This Week's Sponsor:

Copilot Money

Copilot Money, The Best Money Tracker, Launches on the Web – Limited-Time: Get 26% Off + 2 Months Free

Posts tagged with "apple"

Instaview Giveaway, Unique Mac Instagram Viewer

We’re currently running a giveaway of Saver (for iPhone) and Foliozo (for iPad) - now its time for a third giveaway this week, a Mac app! We’re giving away 5 copies of Instaview, which at its core is a unique Instagram viewer for your Mac desktop. With Instaview you can create multiple ‘windows’ that each contain an Instagram stream, each window can also be customised with different frames and borders.

The streams available include everything from the Popular and your following feeds to location and tag-based streams and more. Just like the Instagram iPhone app you can comment and like images as well as follow (or unfollow) people. All in all, Instaview is a very customisable Instagram app for the Mac that also adds a nice touch of decoration to your Mac’s desktop.

Be sure to check out the full feature list of Instaview, which you can purchase from the Mac App Store for $7.99. However if you are interested in winning one of the 5 copies of Instaview that we are giving away, be sure to jump the break for all the details.

Read more

Mac Utility Cocktail Gets Updated To Support Lion

A few days ago the popular Mac utility, Cocktail, received an update to add Lion compatibility. The new version 5 of Cocktail also adds new Automator actions, fixes bugs and sees improved documentation. If you are unfamiliar with Cocktail, it’s a utility that gives users the tools to clean, optimise and repair their Macs. There is a mix of maintenance tools, tweaks and power user options for everything from adjusting disk options to clearing various caches to customizing the look of OS X.

Jump the break for some screenshots of the new Lion version of Cocktail. You can also download a free demo of Cocktail (limited to using it 10 times) with lifetime licenses start from $19 for a single-user.

Read more

Parallels Desktop 7 For Mac Available This Week, Updated Parallels App For iOS

Earlier today Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac was unveiled, bringing more features and substantial speed improvements to the popular desktop virtualisation software. Headline features of the new version include greater Lion support such as Full Screen Mode and Mission Control, iSight/FaceTime Camera support and those speed improvements which include up to 60% faster resuming and 45% faster 3D graphics.

Mac Developers will now be able to emulate a copy of Lion in Parallels whilst on a Lion installation as per the new Lion license agreement. Installing Windows has also been simplified with a “Windows on Demand” service offering users the ability to instantly purchase and download Windows - particularly helpful for those with new Macs that no longer include DVD drives. Walt Mossberg reviewed the new Parallels on his Late-2010 MacBook Air and said it “ran Windows quickly and smoothly, and integrated well with some of Lion’s new features”.

Windows, and Windows programs, can be displayed in Lion’s new Launchpad feature, which mimics the main screen of an iPad. They also show up and behave like Mac programs in Lion’s new Mission Control feature, which shows all the programs running on the Mac in miniature. Windows programs can also run in Lion’s new full-screen mode.

Also revealed today was that the Parallels Mobile App is receiving a substantial update so that it can completely control a users Mac rather than just the virtualised environment as had been the case prior to this update. The app, available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, is on sale at a special introductory offer of $4.99 but the update is free to existing users.

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is available from today for those upgrading from Parallels 5 or 6 at a cost of $49.99 whilst it will be available generally on September 6th for $79.99. There is also a Student edition available for $39.99, a ‘Switch to Mac’ edition available for $99.99 (which comes with a number of Mac video tutorials) and there are also Enterprise volume licences available.

Jump the break for some promo videos of the new Parallels products.

[Via AllThingsD]

Read more

Apple Posts New iPad 2 Advert: “Learn”

Apple has today uploaded a new iPad advert to their YouTube Channel. Like previous iPad adverts, it has a central theme - in this case it is “Learn”, which is also the title of the advert. The entire advert is dedicated to showcasing some standout apps that help people learn. As usual there is nothing related to price or specification, just clips of people experiencing the iPad and the apps that make it great.  Some of those apps shown include the TED talks app, Chinagram, iBooks and GarageBand, but in total there are 10 that are shown.

Are you curious about new ideas, do you want to learn a new language, or just a new word? Maybe you want to know more about anatomy, or astronomy. You could master something new, or uncover a hidden talent. There’s never been a better time to learn.

Jump the break to see the advert for yourself and jump over to the Apple YouTube Channel to see more of the iPad adverts.
Read more

Help Fund A New Q&A Video Series With Startup and Solo iOS Developers

A few weeks ago Anthony Agius ran the ‘One More Thing’ conference in Melbourne, Australia. It was a conference in which a number of Australia’s top iOS developers came and gave speeches about their paths to App Store success to an audience of around 160 people. Some of the developers that appeared at the conference included Matt Comi of Big Bucket Software (The Incident, TV Forecast), Thomas Killen of Voxel Agents (Train Conductor), James Cuda of Savage Interactive (Procreate) and a number of others. Those speeches have now been posted online in full and for free, so if you’re a developer looking for inspiration or just interested be sure to check them out.

Agius hasn’t stopped there though, and has now decided to embark on a new project to make a 5-episode online TV series that features Q&A sessions with the speakers from the One More Thing conference. It is all inspired from a 60 minute Q&A session from the actual conference in which over 100 questions were submitted but time only allowed for 12 questions to be answered.

We want to develop an online TV show to support new startups and solo iOS developers. We will interview some amazing iOS developers about what it takes to do well in this industry, and some of the unexpected challenges that come up.

To make this a reality, Agius is appealing for donations to fund the project. To do it (as he says) to “the quality the community deserves” he is looking for $25,000 to cover all the costs from video editing, web design, motion graphics, flights, equipment hire and various other costs which he has roughly calculated. He is attempting to fund the project through ‘Pozible’, which if you are unfamiliar with is very similar to Kickstarter, and is offering various ‘rewards’ for funding the project which increase as the size of the donation increases - everything from a “twitter hug” to a name on the credits to a free Blu-Ray copy to adverts within the episodes.

So as you can see, it gets expensive to put on a high quality production! I don’t plan to make a profit off the show. Unless the project exceeds the funding target, I won’t make a cent. All raised funds will be put into the development of the show and promoting it. I just want to cover the costs to get it made, enjoy the experience, produce a show I can be proud of and create a valuable information source for those wanting to be indie iOS developers.

Below the break is a video of Agius explaining the project and you can read even more about the project on the Pozible project page, which is where you can also go to help contribute to the project. Video of the speeches from the ‘One More Thing’ conference can be found on Vimeo and you can follow Anthony Agius who co-founded MacTalk Australia on Twitter.

Read more

Turn A Magic Trackpad Into A Numpad With The Mobee Magic Numpad

A new accessory from Mobee, which makes some inductive charging accessories for the Magic Mouse and Apple Keyboard, aims to use the Magic Trackpad as a Numpad replacement. The accessory is simply 3 plastic films that are applied onto a Magic Trackpad and a piece of software that translates a tap into a key command from a Numpad.

When purchasing the Mobee Magic Numpad you receive 3 different films to use on the Magic Trackpad, each of which have a different layout. You can see the three layouts below, the last of which includes six customizable keys. The films are claimed to be durable and re-usable in case you wish to change between layouts.

Mobee claims that with their product you will “instantaneously get both a Trackpad and a Numpad built into one single device” - although how exactly one switches between the Trackpad and Numpad ‘mode’ is not exactly explained. The Mobee Magic Numpad is available to order now for $29.90 but shipments won’t begin until October. So whilst this is certainly a niche product, it’s quite clever and fairly unobtrusive - although the real question would be how well it works and feels through some use.

[Via This is my next]

“Shrine of Apple” Wants To Photograph Every Apple Product Ever Made

Brought to my attention this morning by The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, Shrine of Apple is a new website that launched last night with a very ambitious goal: to photograph every Apple product ever made. Not just the ones from 2007 up until today – all of them. From the About page:

Our mission is to showcase the entire spectrum of products that Apple have sold to the public since 1976 – every product Apple Inc has ever produced, in the highest quality and definition possible. Every desktop, every laptop, every notebook, monitor, iPod, iPad, iPhone, mouse, keyboard, modem, cable, port, adapter, docking station, memory expansion card….and that’s just their hardware. Operating systems, productivity suites and all the great software titles that Apple have published will make an appearance too!

The website launched with a relatively small collection of products, with many more queued up for the next weeks. Shrine of Apple’s database consists of detailed high-res photos of products complete with original packaging when available, manuals, and cables. The website’s categories include Desktops, Displays, iPads, iPhones, iPods, Laptops, Peripherals, PDAs, Servers and Software, with more to come. The current selection includes old gems like the Apple IIe Numeric Keypad, Lisa 7/7 Office software, and the Macintosh PowerBook 150.

With high-res photography, descriptions, related links and a true passion for Apple products, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Shrine of Apple becoming a de-facto standard for Apple fans looking up information on old computers and devices, provided by someone who really “knows” and cares about these products, not a faceless online database. Shrine of Apple is, in fact, the creation of Jonathan Zufi, “leading expert in the field of mobility and wireless devices by day – vivid Apple collector by night”.

Make sure to check out Shrine of Apple, and follow the website on Twitter for updates on new products and photos.

Giveaway: Foliozo, The Stunning Digital Portfolio App For iPads

Last Friday we reviewed Foliozo, a new digital portfolio app that had hit the iPad App Store earlier in the week. This week we’ve been given ten promotional codes for Foliozo from the app developers and we’re running a giveaway. In our review we noted how Foliozo kept things simple unlike many of their competitors - something we thought was an advantage for a digital portfolio app.

You can read our full review of Foliozo but if you really like the sound of Foliozo don’t be afraid to help the developers and purchase the app which is available on the iPad App Store for $4.99. Jump the break for all the Foliozo giveaway details but don’t forget about our Saver giveaway which we started yesterday and look out for yet another giveaway this week!

Read more

Saver For iPhone Giveaway: 10 Copies Of The Delightful Expense Tracker

After a big bug-squashing and feature-adding update last week to Saver, the developers have decided to run another giveaway of their excellent expense-tracking app. I reviewed Saver for iPhone about two months ago where I raved about its excellent and loving design which made the usually dull task of expense tracking a more exciting and vibrant experience. The genius of Saver though is that unlike many other apps on the market, its design keeps things simple whilst still being powerful enough for what most users will need out of an expense-tracker.

The developers are running their own giveaway of Saver where they are giving away 3 copies of the app everyday from today till next Monday, but MacStories readers have another chance to win the app because they have been kind enough to give us 10 copies to give away! Make sure to read our full review of Saver, but jump the break for all the details on how to enter our giveaway of 10 copies of Saver.

Read more