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

Macintosh and iPhone/iPod updates and announcements for July 8, 2009:

Macintosh

• Cynical Peak Software has announced the release of Rivet 2.2. Rivet enables users to stream video, music, and photos from Mac OS X to an Xbox 360 or PS3 over their home network. Users can now easily enjoy all of their media on their big screen TV from the comfort of their living room. Version 2.2 adds movie thumbnail and music album art support, expanded metadata, and performance optimizations.
• publicspace.net has announced A Better Finder Rename 8.23, an update to its popular file, music and photo renaming utility. A Better Finder Rename is a sophisticated tool that caters for the full range of file renaming tasks encountered by the modern creative professional. The new release extends the existing music file renaming features of the tool with new capabilities.
• DEVONtechnologies has released updates for the popular freeware utility EasyFind and the menu bar application and file launcher XMenu. The updates add a number of useful features to the freeware utilities EasyFind and XMenu and fix a few minor bugs. EasyFind finds files, folders, or contents in any file without the need for indexing. XMenu adds one or more global menus to the right side of the menu bar.
• MacTI, BoxOffice Tickets and the WebObjects Community Association are pround to announce WOWODC East, a two-day conference about WebObjects, the Object Oriented Web framework from Apple. WOWODC has two tracks : a complete 15 hour track for people new to the platform, and a advanced track with advanced sessions and labs. WOWODC East will be held held on August 29th and 30th in beautiful Montreal, Canada.
• Eternal Storms Software has announced the immediate availability of flickery 1.1.1, a unique desktop flickr client for Mac OS X Leopard. flickery combines the flickr photo-community with the ease-of-use and elegance of Mac OS X. Easily upload photos to Flickr photostream, organize photos in photosets and groups, browse Favorites and more. Version 1.1.1 features sharing of photos on websites by providing the HTML source, interface and speed-improvements and more than 30 bug fixes.
• Macvide has announced iPod Converter 2.7, an update to their video to iPod mp4 conversion utility for Mac OS X. Developed specifically for Mac users, iPod Converter allows conversion of video files to mp4 iPod video. All of the most popular formats are supported, and helps bridge the gap between many video standards. iPod Converter offers an easy-to-use interface that guides the user through the conversion process.
• QuickerTek has announced the Apple Juicz Lite External Battery for the MacBook and MacBook Pro computers. This new version is both smaller and lighter, as well as less expensive than the original Apple Juicz line. Users gain up to five hours of additional battery power~beyond the power of the built-in MacBook/MacBook Pro battery. The Apple Juicz Lite External Battery charges the internal battery of the MacBook or MacBook Pro while in use. Tekserve is the exclusive stocking reseller.
• SkypeCap has announced SkypeCap for Mac 2.1, their Skype video and audio session recorder for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, SkypeCap for Mac allows recording of audio and video conversation from Skype to video and audio files. SkypeCap for Mac saves your Skype sessions so that you could hear and watch them again later or share them with someone else. It fully integrates the process into the Mac experience by allowing human interaction during recording and conversion.
• LaCie has announced that its LaCinema Rugged multimedia hard drive is now available in High Definition: LaCinema Rugged HD. The LaCinema Rugged product range has the most compact, reliable, and mobile multimedia players on the market. Now, with enhanced HD capability, the LaCinema Rugged HD is the first multimedia player in its class, to allow users to store and play High Definition content—on any HDTV in Full-HD 1080p resolution.

iPhone/iPod

• Robosoft Technologies and Virtual Programming have announced the release of Pipe Mania for the iPhone. The game is considered as one of the most successful puzzle games ever. Introduced in the year 1989, the game quickly made its way through several platforms such as the PC, DS, PSP, and Wii, and now it’s on the iPhone.
• About Objects has released a new set of iPhone 3.0 developer examples as free, downloadable Xcode projects. The example projects form a progressive series designed to take developers from the rudiments of iPhone programming through the development of sophisticated iPhone productivity apps. Developers are free to use the examples for their own learning, and can even use the example code in their own projects if they so choose.
• The Crumpery has released an update to DinnerDate, their restaurant and meal organizer for the iPhone. DinnerDate allows you to work from two different starting points: the restaurant (or other eating establishment) you want to go to and the meal you are having or plan to have.
• Candywriter has announced the immediate availability of Word Solitaire 1.0, an iPhone and iPod touch app that combines word creation and classic solitaire. Word Solitaire cards are dealt just like the popular solitaire variant of Klondike but with a unique twist: instead of traditional playing cards, each card represents a letter of the alphabet. Each of the 25 levels in Word Solitaire progresses slightly in difficulty, with more challenging letter combinations featured on the higher levels.
• No longer do you need to type the name of a sought-after product into a search field. For the first time, it is possible to compare the price of an item using a photo. Imagine standing in front of a discounted DVD rack and wondering if the “super-slashed sale price” really is a true bargain. Anyone looking to compare prices has had to either pound the pavement or shop around online. Spontaneous comparisons were not feasible. However, times have changed: one of the leading Swiss websites, price comparison engine comparis.ch, now enables iPhone and Android users to compare prices by taking a picture of the requested item. kooaba’s image recognition technology recognizes the product and triggers the comparison at comparis.ch.
• M.O.C. Interior Designer has announced Mark On Call 1.3, a major update to their popular interior design and customization tool for iPhone and iPod touch. Users can create accurate custom-sized rooms, access and re-size 156 furniture and architectural elements, lay down surfaces, and render fabrics chosen from a palette of preset options or custom-created using the phone’s camera or photo library. Version 1.3 has been completely redesigned resulting in overall increased ease-of-use.
• Advenio has announced the release of Cloudburst 1.0 for iPhone and iPod touch. Cloudburst: it’s your quick and simple weather, all in a single glance. Cloudburst shows you the current weather conditions, including temperature, wind, visibility, etc. for your favorite locations. In the same view, you also get the current weather radar picture and the four day at-a-glance forecast. Weather conditions and radar in an instant.
• WebIS Inc. has announced a major update to its Calendaring/To Do application for the iPhone, Pocket Informant. This release offers improved performance and stability, more robust synching, more complex recurrence options, shake to sync, To Do grouping/sorting, and much more. Pocket Informant offers Calendaring and To do management in one easy to use application and is the premiere Personal Information Manager for iPhone, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry devices.
• SkyZone Entertainment, Inc., a leading provider of premium mobile games, content, and services with strong deployment capabilities, today announced three best-selling mobile titles now available on the iPhone and iPod Touch: Extreme Hangman, Jewel City, and The Rise of Atlantis. Available at the Apple App Store starting at $0.99, all three titles landed on the iPhone and iPod Touch after very successful runs on traditional mobile channels.
• planning NYARO has announced an updated version of one of Japan’s top selling iPhone apps: Indicator Maniacs (ver 1.5). Indicator Maniacs is an iPhone/iPod Touch app aimed at fans of sci-fi, which features a variety of customizable indicators (such as a microphone meter, vibration meter, warp switch, and more), with designs and animations inspired by Japanese anime.  You can choose your favorite indicators, customize their position and color, and even skin the background with pictures from the Photo Album.
• Moblyng Games has released its newest social mobile game, m:Vampire. The cross-platform title for Facebook, Android/G1, iPhone, Nokia 5800 and Nokia N97 is the first vampire-themed role-playing game (RPG) that allows players to add and challenge friends from Facebook and a variety of supported smartphones, making it the only truly social vampire experience of its kind.