News Archive for 04/10/22

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Apple to open two new retail stores next week

10/22, 9:20pm

Two new Apple stores

Apple has announced that it will open two new retail stores next week. The Apple Store Victoria Gardens will open in Rancho Cucamonga, CA on Thursday, October 28 at 10:00 a.m. It is located at 12442 South Main Street between JCPenney and Robinsons-May and across the street from Banana Republic. The Danbury Fair Mall location in Danbury, CT will open Saturday, October 30 at 10:00 a.m. at 7 Backus Avenue next to Bath and Body Works.

Forums: PowerBook future, iMac benchmarks

10/22, 5:30pm

Forums roundup for Oct 22

Topics of discussion on the MacNN forums today include: the possibility of Power Mac G5 updates in January.... speculation about future low-end PowerBook offerings.... some benchmarks from the high-end 20" iMac model.... Reaction to the new iBook offerings from Apple.... discussion of a possible trojan horse or virus encountered by one Mac users.

Apps: PeekIt, Chameleon, iURL, iCuistot...

10/22, 2:25pm

PeekIt, Chameleon...

PeekIt 3.4 allows users to open, examine, and change (as raw or hex values) the contents of a file. Version 2.4 allows Resource Fork Peeking, Keyboard navigation, and Sharing Notes. [Download - 959KB]
Chameleon 1.5.1 ($20) is the "Halloween Edition" of the "innovative application for transforming digital photographs into works of art." Version 1.5.1 includes a set of six themed Halloween borders, ideal for creating spooky images for the holiday season. [Download - 5.9MB]
iURL 1.3b6 is a universal URL management system for Internet power users and multimedia designers. The latest version includes, in addition to graphics preview, a new Quicktime preview feature, which reads files from local volumes or streams media through the Internet. [Download - 1.9MB]
iCuistot 1.1 is a "complete recipe and nutrition management" application for Mac OS X. This update adds Ingredients scaling, Full recipe content searching, MasterCook Mac recipes import, and more. [Download - 5.8MB]
Mariner Write 3.6.4 ($80) is a powerful easy-to-use word processor for the for Mac OS X. Version 3.6.4 adds new graphics and icons, Architecture enhancement to RTF translation, and fixes for a number of issues, including a crash with certain Input Methods when deleting, and redraw issues. [Download - form]
Mariner Calc 5.3.1 is a "powerful, yet streamlined" spreadsheet for the Mac OS designed for the analysis, simulation and forecasting of numerical data. This update fixes online help display, a redraw bug when editing in cells, and an Application Tab error. [Download - form]

Ford Racing 2 goes 'gold', due in November

10/22, 2:25pm

Ford Racing 2 goes \'gold\'

Feral today announced that Ford Racing 2 has gone 'gold' and is expected to be available in 2-3 weeks. The new game features 35 vehicles, including "the best Ford cars since 1949, from legends like the 1956 F-100 pickup and the 1968 Mustang GT to future classics like the super-car slaying Ford GT." The Ford Challenge section contains 34 tests of your skills offered in several different categories. It offers replays, race tracking/history, a driver rating, split-screen multi-player racing, Standard and Elimination races, up to four computer-controlled opponents, different tracks, and more. It runs on Mac OS X 10.2 or later and is available for pre-order for $30.

Briefly: XM wearable device, Panther/InDesign books

10/22, 2:00pm

XM wearable device

In Brief: XM Radio is launching a wearable device next Tuesday, the same as the previously announced Special Music Event by Apple: "uch a device would 'also get investors thinking about future combinations of sIPOD/TIVO-like satellite radios, which would increase the value of the monthly subscription.'"...O'Reilly has announced the release of "Mac OS X Power Hound, Panther Edition" ($25) by Rob Griffiths... The new "Adobe InDesign CS One-on-One" (O'Reilly, $45) offers private InDesign lessons-like lessons with Adobe Certified Expert and world-renowned digital publishing guru Deke McClelland.... Graphisoft of Hungary announced this week that ArchiCAD 9, its BIM (building information modeling) CAD software, has drawn critical acclaim from architects practicing across the globe.

Recosoft announces PDF2Office v2.0 Professional Ed

10/22, 1:05pm

PDF2Office v2.0 Pro Ed.

Recosoft today announced PDF2Office v2.0 Professional Edition, a major upgrade to its PDF document data extraction and conversion tool. PDF2Office v2.0 dramatically improves the conversion of PDF documents to Microsoft Word, RTF and Appleworks formats - recreating the original construct of the document. PDF2Office recreates the original construction and layout of the document. Versoin 2.0 adds the ability to open PDF documents in Microsoft Word, improved layout reconstruction, forms processing, Acrobat 6 PDF document support, image compression and resolution support, and more. It will ship in December and will be a free upgrade all new purchases of PDF2Office 1.1. Pricing will be $130 (full), $60 (upgrade), and $90 (education).

Briefly: BTO Xserve, Wireless Security Webcast, icons

10/22, 10:40am

Wireless Security Webcast

In Brief: The Apple Store is now offering BTO configurations of the Xserve G5 with the new 400GB drives, following public release of larger-capacity Xserve RAIDs...The MacEnterprise.org (formerly MacOSXLabs.org) group will be presenting a Wireless Security Webcast on Tuesday, October 26 at 1:00 pm EDT.... Two new icon kits are available, including Iconkits.com's Soul Developer Icon Kit Vol. 2 ($90), which features 80 new icons rendered in the popular "Soul" style and the Iconfactory's Satin stock Database Add-On collection ($180), which includes 52 databases-related icons... The October 25 registration deadline is approaching for developers who have not yet registered to compete in the uDevGames 2004 Mac Game Developer Contest.... The First iDJ iPod Party in the Netherlands will take place on November 27, allowing users to bring their own digital music playlists.

Guardian: Apple will lose audio war, hurt consumers

10/22, 10:20am

Apple in \'audio war\'

Yet another columnist says that Apple's refusal to license FairPlay (i.e., open up the iPod/iTunes system) is detrimental for both the company and users and that Apple has a very large number of competitors in the burgeoning market: "Apple is making corporate enemies by refusing to license FairPlay, its bought-in digital rights management system. FairPlay is intended to stop rival music services from offering protected downloads that can be moved straight to an iPod, and makes it impossible for hardware manufacturers to make digital players that work with iTMS....But in the long run, it could be bad news for consumers, even if most of them have not yet realised it."

Mac creator: "the Mac is now a mess"

10/22, 10:10am

\"The Mac is now a mess\"

In an interview with The Guardian: Jef Raskin, one of the creators of the Mac and inventor of the click-and-drag interface, says that the Mac interface has lost its edge: "the Mac is now a mess. A third party manual (Pogue's The Missing Manual) is nearly 1,000 pages, and far from complete. Apple now does development by accretion, and there is only a little difference between using a Mac and a Windows machine...[And on the iMac]: The unfoldable portable-shaped box on a stalk? It is a practical and space-saving design. But the interface needs fixing. One only cares about getting something done. Apple has forgotten this key concept. The beautiful packaging is ho-hum and insignificant in the long run."

Thomas Weisel: Flash-based player coming from Apple

10/22, 10:00am

Apple flash-based player?

Thomas Weisel market analyst Jason Pflaum reiterated his belief that Apple is set to launch a flash-based music player before Christmas: "I recently spent two weeks in Asia meeting with a number of folks who are in a position to know details of SigmaTel's supply chain. Based on our industry contacts, we are confident that, one, Apple is planning to launch a flash-based player, and two, SigmaTel is the provider of controller chip for that device."