Posts in mac

Adobe Unveils “Carousel” To Sync & Edit Photos Across Mac and iOS

Today Adobe introduced a new product that could bring photographers’ favorite Adobe app, Lightroom, to a reality; it’s called Carousel. Carousel could be Adobe’s answer to Apple’s Photo Stream service, although Adobe’s solution is not integrated into the OS like Apple’s iCloud service. Carousel will let you enhance and share all of your photos across your Mac and iOS devices (Android & Windows versions are in development).

Carousel “brings a highly tuned version of the Lightroom/Camera Raw engine to mobile devices, combining it with excellent multi-device syncing.” Other Carousel options are:

  • You get access to all your images on all your devices.
  • All edits are non-destructive: tweak a setting on one device & you’ll see the edit ripple through your other devices.
  • It’s easy to collaborate with friends & family: people you invite to share a photo catalog can view photos, add new ones, apply adjustments and preset “looks,” and flag favorites.
  • You can easily publish to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

The iOS and Mac versions are not yet available but based on John Nack’s blog post, it may have already been submitted to Apple. All the applications will be free but the service will be subscription based - $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year will get you unlimited storage and photos but if you’re an early adopter the price will be $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year.

The ability to edit your photos and have them sync everywhere is a feature that Apple’s Photo Stream does not currently have, it simply syncs photos taken with your iOS camera to the stream but it will be free.

Demo video after the break.

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MacUpdate Bundle: A Fine Selection Of 11 Mac Apps For Just $50

Following Monday’s Bundlehunt package of 11 great Mac apps and various ‘design goodies’, today there is a new MacUpdate Bundle which also comes with a selection of top-notch Mac apps and utilities for just $49.99. The bundle includes some of MacStories’ favourite Mac apps including the excellent Fantastical (review here), the informative iStat Menus and the useful Printopia (review here). If you tried purchasing the included apps individually you’d be paying nearly $500, so if you’re looking to beef up your collection of Mac apps this is a terrific deal at just $49.99.

The MacUpdate Bundle includes:

  • Toast 11 Titanium - if you need to do more than the basic disc burning that the iLife software provides, Toast is an excellent option. It also has a solid set of video conversion tools as well as supporting the ability to burn copies of recorded video from EyeTV and copying CDs and DVDs with no fuss.
  • Printopia - only available to the first 10,000 purchasers of the MacUpdate Bundle, Printopia allows you to share your printers connected to a Mac (physically or over a network) with an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch - allowing you to print from an iOS device to virtually any printer (as opposed to the limited selection of HP printers that are natively supported).
  • Data Rescue - this is an advanced piece of digital data recovery software for the Mac, allowing you to safely recover previously deleted files.
  • FX Photo Studio Pro - this Mac post-processing image editor comes loaded with over 150 image effects and comes with some substantial customizations options, allowing you to mix and match effects to perfect an image.
  • Fantastical - this is a powerful Calendar application that sits in your menu bar, working with existing calendars and comes with a powerful natural language engine that can create an event from a simple phrase (e.g. Lunch with Matt on Wednesday 1pm).
  • iStat Menus - monitor all of your Mac’s vital statistics with just one glance to the menubar, it supports monitoring everything from CPU usage to component temperatures to network usage and more.
  • Phoneview - access and export various pieces of data from your iPhone or other iOS device from call history, text messages, photos, voice memos and more.
  • Concealer - conceal important snippets of data in an encrypted archive - everything from license keys to diary entries can be concealed.
  • EarthDesk - replace a boring desktop background with a live-updating image of the Earth with real time movement of the sun and even cloud coverage.
  • Mellel - a powerful word processor that is appreciated by scholars, students and those writing technical documentation.
  • Bookends - for professionals and students this is an extremely powerful reference management application (and it integrates perfectly with Mellel)

 

Disclaimer: For every bundle purchased through MacStories, we receive a small kickback. If you’re interested in the bundle and supporting the MacStories crew, please use the link here or any of the affiliate links above.

Report: Apple Considering USB 3.0 For Macs

According to VR-Zone Apple has been investigating third party USB 3.0 host controller chips and may be considering to add support for the latest USB standard in upcoming Macs. Many had presumed that with Thunderbolt Apple may not opt to support USB 3.0, but given that USB 3.0 chips have negligible cost (below $3) it may be seen that Apple embraces the standard as a complement to their Thunderbolt ports.

Intel has yet to add support for USB 3.0 on their chipsets and support is not expected until next Spring, which may explain why Apple is reportedly talking to other manufacturers. Compared to USB 3.0, Thunderbolt controllers are much more expensive at $10 to $15 per chip with corresponding chips on the device also required. This cost associated with Thunderbolt is an inherent limitation in the technology that could be compensated by supporting USB 3.0. As Electronista explains “USB 3.0 would, as a result, still be useful as a catch-all for faster devices that don’t need Thunderbolt in addition to the USB 2.0 devices it would inherently recognize.”

Apple may be aware of Thunderbolt’s current obstacles, the sources added. Apple is supposedly talking directly with some of its hardware partners, most likely early Thunderbolt supporters, to have them develop external drives more suited to the home or to small companies. [Electronista]

[VR-Zone via Electronista]

Instaview Giveaway, Unique Mac Instagram Viewer

We’re currently running a giveaway of Saver (for iPhone) and Foliozo (for iPad) - now its time for a third giveaway this week, a Mac app! We’re giving away 5 copies of Instaview, which at its core is a unique Instagram viewer for your Mac desktop. With Instaview you can create multiple ‘windows’ that each contain an Instagram stream, each window can also be customised with different frames and borders.

The streams available include everything from the Popular and your following feeds to location and tag-based streams and more. Just like the Instagram iPhone app you can comment and like images as well as follow (or unfollow) people. All in all, Instaview is a very customisable Instagram app for the Mac that also adds a nice touch of decoration to your Mac’s desktop.

Be sure to check out the full feature list of Instaview, which you can purchase from the Mac App Store for $7.99. However if you are interested in winning one of the 5 copies of Instaview that we are giving away, be sure to jump the break for all the details.

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Mac Utility Cocktail Gets Updated To Support Lion

A few days ago the popular Mac utility, Cocktail, received an update to add Lion compatibility. The new version 5 of Cocktail also adds new Automator actions, fixes bugs and sees improved documentation. If you are unfamiliar with Cocktail, it’s a utility that gives users the tools to clean, optimise and repair their Macs. There is a mix of maintenance tools, tweaks and power user options for everything from adjusting disk options to clearing various caches to customizing the look of OS X.

Jump the break for some screenshots of the new Lion version of Cocktail. You can also download a free demo of Cocktail (limited to using it 10 times) with lifetime licenses start from $19 for a single-user.

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