Hasta La Gadget!

Skype 5 for Mac leaves something to be desired — we know it, you know it, and looks like Skype knows it too. That’s why our fav VoIP app is soliciting the help of you, the people, to improve its UI. Skype’s running a competition to find the one chat style to rule them all, and it starts taking custom CSS submissions April 8th. The contest has three rounds, with one judges’ and one people’s choice in each, followed by the selection of a grand prize winner from the six finalists. People’s champs get an Apple TV and those picked by the judges snag a WiFi iPad 2, and all the winners get a copy of CSS3 for Web Designers and a year’s subscription to Skype Unlimited World Extra. The grand prize is an eleven-inch MacBook Air, an iPad2, and the ego boost that comes with knowing your chat style forged in the flames of competition will be included in a coming release of Skype. Up to the challenge? Hit the source link for the full details.

Skype wants the people to fix Skype 5 for Mac, will you answer the call? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 01:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Andrew, who isn’t interested in ever getting CTS. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I bought my first computer from Apple a few months ago (15-inch MacBook Pro) and I’ve been using it extensively around campus. I didn’t give it too much notice at first, but the keyboard is making me develop wrist problems (possibly carpel tunnel?). My wrist has been hurting so much that I couldn’t sleep because my wrist would keep twitching. I bought a Logitech Wave Pro, which helped my wrist problem a lot. Problem is, Logitech dropped OS X support for the Logitech Wave almost two years ago, and many of my buttons are mapped incorrectly.

Which ergonomic keyboard would you suggest? I’m open to anything. Bluetooth is a bonus so I don’t have to worry about a receiver, but if that degrades the performance / speed of the keyboard then I don’t want it. Thanks!”

We know Andrew’s not alone here. There simply aren’t enough legitimate ergonomic keyboard options that work perfectly with OS X, but hopefully there are one or two that have really made you folks happy. Let us know in comments below, cool?

Ask Engadget: best ergonomic keyboard for a Mac? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 22:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It may be a minor update for most, but those with a brand new MacBook Pro will no doubt find the just-released OS X 10.6.7 upgrade particularly welcome. In addition to various minor improvements for all Macs, it includes a fix for early 2011 MacBook Pros that promises to “improve graphics stability and external display compatibility.” That sounds like it may actually fix both the freezing issue we reported on earlier today and the flickering issue that’s been plaguing Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pros since day one, though we’ve yet to confirm either ourselves. Let us know how things work out for you in comments.

Update: Early indications are that it does indeed fix both the freezing and flickering issues. We’ll let you know if we find anything else.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Apple releases OS X 10.6.7 with fix for MacBook Pro display issues originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There hasn’t always been a lot of love between Symbian devices and Macs, and while Nokia just got awful friendly with Microsoft the company is also extending something of an olive branch to the Apple community. The Nokia Software Updater for Mac just went live, more than a year after the Windows 7 version, and, while it’s still in beta form, it’ll allow you to push the latest revisions of core software and apps to your device. At this point there aren’t any particular issues being reported, but the app does warn that you can brick your device if you unplug it while updating. Nothing new there, really.

Nokia Software Updater for Mac available in beta, lets you update your N97 under OS X originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Last week’s Switched On discussed Nokia’s quest to help Microsoft create a third mobile ecosystem alongside those of Apple and Google. That word – ecosystem – has clearly passed into the pantheon of buzzwords, leveraging many synergies from purpose-built paradigms. And yet, building and maintaining ecosystems is something few companies really understand. True technology ecosystems are more than just successful platforms or throwing many products together simply because they are owned by the same company. They are characterized by strategically implemented nurturing.

One concept that Apple seems to have adapted from natural ecosystems is the concept of the water cycle you probably learned about in grade school. Apple turns up the heat on the life-sustaining water of innovation that passes between the well-grounded Mac market and the soaring growth of the iOS market. Apple alluded to this cycle in its Back to the Mac event. After inheriting many technologies from Mac OS X, iOS began offering Mac OS X launch screens, full-screen apps, app resuming, and document autosaving. This week’s announcements, though, show that the cycle may soon be heading again in the other direction as Apple showed off two Mac technologies that may well wind up strengthening the iOS ecosystem.

Continue reading Switched On: Back from the Mac

Switched On: Back from the Mac originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Feb 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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