Appletell | Apple, Mac, iPhone, iPod | News, Rumors, Reviews, How-Tos

Macintosh and iPhone/iPod updates and announcements for July 29, 2009:

Macintosh

• IDG World Expo has announced that they are now accepting discount hotel reservations for Macworld 2010 from February 9 through February 13, 2010. The hotels are the San Francisco Marriott ($259 per night, 1 block from Convention Center) and InterContinental San Francisco ($229 per night, adjacent to the West Hall and 1 block from North Hall). To reserve your room, visit resweb.passkey.com/go/MW2010, or view the full hotel list and early bird rate offers (which end on Sunday, November 15th) at www.macworldexpo.com.
• Matthew Butch of Volitans Software and Rudy Boonstra of R Engineering Inc. have announced ModbusProbe 1.0.0, an application for Mac OS X to poll ModBus enabled control system devices. The application allows connecting to a device and displaying the register data in the device. ModBus Probe is based on ModBusKit, a Mac OS X framework that is being released as open source software to encourage further development of ModBus applications.
• iPresentee has released iWeb Themes 5.0 to be used with Apple’s Web site building application. iWeb Themes 5.0 include five new superb themes. The new release extends iPresentee’s iWeb themes collection up to forty five themes. Each iWeb theme incorporates a number of different graphic elements which can be easily removed, moved and changed in size, opacity or color. All themes incorporates endless background, therefore website can be filled with different amount of information.
• Macware is offering a discount at over half-off for MacBurn until August 1st. MacBurn brings the power of CD and DVD burning in one easy-to-use application for data DVDs, multi-session data CDs, audio CDs and more. Burn backups of your data or make a mix of your favorite tunes with a few simple clicks. You can even burn discs that can be read on Mac’s, PC’s or both. Burn backups of your data or make a mix of your favorite tunes with just a few simple clicks.
• Prosoft Engineering, Inc. has announced the availability of Drive Genius 2.2, an update to its award-winning disk utility. Drive Genius 2.2 now supports Snow Leopard, improves defragmentation functionality and repartition performance, and adds other improvements.
• RadTech has announced the STM Turtle hard shell laptop sleeve. The horizontal-loading STM Turtle keeps your notebook protected from impacts, soiling and scratches within a rigid, protective shell. Constructed from compressed EVA with a simple and attractive post and band closure system that speeds access to your notebook. The unique and stylish Turtle is designed to keep your laptop safe from the bumps and scratches that it normally encounters on a daily basis.
• Macgamestore.com has announced the release of Burger Shop 2, the sequel to the wildly popular restaurant management game created by GoBit, Inc. In Burger Shop 2 you must rebuild your restaurant empire, adding new twists to your menu to entice new customers while uncovering the truth about what happened to your original restaurant chain. Burger Shop 2 features 120 levels of story mode, 120 levels of expert mode and endless play in Challenge and Relax Mode.
• Jumsoft has added a new product to its selection of templates for Apple’s iWork: Numbers Templates, created for both home and professional users to assist in work that requires careful planning or calculation. The package includes 10 spreadsheet templates. Each template includes appropriate tables or checklists and illustrates the given information with graphs and charts where applicable.
• Eltima Software has released Recover PDF Password, their popular password recovery tool for Mac OS X. The new version of Recover PDF Password enables Mac users to drag and drop a file into the app, press the Decrypt button and immediately save a copy of the file with protection removed. It supports all character encodings and is able to recover passwords, typed in any language and in any keyboard layout. Recover PDF Password can retrieve Unicode Passwords for protected Acrobat 9.x files.

iPhone/iPod

• Appmodo is holding its first promotional code and grand prize giveaway next week, beginning August 3, 2009 at 12:00AM PST and ending August 7, 2009 at 11:59 PM PST. Each contestant has the chance to win a promotional code good for one (1) iPhone or iPod Touch application, or two winners have the chance to win our grand prize, a $20 dollar gift card sponsored by Gameloft.
• Until September 30, MiRE Software will be holding an iPhone app idea contest. Simply give them the best idea for an iPhone application. They’ll develop the winning suggestion and offer you 25% of the profit from your idea for as long as the application is available in AppStore. Developing an idea can be very expensive if you don’t know anything about programming, but this is not a problem since MiRE will cover all the costs during the making of the application. October 1st, they will announce the winner/winners.
• WalletWhiz is your personal financial tool for easily tracking your spending habits against a budget. Unlike most budget applications on the App Store, WalletWhiz gives you the choice of managing your budget through a unique Calendar view, a traditional Categories view, or both. By using the Calendar view in tandem with the Categories view, you can manage your budget more efficiently.
• Ultimake Ltd today has announced MyPhone+ 2.0, an update to their popular dialer and Facebook synchronization application for the iPhone. MyPhone+ is an all-in-one premium dialer and Facebook synchronization application. It provides all dialing options: keypad, contact list and favorites, while keeping the iPhone contacts up to date with the latest profile picture and information from Facebook.
• Zepherella, the creator of No-Surprise Healthcare Pricing, has begun piloting an iPhone compatible application to supplement zepherella.com.  Building on the belief that healthcare pricing should be upfront and available to patients, Zepherella gives physicians a quick and convenient way to inform their patients about the cost of their medical care from inside the exam room.
• Bulkypix has announced a 50% promotional price drop on Hysteria Project for iPhone and iPod Touch. Hysteria Project is the first ever live action interactive game series, which features quick-time events interspersed with user-made decisions that branch the intense, atmospheric horror/survival storyline.
• Los Angeles Entertainment Group have introduced a 7-day sale for their Power Grid game, allowing users to buy it at 80% off. Power Grid is a game with a basic concept of restoring power to an apartment building through the manipulation of blocks into various positions. Power Grid has recently generated a lot of media attention for its addictive gameplay and mass appeal to a large demographic of iPhone users.
• Connect2Media invites you to find the hero within yourself with the first update for the action-puzzler Go! Go! Rescue Squad (iTunes App Store link). Plus, get a whole free section of the game with Go! Go! Rescue Squad! Lite on the App Store now for free. This first update has been closely developed with fan feedback in mind, remedying all known issues and revamping several key elements, such as the control method and smoothing off the often harsh difficulty spikes.
• Joby, the world renowned designer of the Gorillapod line of innovative camera tripods, is pleased to announce the Gorillamobile. Representing the first product in a new product line, the Gorillamobile promises unparalleled tripod compatibility for almost all mobile devices. Featuring the critically acclaimed ball‐and‐socket tripod legs that affix to and balance on any surface, the Gorillamobile provides consumers with a universal system for mounting any portable device. Photo‐taking, video‐recording, talking and movie‐watching have never been easier!