EarthDesk 5.0 goes Cocoa, 32/64-bit, adds features
updated 11:20 pm EDT, Mon June 29, 2009
EarthDesk 5.0 ships
Xeric Design has released EarthDesk 5.0, featuring a complete rewrite in Cocoa, faster rendering and higher resolution maps. The realtime desktop worldmap provides users with an image of Earth featuring Sun, Moon and city-based illumination and cloud cover. The Cocoa rewrite provides a new rendering engine for both faster rendering speed and lower processor usage. It is a 32- and 64-bit application that is Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) ready. Version 5.0 also adds seasonal maps with changing snow and vegetation levels and a higher resolution map for large displays. It can now provide cloud data as well.
EarthDesk 5.0 now has a star-field background option and has updated political maps. It supports dual GPUs and now allows for attaching and detaching external screens with the application running. Automatic update checking is also new to version 5.0.
The new version requires Mac OS X 10.5 or higher. It costs $25 for a single-user license, $40 for a five-user license and is available in site license and world license packages.
