Posts tagged with "mac"

Should Apple Allow Installation of iOS Apps From Other Sources?

The Mac App Store won’t be the only way to install apps on a Mac. As Steve Jobs confirmed at the “Back to the Mac” event, the Mac App Store will be the best way to discover and install apps, but not the only one. You’ll still be able to purchase apps directly from developers’ websites and run installers or .DMG files just fine. Can you imagine what could ever happen if Apple turned the Mac into an App Store-only “closed” system with no possibility to download software from other sources? After 20 years of regular installations?

So in a matter of a few months you’ll be able to install apps on your Mac in two different ways, and one of them will likely take over the other one in a very short period of time. If Apple understands the natural differences of the Mac from iOS and consequently adjusts the Review Guidelines in a way that developers won’t be forced to water down their apps, the Mac App Store will be huge. Both for users and devs.

Should Apple do the same on iOS? Read more

David Pogue: “Office for Mac Isn’t an Improvement”→

David Pogue: “Office for Mac Isn’t an Improvement”

The new Office suite has gotten rave reviews from my counterparts at other publications. Clearly, something must be wrong with me; I think that, in day-to-day usability, Office 2011 is a big step backward.

The Mac suite now includes the Ribbon, a horizontal toolbar that’s built into Office for Windows. What I don’t get is this: Last time I checked, computer screens were all wider than they are tall. The last thing you’d want to do is to eat up *vertical* screen space with interface clutter like the Ribbon. Don’t we really want those controls off to the side, like the Formatting Palette in the previous Mac Office?

Walt Mossberg loved the new Outlook. Pogues hates it.

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OS X Lion: The Details We Missed

In yesterday’s preview of Lion, we were shown 4 new features: fullscreen apps, Launchpad, Mission Control and the Mac App Store. In the demo Vice President of Engineering Craig Federighi offered on stage, though, we spotted some neat little touches Steve Jobs didn’t mention, but they were there.

Here’s what we’ve collected so far. Read more

Tip: How To Sort Contacts by First / Last Name in FaceTime for Mac Beta

A surprising high numbers of readers asked me last night if it’s possible to change the way FaceTime for Mac (the current beta version) sorts contacts by first or last name. Basing on readers’ emails, it seemed like sorting was random: some of them were reporting contacts sorted by last name, some by first name, Apple’s website shows contacts sorted, indeed, by last name.

It’s really very simple. Like I wrote last night, FaceTime for Mac depends on your existing Address Book and doesn’t let you create additional buddy lists, or FaceTime-specific ones. Hopefully Apple will bring this feature in a future version. So to change how contacts are sorted in FaceTime.app, you actually have to change how your contacts are sorted in the Address Book. Is that simple.

Fire up the Address Book app, open the preferences, see the screenshot below.

Eleven Is A Dark, Sexy Growl Style

When it comes to Growl styles, my choice is one: Mono. Designed by Christopher Lobay, it’s been my default style for the past year and couldn’t be happier with it. For as much as a Growl style it’s just a style after all, I highly rely on Growl notifications during my day, and Mono happens to be a minimal, elegant, unobtrusive, beautiful solution to display Growl notifications on screen.

Now Christopher is back with a new Growl style. Called “Eleven”, it retains the minimalism and simplicity of Mono, it’s inspired by OS X and it’s got a subtle animation I can’t just stop looking at. Maybe this is wrong, I don’t need to look at a notification like this - but man this is some serious pixel lust. It has replaced Mono for now.

You can go download Eleven for free here. You’ve been warned, it’ll look hot on your Mac.

MacHeist Confirms Tweetie 2 for Mac Is Still Coming→

MacHeist Confirms Tweetie 2 for Mac Is Still Coming

Ev’s tweet even took me by a bit of a surprise because we’ve been in contact with Loren Brichter (@lorenb), developer of Tweetie, ever since the bundle happened and even though Twitter has acquired his company,Atebits, he’s still been working on Tweetie 2 for Mac. If you carefully read Ev’s tweet, you’ll see that he was careful with the language and “not something we’re actively investing in” doesn’t at all mean that the app is in any way dead. In fact, we’ve confirmed with Loren that it’s alive and well and he’s still progressing on Tweetie 2, even though with the acquisition and his new responsibilities, it’s taking longer than he originally anticipated. It’s also worth noting that he’s added another developer to help him move things along.

And it should be free. MacHeist users will get access to an early beta.

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SweetFM 2.0 - Last.fm Mac Client

Chocomoko has released version 2.0 of their SweetFM Mac application. SweetFM is a Last.fm client and player for Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4.

Version 2.0 has a completely redesigned UI that is more user-friendly and uses native Mac OS technologies. It also comes with Safari and Chrome browser extensions for Last.fm station control and can open the iTunes store pages from the current track. Other features: supports Media Keys, has an EQ, tagging and social network sharing, device scrobbling, multiple user accounts, hot keys and playlist management. Read more