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Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

Critical Update Issued for Apple TV

Written on November 08, 2009 by Charles Jade and 4 people have commented

Ten days after updating the Apple TV’s software to version 3.0, Apple has released version 3.0.1 along with an alarming warning about users’ content “temporarily” disappearing.

From the uninformative and unintentionally hilarious support document, if you are running Apple TV 3.0 and “all of your movies, TV shows, and songs appear to be missing” or “all [...]

iApps: The Software Suite Apple Should Create

Written on November 06, 2009 by Jon Buys and 14 people have commented

Once upon a time, iTunes did exactly what it sounded like it should do: play music. It was the digital jukebox for your mac, Rip, Mix, Burn, remember that?
Looking at the sidebar in iTunes now, I’ve got Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, iTunes U, Audiobooks, Applications, and Radio, and that’s just the main library. [...]

Art or Virus? Symantec Villifies Spoof Apple “Trojan”

Written on November 05, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 6 people have commented

Security firm Symantec is warning computer users about a new Mac-specific Trojan that deletes files on the user’s hard drive, according to Techworld.com. It has dubbed the piece of malware “OSX.Loosemaque,” and uploaded a YouTube video of how it goes about its nefarious purpose.
Basically, it’s a Space Invader clone wherein when you kill an alien, [...]

Parallels Desktop 5 Released, Stays Ahead of VMWare

Written on November 05, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 33 people have commented

Hot on the heels of the release of VMWare Fusion 3, the folks at Parallels have released Parallels Desktop 5, matching the features of VMWare Fusion 3 and adding some new ones to boot. You can get a quick overview of the newest features in the Parallels press release.
Parallels Desktop 5 costs $79.99 for the [...]

App Store Hits 100K in 481 Days

Written on November 04, 2009 by Charles Jade and 5 people have commented

481 days. That’s how long it took the App Store to go from opening its virtual doors with 500 applications on July 11, 2008 to a catalog of more than 100,000 applications downloaded more than 2 billion times.

Not surprisingly, the folks at Apple are pleased.
“The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly [...]

Ngmoco’s Eliminate and Touch Pets Dogs Come to the App Store

Written on November 03, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 6 people have commented

Ngmoco has been talking up its new offerings for a while now, including the visually stunning first-person shooter Eliminate, and the virtual pet Touch Pets series of apps. Both of these are now available, free of charge, on the App Store, as of yesterday.
Even though the apps are indeed free to download and install on [...]

Is Backup on Apple’s Back Burner or Simply Abandoned?

Written on November 03, 2009 by Dave Greenbaum and 22 people have commented

When Leopard was introduced, backing up became an automatic and effortless operation. Set it and forget it. Unfortunately, Time Machine backups are not off-site and don’t protect you against an on-site disaster. When I previously covered some online off-site backup solutions, Apple’s backup utility was not one of them.
Apple Backup is still [...]

Upcoming Snow Leopard Update Disables Atom Processor Support

Written on November 02, 2009 by Alfredo Padilla and 17 people have commented

Users who are running a hackintoshed netbook with Intel’s Atom processor may want to be careful next time an update for Snow Leopard is pushed out. According to OS X Daily, users have found that the latest developer preview of the 10.6.2 update disables support for Atom processors. The processor is used widely in the [...]

Can Dedicated e-Readers Compete With the iPhone?

Written on November 02, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 4 people have commented

Over at our sister site GigaOM, Om takes a look at the rising trend of e-book sales on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. According to a survey by San Francisco mobile tech analytics firm Flurry, one in five apps launched during the month of October on the App Store was a book. Book releases for the [...]

How-to: Enable Expose and Spaces for the Magic Mouse

Written on November 02, 2009 by Bryan Schuetz and 50 people have commented

So you’re loving your brand new Magic Mouse but are missing the ability to activate Expose and Spaces right from the mouse? Not to worry, we’ve got you covered. Using SIMBL and a neat little preference pane called MultiClutch, we can map our own custom shortcuts to the left and right swipes coming [...]

Mac Market Share Hits All-Time High Following Windows 7 Launch

Written on November 02, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 2 people have commented

Microsoft’s advertising strategy with the latest installment of Windows is basically to none-too-subtly deride its predecessors, and it does appear to be helping Windows 7 gain traction among consumers. Unfortunately, it also might be contributing to the success of Mac OS X, or at least, it isn’t doing anything to slow down the steady progress [...]

Home Screen Analysis: Too Many Apps, Too Few Good Ones

Written on October 30, 2009 by Alfredo Padilla and 21 people have commented

Recently I read about the First & 20 project, an effort to share the home screens of various technorati. When I heard about it I immediately shot off to the page to look through the home screens. I was most excited about the possibility of finding new applications. As we all know, one of the [...]

Apple TV 3.0, iTunes 9.0.2 Released

Written on October 29, 2009 by Charles Jade and 13 people have commented

Following a presumably unintentional disclosure in the terms of service for the iTunes Store, Apple has released Apple TV 3.0, as well as a corresponding update for iTunes.

As previously reported, Apple TV 3.0 supports iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, and does so with a new look. According to Eddy Cue, Apple VP of Internet Services, [...]

Watch NBA Games Live On Your iPhone

Written on October 29, 2009 by Josh Pigford and 15 people have commented

Liz at NewTeeVee has the scoop and a preview of the future of live sports (or at least basketball) on your iPhone.

The NBA is launching a new iPhone app that will let you watch live NBA games wherever you are (class, work, bathroom…you get the idea). To access the 40+ live games that will be [...]

Apple TV 3.0 Will Support iTunes LP and Extras, Needs More Still

Written on October 29, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 10 people have commented

Apple recently introduced two new formats, iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, which deliver additional content to album and movie purchases, respectively. Apple also only just updated the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions agreement, and AppleInsider spotted some key changes in that document that point to an upcoming Apple TV update that will support the new [...]

How-to: Create Services for Quick Search Box

Written on October 28, 2009 by Bryan Schuetz and 5 people have commented

I’ve been playing around with Google Quick Search Box lately and am especially enjoying this services plugin from Martin Kuhl which lets you activate and pass input to OS X services right from within QSB.
One snag though has been that services created through the new Automator template included in Snow Leopard leave out some vital [...]

Quick Look: Creating and Using Site Specific Browsers

Written on October 28, 2009 by Alfredo Padilla and 7 people have commented

The advent of the cloud over the past few years has meant that a lot of the tasks that we were used to doing on our Mac have now moved to the web. This brings with it a host of issues, from data ownership to reliability of services (see recent Sidekick fiasco) and whether the [...]

Google Plans to Introduce Maps Navigation, Could Come to iPhone

Written on October 28, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 4 people have commented

If you’re the CEO of TomTom or Garmin, you may want to sit down for this. Google is working on a turn-by-turn navigation app that it will be offering for free on Android 2.0 handsets. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s working with Apple to bring it to the App Store, too.
But hey, maybe [...]

Apple Issues Magic Mouse Update, But Where Are the Mice Themselves?

Written on October 28, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 29 people have commented

Last week, Apple announced the Magic Mouse, which is its new standard pointing device, complete with Bluetooth connectivity and multitouch gesture support. I promptly called my local Apple store, and a staff member told me they weren’t in stock and to try back again later in the week. I did, and again, no luck. It’s [...]

Kindle Software Coming to the Mac

Written on October 27, 2009 by Liam Cassidy and 2 people have commented

The competition is really heating up in the e-reader market. Hot on the heels of Barnes & Noble’s newly-released Nook reader, Amazon last week announced its Kindle branded e-book reader software for the PC. With it, users will be able to read their electronic books on their Kindle and on their desktop PC, too. And, [...]