Pixelmator: $12 On Amazon
Amazing deal today at Amazon’s Gold Box: Pixelmator, popular image editor for OS X, is available at $11.99. That’s 80% off the regular price. Less than 60 minutes left, so be quick. You can’t miss this.
Star Wars Dashboard Weather Widget→
Star Wars Dashboard Weather Widget
If only the Mac OS X Dashboard weather widget could tell us the weather in distant galaxies far, far away from famous science fiction movies… wouldn’t that be nice? If you enjoy Star Wars, you’ll probably enjoy these images from Cristian Kit Paul, a graphic designer who also must be a Mac user and Star Wars fan.
Totally useless, totally awesome for any Star Wars fan out there. Check out the original post from the creator here.
Apple TV Owners Reporting Color Issues With Several Sony and Philips TVs
According to a thread on Apple Discussions that dates back to almost two months ago (October 2nd) which has received hundreds of replies, new Apple TV owners are reporting serious color issues when using the device with Sony and Philips televisions. The problems vary from “inverted color” issues to “green colors” and “black screen”.
Users reporting the issues suggest this is a problem with the Apple TV, the HDMI cable and certain models of Sony and Philips TVs. Models mentioned in the thread include the Bravia KDL-37S500, Philips 32PFL7404H/12, Philips 56PFL9954H. The same models worked fine with the first generation Apple TV. Read more
Rumor: European Carriers Force Apple To Give Up On Integrated SIM Plans
According to a rumor that surfaced in October, Apple was looking for a way to develop an integrated iPhone SIM-card that would allow customers to easily subscribe to a carrier’s plan and easily switch between networks when travelling abroad. An integrated SIM-card would cut carriers out of an important process of the iPhone purchase system: retail.
With such as SIM-card, Apple, and only Apple, would sell iPhones while carriers would just play the role of “service providers”. Similar rumors surfaced last week, together with reports of concerns about this approach. Read more
iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak: Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 Available For Developers
A few hours ago the Dev Team pushed an update to jailbreak tool redsn0w, which nows allows developers (and tinkerers) to install custom bundles on iOS 4.2.1, even without having to install Cydia – which, as you may know, needs an update to work smoothly under iOS 4.2. The update to Cydia should go live soon after the release of iOS 4.2 and proper jailbreak tools for the new firmware.
The new version of redsn0w is a recommended download for developers who want to test their apps and tweaks under iOS 4.2, to ensure compatibility when the new OS will publicly come out. Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 will let you install bundles independent of Cydia; bundles can be up to 15MB in size. The Cydia app that’s included in this new version of Redsn0w is the same that was bundled with older versions, and won’t work on iOS 4.2.1 GM. Developers, however, can compile their own version of Cydia if they want.
Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 for OS X is available here.
News Corp’s iPad-only Newspaper, The Daily, A Collaboration Between Jobs and Murdoch?
Three days ago we reported News Corp, one of the world’s biggest media outlets, was working on a tablet-only publication Murdoch and his team were really excited about. In the past days more details have surfaced about the app, which should be launching in a few weeks in private beta mode and be publicly available soon after that.
It appears that Murdoch hired a staff of over 100 journalists to handle the publication, which has no print edition but will only be available in digital form-factor. The Daily, this is the name of the app as revealed by Murdoch himself in an interview with Fox Business, is one of News Corp’s “most exciting projects”. Basing on the information also posted by WWDMedia, the app will be a daily news report pushed directly to the iPad without the need of having a previous print subscription. Read more
AppShopper 1.3 Is The Best App Discovery Tool for iOS. Period.
There are dozens of apps in the App Store that promise to revolutionize the way you discover apps. Sort of meta, but this seems to be Silicon Valley’s latest dream: to simplify the way users find interesting apps they might like. Too bad basing the old App Store navigation system on poor Facebook and Twitter integration won’t make the process any simpler: indeed, it’ll just add an extra useless layer that most users will get tired of in a matter of minutes. Read more
Why The Mac Keeps Growing→
Why The Mac Keeps Growing
Horace Dediu on what changed in the PC market in the late 90’s and early 00’s:
In stepped the MacBook with good enough (and improving) office productivity. With excellent appeal along the dimensions of performance consumers demand most of all. It was priced higher than other laptops but the price points were affordable and, inflation-adjusted, lower than they’d ever been. It should not be a surprise that Apple was one of the first vendors to see its portables line become bigger than its desktop lines. The market evolved to the point where what Apple had was what the buyers needed.
Another disruption is going on right now, and we’ll see its deep cut in the market in a matter of a few years: it’s called iPad.
iPad Launching Soon in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark
According to the Wall Street Journal, the iPad will launch relatively soon in several northern European countries, namely Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The launch could happen later this month or in December, right ahead of the holiday season. European carriers will offer 3G data packages for iPad customers and, also according to the Journal, carriers Tre, TeliaSonera AB and Tele2 AB announced on Friday iPad-specific subscriptions, although they declined to comment on prices and provide more details on the plans.
Five months after its release, Apple already sold 7.46 million units. With the iPad being sold in several retail chains in the U.S. and now approaching to even more European countries, it’ll be interesting to see what will happen in the Q1 2011 fiscal results.