This week in the MacNN forums, members continue to debate what the future of Mac OS X will hold, with some forum-goers noting that Microsoft is attempting major redesigns and customers are rejecting it. On another topic, "Can I delete apps without having to enter ID?" asked Mac Elite "jeff k" yesterday.
Google's email service Gmail has received an update for its iOS app. The newly redesigned app provides real-time notifications, multiple account support and search across one's entire inbox. In v3.0, Gmail now includes background app refreshing, meaning that email is fully downloaded and retrieved as it arrives in one's inbox, as opposed to syncing only when the app is opened. Sign-in has been simplified, with consolidated authorization with all Google apps now enabled. Gmail for iOS now requires iOS 7 for all features to function.
Though Apple surprised analysts in fiscal Q4 2012 with an unexpected drop in Mac sales, overall the company has been outpacing the global downturn in PC (desktop and notebook) for at least the past five years. Though demand bounced back to expected levels during the holiday season in 2013, exactly how well Apple did compared to its rivals in the traditional PC space was not precisely known. It has now been revealed that Apple outpaced the industry in Q4 by 25 percent, its best showing in five years.
Analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham & Company has sent a memo to investors noting that while the rest of the PC industry continues to experience an unprecedented dip in sales and profit, the Mac -- Apple's often-neglected-by-analysts entry in the traditional PC market -- has held steady on both its average selling price and in terms of continuing, albeit modest, growth. The average price of a Mac is around $1,300 and has remained constant for many quarters, a fact Wolf had previously thought would decline as tablets such as the iPad picked up in popularity.
Small World 2 has launched for Mac, and is available via the Steam platform. Featuring maps accommodating two to five players, the aim is to play fantasy societies with special power combos for the purpose of conquering as much of the 'land' as possible. Originally only in physical form, Small World's digital version offers players to challenge fiends to a real-time game across iPad, Android tablets, and PCs via Steam or Days of Wonder Online.
Renewed Vision has unveiled its Mac-exclusive ProVideoPlayer (PVP) version 2.0, sporting improvements and new features alongside a rewritten application and redesigned user interface in what the company says is the culmination of eight years of real-world experience with using the software in live presentations, installations and other events. The software is used for digital signage, video walls and other professional video presentations.
Taking a page from its own Christmas promotions, and coming on the heels of the asian stores' Lunar New Year celebrations, the online Apple Store has "redecorated" somewhat in preparation for the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday. It has added love-themed taglines, red graphical images and a new "Top Valentine's Gifts" section. The company also updated its Apple Store app for iOS to include the "Top Valentine's Gifts" section.
In a substantial update on Friday, the Mac and iDevice reference catalog app MacTracker (free) has added Apple's entire pre-Macintosh inventory to its database for the first time, along with a few minor tweaks and updates. It had previously only gone as far back as the Lisa (under its later "Macintosh XL" name). The program itself has a long history, having been created by Canadian Ian Page in 2001 and faithfully updated ever since.
FileMaker has announced its release of an all-new free training series for its recently-premiered FileMaker 13 Platform. FileMaker Training Series: Basics assists with learning how to build professional custom business applications and solutions that run on iOS, Windows and Mac OS X, and the web. New users can learn the fundamentals of FileMaker, and then progress quickly to create what they need for business and professional use.
Expercom is currently offering a great deal on the new Mac Pro. This configuration is normally priced on the site at $4,597, but has been reduced to $4,461 with about $17 for shipping, making it about $738 less than the price Apple charges for this same configuration. That makes this the lowest price with these specs that we have seen anywhere. It features a 3.5GHz 6-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, 64GB of RAM and 256GB of PCIe-based flash storage with dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics cards. A one-year warranty on parts and labor is included from Apple.
The new Mac Pro has apparently started to ship in Europe, marking the first time the computer has gone on sale on the continent since March 1st in 2013. Though the Apple website shows it as shipping in February in a number of European countries, there are reports of some customers receiving shipment notifications for as early as January 14th.
Both the Mac and iOS versions of Twitter client Tweetbot have been updated recently, bringing support for images in direct messages (reflecting an upcoming change in Twitter itself) as well has generally improving how the apps handle images overall. Both also received the usual "various bug fixes," with the Mac version specifically fixing a problem with reading unread feed items. Twitter has not yet publicly implemented images in direct messages, but will soon.
One week after rolling out a free music streaming service to tablets and smartphones, Spotify has started to roll out a visual upgrade to its apps. The Windows and Mac desktop clients have a darker and more modern appearance to them, along with less drastic changes to a number of pages, with the Android app also receiving some minor interface tweaks.
Once again, the Humble Bundle team has put together a package of DRM-free indie games in support of its chosen charities, with users paying whatever amount they want for four cross-platform games. Buyers paying above the average price ($4.03 at present) also get two additional games, with more said to be coming. Soundtracks are included for some of the games, all of which run on the PC, Mac, Linux and Android platforms (system requirements vary).
This week at Apple's online store, save on refurbished aluminum Mac Pro models and more. A $560 discount is offered on the refurbished Mac Pro with two 2.4GHz Intel 6-core Xeon processors, 12GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive, now $3,239. For $4,249 is the Mac Pro with dual 2.66GHz 6-core Xeon processors, 12GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive, now $4,249.
If there was one word to summarize what's at the top of US Christmas gift lists when it comes to electronics, the word is "Apple." Retail analyst firm Parks Associates revealed that in its latest survey, the iPhone maker -- long the most popular brand for tablets, smartphones, MP3 players and TV set-top boxes -- is now also the hottest brand in desktop computers. The top spot for desktops was previously held by Dell for the last two years, with Apple coming in second until the 2013 survey.
Black Friday sales are well under way today, and online retailers promoting Apple products are selling out quickly. Presently, the best Black Friday deals still available at this writing can be found for Mac computers at B&H and MacMall. The 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with an i7 Dual-Core 2.9GHz CPU, 8GB RAM and 750GB hard drive is available from B&H for $1,250 (saving $200), and the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display with an i5 Dual-Core 2.5GHz CPU, 8GB RM and 128GB hard drive is available for $1,150 from MacMall.
The three-year-old but still highly-regarded game Infinity Blade for iOS has been made free for a limited time in celebration of Black Friday -- only the second time the game has gone free since its debut. The game, the first in the series, is compatible with iPhones from the 3GS on up and all iPad models, as well as the third-generation or later iPod touch. The game -- in which players take on the role of a knight and his descendants battling the God King and his minions in a single-player campaign marked by lush, cinematic graphics -- normally sells for $6.
In a rare move, Apple has updated its Mac iMovie application to expand its compatibility with some older video cards, and now lists its only system requirement as being "OS X 10.9 Mavericks," suggesting it has dropped the previous requirements for "an OpenCL-compatible graphics card" and "a display with 1280x800 resolution or higher" as strict requirements (though they are likely still recommended). The move could allow some Mac models that can run Mavericks but don't have OpenCL-supported cards, or have added third-party cards, to run the latest iMovie.
In a quiet update today, Apple is now giving users who have a problem the option of initiating a screen-sharing session directly with AppleCare representatives. While screen-sharing has been a tool available for the reps for some time to help customers, it usually comes only after many other areas of discussion and testing of a problem have already been tried. The practice can be a great help in quickly troubleshooting or identifying the cause of a problem.
Cross-platform small business client and project management tool Studiometry has received what developer Oranged Software calls "probably our biggest change to the app since its initial release." Version 11 of the Windows, iOS, and OS X application ships today with a brand new user interface, adding over 120 features and improvements and finally transitioning to Cocoa on Mac.
GarageBand for iOS and Mac OS X both received comprehensive updates at Apple’s “A lot to cover” event last week. GarageBand for iOS used to cost a few dollars, but like all of Apple’s third party apps for both iOS and Mac, it is now free. GarageBand for iOS looks quite similar to GarageBand on the Mac, but the iOS version has of course been optimized for multi-touch UI. As far as music creation goes on mobile devices or on desktops, none are simpler to use. Yet at the same time, you can create highly polished pieces of music on either device with the iPhone 5s highlighting the processing processing power of Apple's 64-bit A7 chip, being able to handle up to 32 simultaneous tracks. It’s hard to believe, but every iPhone 5s owner has more recording power in their pocket than The Beatles ever had access to.
Apple's Phil Schiller took time during today's presentation to provide new information on the updated Mac Pro. We now know that the Mac Pro will start at $2999 for the basic configuration, which features a 3.7GHz quad-core Xeon processor, 12GB of DRAM and dual FirePro D300 GPUs, and will begin shipping this December.
Based on data from NPD (but with a caveat), investment analysts Piper Jaffray has maintained its "overweight" rating on AAPL and reports in a note to investors that it is "comfortable" with its original estimate of a decline in Mac sales year-over-year of around five percent, though it acknowledges that NPD is estimating seven percent. Apple's fiscal year ended on September 30, and it will report the results of that quarter on October 28.
This week in the MacNN forums, a frustrated "angelmb" took to the forums posting the thread titled "my iTunes can't download nor update apps" when they were trying to figure out why apps could not be downloaded or updated. Yesterday, Moderator "andi*pandi" started a thread titled "iPhoto 11 will not email photos" while looking for help in trying to get iPhoto 11 to connect to Mail.
On Tuesday, Microsoft issued a new security patch for all versions of its Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 edition, including academic, Standard and Home & Business editions and all the main applications contained therein. The update "fixes critical issues and also helps to improve security. It includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code." The fix is intended for Intel Macs running OS X 10.5.8 or later.
After first releasing a build of the next major version of OS X exclusively to AppleSeed members that had dropped the words "Developer Preview" from the title, very late Thursday Apple sent developers the same build -- now labelled the "Golden Master" of Mavericks. Barring the discovery of any serious flaws, the version seeded tonight will be the final that is distributed to the public when OS X Mavericks (10.9) is formally released -- though the company has not yet announced a date.
A file that looks like a image file and bears a camera-like filename with the extension not visible by default has been discovered to actually be a rogue application that could install a permanent "backdoor" on Mac systems and triggers Preview to open an image, fooling the user into thinking it was simply an unusual picture file. The purpose of the Trojan appears to be supportive of the hacker Syrian Electronic Army, which is in league with the totalitarian regime of Syria's present government. It is currently considered low-risk for a number of reasons.
Excitement is growing around the imminent release of the new Mac Pro, with forum members continuing to discuss the design, and more importantly the components of the new system from Apple. Fresh rumors about the introduction of Haswell-powered iMacs has brought the thread titled "Haswell iMacs....when?" back to life.
Herocraft has launched its indirect-control soccer (or 'football') game, FootLOL, for Mac. FootLOL has gamers use mines, shields, UFOs, cows, glue and many other items to protect one's players, and beat the opposing team. Featuring four planets, each with several types of playing field, users can play in tournament mode or multiplayer. FootLOL is available for $10 at the App Store.
Maintain, a Mac applications developer, has released version 7.0 Beta 1 of system utility Cocktail. Cocktail is a digital toolset with a variety of features that lets users repair and optimize their system. The application offers a combination of maintenance tools and interface 'tweaks'. Anticipating Apple's fall release of OS X Mavericks 10.9, the latest beta version of the software is intended for users running a developer preview. Cocktail for OS X 10.8 and earlier is available with a Single User License for $20.
Tri-edre has released its latest issuing of its OS X back-up software, Back-In-Time 3. Optimizing users' experience of Apple's Time Machine, Back-In-Time displays the number of different versions of each file backed up and their respective backup dates, as well as whether items have been deleted and their availability within backups. The latest offering includes a new user interface, and improved navigation and search features. Virtual disks can be created for Time Capsule or for other Macs. Additionally, Back-In-Time 3 includes the ability to use the software without the need for administrator privileges. Back-In-Time 3 is available for download in full for $30, or as an upgrade for $10.
A new report from industry analyst NPD has predicted that Mac sales will see a small year-over-year decline in sales again, mostly (and somewhat ironically) due to the industry-wise cannibalization of traditional PCs by the iPad. While still likely to beat the industry average rate of decline, Apple had until last quarter been able to continue growing Mac demand thanks to a greater emphasis on notebook sales. Apple missed expectations for Mac sales last quarter, but may have a chance to reverse its fortunes in its fiscal first quarter this winter.
Realmac software has updated its Mac-based digital scrapbook software, Ember. New to v1.1 is a Smart Drawing feature that is capable of detecting specific hand drawn shapes and replacing them with smooth pre-rendered versions. This includes arrows, circles, squares, and more. A host of other improvements, including the ability to drag images directly from the Finder and into Collections, are also featured in this release. Ember weighs in at 21.8MB and can be purchased in the Mac App Store for $50.
As per Google's announcement in July regarding its plan to release textbooks to Google Play Books, listings are now available via an update to the iOS app.The textbooks are currently available to purchase outright, though some titles will be offering a six month lower-cost "rental" option. Free samples of textbooks are provided. Presently only available to US customers, the Google Play Books app is available for Android, iOS, and on the web.
Alongside the releases of fresh iOS 7 and Apple TV betas, Apple has also issued a fifth Developer Preview of Xcode 5 -- which offers some improvements and changes as well as the usual fixes and performance enhancements. The new build (5A11365y) continues to polish the Simulator and Instruments, makes slight tweaks to the user interface and overall experience, adds iOS 7 support to Interface Builder and brings a new Auto Vectorizer tool to Compiler among other changes. Though bugs remain, there are also some further changes in the new build.
Mac Elite "boy8cookie" is looking for some feedback on their new app for iOS called "Eyebrowse" that makes it possible to create "spaces" on your iOS device that each function as a web browser, making it possible to visit multiple websites simultaneously. "ShortcutToMoncton" is trying to figure out the best way of storing photos on their Mac, while editing them on their iPad.
Yesterday in the MacNN forums, one Fresh-Faced Recruit turned to the forums looking for advice about which screen recorder to get. Also yesterday "rotuts" was looking for some help with troubleshooting problems with a Logitech mouse which is being used with a Mac Pro that is running 10.5.6.
The refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.5GHz Intel dual-core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of flash storage has been reduced by $230 to $1,269. For $1,439, after a $260 discount, is the refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.6GHz Intel dual-core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage.
A new listing for a rare Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh has appeared on eBay. Recognized as the first major design project for Jonathan Ive, the TAM was introduced as a limited production in the spring of 1997. Only 12,000 machines were ever produced, and 399 of those were kept by apple to be used as spare parts. The system comes in all of its original packaging and includes all of the accessories that came with the system when it was shipped. Biding will remain open until June 23 with shipping limited to locations with the United States.
On the MacNN Forums, Mac Elite "FireWire" is trying to figure out why his iMac keeps shutting off when the CPU temp reaches 50°C in the thread titled "iMac doesn't adjust fan speed, and dies." Forum-goers are helping "Laminar" troubleshoot a problem in which Time Machine doesn't see his most recent backups.
Tech site iFixit has uploaded a new teardown for the latest AirPort Extreme, Apple's first 802.11ac wireless base station. Opening the device revealed an interior space to allow for a hard drive to be installed, however hopes of at-home storage upgrades were dashed by no available plug-in options on the logic board. The AirPort Extreme offers a Delta Electronics 12V, 5A power supply, much akin to Mac Mini technology. Thanks to a simply disassembly iFixit staff have categorized the wireless base station, along with Apple TV and Mac Mini, as the most repairable Apple product in recent history.
With the announcements at WWDC yesterday, the forums are alive with discussions about the announcements made. Forum-goers quickly started debating the practicality of the upcoming Mac Pro in a thread started by Administrator "reader50" immediately following the unveiling of this latest model. In the thread titled "OS X Mavericks," members talk about their first impressions of the updated OS that will be available later this year.
The Apple Design Awards for 2013 for iOS apps have been announced through a web page and a a series of tweets from Apple's @AppStore account. Among the winners are cloud productivity tool Evernote, word game Letterpress and Yahoo Weather -- the latter largely upstaged earlier in the day by the new default weather app in iOS 7, which strongly resembles the Yahoo app in style and function. A number of other companies also won Apple Design Awards, as well as two student entries that won student ADAs.
With the recent release of Intel's new Haswell chips, the MacNN forums are abuzz with talk of a refresh for the MacBook Pro lineup, as well as a long awaited update to the Mac Pro. One Senior User turned to the forums this weekend in search of a solution to fan issues with their MacBook Pro.
Vimov has updated the desktop version of its Clear Day weather software for the Mac. Previously known as Weather HD, the app has been designed to provide users with detailed weather forecasts for locations around the world. Severe weather warnings are delivered to the app directly from the National Weather Service and MetroAlarm, and detailed animations are used to depict the conditions. Version 2.0 has updated the real-time severe weather notifications to support Mountain Lion, and now provides quick access to a detailed view of weather conditions through the menu bar icon. Support has also been added for pausing and playing videos with a click, as well as dragging map borders to enlarge the view. Clear Day can be purchased from the Mac App Store for $4.
In a rare move, Apple has notified developers working on the forthcoming OS X 10.8.4 update that it is closing down the seeding of new betas, essentially signalling that release of the update is likely to come next week. In the message, the company explains that scheduled maintenance on its Software Update project requires it to close existing projects and that the system for developer updates will be down from today, Friday the 31st. Apple also took a moment in the message to thank developers for their efforts in helping finalize the software.
Mobile software developer and former Apple employee Ken Landau was engaged in a bit of spring cleaning when he uncovered a rare find: a still-functional, Apple-sanctioned portable version of the Mac SE created and built by electronics pioneer Chuck Colby in 1987, two years before Apple would begin its own journey into mobile computing with the Macintosh Portable. The Colby Walkmac (as it was known) was the first battery-operated Macintosh, as well as the first portable Mac with an LCD display. At the time, the 13-pound Walkmac sold for around $6,000.
Yesterday, Forum Regular "Nassifer" turned to the MacNN forums looking for help when they were no longer able to play videos in Safari. Junior Member "canadave" recently used Facetime for the first time and was trying to figure out why there wasn't two-way simultaneous audio, like on a phone call.
During his testimony before the Senate on Apple's tax strategies, CEO Tim Cook restated an earlier promise that a forthcoming Mac model -- not identified -- was going to be built in the United States, and further revealed that it would be assembled in Texas. While the exact site wasn't specified, Apple has established and is expanding an administrative campus in Austin, and manufacturing partner Foxconn has facilities in Houston.
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