Voting ends Friday at 7pm EST so be sure to vote for your favorite apps of 2011! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday
Real Racing 2 Now Also Available On The Mac App Store
Firemint’s hit iPhone and iPad game, Real Racing 2, has today launched on the Mac App Store. The game features the same campaign mode, tracks and cars as the iPhone and iPad versions but also allows you to optionally use an iPhone or iPad as a controller.
The most critically-acclaimed iOS racing game comes to the Mac Store! Featuring visually-stunning graphics and state-of-the-art handling, experience the excitement, competition and glory of authentic championship racing with Real Racing 2.
BURN RUBBER ON YOUR MAC!
Take control of the wheel with your iPhone or iPad – or use your Mac to steer your way to first place!
It’s the latest iOS game to be ported over to the Mac and distributed through the Mac App Store, which Firemint itself has previously done with Flight Control. It’s something that wasn’t very common just 12 months ago when the Mac App Store was yet to launch and demonstrates how the ease of use and popularity of the store has led to a surge of casual games being launched on the Mac - where previously it was thought that there was an insufficient audience for it to be practical.
The game weighs in at over 700 MB and costs $12.99 on the Mac App Store (non-US users can purchase it via this link). Jump the break for the full release notes.
Evernote Releases Skitch for iPad
Skitch is a popular tool for annotating screenshots and images with the ability to quickly share them with others. It was purchased by Evernote back in August of this year and today they are proud to present Skitch for iPad.
Skitch is the amazingly fun and surprisingly powerful way to move your ideas and projects forward using fewer words. With Skitch, annotate and draw on just about anything that you see, whether it’s a new or existing photo, a webpage, screenshot, map, or a blank canvas. Then, share your work with friends, colleagues or save it all to Evernote. It couldn’t be simpler.
Skitch for iPad has a handful of useful features as well as some not so useful features, all of which are housed in the very common “home screen” style interface. I am not personally a fan of apps that lump their main features in to a grid of large square icons. I think it is a lazy approach to user experience on a touch screen device. The fonts, colors and images used for the layout elements makes the entire app feel like a cartoon. After all the featured icons are the thumbnails of the drawings you have added. To remove them you have to tap and hold like you would expect to do on a home screen except the icons don’t jiggle as an indication. Because of this, it feels like an unfinished implementation. When you are finished removing images you can’t just tap in an empty area of the screen like you would with an actual home screen, you have to find the tiny Done button on the bottom corner of the screen. These are certainly not a huge issues, just more like disappointments and it all goes back to the lack of thought that went in to the design of this app.
Steve Jobs to be Honored by The Recording Academy with a Trustees Award
The Recording Academy has announced its 2012 Special Merit Awards recipients; Steve Jobs, Dave Bartholomew, and Rudy Van Gelder are expected to be formally awarded a Trustees Award on February 11th, 2012, during a special invitation-only ceremony. The Trustees Award is awarded by the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to those who have made significant contributions (other than performances) to the recording industry.
Steve Jobs transformed the music industry when he unveiled the first iPod in 2001. The iTunes Store was unveiled almost two years later in April, 2003, ushering in a world of digital music that could be immediately downloaded and synced to Apple’s portable MP3 players. In 2010, Apple announced that they had surprased 10 billion songs downloaded from the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs was known for his love of Bob Dylan, and Apple recently succeeded on adding The Beatles to iTunes. Steve Jobs was also nominated by NBC News’ Brian Williams to be 2011’s Person of the Year.
“This year’s honorees offer a variety of brilliance, contributions and lasting impressions on our culture,” said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy. “It is an honor to recognize such a diverse group of individuals whose talents and achievements have had an indelible impact on our industry.”
The Recording Academy also announced recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award category which includes Allman Brothers Band, Antonio Carlos Jobin, Diana Ross, George Jones, Gil Scott-Heron, Glen Campbell, and the Memphis Horns.
Formally, the 54th annual GRAMMY awards will be televised by CBS at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on February 12th.
Apple Rolls Out New “Complete My Season” Feature, Improves “Complete My Album”
Over the past 24 hours Apple has introduced “Complete My Season” for iTunes TV shows and has improved its existing “Complete My Album” feature. The “Complete My Season” feature enables users who have purchased some episodes from a TV season to purchase the rest of the season using the “Season Pass” but at a reduced price that takes into account the already purchased episodes. It allows users to easily purchase all the episodes of a TV season with effectively one click and not having to worry about purchasing one of the episodes again, when you already own it.
However it appears as though the feature may be limited to those in the US iTunes Store - I checked on my TV purchases in the Australian Store and was unable to utilise this feature, similarly, it appears not to be enabled in the UK. If you live outside the US and do have access to this new iTunes feature, please let us know in the comments below.
The similar feature for music albums, “Complete My Album” (which has been available for a few years) also received a nice update today. Previously, this feature could only be used in the first 180 days since purchasing a song from an album. Today MacRumors notes that Apple has revised the support document about the feature, noting that there is no longer any reference to the 180 day limit (see below for current statement).
How long do I have to take advantage of Complete My Album?
When you buy individual songs from any qualifying album, you can complete the album at any time, as long as the album is available for sale on the iTunes Store.
#MacStoriesDeals - Wednesday
Be sure to vote for your favorite apps of 2011! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Today Only: Buy Apps and Help Bring Clean Water to Developing Nations
Apps for Water is an app drive where all proceeds of apps purchased will support charity: water, a non-profit organization that brings clean drinking water to developing nations. Clean water improves health and sanitation, brings change to communities by protecting women and children, and aids in the economic growth of poverty stricken nations.
Every $1 invested in improved water access and sanitation yields an average of $12 in economic returns, depending on the project.
Today only, by purchasing one of the listed Mac, iPad, or iPhone apps participating in the Apps for Water project, your purchase will aid families in need of clean water. If you’ve been looking to purchase Smile’s TextExpander, Useful Fruit Software’s Pear Note, or Gaucho Software’s Seasonality Core, consider this an opportunity to acquire new software while giving something back in return. For those not in need of a new app, you can also donate to charity: water directly through their website.
The drive will end after Tuesday, December 20th.
[Apps for Water via Cult of Mac]
#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday
Be sure to vote for your favorite apps of 2011! Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
Apple Acquires Anobit for $500 Million
Anobit, an Israeli flash storage company specializing in flash memory used in Apple’s iPads, iPhones, and iPods, has been purchased by Apple for $500 Million according to a report from Calcalist. Anobit is Apple’s first acquisition from Israel. The half billion dollar acquisition is the largest in Apple’s history writes Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt:
The price – a reported $500 million – is larger than the $472 million it paid for NeXT, once 14 years of inflation is taken into account.
As a brief aside, Apple announced their merger with NeXT 15 years ago today.
Apple’s commitment to flash memory and in securing component supplies are core to Apple’s business. Previously, Apple has purchased P.A. Semi in 2008 for its custom chip designs, and have also acquired chip maker Intrinsity last year for ARM based chip technologies that improve the overall processing speed in products like Apple’s dual-core A5 processor in the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. The Israel-based Calcalist notes that Apple has made the purchase thanks to Anobit’s improvements in flash technology. Steven Scheer of Reuters adds that “The chip may as much as double the memory volume in the new iPads and MacBooks.”
Erica Ogg from GigaOM writes:
Anobit makes flash memory devices that can use the popular Multi Level Cell (MLC) flash-based solid-state drives. Consumer devices use MLC flash because it’s cheaper, but it’s also generally less reliable than the more common Single Level Cell flash drives. Anobit’s technology makes MLC more reliable.
In addition to the purchase, Calcalist write that Apple is also planning to build a research centre in Israel, which would be their first outside the United States. Apple could join the likes of other R&D operations in Israel, such as Intel, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Qualcomm.