Appletell

At the recent Design And Art Direction (D&AD) Awards, Apple picked two of the prestigious Black Pencils.  Apple is now the company with the most Black Pencils in the D&AD’s 45-year history, having won many in the past.  Although Apple has only six Black Pencils (First Place) in past years, they have picked up at least one award since 1999.  The most notable awards this year was a Black Pencil for the aluminum iMac in the Work & Industry category, and another Black Pencil for the iPhone in the Leisure section.  Other awards include the Wireless Aluminum Keyboard which got a Nomination Pencil also in the Work & Industry category.  Apple also cleaned out the Leisure category, with the iPhone at the top, the iPod Touch taking the Yellow Pencil (Second Place) and the iPod Nano receiving the Nomination Pencil.  Chris Foresman for Infinite Loop couldn’t have said it better:

“While many have often scoffed at paying an “Apple Tax” for cool design, Mac users know that the care and attention to detail are more than skin deep. This recognition of Apple’s hard work should further support the fact that design matters, even in a computer.”

This is the first year in which Apple has done so well, and this year brought their win total to six.  One of the main reasons why the Black Pencil is the most coveted award in the event is because in past years, D&AD have actually refused to hand out the Black Pencil due to a lack of a deserving contestant.  These awards are a sure testament to Apple’s superiority in design.

[D&AD] via [9 to 5 Mac]

The Google Application Engine Team and the Google Mac team have released a new App Engine Launcher made specifically to run on Mac OS X. For those not in the know, Google App Engine is Google’s way of providing users a platform to run their web applications on Google’s infrastructure. Developers don’t have to maintain any servers and are provided with some Google hosted storage and bandwidth for free. Just by uploading their applications to Google’s server, developers can let their users access their applications on the web.

With the new Google App Engine Launcher for Mac OS X, Mac application developers can improve their App Engine development experience by managing their list of applications. Developers can run, browse, deploy and view logs for their applications with few simple clicks. Even better is the the App Engine Launcher’s drag and drop, editor integration and quick links to local developer console features. Developers will also have their own live application dashboard.

The Google App Engine SDK can be freely downloaded from http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html.

Via [The Apple Blog]

If that brief news tidbits coming from Commercial Times of Taiwan is any indication of what may come for the MacBooks, we may well be looking at a new MacBook model soon. According to the report, AU Optronics (AUO) and Chi Mei Optoeletronics are splitting up their orders of LCD panels from Apple. Those LCD panels are apparently for Apple’s “new MacBook consumer notebook PCs.”

The report also mentioned that the said new MacBooks are slated for release in the third quarter of 2008 and are expected to shoot up MacBook shipments this year by around 3 million units.

I know this may not be enough reason to get excited about a new MacBook, especially since we haven’t heard any slight hint coming from Apple about this the past few days. Aside from the fact that Apple has been busy prepping up the rumored release of a 3G iPhone. But if ever a new MacBook will come out later this year, I wonder how Apple will brand it this time? MacWind?

Via [Digitimes]

A new patent from Apple this week could greatly help in expanding what an iPhone can do for you.  This patent expounds upon the service that allows Starbucks customers to purchase coffees from their phone and is extremely interesting.  Basically, this patent implies that Apple would have services like this in businesses and various locations all over the world.  For example, an airport could show flight schedules right on your phone or you could save your dining preferences and wirelessly order with a digital menu at any restaurant involved with it.  Even better yet, if a concert used this you could be able to buy the bands tracks wirelessly right then and there.  It would work by connecting to a local wifi network that contained specific instructions on how to handle wireless devices that connect and are made by Apple.

This whole idea is actually pretty fascinating and I can see it becoming popular sometime in the future.  People carry their wireless devices everywhere and if Apple manages to get more of a market share or this extends to all wireless devices someday, it could become extremely handy.  Imagine simply walking into a restaurant and pulling out your phone to check the menu or being greeted with a tourist map when arriving in a new city.  If Apple ever does put this into effect some way or another, I can really see it taking off.

GhostReader, a nifty text-to-voice conversion software has been updated with the 1.5 release for the Mac OS X. The new release added some natural-sounding Czech, Polish, Swedish and Finish voices as well as some enhancements to the existing voices that the software has. In addition, a pronunciation editor was also introduced to help in modifying/editing the way a word is pronounced, including abbreviations. Even more sweet is the software’s ability to directly export documents to iTunes.

Additionally, the GhostReader 1.5 is now compatible with DOCX and ODT documents. The export to iTunes features also runs in the background, so you won’t get disturbed while doing other things. Aside from these, GhostReader 1.5 is now more responsive when you are speaking selected text and it even works in floating windows now.

If you’re a registered user of the previous version of the GhostReader, you can upgrade to the 1.5 release for free, while those who will use the software for the first in their Macs will need to shell out $39.95. The software works with Macs running OS X v10.4 or later.

Via [Yahoo News] Product [GhostReader]

During tonight’s broadcast of American Idol, another Get a Mac Ad premiered.  The ad features PC in a country music- inspired outfit, singing a sad country song about Vista’s fallibility.  The howling blood hound also ads a “nice touch”, but Mac’s kind words fail again to console PC’s Vista woes.  This ad follows the release of two other ads, “Pep Rally” and “Group”. 

Recently, I have been in general disappointed with the newer ads, but this new ad ends that streak.  It is definitely up there with the likes of “Genius” (definitely my all time favorite), “Security” and of course the very first Get a Mac Ad, “Virus”. 

What do you think of the new ads?

Watch the ads
via [TUAW]

The popular Times Reader for PC is set to get its own Mac version sometime this month. The Mac beta version will get the same core set of features as its PC counterpart including, easy-to-read paginated format, offline access, seven-day archive, text search and font size adjustment. NYT is even throwing access to its Premium Crosswords, how cool is that?

Unlike its the PC version, where the Times Reader’s windows automatically adjust to render a user’s screen, Mac users would be given with four pre-set window sizes to choose from. Ironically, the Times Reader for Mac uses Microsoft’s Silverlight technology to render the Times pages on the Mac Version. NYT reasons out that this was done to make the Mac Version as close as possible to the PC version of the Reader.

Additionally, the search function of the Times Reader for Mac has became more robust, now allowing full text searching of each articles in the seven day period.

As the Times Reader for Mac is still in beta stage, expect some bumps as you do your daily dose of NYT readings. NYT promises to put in more advanced features into their Mac Reader including News in Pictures and a faster synchronization time.

Via [First Look Blog]

Pixelmator, which claims to be “Image editing for the rest of us,” comes full of all sorts of different features for a relatively small price ($59.00) compared to other graphic design/image software of this nature such as Aperture and Photoshop.  If what the app contained before wasn’t enough to cause you to buy it, the new update may help.  The Pixelmator team has now released version 1.2 Draftsman of it’s beautiful, GPU powered image editor that comes as a free update for people who already use the product.  One of the key features in this update is new rulers tool.  This tool allows users to have even more control of the alignment on the layers and includes many different units such as pixels and centimeters.  This update also comes with the usual bug fixes as well as an addition of some more Automator actions.

Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team says, “Pixelmator opened the door for all users to explore their imaginative side through image creation, editing, and enhancement.  Now with powerful, but easy-to-use rulers, guides, curves, auto enhance, color balance, and polygonal lasso tools, Pixelmator provides users with an even wider range of creative opportunities.” Sounds great to me.

If you own Pixelmator and have downloaded the new version, let us know how it is.  The new features sounds extremely great and useful, and we love to hear your feedback!

Nakahara Informatic’s iGet Mobile, a nifty iPhone-Mac application that allows users to remotely access their documents on Mac through the iPhone just got a new Version 2.0 release. This new version boasts of the following new features; iPhone-specific features through the iGet Mobile web interface, an improved web server component, a redesigned user interface and other enhancements.

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Apple is at it again with two more witty Get a Mac ads.  This time around they are entitled “Pep Rally” and “Group” and of course feature the same actors as usual.  The Group ad consists of PC announcing that he has been able to live with Vista for a while now at what appears to be a support group.  Then, a fellow PC stands up and announces he has been error free for nearly a week, but he soon starts repeating himself and needs a reboot.  Again, Mac comes out on top.  In the Pep Rally ad, PC points out that Mac is the number one notebook on college campuses and then Mac is cheered on by some cheerleaders saying, “Mac’s number 1!” PC tell them they are supposed to be cheering for him so they then chant, “PC’s number 2!” Official score comes in at Mac 2, PC 0.

Apple’s marketing department comes up with some pretty great ads that really help promote their product.  The second on of those ads come on, customers immediately know what they are advertising, which is part of the point of ads.  Let’s hope they can keep up the great works on the ads and keep producing some good content!

Watch the ads