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Oldie but Goodie: Play External Audio Thru Your Mac With LineIn

If you’re one of my crazy Twitter followers, you’re already well aware that I’ve significantly reduced the role of iTunes in my life thanks to Instacast, which has been reviewed by everyone from Shawn Blanc, to Michael Hurley on Macgasm, and myself on MacStories. Though I could talk about Instacast for ages, the problem I had to solve next was figuring out how to get the audio off my iPod touch and into my office speakers. The big issue is that my setup can’t accommodate more than two audio inputs, and while audio over AirPlay is probably possible with AirFoil, I notice a significant battery drain as I stream both audio from the web and broadcast it to my local speakers in the bedroom. I wanted to avoid this in the office since outlets are scarce, so I needed a way to pipe audio from my iPod touch thru my Mac. Enter an old Rogue Amoeba goodie: LineIn. Not only is it free (who doesn’t love free), but it requires nothing more than a button press to set up and pass my iPod touch audio through the audio line in to the audio line out. There isn’t a close button for LineIn, but you can simply press ⌘H to hide the app when you don’t need it.

It’s a great find, and something that might come in handy for at least one of our dear readers down the road. Download it (and check out other Rogue Amoeba freebies) here.

Typeplace - Share Your Typeface Passion: Review and Giveaway

Serif, San Serif, letterpress, kerning - typenerds of the world know these terms and know them well. Everywhere we travel, we see interesting uses of fonts in public places. Many of us even take pictures of them for inspiration and interest. What if you could use your iPhone to share these interesting findings within your social circle?

Typeplace is a new and cool way to discover, share, fave, and even share geo-tagged noteworthy pieces of typography with friends. Like Gowalla, Typeplace also awards virtual “badges” and certificates. The app has a nice interface, a familiar bottom tab bar and subtle brown and wood color scheme.

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iDisplay for iPad: An Interactive Wireless Display Still Rough Around the Edges

It’s been sometime since iDisplay had launched on the App Store, and I wanted to see if performance and friendliness had improved once the 1.3.2 update landed and brought support for the iPad 2. While I don’t yet have Apple’s iPad 2 dock, the Smart Cover provided an alternative, ample viewing orientation for a landscape extension from my MacBook.

iDisplay will universally work across your Windows and Mac boxes via a free client, though the installation process is less than friendly. Mac users are generally spoiled with easy drag and drop installs, but iDisplay requires manual installation and restart to successfully install the software. I wasn’t terribly happy that I had to stop all of my work to get iDisplay up and running, but to be fair DisplayPad which we reviewed back in December also required a restart. What bothers was that on the reboot, the resolution for my 1280x800 display changed twice before returning to normal upon the login screen. Despite a less than stellar install process, how well does the iPad app work?

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Want Lion’s Scrolling on Snow Leopard? This Free App Enables It

One of the most discussed features of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is the “backward scrolling” that, in an attempt to resemble the behavior of iOS devices, is enabled by default in System Preferences. In the Lion Developer Preview (both 1 and 2), if you move your fingers down the screen scrolls up, and vice versa. This is activated by default to make iOS users feel comfortable when using the new desktop OS, but has annoyed several long-time OS X users as the preference is automatically enabled and is buried deep down into the Trackpad settings as a checkbox.

If you believe, however, that changing the scrolling system is actually a great idea and you want to practice before Lion is released to the public, free app Scroll Reverser lets you do just that – on Snow Leopard (and 10.5, too). Once downloaded, it’ll sit in the menubar waiting for you to choose whether you want reversed scrolling or the normal one. A click on the dropdown menu allows you to make the change in seconds, and revert back again. The app can start at login, and has no additional preferences.

Download here. [via Lifehacker]

GarageBand ‘11 For Mac Updated to 6.0.2

GarageBand ‘11 is getting an update this evening to 6.0.2, which now supports imported projects from GarageBand for the iPad alongside bug fixes and improved stability. The update is around 47 MB in size, and you can check Software Update or directly download the update from the support page listed below.

GarageBand 6.0.2: DL1345

Kickstarter Project - GoPano micro: A Panoramic Lens for iPhone

There are lots of Kickstarter projects aimed toward the iPad and iPhone but this is the first optics one I have seen. It’s called the GoPano micro; it’s a lense for the iPhone 4 that takes 360 degree panoramic videos. You attach the device to your iPhone and record from the free 360 video app.

The GoPano Micro will record everything all at one time. After recording, you can review the video and choose to view any perspective simply by swiping the screen, and view any angle at any point (pan and zooming too). With the app you can also upload your video on a web platform (not yet finished) and share your videos as well. You can also view other videos uploaded by anyone via the web too.

Video after the break. Read more

Apple Online Store Running Out of iPad 1s

Planning to get your hands on the original iPad? Perhaps at a nice discounted price directly from the Apple online store? It might be too late, at least if you’re looking for cheap, WiFi-only models. When Apple announced the iPad 2 on March 2, we noted the company was getting rid of stock in its Clearance webpage; the original iPad was sold at $399 – $100 off, not a bad deal if you didn’t care about the new features of the iPad 2.

Now the Apple online store is selling the last units available, and they are WiFi + 3G 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB models. The most expensive ones, and likely the most difficult ones to get rid of in a few weeks. Still, if you really want to get a 3G iPad 1 that runs on AT&T’s network, head over here and click the Buy button. [via Macgasm]

More Than 75,000 iPad Apps Are Now Available

Back in December, we ran a story about the incredible rise of native iPad software in the App Store: in nearly 260 days since the release of the original iPad in April 2010, third-party developers created more than 50,000 apps specifically for the device. As the iPad was a relatively new device in 2010, that was quite an accomplishment. Especially considering that the iPad App Store had “only” 20,000 apps in August, and 10,000 in June. By the end of 2010, Apple closed with roughly 60,000 native apps available for iPad owners.

In the past months, however, many interesting things happened in the tablet market: Apple announced and released a successor to the iPad after much speculation, Google unveiled a version of its Android OS meant for tablets, Android Honeycomb. Motorola was first to release a Honeycomb-based tablet, the Xoom, which is capable of running Android apps built from scratch for the tablet form factor – rather than blown up versions of smartphone apps. On the other hand, RIM will release its BlackBerry PlayBook onto the market in a few weeks – this one is also capable of running Android apps alongside native BlackBerry apps. Other manufacturers will follow throughout 2011 with their own vision for “the tablet”.

Back to the initial point, anyway. If there’s one segment (let’s just forget about tech specs for a minute) where Apple has a huge advantage over its competitors, that would be the App Store. Since our report from December, the iPad App Store has grown to accomodate over 75,000 native apps – even more than the ones mentioned in Apple’s press releases. Compared to 20 apps available for the Xoom, I think we can all agree that’s a huge advantage for Apple. And even if geeks can say “most of those 75,000 apps suck”, the numbers still hold true: 75,000 apps are available, the 100,000 milestone will be reached in a couple of months. And Apple will make a strong remark about that figure at their next public event. Perhaps at the WWDC itself where, and everything falls into the place, a new version of iOS will likely be announced and demoed.

75,000 apps for the iPad doesn’t come as a surprise if we consider Apple’s powerful marketing machine and the iTunes Store infrastructure. But to think the iPad came out 365 days ago and now we can choose from a selection of 75,000 different apps – I believe that says something about the current status of the tablet market.

#MacStoriesDeals - Thursday

If you didn’t already know, we’ve set up a new twitter account for Deals, it’s @MacStoriesDeals. We’ll tweet the daily deals there as well as exclusive weekend deals too. Help spread the word! Here are today’s deals on iOS, Mac, and Mac App Store apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!

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