Posts in news

Apple Announces iPhoto for iOS: Coming Today at $4.99

At the media event in San Francisco, Apple today announced an all-new version of iPhoto for iPad. Giving users new ways to organize and browse their photos, iPhoto for iPad comes with new effects, new gestures, multi-touch editing, and a new feature to seamlessly share photos between devices.

With a dark interface completely rebuilt for the iPad, iPhoto makes heavy use of gestures to browse and edit photos. With a simple swipe gestures from the side of the screen, users can bring up a list of photos to edit. A double-tap will allow users to automatically find similar pictures, or enter full-screen mode. With support for EXIF information and sharing on various social networks including Flickr, iPhoto for iPad is set to become a great mobile companion to photographers – the app even features an auto-enhance mode to instantly enhance various aspects of an image, as well as other advanced effects. Brushes, white balance, cropping – they can all be accessed through multi-touch gestures and commands in the new iPhoto for iPad.

Aside from skeuomorphic brushes, iPhoto for iPad comes with a new Photo Journals functionality that lets users build “journals” using photos and additional information such as location and weather data using the stored GPS info and various EXIF data from images. Users can move photos around, add captions, choose favorites, and share the results with their friends.

iPhoto is a universal app (runs on the iPhone as well), and it will be released today at $4.99. Check out our complete March 7th coverage here.

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This Is The New iPad: Our Complete Overview

Rumored for the past two years, the new iPad featuring a higher resolution Retina display is finally here, and it’s simply called “iPad “. Announced at Apple’s media event in San Francisco a few minutes ago (our liveblog and March 7 news hub), the new device features the same design of the iPad 2 (flat aluminum back with tapered edges), and it comes in two colors, black & white. Looking at the initial photos of the new iPad, a less tech-savvy eye wouldn’t notice any difference from the current-gen model. The new iPad, however, is packed with completely new hardware components inside, so let’s take a look. Read more

The Apple TV Gets A Refresh: New UI, 1080p Playback, Available on March 16 [Photos]

At the media event in San Francisco, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced an update to the Apple TV. The updated model will support 1080p playback, newly added iTunes in the Cloud for movies and TV shows which will allow users to watch their purchased content on-demand in 1080p definition if available. The new Apple TV ships with a new streamlined interface that will make it easier to navigate between apps, browse photos and media from an iCloud account, and initiate playback.

“People are going to love streaming movies and TV shows in 1080p with the new Apple TV, and photos look beautiful displayed at the maximum resolution of your TV,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Apple TV is easier than ever to use with its new icon-based interface and the ability to access your purchased movies, TV shows and music right from iCloud.”

Apple has also prepared several content providers to stream HD quality content to the new Apple TV. Netflix, Vimeo, and of course movies and TV shows available through iTunes will be in HD for consumers on launch day. Apple also stated that there will be over 15,000 movies and over 90,000 TV episodes available on the iTunes Store. Just some of the other notable apps that will be prominently displayed on the Apple TV’s new icon based interface includes YouTube, Flickr, and the Wall Street Journal.

The Apple TV also gained greater integration with iCloud today. Now users can purchase, not just rent, movies and TV episodes from the Apple TV and watch them on their all of their Apple devices. iCloud makes it incredibly easy to access all of your digital content regardless of what device you are using.

The new Apple TV will remain only $99, and it will be available on March 16. Pre-orders for the new Apple TV will begin today.

For additional information, check out the Apple press release on the new Apple TV.

Update: MacRumors is reporting that the 5.0 software update for the current (second generation) Apple TV is live and available for download. They also state that not only has Netflix rolled out 1080p streaming but Netflix also has a new billing option that allows customers to pay for their Netflix subscriptions through their iTunes Store accounts.

Update #2: From the short amount of time I have spent with the 5.0 update to the (second-gen) Apple TV, I find it to be a really great upgrade for existing Apple TV owners. I love the new movies and TV shows in the Cloud feature. To test it out, I selected the Movies icon on the home screen, browsed to my purchased videos and found a couple of movies I forgot I had purchased well over a year ago. Selecting my Halloween (2007) movie started it as if I had just rented in through iTunes. The process was simple, fast, and very well implemented.

Screenshots of new 5.0 Software.

Update #3 Ars Technica has details on the processor inside the new Apple TV model. It’s not the same of the new iPad.

We asked whether the third-gen Apple TV had the same A5X processor as that in the new iPad (as was previously rumored), but an Apple spokesperson told us that it has a “single-core version of the A5” and it’s not the same as what’s in the iPad. The CPU is capable of handling 1080p HD video. The spokesperson also claimed that users “only need an 8-10 megabit Internet connection” in order to take advantage of 1080p movies from iTunes, but speaking as someone with experience with the second-generation Apple TV at a mere 720p, this depends highly upon your individual ISP.

Apple Creates New “Catalogs” App Store Category Ahead of iPad 3 Event

As noted by MacRumors, Apple has created a new Catalogs category on the App Store, moving a number of existing apps into it. The category looks interesting for a number of reasons: first off, Apple doesn’t just create new App Store categories, which are prominently featured on iTunes, leaving them empty as Catalogs looks when browsed from its direct URL right now. Second, whilst both iPhone and iPad apps have been moved into Catalogs, the empty App Store listing page reports “iPad Catalogs” – this might as well hint at catalogs, as in shopping guides, being part of an announcement on stage tomorrow, or perhaps some demo time.

Several existing apps have already been placed into the Catalogs category, including Catalog Spree (pictured above), SkyMall, MTG Merchant and more. These apps have long existed in the App Store and have now been recategorized to “Catalogs”. The apps had previously been listed under the Lifestyle and Utility sections of the App Store.

Interestingly enough, Google’s own Catalogs app for iOS has received the new category treatment, while IKEA’s app is still listed under Lifestyle. The new Catalogs category can be accessed here, albeit opening the link in a browser returns an empty itunes.com webpage.

Whilst a new category isn’t necessarily related to the next iPad, the fact that Catalogs went live ahead of the scheduled event and that it appears to not be completely developed seems to suggest that might be more coming soon. Tune in tomorrow at 9:30 AM PST for our Apple event liveblog.

Skype 5.6 For Mac Released with Automatic Updates, Lion Full-Screen, New Group Video Calling UI

Earlier today, Skype updated its Mac client with a series of new features, bringing the app to version 5.6 up from the 5.5 beta released in January. Among the most notable improvements, full-screen support for OS X Lion will allow Skype users to eliminate distractions and focus on the chat or call at hand by putting the app in a dedicated workspace on 10.7. Speaking of calls, group video calling received a fresh coat of paint with an improved user interface design that now allows for easy switching between dynamic and non-dynamic modes – when dynamic mode is on, the person who is speaking is moved automatically to the top of the window, similarly to how Hangouts work on Google+.

Whilst still featuring the much criticized window design that was introduced with version 5.0 last year, Skype is making some subtle improvements to the app. For instance, messages can be removed from conversations now, and entire conversations can be deleted from the sidebar (and the history). The first-run experience has also been redesigned, now including a handy tutorial to show what’s new in the latest version of Skype, and guide users though some basic steps such as making a call. Equally important it’s the new Automatic Updates function, which will make sure Skype is running the latest version available and will relaunch the app every once in a while if an update has been detected and downloaded in the background. This option can be disabled in the Preferences.

Skype 5.6 is a recommended update for all Skype for Mac users (it also contains bug fixes), and it can be downloaded here.

Liveblog: It’s the iPad 3 Event of a Lifetime

It seems like only yesterday when I took a wrong turn at a shopping mall and ended up waiting in line for some magical device I knew nothing about. Granted, there were lots of people wrapped around an Apple Store, but how was I to know Apple was launching a new iPad that was as thin as a pencil, had a faster processor, and could be individualized with those foldable Smart Covers? And if I could predict the future, it sounds like I’ll be waiting in some longish line again for another flat computer that has an even better display, an even faster processor, and surprise features that’ll dazzle us before the glow of a blue Apple retail shirt.

I already know most of you already have your wallets out. Some of you are checking the source code on Apple.com for any imminent hints, while the rest of you are furiously refreshing Apple’s store page. Although, I hope you’ll read our predictions instead (we’re half intelligent, half coffee-addled). But if you’re looking for the real skinny, we’re just going to have to wait for Wednesday. We’ll be here on March 7th: still rambling, still highly caffeinated, and probably drunk on iPad 3 rumors… or is it iPad HD? iPad 2S?

To find out what the name of the next iPad will be, tune in tomorrow at 12:30 pm EST when Don and I will be kicking things off early to answer your questions and engage in general mischief before the iPad event. Whether Apple livestreams the event or not, you’ll get all of our flavorful commentary and up to the minute information about the crazy stuff being presented on stage.

Don’t forget to refresh the MacStories homepage regularly tomorrow — the rest of the MacStories team will be writing articles as fast as these products and numbers and shiny things are being announced! If you can’t be in the now, you can always catch up with the announcements later in the day. Don’t worry — it’ll all be here.

Bookmark this page and set a date for Wednesday, March 7th, for our realtime coverage.

Apple Event Time Zones

13:00 — New York, New York
10:00 — San Francisco, California
08:00 — Honolulu, Hawaii
05:00 — Sydney, Australia
03:00 — Tokyo, Japan
02:00 — Shanghai, China
23:30 — New Delhi, India
22:00 — Moscow, Russia
19:00 — Rome, Italy
18:00 — London, England

Don’t see your city? You can use this link to get your exact time.

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Adobe Releases Lightroom 4

Initially released as public beta in January, the final version of Adobe’s desktop photo editing and management tool, Lightroom 4, has been made available today starting at $149 on Adobe’s website. Focusing on image quality with new shadow and highlight processing and different output options, Lightroom 4 is largely meant at enhancing the performance architecture and image quality improvements of Lightroom 4. In January, we wrote:

Alongside image refinements and extended, robust video support for organizing, editing and sharing videos on Flickr and Facebook (again, make sure to check out Adobe’s blog for the full details on video adjustments), Lightroom 4.0 beta features photo book creation with over 180 page design layouts, drag & drop support with layout guides, background graphics and integration with the Blurb book printing service. Adobe says photo books have grown in the popularity in the last couple of years, and I have no doubt this is a good move on Adobe’s side (assuming the service is impeccable) at the light of Apple’s moderate success with iPhoto photo books. Lightroom photo books can also be exported to PDF; in this beta, Blurb books are limited to 160 pages.

Similarly to iPhoto, Lightroom 4.0 now allows users to organize and browse photos by location. Thanks to a new Google Maps module (which obviously requires an Internet connection), Lightroom 4.0 will determine a a photo’s location if the camera that created the file supports GPS coordinates; otherwise, users can manually drop photos onto a location and create saved locations for future usage.

Those who downloaded the beta two months ago will find the same functionalities, fine-tuned for the final release (the beta can still be downloaded from Adobe’s website, and used until its expiration date). Among the key improvements of version 4.0, Adobe added native video support, giving photographers the ability to play and quickly edit videos shot on DSLRs, smartphones, and point-and-shoot cameras. The app comes with a series of video presets, and files can be exported to H.264 format or uploaded online to Facebook and Flickr directly within Lightroom.

Adobe Lightroom 4 costs $149, or $79 for upgrades from 3.0 – with this version, Adobe lowered the price from $299 of Lightroom 3 (upgrades used to be $99). Furthermore, Lightroom 4 will also be made available through Adobe’s Creative Cloud once it launches later this year with a subscription model (details here). A full list of features is available here and here; Lightroom 4 for OS X requires a Mac with 2 GB of RAM, 64-bit Intel multicore processor, and 10.6.8 or later. Check out a video of the app after the break.
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Ten One Design Announces iPad 3 Pressure-Sensitive Stylus Powered by Bluetooth 4.0

Ten One Design, makers of the popular Pogo stylus for iOS devices, announced today a brand new product – code named Blue Tiger for now but likely to receive the Pogo monicker come the final release – that the company is marketing as suitable for the yet-unannounced iPad 3. The stylus, pressure-sensitive and powered by Bluetooth 4.0 technology, will work with the iPhone and iPad, and feature an SDK for developers to integrate the pressure-sensitivity technology in their iOS apps.

You may have been hearing good things about Bluetooth 4.0. It’s a fast wireless connection, and is fully supported by the CoreBluetooth framework in iOS 5.

Bluetooth 4.0 devices don’t need to pair with your iPhone or iPad, they just connect and work. Also, the battery life is dramatically better - think months or a year on a single coin battery. We’ve developed the first pressure-sensitive stylus for iPad that uses Bluetooth 4.0.

It’s not clear why would Ten One Design specifically state the new stylus is “made for iPad 3” just a few days ahead of Apple’s announcement, but the fact that the new device will carry Bluetooth 4.0 is an assumption that’s been made by many lately (Apple itself has upgraded several of its devices and computers to Bluetooth 4.0 in the past year). Sample hardware of the Blue Tiger is available for testing today, and, judging from the first video, it appears the stylus in combination with hardware (and, we assume, Bluetooth) will be able to ignore palm and finger touches, focusing exclusively on the custom-made pen tip.

Details are scarce for now, and Ten One Design promises more will be revealed in the coming months as the product is finalized and gets FCC approval. For now, we can only speculate that the iPad 3 will indeed feature Bluetooth 4.0, and watch Ten One Design’s first video of the Blue Tiger, embedded below. Read more

Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.7.3 Supplemental Update

Apple just released a “supplemental update” to OS X 10.7.3, resolving ”an issue when restoring a Mac from a Time Machine backup.” Apple also adds in the release notes: ”This update is recommended for users running 10.7.3 with Time Machine backups.” OS X 10.7.3 was originally released on February 1, adding a number of fixes and improvements to Lion.

The update is now available on Apple’s website, and through Software Update as a 38 KB Delta update for users running 10.7.3.