Are you an IT professional looking at ways you can hone your skills on the Macintosh? Check out the MacTech Conference in Los Angeles from November 3-5th. Not only do you get to see Andy Ihnatko in his prime and glory, but you have the opportunity to listen to the great folks behind Delicious Monster and Red Sweater Software.
Posts tagged with "mac"
MacTech Conference 2010
An App Wall for Mac OS X [Video]
The App Wall at Moscone Center was impressive. The Appstream app, based on that concept, is cool, too. It turns out, the App Wall can work as a screensaver for Mac as well.
US Mac Sales Grow 11% in June
How do you end a good fiscal quarter? By announcing that US Mac sales have grown 11% this month. While they’re merely estimates at the moment, the NPD Group revealed that Macs have been selling quite well, which should foreshadow positive results with this evenings release earnings report. As reported by AppleInsider, Analyst Gene Munster said that likely puts Apple on track to announce sales of between 3.1 million and 3.2 million in its quarterly earnings.
Mac sales were up a strong 35 percent stateside in May, following the introduction of the iPad in both Wi-Fi and 3G models. Those sales figures have been interpreted to suggest that Apple’s new portable multitouch device will not cannibalize Mac sales.
The iPod has taken somewhat of a hit, decreasing at rate of 10% year over year, which should result in an estimate of 9 to 10 million iPods sold.
[via AppleInsider]
Next Mac Pros and iMacs to Feature USB 3.0, Faster FireWire?
Here’s the daily rumor series: today we’re talking about Mac Pros and iMac, folks. And it’s a pretty good rumor, if you ask me.
HardMac is reporting that the future Mac Pros and iMacs will feature new technologies such as USB 3.0 and faster FireWire, 1600 or 3200. As for release date:
“One of our better sources have indicated that the renewal of the much awaited Mac Pro range is planned for the end of the summer, thus for the ‘back-to-school’ period. For the iMacs they will be a few weeks or a month later at the beginning of autumn.”
If this will turn out to be true, sign me up for that new iMac. Faster FireWire? Please.
SkypeKit Beta Available for MacOS X
Earlier today Skype released the first beta of SkypeKit, its official API toolkit, to Mac OS X and Windows developers. SkypeKit allows you to build applications that plug into Skype’s services without actually forcing the OS to open Skype.app. Indeed, registered developers can use the “Plugged into Skype” logo in their apps.
Review: IconBox 2.0, Icon Management for your Mac
I know quite a few of you MacStories readers are die hard icon fanatics. The Mac community is full of young and vibrant designers willing to get down and dirty with Photoshop, and entire communities are built around various Mac themes, icon sets, and related design mischief. Though after folders and folders of icons, you might be wondering if there’s a better way to organize your collection of icons. Today, I’d like to introduce you to IconBox, a full featured icon library for your Mac. If you haven’t heard about IconBox and their latest 2.0 release, or you’re on the fence about an application like this, I think you’ll enjoy this review.
Ostrich: A Twitter Client for Safari
We’re still waiting for Tweetie 2.0 for Mac to be announced (though we’ve heard something new is going on this week) yet a lot of developers haven’t given up on developing and refining their own unofficial Twitter clients. And since Apple released Safari 5 with the possibility to install extensions on it, it was just a matter of time until someone developed a “full-featured” Twitter client for it.
Meet Ostrich.
App Store Password Caching Causing Unintentional Purchases?
So you have a kid right? Then I’m sure you’ve done this a lot or have had this happen at least once: You download an innocent game to keep them busy, handed them your iPhone, and let them have at it. The kids get carried away, and you wake up the next morning to a bank alert claiming you’ve incurred $300 in App-app purchases. This leads to a few nasty emails sent to Apple and the developer, claiming fraudulent charges and demanding your money back.
But just so you know, developers aren’t trying to screw you over. Apple has an odd API concerning purchases and password caching. While you probably realize that Apple gives you the opportunity to purchase multiple items in the store so you don’t have to keep entering your password, you might not have realized that this caching translates to in-app purchases as well.
BRDA on Jobs: Blu-ray Will be Around for a While
So what do you do when Steve Jobs says your entire industry is going to be replaced by digital formats? Refute it of course! Jobs claims that Internet based downloads will surpass Blu-ray, stating that, “Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.”
The Blu-Ray Disc Association responds, “According to market analysis Blu-ray Disc has a rate of adoption is very similar to that of DVD at the same seniority (18 million U.S. homes with Blu-ray in Q4 ‘10, the same numbers as the penetration of DVD to Q1 of the fifth year on the market of that size, Adams Media Research), we agree that the Internet will increase its importance to both stream that content to be scarce, but we do believe that the physical media like Blu-ray Disc will continue to dominate for many years, due to ease of use, high durability, and certainly the ability to deliver high definition experience and quality available anywhere.”
Anywhere you have a Blu-ray player that is. Personally I prefer just to instantly download movies, so I’m going to side with Jobs since I’m not a fan of discs at all. But what do you guys think? Will Blu-ray continue to remain in the market for years to come because of its market penetration? Or will downloadable content cause Blu-ray to sizzle out and end up like the CDs of today?
[via 9 to 5 Mac]