

“You know, anyway—can you find the applications you want on the Mac? Well, you don’t really get full Microsoft Office.”

Now, I realize that not only does Mr. Ballmer have to trash the Mac, it’s pretty obvious he enjoys doing it, too. But the man just doesn’t think sometimes, because Office:mac is a product that Microsoft makes. To sell for money. To sell to people who aren’t normally buying their product.

There’s more trashing of the Mac to read. I could summarize, but allow me simply to point out that the man in charge of Microsoft should really know the difference between a “mouse” and a “trackpad.”

Read [PCMag.com] Via [The Mac Observer]

OpenOffice has released version 3 of its open-source alternative to the Microsoft Office suite of applications, which now includes a native version for Mac OS X.

The new OpenOffice 3 includes the following new features:

• ODF 1.2 Support
• Microsoft Office 2007 Import Filters
• Solver component which allows solving optimization problems
• Support for displaying custom error bars and regression equations
• Improved Crop Feature in Draw and Impress

MORE »

If the two criteria for Mac-ness are “it just works” and being “insanely great,” then Skitch has to be the most Mac-like program I’ve seen in quite some time.

Skitch is a screenshot program, and while there’s nothing wrong with the screenshot capabilities built into OS X (other than it’s deliberately disabled when DVD Player is running), Skitch does everything Grab does, does it better, then adds labeling features you’ll wonder how you ever lived without, along with built-in sharing features that “just work” to allow you pass your pictures on via e-mail, web, and chat.

Currently a free beta from the mad geniuses at Plasq (best known to Mac users as the creators of Comic Life, a program I admire but haven’t found much practical use for), Skitch is a small program that waits in the background until you need to take a screenshot and/or do simple editing to a photo.

MORE »

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 10, 2008:

• EyeTV has been updated to v3.0.4. So, domo arigato, Mr. Elgato.
• Steinberg Media’s Cubase Essential 4 Personal Music Production System has a long, haughty name.
• Battle the mighty Aquafadas! And use their video software if you’ve still got an MPEG-2 or AVCHD camcorder.
• You’re at a party, a beautiful woman approaches you, and she asks you to compare two SQLite databases with drag and drop simplicity. Will you be ready, or will you go home alone? Again.
• I wonder if the servers for the BreakThru online radio for iPhone/iPod touch are all on a train racing across the countryside. And that Queen reference is dedicated to all my British readers, who comprise 8% of our audience.
• iWebTemplate releases new RapidWeaver template, doesn’t change their company name to Sometimes iWebTemplate.
• You can now practice numerology on the iPhone and iPod touch. I just hope you can still get a solid 3G connection when you’re spending eternity in hell!
• Arten Science don’t mix. Get it? Arten Science? Art and Science? Ah, forget it. Just check out their screen recording software and leave me alone.

MORE »

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 9, 2008:

• Tranquility for the iPhone and iPod touch is designed to reduce stress and help you sleep. In other words, it lies to you about the performance of your mutual funds.
• Dude, you totally breathe too fast. Get an iPhone and slow that down.
• Wait...there are Mac users who own Windows mobile devices? Weird.
• Proporta is offering 50% discounts on cases for all the iPods you’ve thrown away.
• By customized language learning, I don’t think they mean you can learn your own custom language.
• Jumsoft goes all ambiguous on us, releasing various templates for some software things that look like stuff.
• And then iPresentee gets more precise for Keynote.
• So, of course seyDoggy and Varsis Studio just have to do their thing for RapidWeaver 4.
• Finally, Germans get to flip photos, too.
• Use TeamViewer to view what your team is doing, unless that team is my Seahawks, in which case it’ll be best to stop viewing anything until at least 2012.
• Bring iCard functionality to your iPhone. Although, if you ask me, all iCards are spam. Even the ones sent by people you actually know.
• MacBook Pro owners can get up to 10 extra hours of computer power with the Apple Juicz External Battery/Charger. Just pray you never have to use it.
• There’s a lot to download from producerloops.com. It’s up to you to figure out what to do with it.

MORE »

In their never ending pursuit to guarantee that every game involving wheels should find its way to the Macintosh (those Brits do love themselves some racing), Feral Interactive has announced they will be bringing ToCA Race Driver 3 to our platform. The worldwide release of the exciting, wheel-to-wheel, single-player and multiplayer racing game developed by Codemasters is set for October 24th.

With 70 licensed cars and 80 licensed tracks, ToCA Race Driver 3 is the racing game for the Mac and offers the greatest range of motorsports of any game; GT, Off Road, Touring Cars, Classics, Open Wheel, Rally and Oval are just a few of the more than 35 types of racing featured. And the quality is just as impressive as the quantity with real-world physics giving players an authentic handling experience for each individual car.

With its online, multi-player capability, ToCA Race Driver 3 for Mac delivers an added dimension of live competition with other drivers across the globe.

MORE »

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 8, 2008:

• Play Tetris, Perfection and Sudoku in one game...and explode your brain!
• Ever wanted to know what Todd Rundgren thinks of you?
• Nuclear Nova again betrays their super cool name by releasing a golf game.
• You can TaskMagic. You can TaskAnything that you desire.
• Babelingo will help you speak with hot chicks...in 10 languages.
• My Apple Space is now up and running, because if your friends don’t use Macs, they’re not really your friends.
• baKno has announced Xplorer, and quite honestly, I’m tired of bad spelling and capitalization in company/software names.
• The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook will help you build iPhone apps, but it isn’t really a cookbook. I just want to make sure we’re clear on that.
• 1Password 2.9 helps you keep track of many passwords. Ironic, eh?

MORE »