Posts tagged with "mac"

New Chrome Beta Is Faster, Includes Revamped Settings UI

Today Google released a major update to Chrome beta for Mac and Windows, which includes features that have been available in the developer channel for a few weeks. Namely, Chrome beta now comes with encrypted sync for passwords (sync happens through your Google account and can handle passwords, bookmarks, extensions, history and settings on every machine running Chrome), improvements in Javascript speeds and a completely redesigned settings UI.

The new settings sport a much cleaner design organized in three different tabs sitting in a vertical panel on the left. Most of all, the Settings now open as a new Chrome tab and not as a standalone popup window. Buttons have been redesigned as well and now look more in line with other Google products. You can search through settings items with a search field on the left, copy a direct URL to a specific settings page without having to re-navigate manually through menus and tabs.

As for Javascript improvements, the official Google Chrome blog reports:

In our new beta release, JavaScript is as quick as a bunny. With a new speed boost that we previewed in December, Chrome’s JavaScript engine V8 runs compute-intensive JavaScript applications even more quickly than before. In fact, this beta release sports a whopping 66% improvement on the V8 benchmark suite over our current stable release.

The new beta also introduces preliminary support for GPU-accelerated video; Google claims content in full-screen mode should see a decrease of CPU usage “by as much as 80%”. Of course you’d have to be running compatible graphics hardware to see the benefits of GPU acceleration.

You can go download the Chrome beta for Mac here. Check out the demo video of the new settings UI below. Read more

A Must-Have Mac Utility: App Tamer

Over the past weeks, I’ve noticed my MacBook Pro (unibody late 2008) has started feeling the weight of the years of intensive usage. I replaced my internal hard drive with an SSD last year, and while overall performances have increased (especially when open and closing applications or large files) clearly the computer’s fans aren’t the same anymore. I might hold to buy a new computer until this one really dies, but in the meantime I’ve begun looking out for some utilities that could help me better manage the software running on my Mac all the time. Read more

Fifth Beta of OS X 10.6.7 (10J858) Seeded To Developers

As noted by MacRumors, today Apple seeded the fifth beta of Mac OS X 10.6.7 to developers. Build number is 10J858 and, contrary to previous releases, Safari has been added to the focus areas for testing the new version of OS X, which already included Bonjour, Mac App Store, AirPort, SMB and Graphic Drivers. The new build is available now in the OS X Dev Center. No known issues have been listed in the documentation and the update weighs 20MB than the previous download.

Fourth beta of Mac OS X 10.6.7 (10J855) was released on February 11th. Apple has been seeding betas of 10.6.7 since January, and it is still unclear at this point when they’re planning on publicly releasing the update.

Video of the Day: Grandparents Using Photo Booth

Here’s a video for a bit of Thursday evening fun. Remember Photo Booth? The app that ships by default with every Mac and allows you to take funny snapshots of yourself through the iSight camera using effects like squeeze, fisheye, dent and many others. Well, now imagine if your grandparents, not exactly the usual Mac geeks, discovered Photo Booth and started recording videos with it.

That’s exactly what the video below (via Thought Catalog) is all about. Grandparents using Photo Booth. It’s genuinely funny, and made me fire up Photo Booth to take some photos with my dad right away. Check it out after the break. Read more

Mac Keeps Outperforming Overall PC Industry

We got a feeling Mac computers were reporting strong sales and health on every Apple’s quarterly conference call, but having to deal with the raw data of the Mac’s growth over the past 19 quarters is a different story. As reported by All Things Digital, the Mac has outpaced the PC market again in December 2010, for the 19th consecutive quarter, in every market segment. We’re talking business and enterprise customers, consumer market, government. While the PC industry has reported negative numbers over the years (first the recession, then the second coming of tablets), the Mac has simply kept growing.

In the global home or consumer market, the Mac posted shipment growth of 17.1 percent, while the broader market posted a decline of .6 percent. In the business market, Mac shipments grew 65.4 percent compared to the market growth rate of 9.7 percent. And in government, they grew 549.5 percent compared to the broader market’s 8.4 percent.

With the stunning adoption rate of iOS devices since 2007, the fact that the Mac hasn’t stop selling doesn’t come as a surprise. After all, what we’re seeing here is Apple selling not a line of notebooks or desktop machines, but an experience. And the millions of people that bought an iPhone or iPad in the past years are likely attracted by this integrated ecosystem Apple is so heavily investing on. Sure, Macs can perfectly live on their own without being used in conjunction with iOS, but apparently consumers like the possibility of being part of an ecosystem. And so the Mac keeps growing.

Plants vs. Zombies Now Available In The Mac App Store

While we’re still waiting for Bejeweled 3 to become available on the iPhone and iPad, PopCap Games has released its hugely popular “Plants vs. Zombies” in the Mac App Store. You can find it here at $9.99.

The game, successful on the iOS App Store and firmly positioned in the first spots of the paid software charts, looks like a straight port of the iPad version, made bigger to run on every Mac’s screen. That means you’ll find the 49 zombie-killing plants you know and love, 26 different types of zombies to block from accessing your house and all the strategies and skills you’ve already implemented on the iOS platform. The game, for those unaware of its addictiveness, revolves around the concept of killing a horde of zombies marching towards your property using only seeds, powders and bombs released by…plants. Colorful graphics and funny sound effects, together with a great gameplay, made this game an absolute must-have for iPhone and iPad owners.

Perhaps Plants vs. Zombies for Mac won’t generate the same sales numbers of the iOS counterpart, but if Angry Birds is of any indication – it really looks like users are willing to pay again to play their favorite iPhone games on OS X. Go download the game here, and don’t forget to play The Cranberries’ “Zombie” every once in a while. Just to get in the right mood.

MacStories Product Review: AViiQ Portable Laptop Stand

The big bulky laptop stands of yesteryear have gone the way of the dinosaur. Forget about fans, large plastic shells, or sometimes gimmicky USB connections. Laptop stands need to be simple and portable, rethinking what we traditionally think of as once shelf-worthy home and messenger-bag solutions. You should not be compromised by the tools you carry, and if you ask AViiQ, the solution needs to be lightweight and reconfigurable.

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