Apple’s Q4 earnings call is scheduled for next Monday, and analysts contacted by Fortune already predicted 6 million iPads sold, blockbuster sales of 13 million units for the iPhone 4.
Now on to the Macs: according to the majority of analysts polled by Fortune, Apple sold more than 3.8 million Macs in Q4, thanks to the Back to School program, weak PC sales and new desktop models released in July.
Notational Velocity is one of my favorites apps for the Mac: it’s a minimal and focused writing application that enables you to entirely navigate between notes using the keyboard, it integrates with Simplenote and can store its plain text files anywhere on your computer - Dropbox folder included. It autosaves notes so that you don’t have to worry about losing anything. Also, you just have to press Enter to create a new note. It’s simple and powerful at the same time. It’s free and open source.
Its open-source nature gave birth to a plethora of “forks”, alternative versions of the software with custom modifications and features. Maybe you remember Steven Frank’s excellent Markdown fork. Today’s mod comes from Elastic Threads: it’s the Notational Velocity you’re used to, only with horizontal layout and fullscreen mode enabled. Read more
Mac users have been debating for years whether applications should be launched from the dock, from the appropriate Finder window, from an app launcher (Launchbar, Quicksilver, Alfred) or even via keyboard-triggered Applescripts. The truth is you can’t find a “better way” for everyone, as a user’s specific workflow is always to be considered and it’s impossible (and silly) to make people agree on a particular way of doing something with a computer.
Debates aside, here’s neat little app I didn’t about before and I’ve just discovered thanks to One Thing Well: HimmelBar lets you launch (and browse) installed applications directly from the menubar. Read more
According to AppleInsider’s daily Mac availability tracking service, most of the retail stores AI tracks have run out of MacBook Air stock. Nearly every retailer has run out of the low-end Air model, and their sources suggest a new model may come as early as next week. Read more
If you’ve always fancied a super fast Mac but cried when you saw the price, why not build one yourself in a cardboard box? This guy did Read more
Excellent follow-up to Patrick Rhone’s screencast about Markdown and TextExpander.
I’ve been a Mail.app user for a long time, but a few weeks ago I decided to move my primary work mail account to Gmail under Google Apps. I love Gmail’s web UI, and even though I’m also a huge Mailplane fan I had to keep all my other Gmail / Google Apps-based accounts in Mail.app, mainly for the better integration with Applescripts, Automator workflows and plugins. Mail.app works fine, but it’s not revolutionary, breathtaking at the way it allows you to interact with messages or geared towards people who need to play with multiple accounts on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, if you put too many accounts in Apple Mail and activate too many plugins - it will explode. But then again, that’s not my main concern.
I’ve been wondering whether it’d be possible to developer a better Mail client for Mac. The Letters.app project seems to be dead or something, and I haven’t heard of other devs finding their way through IMAP and Cocoa. Not until this morning, when I got an email about - yes - an entirely new email application specifically built with Mac users in mind.
We have seen cool Mac mods floating around on the internet. Remember the MacBook Air Project? That was a single modder trying to fit an entire MacBook Air under an Apple Keyboard. What we have here is slightly more “conventional”, as it’s something nerds have been dreaming about for a long time: a fully working, portable and usable MacBook Tablet. Read more
All you need is remember some Applescripts.
