The new 13-inch MacBook Air is Apple’s katana blade: thin, durable, powerful, sleek. But does it have enough mettle to be your weapon of choice? Abandoning the metaphor: can you ditch your MacBook Pro? More »
That didn’t take long, did it? The promised beta of Windows Phone 7’s Mac-friendly companion app is now available, bringing basic media sync capability — notably with iTunes and iPhoto integration — to that shiny new Microsoft-powered phone of yours. In fact, Microsoft delivered the client so fast that it beat every single American WP7 device to market — so AT&T and T-Mobile folks, you can rest easy knowing that you’ll be Mac-compatible from day one. Notably, the so-called Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac lacks any Zune functionality; Microsoft has never written a true Zune client for Mac, unfortunately, but at least this is a critical first step that makes these things usable for Mac owners that aren’t tied to the iPhone. Let us know how the app treats you in comments, alright?
Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac moves to public beta originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple is on a mission to cram the iPad’s and iPhone’s successes into the Mac, beginning with a brand-new software store serving Mac apps. That may be both good and bad.
The Mac App Store will create a new channel for Mac users to find software easily, and it will make it easier for programmers to reach a large audience. But some developers worry about Apple’s future road map, and the potential the App Store has to turn the Mac platform into a more closed, controlled environment subject entirely to Apple’s whims.
“I wonder when Apple will stop shipping Safari,” said Mike Beltzner, director of the Firefox browser at the Mozilla foundation. “It’s obvious already from [Wednesday’s] keynote that they’re looking to bypass the web.”
Apple in a press conference Wednesday announced that the next-generation Mac operating system, Mac OS X Lion, will launch with a Mac App Store similar to the iOS App Store serving its mobile devices. Steve Jobs said the company was planning to take lessons from mobile and weave their benefits into the Mac platform.
When the Mac app store opens, users will be able to automatically install apps and seamlessly run updates whenever they’re available, just like on the iPhone. Apps downloaded through the Mac app store will load in a quick-launch tool, similar to the springboard interface of the iPhone and iPad.
Most Apple developers seem thrilled about the opportunity to sell their wares through an online Mac store, but some have dissenting views. Here are the pros and cons of a Mac app store, gathered from brief conversations with programmers.
The Mac app store presents an opportunity for programmers to reach an audience of 50 million Mac customers (for comparison, that’s about half the size of the audience of iOS users). That could amount to hot sales for Mac apps and a few lucky success stories, like the few we reported on when the iOS App Store was young.
Just as the App Store did with the iPhone, we can expect a wave of new programmers opting to make apps for the Mac. As a result, customers will get thousands of Mac apps enabling Mac computers to do things we never even thought about.
“I think it can breathe some new life into Mac software,” said John Casasanta, partner of the MacHeist software bundle.
Even though the idea of a Mac app store is to create a one-stop-shop for all your third-party software, it won’t necessarily make it easy to find apps.
In the case of the iOS App Store, discoverability is still a problem. The list of best-selling apps is the easiest way to find apps, but otherwise the App Store doesn’t provide an adequate method to sift through the other 300,000 apps. You have to do as much research to find the right software as you would searching the web for third-party apps.
If the Mac app store accumulates a large number of apps (and it sounds like it will), customers will likely face the same paradox of choice.
The iOS App Store currently serves about 300,000 apps, but many agree that the majority of offerings in the store are sub-par, and are priced at 99 cents or less. Many are even free, and offer minimal value that corresponds to their cheap price.
Casasanta wonders if we’ll see a similar “race to the bottom” with the Mac app store. However, he said he was more optimistic about the Mac app store, because the Mac developer community long ago established standards for quality. As a result, he thinks Mac users will see a plethora of quality software.
More than 25 years ago, a commercial warned us about the future of computers. Closed. Censored. Dark. A “garden of pure ideology.” How strange that that’s exactly what the future of Apple’s computers looks like today: the Mac App Store. More »
Our buddies at iFixit took their screwdrivers to a brand-new, 11-inch MacBook Air, and quickly reduced it to its component parts.
Quickly, that is, once they found a way past Apple’s unusual five-point Torx screws, which seem to be designed with one purpose in mind: To keep you out.
Apple uses very unusual five-point Torx screws throughout the MacBook Air, starting with the screws holding the bottom case cover on and extending to the screw used to hold this flash memory board onto the logic board. iFixit’s crew had to file down a couple of Phillips screwdrivers to get inside.
That “keep out” mentality extends to the rest of the MacBook Air’s interior, it appears, with a host of beautifully-designed, carefully-engineered parts that are in principle removable, but in practice almost entirely non-upgradeable.
For instance, the 64GB flash drive that stands in place of a hard drive in this system “would be easily user-replaceable,” notes iFixit, if you ignored the Torx screws.
Also, it’s a completely custom part, meaning there’s no way to order a replacement. Flash drive fried? Your only alternative will be to go through Apple support.
Same goes for the 2GB of RAM or really any of the other components.
It’s an impressive feat of engineering, but, we have to conclude, not one that invites maintenance, upgrades, or hacks and mods by the customer.
For the full disassembly, including details about which parts go where, see iFixit’s MacBook Air 11-inch model teardown.
Photos courtesy iFixit.
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I’ve just barely dabbled with iMovie ’11, but I’m already comfortable saying this: The new “Trailers” templates are going to be this year’s latest meme fodder. More »
No surprise that Apple’s new Mac App Store has a similar set of rules and regulations as the iPhone App Store, and we just got the full list. There’s nothing here that’s too different from the iPhone review guidelines, but it all seems terribly odd when applied to a regular computer, and some of the more restrictive policies have already drawn ire from developers like Mozilla’s Director of Firefox Mike Beltzner, who says the restriction against beta code won’t work well with the Mozilla “open beta” development process. That’s definitely a valid criticism, especially if the Mac App Store becomes the dominant way for Mac users to get apps, but there’s a crucial difference here: unlike the iPhone, Macs can run software from any source, not just the App Store. That means apps that don’t meet Apple’s Store guidelines can still be freely used by any Mac user without going through jailbreak hoops, and we think that’s an ideal compromise: it allows Apple to control much of the Mac experience, since developers will have a huge incentive to comply with the review guidelines and get into the store, but still allows other types of apps and utilities to flourish — including, say Firefox betas. (We might have written an editorial arguing for exactly this approach on the iPhone in the past, come to think about it.)
So with that said, let’s examine Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines, which were just posted yesterday — you can grab the PDF here and read the whole thing, but we’re just going to break out the parts that seem more interesting or different than what we’ve seen in the past. Our biggest takeaway? Interpreted on their face, some of these rules would mean major Mac apps like Adobe Creative Suite 5 and Microsoft Office won’t be in the Mac App Store, and that’s obviously a problem. Read on to see what we mean.
Continue reading Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines posted — will Photoshop make it in?
Apple’s Mac App Store Review Guidelines posted — will Photoshop make it in? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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FaceTime for Mac, which you can download right now, works pretty flawlessly so long as you have entries in your Address Book. Here’s how it looks doing Mac to Mac and Mac to iPhone. There’s even an iChat comparison. More »
CUPERTINO, California — Apple on Wednesday showed a series of mobile-inspired upgrades to its software lineup.
Coupled with the company’s netbook-inspired and Flash memory-based ultralight MacBook Airs, the newly unveiled plans suggest the company is readying a new approach to PC sales that’s modeled on its successful reinventions of the tablet and smartphone markets.
“Apple is taking some of the things that have worked well for it in the mobile space and applying it back to the Mac,” said Avi Greengart, an analyst with research firm Current Analysis. “Where that is most obvious is the software — with the app store and gestures.”
Apple previewed Mac OS X Lion, which blends elements of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS into the Mac. Lion is scheduled for release in early 2011.
Like the iOS-powered iPhone and iPad, Macs running Lion will gain access to an app store for third-party Mac software and new multitouch gestures.
That marks a significant shift in the way PC software is sold, said Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps.
“Software doesn’t come in boxes anymore,” Rotman Epps said.
Citing the company’s years of multitouch research, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that the desktop multitouch gestures will center on the trackpad, not the display screen.
“Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads,” said Jobs.
The Mac App Store, which will incorporate automatic installs and updates like those in iOS, will be getting a head start: The store will open on the current Mac OS (Snow Leopard) in 90 days.
Citing the company’s success in selling mobile apps (over 7 billion downloads to date, including both free and paid apps), Jobs said the same basic guidelines would apply to its Mac App Store. Customers will be able to buy and download apps with a single click, installation will happen automatically, and upgrades will be made available regularly just as they are in the iTunes App Store.
The company will also split revenues with developers the same way it currently does, taking a 30 percent commission and paying the remaining 70 percent to the apps’ publishers.
“It’s going to be the best place to discover apps,” Jobs said.
Greengart suspects the move could lead to downward price pressures for new software — a good thing for consumers, but maybe not so much for developers.
“Consumers who buy packaged goods expect to pay a certain price for it,” he said. “With virtual goods sold through an app store that price may be a lot lower.”
The new App Store, which is being separated from iTunes for the first time, won’t exclude the possibility of installing other software, either from shrinkwrapped DVDs or through traditional downloads. But it will give developers an attractive new channel for distributing their work — one that potentially has far fewer headaches.
Lion will also include a feature Apple is calling Launchpad, which is essentially a homescreen for your apps, much like what currently appears on the iPad.
Apple also introduced a Mac version of FaceTime, a videoconferencing app that debuted on the fourth-generation iPhone. That means iPhone 4 owners and Mac users will be able to video chat with each other, whereas before the feature was limited to only iPhone 4 users. A beta release of FaceTime for Mac will be available today.
Apple also released an upgrade for its Mac software suite, iLife 2011, which includes new versions of iPhoto, Garage Band, iMovie and other apps. The iPhoto app now includes features such as Facebook integration and new slideshow modes; iMovie gains new audio-editing features and themes to automatically create movie trailers, among other tools; and Garage Band includes a new feature called Groove Matching that automatically adjusts different instrument tracks to be in perfect rhythm.
Additional reporting by Priya Ganapati.
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Photo credit: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
Announcement number two at today’s Apple’s OS X event in Cupertino today: FaceTime is coming to the Mac. Apple–perhaps accidentally–foreshadowed the existence of the application while demoing the latest version of iLife on the big screen.
The Mac version of the application (which had previously only been available on the iPhone and iPod touch) lets users make conference calls to Apple mobile devices and other FaceTime-enabled computers.
Apple didn’t reveal a lot of about the application during the short demo, but did touch upon a few key highlights, like the ability to make full screen calls and the ease of initiating conversations via the contact list
The beta version of FaceTime for the Mac is available today.
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