Posts in mac

Flare for Mac Updated to 1.1 with Many New Features

Back in March when Flare first came out, we said that it “has a fast learning curve, looks great and makes adding effects as simple or complicated as you want.” Version 1.1 was just released and adds even more options to your user experience.

Version 1.1 adds six spanking new presets, including “Daguerreotype”; if you know anything about the history of photography, you’ve heard of this photographic processes from the 1800s. There are many new effects to Flare such as new borders, lightleaks, and more to make your own custom presets for your photos. The Flare blog has more information about all the new effects and presets in 1.1.

Flare is on sale for $9.99 (reg. $19.99) on the Mac App Store, if you want to try it before you buy it, go the Flare website for a free demo. The only limitations to the demo version is that it limits the size of the photo you can work with to something quite small. The registered version and the MAS version have no such limitation.

Outside of intense photo editors such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, Flare is one of the best photo editors for the Mac, and so much easier to use too!

Full release notes can be found here.

Free Upgrade to Lion with a New Mac Purchase

If you’re in the market for a new Mac, you’ll be eligible for a free upgrade to Lion once it hits the Mac App Store in July, thanks to Apple’s Up-To-Date program which keeps new customers on top of the latest technology. From the OS X Lion press release:

The Mac OS X Lion Up-To-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 6, 2011. Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchase of their Mac computer. Customers who purchase a qualifying Mac between June 6, 2011 and the date when Lion is available in the Mac App Store will have 30 days from Lions official release date to make a request.

As MacRumors points out, you originally had to pay $9.95 for the installation DVD. However, as Lion is a download from the Mac App Store, there’s no longer going to be a charge to make up for packaging and shipping. Once Lion hits in July, you’ll have thirty days to request your free download through the program.

With new MacBook Airs around the corner, however, you might just want to wait to buy a shiny new Mac with Lion already installed.

[via MacRumors, OS X Lion Press Release]

Lion Server to be $49.99 From the Mac App Store

What was thought of as an extension to OS X Lion will be a full blown upgrade for $49.99 from the Mac App Store: Apple has just launched a brand new Lion Server page detailing all of the management features you can expect from the Server App to Xsan support.

Let’s start with the basics: you get to manage AirPort wireless base stations and Time Capsules, monitor traffic and bandwidth, all while controlling who gets access to the server with simple account management options. The server supports VPN for encrypted access to your network, an internal wiki, private iChat services, Time Machine for company backups, calendaring, file sharing, email support, and contact sharing all in one place.

For iPad file sharing, there’s webDAV file sharing (which doesn’t sound as tasty as the features iCloud promises), but there are push notifications so Lion Server can notify users of important email or assigned meetings. Time Machine backs up on the server can be conducted for WiFi, ensuring everyone’s company essential goods are backed up in a safe place.

iCal Server 3 and Mail Server 3 are updated to take advantage of push notifications in Lion Server. While iCal Server 3 gives anyone the power to update a schedule or a meeting (which is subsequently updated on everyone else’s devices), Mail Server 3 allows you to search attachments on the server, and also includes a webmail component so you can check those corporate messages outside of the office in a secure environment.

Wiki Server 3 is another big feature in Lion Server that’s a cross between your standard wiki and 37 Signal’s Backpack, giving users the ability to upload files to a page and download them when needed. Wikis can contain information about people, podcasts, specific company pages, and more that can be easily navigated from the navigation bar. A special People Browser gives you web browser and computer independence for looking up contact information that can be browsed anywhere.

Lion Server also includes a profile manager that allows you to remotely manage iPhones and iPads from a central location. If you’re away from the office, the profile manager is available from a web browser so you can manage devices from anywhere.

Look for Lion Server to be released with Lion this July.

[via Apple]

iCloud: Photo Stream

Another cornerstone feature of iCloud that was just unveiled was ‘Photo Stream’ which will bring all your photos to the cloud. It works so that as soon as you take a photo with your iPhone, that photo will instantly be whisked away to the cloud and then pushed back to all of your other devices - whether it be a Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or even a Windows PC!

How many times have we taken photos on our iPhone and wanted to share them on the iPad. Wouldn’t it be great if they were already there?

Photo Stream is built right into the iOS Photos app so there is “nothing new to learn” and on the Mac it is built right into iPhoto whilst on a PC it integrates with the ‘Pictures’ folder. The Apple TV won’t miss out either, Photo Stream is integrated straight into it.

Each photo will survive on iCloud for 30 days, at which point old photos will no longer be pushed to devices. iOS devices will be able to keep the last 1,000 photos but Macs and PCs will keep all photos.

Rumor: Lion To Launch On June 14th

In last year’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event, Apple publicly revealed that the next version of OS X, Lion, was scheduled for a summer 2011 release, but didn’t specify an exact launch date. 9to5 Mac today claims to have information that suggests Lion will launch on Tuesday, June 14th, less than two weeks away. It comes after Lion was said to have gone “live for internal testing” less than two weeks ago, suggesting a public release in the near future.

They claim to have heard chatter from several sources, suggesting the June 14th date is a “strong possibility”. Furthermore they report that Apple retail stores will revamp their storefront window to publicise the launch of Lion.

Apple is said to be planning one of their product launch-indicative “visual updates” for the morning of Tuesday, June 14th

The report also suggests that the launch of Lion will mark the beginning of reduced software presence within Apple stores, starting with the possible removal of Snow Leopard. In line with this, another source claims that the retail supplies of Snow Leopard are dwindling, solidifying the possibility of a mid-June launch of Lion. Earlier this year the appearance of several Lion manuals on Amazon had suggested a late-July launch based on their launch dates.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

CCleaner Coming To The Mac, First Beta Available Now

CCleaner, widely praised amongst Windows users, is making its way over to the Mac, with a first beta release available now. For those who are unfamiliar, CCleaner has been a Windows application that lets users easily delete and clean up their computer of temporary files, caches and other files that clog up their computer’s space, with many also using it for privacy, clearing out their browser data.

Being the first beta release, the OS X version has far less features than the current Windows version does. Nonetheless it still includes the core features of removing caches, cookies and history from either Safari or Firefox as well as clearing out the Trash, Recent Files and Servers and the Temporary folder.

Piriform, creators of CCleaner have said that they plan to release a full version within a few months, so expect more beta releases soon with support for more applications and more cleaning features. You can download the first beta release for OS X here.

[Via Lifehacker]

Apple Seals the Deal with Universal Music for iCloud

Greg Sandoval on CNet reports that Apple has sealed the deal with Universal Music Group this afternoon, which gives the Apple the biggest selection of content from their previous deals. With Universal on board, Apple now has all four of the major record labels including EMI, Sony and WMG,  available for its upcoming iCloud service, and all that’s left is to pull the trigger on the upcoming service. Universal Music contains many popular artists such as Kanye West and Lady Gaga, and while Apple still has some work to do when it comes to publishers, they’re all but guaranteed to be offering a huge music selection in the cloud. As Peter Kafka explained earlier, publishers own various compositions, and require different terms and payment in terms of online distribution.

[via CNet]