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JotAgent for Dropbox: 5 Promo Codes Up for Grabs

JotAgent is a neat little utility for iPhone and iPad that lets you quickly save notes in Dropbox with literally two taps. I reviewed it here a few weeks ago:

The concept is simple: you link the app to your Dropbox account, you fire it up and start writing. With the tap of a button, the note gets quickly saved in Dropbox. That’s it. You can then browse all the notes you saved, or simply write a new one.

JotAgent is not a tool for professional writers: it’s a lightweight app to “jot” down an idea and have it stored on Dropbox, which runs on your iOS devices, the web and Mac. It’s a great way to save random ideas, thoughts and pieces of text in a service that works anywhere, on any device.

The app is available at $0.99 in the App Store, but in case you haven’t bought it yet we have 5 promo codes up for grabs. Jump after the break, check out the giveaway rules and good luck!

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Also From Steve Jobs: Final Cut Studio Ain’t Dead

Looks like the chief is back to organizing his inbox and replying to angry customers asking about Apple stuff. MacRumors reported of iTunes LP and Extra coming to the new Apple TV, and now according to a new email published by 9to5mac el Jobso suggested a reader to “stay tuned” for a Final Cut Studio update and “buckle up”.

Reader Evan Agee recently e-mailed the man in charge about the lack of a Final Cut Studio announcement at Apple’s Back to the Mac event and also threw in his hopes for a 64-bit update. Jobs’ reply?

Stay tuned and buckle up.
Sent from my iPhone

We are tuned in, Steve.

Steve Jobs Confirms iTunes Extras and iTunes LP “Coming” to Apple TV

Apple introduced iTunes Extras and LPs together with iTunes 9 in September 2009, but they never really took off. With a recent email reply to a MacRumors reader, though, Steve Jobs confirmed support for the two features is coming to the 2nd gen Apple TV, which being based on iOS doesn’t support Extras and LP out of the box.

Q: I’ve been a massive fan of the original Apple TV since it launched, in fact I have 2 of my own and have bought a fair few as gifts over the years. So as soon as the new Apple TV was released I bought one. Overall it’s a fantastic update for me as I always stream from my Mac mini anyway. But here’s the kicker - Where are iTunes Extras and iTunes LP gone? I’ve purposely been buying content with those features just for my Apple TVs. And now the features are unusable on my new box?! Is there an update coming to fix this?

A: Coming.

Sent from my iPhone.

Apple is expected to release a firmware update for the Apple TV to bring full support for AirPlay, and that would be the right time to bring iTunes LP and Extra compatibility back as well. The update could drop as early as next week, but when it comes to Jobs’ emails you never know if he’s joking or not. As MacRumors also speculates, iTunes LPs would make perfect sense on the iPad, with a larger screen capable of really enriching the experience of music albums and videos. Personally, I think that’d be the only way I could ever buy an iTunes LP.

3D Rotating Molecules On The iPad Will Blow Your Mind

Speaking of cool webapps running just fine on the iPad and iPhone: check out this cool demo of molecules rotating in 3D on the iPad (where the jaw-dropping effect is guaranteed), iPhone and any other browser that supports 3D transformations. Everything is accomplished through CSS, the developer says.

To accomplish this in CSS, we take advantage of a technique called “billboarding”. Billboarding involves rotating an object (in our case, each of the colored balls), in such as way that it remains facing directly at the camera at all times. This is a fairly common technique in the world of 3D gaming, used to render things such as trees and grass — and in our case, it gives the illusion that the circles are really spheres.

Try it yourself, it’s impressive. Yet more proof that the open web is more than welcome on iOS.

MacStories Giveaway: 5 iUseMac Bundles Up For Grabs

Yesterday we talked about a new Mac bundle from iUseMac which, in collaboration with ItaliaMac, is offering 9 great Mac apps (including the names of Picturesque, Renamer and Clean Text) at the price of $29. If you haven’t purchased the bundle yet (it expires in two weeks), you can get the chance to win one of the 5 bundles we have up for grabs here on MacStories.

Check out the giveaway rules below, and take at iUseMac’s included apps here. Read more

TabLinks 2.0: Safari Extension To Gather Links From Your Open Tabs

I’m not a Safari user anymore, but this extension from Brett Terpstra was just too cool to not mention it: with the click of a button, TabLinks can fill a pre-defined template with information about your open tabs. URL, title, window info – you name it. If you’re that type of user who always feels like he’s got too many tabs open at the same time and would like to save them for later, that’s exactly where TabLinks comes in handy. Read more

New MacBook Air Owners Experiencing Graphic Issues, Kernel Panics

According to a report bu Cult of Mac, and confirmed by further analysis on Macworld, a pretty large number of MacBook Air early adopters are experiencing screen issues such as “weird colors in vertical lines”, freezes, crashes and “horizontal sparkling bands”.

Additional reports about the video problem have been posted to Apple’s discussion forums and for the people reporting it the symptoms can vary. I’ve even encountered the problem myself on my 13-inch MacBook Air.

The problem with kernel panics has been experienced by Cult of Mac staff that purchased 11-inch or 13-inch models. Users on Apple forums haven’t complained about this specifically yet, but they have been complaining about their new MacBook Airs crashing.

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Running iPad Apps On The Mac→

Running iPad Apps On The Mac

Dave Winer:

Why didn’t I see this? One of my first wishes when I got my iPad was that this software would run on a Mac. I forgot that, and Uncle Steve said it the other way. The store is coming to the Mac. The store is coming to the Mac. That’s the sleight of hand. What he really meant to say is that IOS software is coming to the Mac. Or maybe it’s the IOS hardware I’m writing this on is running Mac software, kind of the way Carbon ran old lifeless legacy Mac apps. Which one is the “real” OS and which one is running in a compatibility box? I have a funny feeling that right now, as I type this on an AirBook, I’m using the compatibility box. Right?

The iPad can run apps from another iOS device, the iPhone. Will the Mac be able to run apps coming from iOS, even if the Mac is a machine running OS X? We don’t know. The thing is, if iOS is actually OS X coming back to the Mac after 3 years of mobile adventures (and if Lion is “OS X meets iPad”), then Winer’s option could make sense. Developers could adapt iPad apps to bigger screens with relative ease, though I don’t know how you’d be supposed to run apps requiring tilt controls on a desktop computer.

In the end, it’d be a cool feature – as long as you don’t pay attention to the trade-off.  Mobile apps don’t make any sense on the desktop, not as we think. Perhaps Apple will prove us wrong. The way I see it, Jobs simply wants to reinvent the way Mac software is discovered and distributed; a Mac App Store doesn’t necessarily mean the App Store is coming to the Mac.

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1Password Chrome Extension Updated, Looks Great

If you use 1Password (why wouldn’t you?) and you happen to use Chrome as your default browser on the Mac, you may have noticed the latest 1Password beta introduces a brand new great looking Chrome extension. To enable beta releases in 1Password, open the Preferences, go to the Updates tab and check “Include Beta versions”. Install the beta update, and restart Chrome to activate the updated extension.

The new extension looks great, and finally brings proper 1Password support to Chrome. I heard many complaints from users in the past who didn’t want to switch to Chrome due to lack of 1P support.

Those days are over, the new extension looks (and works) very well.