TheAppleBlog

Software innovations are often over-hyped, so I approached the Opera Turbo Labs preview version of the Opera 10 browser with — how shall I say? — hopeful skepticism. As one who has suffered (not too strong a word) with a slow rural dial up Internet connection for the past 12 years, I’m eager to embrace [...]

If you are a designer, then you know the joy of having thousands and thousands of fonts available to use in your projects. You probably are also familiar with the despair of waiting for apps to launch, font menus to draw, and the horror of kernel panics when you get Font ID conflicts, the stray [...]

Place your iPhone on the floor and prepare to dance a merry jig, it’s the weekend and that means I’ve prepared a selection of fresh picks from the App Store.
As ever, before we get stuck in to a hand-picked selection of the latest releases from the App Store, I’ve delved in to the week’s Apple [...]

As someone who manages a few different web sites and Twitter accounts, I do find that it’s easy to waste a decent chunk of time checking all their various statistics. I often browse to the different websites from my iPhone, logging into each account sequentially to view the latest number of visitors or news feed [...]

If you haven’t noticed, the writers here at TAB like to write about invoicing applications. Some of our recent reviews include Billings, OnTheJob and Involer. But forget all of those other invoicing applications. I just found the one true ring of invoicing and time management: GrandTotal + TimeLog from Media Atelier.
I have been testing this [...]

Convert, an app for converting an array of different units, looks great and, in theory, should be quite useful. Unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good on this one.
The iPhone isn’t just about gaming and entertainment. Admittedly, I’ve got two screens worth of music and gaming apps, another screen for news, books and recipes, and then [...]

Well, it came to pass. Beloved childhood memory The Oregon Trail ($5.99, iTunes link) got updated and graphically reinvigorated for its arrival on the iPhone and iPod touch platform. The question is, is it still just as fun and educational as it was when you used to play it on your Apple II? Well, you [...]

Get ready for yet another cloud-based backup offering for the Mac. The folks at Carbonite are now shipping a beta version for us Mac folks. Should we be excited? Well, let’s see…
After trying out their software, I can’t say that it does anything more useful than my current solution, Backblaze. In fact, I can say [...]

As someone who enjoys a decent roller coaster from time to time, I’m always intrigued by theme park and coaster applications. When I heard about SkyCoaster for the iPhone, I had to give it a try. It’s a simple roller coaster simulator, offering a variety of different modes, graphic options and speed settings.
The app has [...]

It’s the first Saturday of March, which means one thing: grab your iPhone, prime your mind, and focus your eyeballs, because I’ve got another selection of fresh App Store picks for you.
Before we get to this week’s apps, there’s a stack of Apple happenings to run through. In App Store-related news, game development outfit Last [...]

Red Giant Software is a company that develops special effects applications for film and video editing, with credits in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Vanilla Sky, Grindhouse, and more. These applications are offered in two formats, as standalone applications or as plug-ins for most industry-leading editing software. Red Giant offers up many software solutions, [...]

Mozilla recently released Thunderbird 3 Beta 2, another stop along the road to the final release of Thunderbird 3.
Thunderbird is a full-featured, open-source email client originally based on the old Mozilla suite browser’s Mail module, which in turn derived from the ancient Netscape Communicator Messenger module.
I’ve never been a particularly big Thunderbird fan, but [...]

I’ve been a hardcore Gmail user since the early days, when beta really meant the email service was in its infancy. It’s perfect for managing my email but there are two big things Gmail can’t do that seriously hinder my daily workflow: There’s no easy way to switch between Gmail accounts, and no way to [...]

Nine out of ten iPhone owners would probably agree that this article, containing the freshest picks from the App Store, is a nutritious and delicious source of information.
Before we kick things off with this week’s picks, let’s take a quick look at happenings in the world of Apple this week.
Business news first, Apple’s shareholders have [...]

Oh the sheer horror of it! I’m feeling uneasy at the very thought of my iPhone getting half inched. At the moment, my strongest defense against thieves seems to be keeping my iPhone within a 1-foot radius at all times.
Beyond simply keeping a keen eye on one’s iPhone, it would be much more appropriate to [...]

Administering databases is not generally an exciting task, it’s right up there with TPS reports and their cover sheets. So why then, are you using the command-line MySQL client to administer your MySQL databases when you have a nice shiny user interface provided by OS X at your disposal?
The people behind Querious and Sequel Pro [...]

Do you mind map? Do you like to brainstorm with others using software that helps focus your ideas and prioritize project plans? Maybe you’re into Getting Things Done (GTD) and like to prioritize your tasks visually? If so, then read on my friend.
The folks at Matchware recently released MindView Pro 3.0 for the Mac. What [...]

I have tried just about every blogging platform out there and the one I finally stuck with was Tumblr. I like many of the more advanced functions in WordPress, but Tumblr is where it’s at for me. I’ve notice over the past couple of months I have started mobile blogging a lot more, and what [...]

Last month, reinstalling Leopard on my G4 PowerBook broke Photoshop Elements 6, and one reason I’ve been able to procrastinate about the necessary application reinstall (there oughta be a better way, Adobe — nothing else broke) is that Pixelmator is getting so darned good that I haven’t really needed Elements for anything yet.
PSE 6 still [...]

I’m exceedingly happy to tell you all about a brand-new series of articles we’re launching here at TheAppleBlog, entitled: The App Review.
Every other weekday, I’ll be sticking my big hands deep into the gaping jaws of the App Store and pulling out a fresh app for a top-down examination.
In each review, I’ll take the app [...]