Mac Sales Up 39% in April

Mac sales have gone under a 39% increase in April 2010, Gene Munster reports basing on the NPD data.

“April NPD data gives us the first sign of the degree to which the iPad cannibalizes iPod or Mac sales,” he writes. “From the early NPD data, it appears that the iPad has a minimal cannibalization impact on Mac sales, and could be slightly cannibalizing iPod sales. Given the [average selling price] (4x) and margin profile of the iPad, we see this as a net positive for Apple’s business.”

As All Things Digital reports though, the iPad won’t really cannibalize the sales of Macs:

“We believe in the long run Mac cannibalization will exist, but will be minimal. Apple has successfully limited the iPad functionality to primarily content consumption, vs. content creation on a Mac. And relative to the iPod, the physical size of an iPad provides a meaningfully different value proposition (portability vs. screen size).”

See the NPD data image below:

[via Fortune]

Tom’s Hardware Investigates Steam Performance on Mac

Spoiler: Windows wins. The Mac isn’t built to play games, and the response is that people who play games casually will pick something up on the computer, while serious gamers will float towards consoles. While I’d strongly argue that this is a big “negative” and that console gaming is simply more accessible, the problem here is with OpenGL and how OS X accesses hardware via “half-baked” driver bottlenecks. Also, Mac player’s consistently have trouble AWP’ing n00bs with their Magic Mouses.

Read more

Fare City is an Incredibly Addictive, Taxi Management Game

This weekend I came across a little iPhone game called Fare City. While I don’t know or understand the full story behind Fare City; I guess it was shuffled between a few different developers; It’s back in possession of the original creators, Finkly Interactive (no relation). But asides from all the drama, the game itself is really fantastic, and I couldn’t count the hours I wasted on this thing yesterday. I think my iPod touch officially has a concave shape to it after it practically melted in my fingers.

Read more

Mémoires Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Memoired giveaway.We also want to thank the Coding Robots developers for the licenses they offered to MacStories readers.

Here are the winners:

Jash Sayani

Christohper Misiano

Clemens Bauer

You’ll receive the promo licenses in your inbox in a few hours. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week. You can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet or Federico as @viticci

An iPad Controlled Blimp [Video]

I knew all along that the iPad would turn out to be an amazing device, but a blimp controller with integrated cockpit view? No, I didn’t think of that.

The guys over at BreakfastNY.com have created a modified BlimpDuino which is controlled by the iPad’s accelerometer through a custom software which connects to a built in computer. The iPad thus becomes the real controller which also displays what the blimp sees via an attached front camera.

It’s awesome, check out the video after the break.

Read more