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#MacStoriesDeals - Wednesday
HazeOver Lets You Concentrate By Fading Inactive Apps
Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate on a Mac and get things done. With all those open windows – the Twitter client, the browser, music from iTunes, Google Reader – it’s easy to get lost in the information stream and distractions and lose focus on what you were doing. HazeOver, a free Mac app by Maxim Ananov, wants to provide a solution to this problem by offering a simple way to eliminate the visual clutter: fading the background application windows you’re not looking at.
The idea is very simple: the app in the foreground stays untouched, the inactive windows are slightly dimmed to create an effect that will let you concentrate on a single app. So say I have to get an article done in the browser but tweets keep coming in the background through the Twitter app, chances are I won’t look at it like I always do because HazeOver generates this “dimmed background” that will help me stay focused on Chrome.
I don’t know how well the system will work for you, but the app certainly behaves as advertised. Once installed and opened, it will automatically fade inactive windows as an app comes in the foreground. But what if you’re that kind of user who keeps multiple apps running side-by-side for multitasking? You might be out of luck due to HazeOver’s lack of customization settings.
Still, the app is a free download and you can try it out here. Check out the demo video below. Read more
Labelbox Prettifies Your Photos, For Free
Labelbox, a free iPhone app by Stepcase, has been quickly climbing up the App Store charts lately thanks to a neat functionality that enables you to apply colored tapes to your photos to make them prettier, and share them online with your friends.
Labelbox is free, but doesn’t have any sort of ads and comes with a polished interface to edit your photos. Once you’ve loaded a photo from the camera roll, or shot a new one directly within the app, you’ll be able to swipe on it to apply a “tape” that can also contains a written description with a custom font. So, say you want to add some style to your photos or a few words to better describe the subject, Labelbox has got you covered. You can choose from a variety of colored tapes (some are really cute), and even mix them to create a “frame” to place around your photo. To remove a tape you simply have to tap & hold, but you can shake your iPhone to clear the whole screen.
You can share your photo creations to Twitter, Facebook and tumblr through the Step.ly network. The best results are achieved when you combine the filters offered by an app like Instagram with the colored tapes of Labelbox.
The app is a free download in the App Store.
Spout Brings Kinetic Typography to Twitter, Facebook and RSS
Spout, a new app for the iPhone and iPad by collect3, aims at bringing the beauty of kinetic typography (animations made exclusively of words with different font faces, colors, and sizes) to your favorite social networks and news sources. Spout, available at $0.99 in the App Store, works exceptionally well to visualize news and status updates as typographic animations running smoothly and incredibly fast on screen. Seriously, this thing displays tweets and messages like in those typography videos you might have seen before on the Internet. It’s just so cool.
But is it useful, too? Not so much. The effect is really neat, but Spout isn’t anything more than a beautiful visualizer with few interactivity options. Sure, you can login with your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts to stay on top of tweets, status updates and RSS entries, but there isn’t much you can do to play with the information displayed by the app. You can load a specific Twitter user or search, enter multiple accounts and choose to display real names or usernames for tweets – but as far as “productivity” goes the only thing you can do is load a tweet in a popup and then forward it to Safari. I can see, though, how the developers built Spout to be an interesting typographic experiment, rather than another client Twitter might not even like. Spout will look great on your desk and it makes for a great demo to your friends, but don’t expect to use this as a replacement for Twitterrific or the official Twitter iOS app.
That said, Spout has beautiful animations and works just as advertised. For $0.99, you should give it a try.
White CDMA iPhone Spotted in iTunes, Bigger Icon Found in OS X Lion
In spite of Phil Schiller’s semi-official confirmation that the white iPhone is real and coming this Spring (and it’s a beauty), people keep finding references to the mythical white unit that was announced last year and never shipped.
Interestingly enough, a MacRumors reader found an icon in the iTunes 10.2 resources that suggests a CDMA version of the white iPhone 4 will be released as well, as iTunes contains two different graphic files for the GSM model and CDMA. Speculation in the past months simply pointed to the white iPhone as a GSM unit, but since the release of the Verizon iPhone many wondered whether the white iPhone could be also released in CDMA flavor. An icon found in iTunes is no proof of Apple’s plans for the white iPhone, and could be the result of a designer thinking ahead and preparing graphic files “just in case”.
One MacRumors reader did some poking around in iTunes 10.2 resource files and discovered an icon for the white CDMA iPhone 4 that would be displayed in the Summary window within iTunes when the device is connected. The image is distinct from the original white iPhone 4 icon and clearly shows the antenna break on the top right side of the CDMA version that is not present in the GSM version.
Analyst Predicts Apple To Be Tablet Market Leader Until 2013
According to at least one research firm, DisplaySearch, Apple will remain firmly as the market leader for tablets for at least the next two years with substantial market share and sales. The firm believes the market will grow at a very rapid rate, accelerated primarily by the iPad, which it believes that Apple will sell 40 million units of this year – a very significant increase from last year’s 15 million units.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating statistics that the firm is floating is that by 2016 the tablet market will be selling 260 million units per year worldwide. That is a very considerable figure considering that in 2010, 351 million PCs were shipped. Indeed if these suggested figures ring true, it could be the case that tablets in 2016 replace a number of PC sales and perhaps even exceed PC sales.
As for Apple’s competitors, DisplaySearch believes that somewhere around the beginning of 2013 would be when they match Apple’s sales volume (combining all Apple’s competitors together though), which would still leave Apple as the market leader for presumably some time. Whether indeed Apple’s competitors can catch up by early 2013 will rely heavily on how well they do this year in launching their first iPad competitors. If they fail, the tablet market could well become similar to the MP3 player market in which Apple has strongly dominated for a decade with its iPod family.
[Via The Apple Blog]
Report: iPad 2 Display Almost Identical In Perfomance To iPhone 4
Whilst many have complained of the lack of resolution increase from the original iPad to the iPad 2, a report by Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate Technologies claims that, excluding pixel density, the iPad 2’s display delivers “almost identical performance to the impressive iPhone 4 Retina Display.”
In quite an in-depth and thorough examination of the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2 displays, it was revealed that for most specifications from hardware color depth to black levels to contrast ratio, the iPad 2’s display matched or was close to the iPhone 4’s specifications and both were classified as ‘Excellent’ by the report. There were, however, two issues with the iPad 2’s display that Dr. Soneira believed could be improved by Apple through a software update.
FileMaker’s Bento for Mac Updated to Version 4; iOS Version Updated
Filemaker has released Bento 4 for Mac today, and it’s a major update to the previous version of their popular personal database software. It’s also now available via Apple’s Mac App Store, a first for Bento. It will cost you $49 but if you own a previous version, they will give you a $20 rebate. If you want a ‘family pack’ with 5 licenses, they offer a $99 version of Bento.
New features to Bento 4 include the ability to print labels using Avery and Dymo file formats. Sharing databases is easier with this version as well; the user can export the app’s libraries that are populated with data for other Bento users.
You can also upload a database template to the ‘Bento Template Exchange’ that has over 800 free downloadable templates to use. Bento has also added the ability to use geographical location data, grabbed through Wi-Fi, GPS or cell tower triangulation.
Another new feature adds the ability to lock forms to prevent unnecessary changes from being made to your layout. Improved performance and faster launch times have also been added, along with an easier way to switch from Table to Form view.
Bento for iOS was also updated to version 1.1. Changes include the ability to record voice memos, and sync iCal tasks (when paired with Mac). Multitasking support and better image support for retina displays are also included; here’s the link.
If you want to buy Bento 4 from somewhere other than the Mac App Store, you can always visit an Apple Retail Store or buy it directly from Filemaker’s website.
[via The Loop]
Photoshop Express For iOS Updated To 2.0, Adds Enhanced Camera Features
Adobe’s Photoshop Expressfor iPhone and iPad has today been updated to version 2.0 and it brings a few substantial, and much needed improvements, to the mobile photo editing app. Perhaps of most importance is the addition of full Retina display support and multi-tasking support, which is a feature that all apps really should have had a few months ago.
Also included in the update is a new camera workflow for what they describe as “rapid in-app photo-taking” but in addition to that is the inclusion of a $4.99 in-app purchase for an ‘Adobe Camera Pack’. This pack improves upon the apps in-built camera functions by adding the features of reducing noise, self-timer and auto reviewing functions.
The app remains free and the 2.0 update can downloaded now, but to get the Adobe Camera Pack you’ll need to fork out the cash for that in-app purchase.
[Via The Loop]