This Week's Sponsor:

Kolide

Ensure that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps.  It’s Device Trust for Okta.

Posts tagged with "mac app store"

Pixelmator 2.0 Now Available On The Mac App Store, Our First Impressions

Pixelmator 2.0, a big new version of the popular image editing application for the Mac, just hit the Mac App Store and is available for just $29.99 (as an introductory price) and is a free upgrade for those who have previously purchased a copy of Pixelmator from the Mac App Store. Pixelmator 2.0 is a significant update, with significant improvements, completely new features, a new look and full support for OS X Lion.

With tons of exciting new features and support for OS X Lion, this new version of Pixelmator is the easiest, most enjoyable way to experience the best of image editing. Pixelmator 2.0 gives everyone the tools they need to unlock their creativity and boost their productivity, all for just $29.99. - Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team

The big new features in Pixelmator 2.0 make it a truly powerful image editor and for most people it should be more than sufficient for all their needs - likely making something like Photoshop overkill for what their requirements are. A big drawcard for many will be Pixelmator’s new drawing tools that make it easy to create, combine and edit vector shapes easily. A new ‘Shape Settings’ palette also makes it simple to adjust the shadow, stroke and fill of a vector shape. A new healing tool in Pixelmator 2.0 features content-aware fill technology so that it is easy to remove ‘objects’ from a photograph and make it appear as though it was never even there.

By choosing either the new Healing Tool or the selection tools, a user can select wrinkles, blemishes, image damage or any other details present in images, and with just one click let Pixelmator seamlessly fill the selected area with similar nearby image content.

Then there are the new retouching tools of smudge, sponge (desaturate), burn (darken), dodge (brighten) and red-eye. These tools are great for retouching and work as one would expect. Finally, there is an improved type tool that not only makes it easier to format your text, but now also features more advanced typography tools for those that want complete control over how their type looks.

Taking advantage of the new features that Apple added to OS X Lion, Pixelmator now supports the native Auto Save and Versioning available in Lion, allowing you to easily save multiple versions of a document you are working on, and compare those versions easily. Lion’s Full Screen feature is also built into Pixelmator so you can easily focus on your work without distraction and also take full advantage of your Mac’s screen real estate. The last thing to note is that Pixelmator 2.0 also follows Lion’s lead and supports a number of gestures, buttons, menus and the new ‘invisible’ scroll bars.

The look of Pixelmator has also been refined in 2.0, with a new ‘Tool Options’ bar and an ‘Info’ bar. Both sit discretely at the top of the window and both bars are contextual, changing depending on what tool you choose, giving you the appropriate information and settings depending on what tool you are using - so you never see useless information. The Tools palette is also more customisable now, allowing you to add, remove and even group any tools you want - letting you create a Tools palette that matches what your workflow requires.

There are a number of other new features, improvements and tweaks that are too numerous to go into. But speaking as an occasional user of Photoshop, Pixelmator 2.0 seems to have almost all the features I require for my image editing and it gives them to me at a fraction of the cost. If you’re like me, you might find Pixelmator a little jarring at first, with various tools and options located in different locations, but this soon disappears when you realise its an incredibly capable piece of software - that from my experience is actually a little more nimble at accomplishing various tasks (particularly when dealing with text).

Pixelmator 2.0 is available on the Mac App Store at an introductory price of $29.99 so be sure to grab a copy of it - at that price it’s an absolute steal. If you have previously purchased Pixelmator from the Mac App Store, its a free upgrade.

Marked 1.2: Rewritten from the Ground Up

This one goes out to all the Markdown nerds out there (I’m one of them). Marked 1.2 is out, and it’s packed with tons of new features. The interface should be pretty familiar, although you have to like the new persistant word count that you can toggle on and off. CSS styles have been changed up a bit (if you’re not using your own — I used Horizon which is similar to the multi-column style), but asides from the tweaks on the surface of Marked, we have some usability improvements that should make everyone really happy.

Directly interact with the preview and source code using standard highlighting and copy shortcuts to grab text and quickly paste it in the application or web service of your choice. Bundled inside is a new MultiMarkdown 3 binary that’s efficient and better handles big files (for those writing another “Hitchhikers Guide to Markdown” manual), along with web document presentation and compatibility for everything from HTML and ERB (that’s Ruby shenanigans for those wondering). Hit command+E to edit text in your favorite editor, or find where you put down the Master Sword with command+R to bring the file into view from the Finder. Not geeky enough? Marked does a better job of knowing where you are in the document, and will even follow along if you’ve reached the bottom of the page. You can limit text width in the preview, supress link highlighting if you’re going to print (yes, printers till exist), and opening new preview windows can be opened to float on the desktop.

That’s just scratching the surface of what’s available in Marked if you write in Markdown — I use it on a daily basis here at MacStories, and I’m sure you fellow Geekstorians will find it just as useful. Check out the changelog to Marked (it is MASSIVE), read Brett Terpstra’s update, and check it out on the Mac App Store (it’s only $2.99).

eBay Launches a Minimal App Designed for OS X

Tired of logging in on eBay just to get a sweet deal on that gadget you’ve been eyeballing? Check it out — eBay has a shiny new app on the Mac App Store that shares visual similarities with apps like Sparrow or Twitter for Mac, and is designed so you can bid on products right from the comfort of your desktop. The lightweight eBay companion for the Mac is very nice — you can keep track of your watched items, your bidding history, make bids, search for auctions, and do everything in the Mac app you’d generally want to do online. With access to your eBay console, daily deals, and a universal search bar built right in to such a compact interface, it’s a pretty sweet replacement for the website (and much easier to navigate). You can download eBay for the Mac in the Mac App Store, and we’ve posted some screenshots after the break so you can further check it out.

Update: Hearing reports on Twitter (and a comfirmation over at Macgasm) that this appears to be US only for right now.

Read more

OS X Lion: Installation Guide, Boot Discs and Q&A

Apple today released Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and it is the first release of OS X to be distributed primarily through a digital channel. That digital channel, the recently released Mac App Store, is the main way in which Apple is selling Lion.

To help you (or perhaps a family member or friend who may need a little guidance) with the various installation methods, and how the Mac App Store changes things, we’ve prepared the following post. In this article we include a step-by-step guide for the typical Lion upgrade process, explain what the new Recovery Partition is, how to make your own bootable Lion Installation media, how to do a clean Lion installation and a helpful Q&A section.

So jump after the break to see the full article and learn more than you would want to know about the Lion installation process.

Contents

To make things as simple as possible we have split this article into several sections so you can jump right to the section you most want/need to learn about. So as a side note to those who wish to read the whole article, be warned some parts and information is repeated multiple times.

  1. Introduction to Mac App Store Distribution of Lion
  2. The Simple Upgrade Installation (from Snow Leopard)
  3. The Recovery Partition, What Is It?
  4. Making Your Own Bootable Media
  5. The Quasi-Clean Installation
  6. The Completely Clean Installation
  7. Q & A

Read more

Records: A Jukebox for Your Mac

Records for the Mac is a brand new music player for your desktop from green&slimy software. Focused on creating quick playlists for parties and events, Records delivers a fullscreen interface on Snow Leopard that focuses on search and album artwork to identify music. Albums and songs are dragged into a tray to create a queue of tracks, and DJs will have the option of auto-mixing songs from their library for an instant queue. Queued tracks can be shuffled and played on repeat for random and continuing set lists. DJs can also add podcasts to the queue; podcasts like CLUBcast can be mixed with your own variety of tracks for near instant party playlists. Toss in keyboard shortcuts and Last.fm scrobbling, and Records is a fully functional, visual “audio browser” that makes finding music a cinch.

Read more

Incoming! iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand Updates for July 11th

If you’re smart, talented, and own copies of iPhoto ‘11, iMovie ‘11, and GarageBand ‘11 from the Mac App Store, it’s time to check for an update! Today we’re seeing general improvements all around for the trio of creative applications, including support for opening iMovie projects from iMovie for iOS.

iPhoto: What’s New In Version 9.1.5
This update supports general compatibility issues, and also addresses overall stability and performance. Minor issues addressed include:

• The date range of each event now updates correctly to reflect changes made to photos using the Adjust Time and Date command
• Addresses an issue that could cause the Photos view to scroll incorrectly when Event Titles are displayed
• Fixes a problem that could prevent Ken Burns animations from being applied correctly on photos in a saved Classic slideshow
• Deleting photos from a web album using the contextual menu now removes them from the album without deleting them from the library
• Addresses an issue that could prevent a crop adjustment from being removed from a photo when using the Revert to Original command

iMovie: What’s New In Version 9.0.4
This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues, including the following:

• Support for opening projects imported from iMovie for iOS.
• Fixes an issue where some audio adjustments were not preserved.
• Addresses a performance issue when using large quantities of video clips with keywords.
• Resolves issue with slow application launch when working with large iPhoto libraries.

GarageBand: What’s New In Version 6.0.4
This update supports general compatibility issues, and addresses overall stability and performance issues including the following:

• Fixes an issue with the GarageBand Lesson Store not completing single or multiple lesson downloads.
• Corrects issues with some tempo-based effects falling out of sync with main song tempo.
• Resolves problems with Magic GarageBand project files not opening up correctly in the GarageBand tracks view.

iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand are $14.99 on the Mac App Store. If you’ve purchased iLife outside the Mac App Store, keep your eyeballs on Software Update for the latest improvements.

Apple users buying 61% more apps, paying 14% more per app→

Apple users buying 61% more apps, paying 14% more per app

The average iOS device owner will download 83 apps in 2011 vs. 51 in 2010, a 61% increase year over year. “Smartphone users are showing an increasing appetite to use apps to add features to their phones,” Munster writes,” and iOS has the leading app ecosystem.”

While the title is somewhat misleading (are we comparing iOS against Android again?), Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster looks at the at the trend of app sales and ‘average selling price’ per app since September 2008, charting a nice graph that shows the App Store’s steady increase in downloads for free and paid applications. So far in 2011, the average selling price per app is up 14% year-over-year, versus a decrease of 18% in 2010. “After the initial race to the bottom in App Store pricing, we are seeing users pay up to add features and games to their iOS devices”, Munster writes.

I think we can attribute the recent uptick to in-app subscriptions. Magazines and newspaper subscriptions sold in the App Store can cost anywhere from $20 to $60 a year, and Apple has been aggressive in advertising digital publications via ‘featured’ and ‘what’s hot’ banners. Too, there’s been a recent trend with games like Tiny Tower that can rack up a lot of money by selling in-game currency which vastly improves the experience once players are hooked. The in-app purchase and subscription models are working out very well for developers that implement them.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes,

82% of the apps in Apple’s store are free. The 18% that users have to pay for have an ASP of $1.44. According to Munster, the increase in ASP is driven by the more-expensive iPad apps that represent a growing percentage of app downloads.

Again, a lot of these new iPad apps are digital magazines. While we have seen some great apps hit the App Store for $19.99 (OmniOutliner for iPad) and $9.99 (The Hit List for iPhone), unfortunately I think developers that are willing to price their apps high are still few and far between. I must admit, however, that I have seen more $2.99 and $3.99 dollar apps this year than the $.99 and $1.99 I’ve seen in the past. Then again, perhaps my inbox is just being pitched with more expensive apps than usual. Regardless, selling apps at higher price (more representative of an app’s value) is a good thing for developers, and it’s especially important on the iPad where quality software dictates how well it can replace a laptop. With iOS 5 around the corner, I wonder if users would be willing to spend more if the iPad was their only computer?

The App Store still has some kinks to work out, but it’s currently looking pretty healthy. Consumers are buying lots of apps (and in-app purchases), while developers are raking in just a little more money than before if we’re to believe Munster’s findings.

Permalink

Swapp For Mac is One Impressive App When Working With Multiple Monitors

Okay you MacBook Pro plus Cinema Display users, I’ve got an app for you that impresses me more than the balls Tyler Glenn had to wish the USA a happy fourth of july with his pair of patriot boxers at this year’s iTunes Festival. (Can you tell I’m watching the Neon Trees today)? If you’ve ever wanted to swap windows between your MBP and Cinema Display monitors, move the front most window over, or move all of an app’s windows (say all of your open Safari windows) to the next monitor, Swapp for the Mac is impressive.

Read more

Postbox 2.5 Giveaway: Five Copies For Email Lovers

You don’t just like to process your inbox, you like to dominate it with open tabs, a gorgeous interface, and tagging that just works with you to empty the ol’ breadbox instead of collecting crumbs. Postbox 2.5 is a great update to an already fantastic alternative to Mail, Thunderbird, and Outlook on the Mac — you can’t do any better than that gorgeous conversation view (which carriers over to your senders), a vertical thread pane so you can overview your email quickly, or that redesigned compose screen which really makes sending messages pretty slick. There is some OmniFocus integration built in for GTDers, and the recent 64-bit upgrade makes finding messages faster than ever (easier than ever too if we count the recent improvements in Spotlight integration). Postbox is a superb email client that offers you a lot of choice in how you want to tackle email, all through a powerful, smart, and now redesigned interface. We wholeheartedly recommend Postbox to readers as an upgrade to Mail, and we recommend you to both check out Postbox on their website and download the trial. Postbox is normally $29.99 online and in the Mac App Store, and is currently on sale for $19.99.

The great folks at Postbox gave us some coupons to pass out so you can grab a free copy of Postbox, so we’re going to give away five copies to our delightful readers. Check past the break for the full rundown.

Read more