With the Mac App Store now officially launching on January 6, it’s no surprise Apple has put a deadline for developers to submit their Mac apps. If you’re a developer and you’d like to have your app ready for the grand opening of the new Store, you’ll have to submit it by December 31.
Submissions for Mac apps opened on November 4th. The first public rejections are already in, and it will be interesting to see what kind of apps will be featured by the official opening of the Mac App Store.
Apple just announced that the Mac App Store will officially open on January 6. It will be available in 90 countries at launch, and will be based on the simple purchase / download model introduced with the App Store in 2008. The Mac App Store will be available as a free download in Software Update for Snow Leopard users, which suggests that Mac OS X 10.6.6 might be available the same day.
Previous reports confirmed that developers will be able to use the same app names across the iOS and Mac App Store, won’t be able to submit demos and trials and won’t have the possibility to generate promo codes for Mac apps.
Press release below.
We previewed the new version of Daisy Disk for Mac back in November and I’ve been running the app on my computer since then. At regular weekly intervals, I’ve found myself using Daisy Disk 2 to take a peek into my Mac’s hidden and mysterious locations and see what was eating up all that space. Sometimes it was an iTunes backup. Sometimes it was a folder full of new apps to try. Most of the times it was just junk. Daisy Disk 2, with its gorgeous “sunburst” interface and file deletion functionality, provides a great way to “visually” know what has to be trashed on your machine. Read more
The Mac Orchard (as we know it) is shutting down. Drew Saur, the founder, is closing down his popular Macintosh applications repository. The site hasn’t been updated since July and Saur has decided to say his final good-bye today. The Mac Orchard has been around for 15 years (since 1995) and was a place for Mac users to find Internet software.
Over the years, Internet usage has evolved and many of these older network protocols, like NNTP, now have web-based counterparts. The debut and subsequent improvement of Mac OS X also changed application usage patterns. Mac users no longer need an alternative email client or web browser as the native mail client and Safari web browser are sufficient for most people. The nail in the coffin was Apple’s announcement that it is bringing its App Store to Mac OS X. The Mac App Store will provide a bounty of applications and user reviews, all of which are easily accessible from the user’s desktop. W hen the Mac App Store rolls out sometime next year, there will be little utility in maintaining a dedicated website that has a similar function.
A few weeks ago we reported that Evernote launched a 2.0 beta version for Mac users to test some of the major new features like Stacks and in-app notebook sharing. In spite of the fancy name, stacks are basically folders for your Evernote notebooks that reside in the (redesigned) left panel. Stacks, sadly, are exclusive to the desktop client and won’t show up in the web version of Evernote.
Evernote 2.0 is now out of beta and available for download on Evernote’s website, or through the app’s built-in software update tool. This 2.0 update is pretty huge and comes with a lot of features such as support for up to 250 notebooks, a new attachment button to attach a file to a note and linked notebooks.
You can read about the new features over at Evernote’s official blog.
Here’s some great deals for today on iOS & Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
Another week, another SIMBL plugin that brings additional features to a Mac app. This time, instead of adding new functionalities to Tweetie for Mac, we’re going to add some spicy Last.fm integration to Spotify for Mac which, by default, only scrobbles tracks to the popular music service.
Lastify, developed by George Brocklehurst, injects a Last.fm in Spotify for Mac that allows you to “love” and “ban” tracks, tag them and add them to a playlist. Once you’ve downloaded the Lastify bundle, extract it and place the file in /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins or ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins if you want to install it for all user or just your account, respectively. Restart Spotify after that. To reveal the sidebar, resize the main Spotify window.
The integration with Last.fm is pretty sweet and works as you’d expect. Perhaps SIMBL isn’t the most elegant solution, but it works. Go download the latest Lastify build here.
If you’re familiar with AirPlay, you know that it’s a pretty sweet technology that allows you to stream audio and video from any Mac or iOS device to an Apple TV, AirPort Express Station (audio-only) and AirPlay-compatible speakers. That’s the way it works. You can’t stream from Mac to Mac, iOS to iOS, or Mac to iPhone and iPad – although there’s a way to do that via jailbreak.
AirPlay’s streaming is great and almost “magical”, but it has its limitations, possibly due to the fact that Apple introduced it less than a month ago with the release of iOS 4.2. Ever since AirPlay hit the internet with the final public build of 4.2, hackers started working on mods to make it work in any app (video streaming from iOS apps is limited to Apple’s applications), on any device. TUAW’s Erica Sadun, for instance, has been busy working on a solution to make AirPlay work backwards, from iOS to the Mac.
The result is AirPlayer, “a custom Bonjour AirPlay service that pretends to be an Apple TV” that runs on your Mac. It’s a Mac app that can accept incoming AirPlay video streaming from iOS – very simple. Read more
In case you missed our announcement yesterday, we started another new feature, and it’s called #MacStoriesDeals. We’ll try our best to update the list throughout each day.
Here’s some great deals for today on iOS & Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot!
