PunchClock, Beauty in Time Tracking. Review and Giveaway!

You gotta clock in and clock out to get paid. After all, time is money. And even if you’re a freelancer, online tools like Basecamp offer time tracking prowess between you and your collaborators. If time tracking is up your ally, Fuel Collective’s PunchClock removes the fuss from traditional log-in / log-out pains by providing Mac users with one of the most beautiful menubar applications I’ve seen in a long time. Simplicity really is bliss, and with PunchClock, you’ll always have the time on hand. Read more

Permute Winner Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the Permute giveaway. Also, we’d like to thank Fuel Collective for the licenses they gave to MacStories.

Here’s the winner:

Douglas Reynholm

Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week.

In the meantime, you can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet.

And also, be sure to check out our teaser page for the MacStories:Next project. Something magical is coming soon.

Preview: Yellow Pages for iPad

I did see this coming. Already available on the iPhone, the Yellow Pages app can surely make a great use of the additional screen real estate, thus providing a far better experience for the user. Look at the tab bar though: 10 icons. Couldn’t it just use popovers instead of all those tabs? We’ll see. Until that day, take a look at the screenshots below.

Read more

iVerse Comics Shows How In-App Purchase Will Look Like On the iPad

We know the iPad is going to change many things, but reading is no doubt the experience that will undergo the most significant changes thanks to Apple’s new product. We have this large screen, we have iBooks..but what about comics? We heard Panelfly was working on the iPad version of its popular application, but today we’ve found a video of an alternative to Panelfly, iVerse Comics, which is noteworthy.

Thing is, this video of iVersa gives us a glimpse of what in-app purchase looks like on the iPad and you can see, the guys have basically embedded the App Store interface right inside the application. Coverflow and all, it’s there. You can sort comics with a popover on the left, swipe and slide to see what’s hot, purchase. Modal windows everywhere, it seems like it will be a real pleasure to spend money just to buy the latest issue of Star Trek.

We’ve embedded the video below. We can’t wait to see more.

Read more

From China: MacBook Pro Clone with Dual Core Atom 330 Processor, HDMI

People can be so innovative sometimes. On the other hand, Chinese manufacturers seem to only care about releasing products that resemble (and in most cases, just copy) Apple’s ones. iPhone and iPod clones aside, there’s a new kid on the block, and it’s a MacBook clone. Seriously? Yeah, as GadgetMix reports:

” This Macbook Pro Clone from Shanzai uses a dual-core Atom 330 processor. This Macbook Pro Clone uses similar casing and even sports a touchpad with integrated buttons, just like the original one. Although the Atom is much weaker than the Core 2 Duo CPUs that the Macbook Pros come equipped with, it features next generation ION graphic chipset which allows 1080p video playback on it like a duck soup.

Other specs include – 160GB/320GB hard disk, 1/2GB RAM, 14.1” 1366×768 display, HDMI, 3 USB 2.0 ports, memory card reader, Wi-Fi b/g and Bluetooth.

Note that it is possible to get one with Atom N450 processor too.”

Now the saddest thing is, I know a few people who purchased fake iPhones and live happily with them (it’s got TV!!) and are very likely to consider this one (it’s got High Definition!). An interesting paradox would be that eBay sellers that sell this stuff will use the Ebay new apps on an original iPhone. Also, I wonder if these Chinese Macbooks have a built in Great Firewall.

Apple’s Stock Keeps Rising, Now No. 3 U.S. Company

Fortune reports:

“On March 9, a few days after the company announced the iPad’s ship date, Apple’s market capitalization (share price times shares outstanding) was $198.5 billion, making it one of the five most valuable U.S. companies, right below Wal-Mart (WMT) and ahead of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A).

On Friday March 12, the day Apple began taking pre-orders for the iPad, its market cap hit $205.48 making it, briefly, the No. 3 U.S. company ahead of Wal-Mart — a position it held for just one trading day.

On Tuesday March 30, following a report that it was building an iPhone for Verizon, its stock rose 1.5% to $235.85, its market cap hit $213.9 billion, and it overtook Wal-Mart once again to begin closing in on No. 2 Microsoft”

Let’s see what happens on April 3rd.

Preview: Sonorasaurus Rex for iPad

It turns out d-jay apps are taking a major spot in the “we’re working on an iPad app, available on April 3rd” market and actually, I’ve seen some pretty great apps in the works. Sonorasaurus Rex is a new application for the iPad which sports a stunning user interface design and tons of features which I’m sure will make it stand out from the crowd. I can already see this software being used in some live set, as it’s very promising and I have no doubt pro users will find creative uses for it.

Check out the video after the jump and if you’re into this kind of apps, you know what you’ll have to do on April 3rd.

Read more

Spotify 0.4 for iPhone Now Available

To all the people who can use Spotify on their iPhone, here’s an interesting update for the official mobile client, that hits version 0.4. Here’s the changelog:

  • Last.fm scrobbling.

  • The ability to open and play Spotify links e.g. straight from your Facebook app or browser.

  • Save time and space by using tracks already stored on your iPod in your playlists - there’s no need to sync those track anymore.

  • Save and find your favourite tracks and albums with the - Starred playlist and Star buttons (also coming to the desktop version soon!).

  • The ability to sync your purchased Spotify tracks over Wifi.

  • A new look for albums and playlists.

  • The ability to set playlist as collaborative or not.

  • The ability to search in playlists.

  • The ability to create a new playlist from the Add to Playlist view.

  • Playlists named “-” show up as separators.

  • Support for listening at 96 kb/s for more efficient streaming on slow connections.

  • Spotify remembers when you were when you quit and starts up at the same location.

  • Album reviews added to album view.

  • Volume slider uses system volume.

  • Volume normalization option added

Spotify is rumored to be “released” in the US later this year, but there’s no official word about it yet. If you’re still wondering, it’s a great service.