Appletell

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.

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The results of this year’s British Technology Awards are skewed so heavily towards Apple that I have to wonder if Steve Jobs wasn’t maybe a judge. Actually, the results were determined by “… thousands of votes ...” so it may be a fanboy thing. Still, having such rabid fanboys is certainly better for business than simply impressing a handful of men and women who sit around labs and pick apart technology all day.

Winning products after the break.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 7, 2008:

• Correct your spelling in more languages than you can possibly speak.
• Great. That’s just what we need; more user reviews of TV shows. Because, you know, those are useful.
• iWeb Valet can enhance your iWeb pages, but will it expect a tip?
• Scan faster with ExactScan, okay?
• Get Today any day throughout October for $12.
• GeoEdu generates questions and gathers data on populations and stuff. Someone else will have to explain the point.
• Team art on the iPhone. Someone will find a way to make a million dollars off it.
• PerfectTablePlan has now been used to seat an estimated two million wedding guests. I’m glad I declined that invitation.
• BurnAgain FS leaves me wondering what the FS stands for.
• The Sketches update amuses and provides fun. Like a clown, but without the nightmares.
• Macvide converts more video formats to Flash than there are video formats.
• I thought Mozy was a kids’ cartoon, but ends up its a Mac-centric online backup service. I’m guessing my kids wouldn’t watch that.
• The GeoEdu press release is a total mess, but I’ll try to clean it up for you.
• Training videos are available for ConceptDraw Office. Have at them.

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Remember back when Apple made the switch to Intel and it suddenly seemed as if all those PC games would be more easily ported to the Mac? So do I, and I’m still wondering where everything is. We saw some big name titles from EA, but after their initial release of four A-list titles (Madden, Need for Speed, etc.), nothing. Companies such as Aspyr and Feral continue to release popular games such as Call of Duty 4 and Tomb Raider Anniversary, but certainly no more so than when Macs were happily chugging away on PowerPC chips.

So, what’s been going on? Alex McLarty at The Mac Gamer finds some answers from one of the best sources in Mac gaming: Glenda Adams, Director of Development for Aspyr Media:

TMG: We’ve had Intel in our Macs for a few years now. Has how the switch changed game development for the Mac?

Glenda: It’s lessened some of the work we have to do, but unfortunately the graphics side of games has just exploded. The amount of shader code and complex rendering is probably 2-3 times as much work as it was for games a couple years ago, so that has more than offset the efficiency gains we had from the
Intel switch.

More questions answered and a bleak future predicted after the break.

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Charles Moore at Applelinks has written a lengthy but very insightful column about the ongoing problems with computers emitting chemical odors. Depending upon with whom you speak, these odors may or may not be more than just a temporary nuisance.

I’ve owned nearly a dozen Apple computers throughout my life, and I can honestly say that none have ever emitted a noticeable odor, let alone that could have affected my health. However, I’ve spoken to many people who have had troubles with this. Most of the time, the odors disappear ("gas off") after a period of use. For others, they seem to linger. That hasn’t been the case with Charles, though, and he cites numerous articles and forum posts to back up his problems.

Charles doesn’t wonder why the smell is there, but rather why no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Read [Applelinks]

Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 6, 2008:

• Moto Chaser, the mojo racer for iPhone, is temporarily available for $0.99.
• Find and share hiking/running/biking routes with TrailRunner...because moving forward and just occasionally turning left or right can get really confusing.
• And personally, rather than go running, I prefer to spend my time defending my towers from people running at them, as in Fieldrunners.
• They sure made color sound simple in kindergarten, right? Thankfully, Color Expert is here to help you sort through the mess of options that color really is.
• Toolbox 0.8.2 is now user friendly, which is good, because user spiteful apps never really do that well.
• The Dream Apps has announced Dream Capture 2.2. I wonder if it can capture that dream I just had about the shopping carts and Jessica Simpson.
• Dragoman is here to once again make the world safe for dragging!
• I climbed Big Stone Phone when I spent that summer backpacking across Europe. And I have some TalkingPics to prove it.
• I also left some iGraffiti while I was up there, but I’m not proud of that.
• If you put an infinite number of monkeys in a puzzle lab with an infinite amount of time, eventually they’ll burn it down.

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Macintosh and iPhone software updates and announcements for October 3, 2008:

• Note2Self has been updated to make sending notes to yourself almost as easy just remembering things.
• Ozone 4 is not an atmospheric safety level reading, it’s an update to iZotope’s software mastering suite. Which is good, because 4 doesn’t sound like a good level for the ozone to be at.
• A game in which a flight attendant helps to bring bankrupt airline back to the top of airline industry? Sounds to me like either a feel-good Disney comedy or late night cable smut. I’m guessing, though, it’ll be neither.

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