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Binary Nights Releases Forklift 2.0 [Beta]

What a week for file transfer apps for Mac OS X. Panic has released the long awaited Transmit 4 this week (be sure to read our review here if you missed it) and now Binary Night has finally put the first official public beta of Forklift 2 online, you can go download it here.

Forklift 2 features a completely rewritten and 64-bit compatible engine, which according to the developers should make this new version 3x - 33x faster than any other app on the market. We’ll let you know about that after our tests during this weekend. Also, the 2.0 update brings new features like Workspaces and Synclets, Stacks, Unarchiver framework and many other stuff. Stay tuned for a complete review next week.

In the meantime, go download the beta and check out two screenshots after the break.

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4,870 iPad Apps In The App Store

Distimo reports that there 4,870 iPad apps available in the App Store: 1,433 are Universal applications and 3,437 are iPad-only apps. The report also shows the good growth these apps went under the past weeks, and there are also other interesting stats about price points and categories. You can download the report for free here.

Too bad most of these apps are still crap, and the great ones are still to be released. (with a very few exceptions, of course)

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Lala Is Shutting Down, Apple Gets Ready for iTunes.com

Originally discovered by Techcrunch last night, Lala is shutting down on May 31: subscriptions are closed, and current users will be refunded with iTunes Store credit.

Well, knew that this was gonna happen - but it’s interesting to see it happening one week before the start of the WWDC: every sign is pointing to Apple warming up iTunes.com (which is still being redirected) as their online music streaming service, set to become the most important competitor for services like Spotify, Groovershark and Pandora.

Anyway, we think  that there will be so much more about iTunes.com rather than just music streaming. Hopefully we’ll know more at the WWDC.

Microsoft Confirms Support for HTML5, But Adobe Is Moving Forward

Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer project at Microsoft, confirmed (again) their support for open web standards and HTML5 as the technology of the future.

In a blog post:

“The future of the web is HTML5. Microsoft is deeply engaged in the HTML5 process with the W3C. HTML5 will be very important in advancing rich, interactive web applications and site design. The HTML5 specification describes video support without specifying a particular video format. We think H.264 is an excellent format. In its HTML5 support, IE9 will support playback of H.264 video only.”

Pretty self explanatory, and it’s good to see Microsoft trying to do things good for IE9.

On the other hand, it’s Adobe that’s moving forward. They don’t seem to have a proper answer to Steve Jobs’ letter, for this reason they’ve stated (one again) that Apple is blocking their “widely used runtimes”, and so they’re moving forward - to other platforms.

Adobe cares about quantity (number of people who use Flash) more than quality (of Flash).

I think this is standing still, rather than moving forward.

Will iAd become a developer Gold Mine?

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this morning that Apple plans to spend over $1 Million buckaroos on advertisements (iAds) this year. Advertisers are gonna have to pay top dollar to even think about delivering content to Apple’s users, plus create Apple approved experiences that aren’t (putting it lightly) garbage. But what does this mean for App Store customers and developers?

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