Apple has released an announcement, via e-mail, that enhancements to iWork.com Apple’s public beta online service for iWork ’09 users have been released.
This announcement came out of the blue regarding a service that has definitely been off the radar for a long time and in beta for longer than I can remember. It’s future isn’t clear considering the pace at which Apple is deploying features on it. Perhaps that will change this year with the rumored release of iWork ’11.
Digg co-founder Kevin Rose posted on his blog over the weekend that the iPad 2 is coming as soon as February 1st, and will have a Retina Display. It’s almost enough to make a Mac blogger drown in the same sodium chloride he’s advising his readers to swallow.
Let’s flash back a few months to October, when an iOS developer called Applidium ported the indispensable VLC video player to the App Store as a free download. It was a great day for iOS device owners who wanted a more robust way of watching videos across many different codecs, but one of the lead contributors to the VLC project, Rémi Denis-Courmont, decided to get pissy about it. Why? Because VLC was released under a GPL license, and he felt that Apple wrapping a port of VLC in App Store DRM ran counter to that license.
Well, score a victory for VideoLAN, I guess. Denis-Courmont has successfully had VLC pulled from the App Store in response to a claim that the app violated VideoLAN’s licensing agreement.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — The annual Consumer Electronics Show this year was dominated by 3D TVs and Android tabs, but there was still plenty to see for Mac and iOS fans.
As the show wraps up, here’re our picks for the best gear on display in Sin City this year. Most, but not all, is Apple-related.
Now that the festive period is out of the way and we begin to settle in to the new year, Apple has returned to reviewing App Store submissions and games and apps are starting to trickle in again. Here’s our pick of the best iOS apps to enter the App Store over the past week.
8mm Vintage Camera is a great new video application that shoots old-fashioned 8mm movies in real-time. It was recently reviewed by the Cult’s own David Martin, who was very impressed with the app’s effects and awarded it 4 out of 5 stars.
Trimensional is a ground-breaking photography app and the world’s first 3D scanner for the iPhone. It cleverly uses both the screen and the front-facing camera on your device, detecting patterns of light reflected off your face to create a true 3D model. The results are extraordinary and you can check out some screenshots after the break.
If you’ve made any New Year’s resolutions for 2011, Zendre for your iPhone is the app you need to keep track of your goals and achievements. Reward yourself progress points every time you do something towards meeting your resolution, and get the motivation you need to keep your resolutions going.
Find out more about the applications above and check out the rest of this week’s must-have iOS apps, including Awesome Files HD and Symphony Pro, after the break!
Now that the festive period is out of the way and we begin to settle in to the new year, Apple has returned to reviewing App Store submissions and games and apps are starting to trickle in again. Here’s our pick of the best iOS games to enter the App Store over the past week.
Grimm is the first I’ve discovered, and probably the first you’ll play, in which your aim is to navigate a lost baby’s carriage and successfully deliver the child home to its mother. This side-scrolling adventure is set in a dark and stylized world and delivers something a little different that iOS gamers are sure to love.
Block Rogue claims to be the biggest mobile puzzle adventure ever made, and the game in which each solution brings you one step closer to the truth. Problem-solvers will love the hundreds of mind-bending puzzles and dark mysteries that Block Rogue has to offer.
The latest highly addictive iPhone game features a big, colorful elephant named Clumsy Bob, who’s about to set off on an adventure around the world. Bounce Bob across the vibrant cartoon environments as far as you can for your highest score, then challenge your friends to beat it.
Find out more about the games above and check out the rest of this week’s must-haves, including Ascendancy and Flying Hamster, after the break!
LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — Check out this simply stunning 3D-mapping technology from Swedish-based C3 Technologies that elicited a uniform reaction of “holy %$*@!” from us when we saw it. One reason for its precision is that it was developed from recently declassified missile targeting technology originally developed by Swedish aerospace powerhouse Saab.
There’s still some confusion regarding the new Mac App Store, and how it works with applications you already own.
The App Store software tries hard to spot which applications you already have installed, but it doesn’t always get this right.
The result is that sometimes the Store will show you an “Installed” icon, but sometimes it won’t even when it ought to. In which case, it will offer you the chance to buy an app, even if you already own it.
As far as I can see, there are several likely scenarios…
If you think 2011 is going to be the year that Intel’s Light Peak standard homogenizes the connections of your iMac into one tidy standard, think again… according to LaCie, it’snot even close to being ready for prime time.
“Intel has been the driving force for this technology. What we know for sure about Light Peak is that we know how to spell it,” LaCie’s senior engineer Mike Mihalik told PC World. “And that it’s intended to be a high-speed interface and it will support almost any protocol for transferring information from A to B.”
What;s the problem? Well, even though Light Peak will, in theory, obviate all other types of connections, including USB 3.0, it’s still just a lab experiment… despite the fact that Intel said it’d be in shipping products this year.
“Development needs to continue and we need to debug before we can turn the technology into a product,” reports Mihalik.
This is depressing news to guys like me, who assumed Apple’s reluctance to embrace USB 3.0 was due to their intent to leap frog directly to the more flexible Light Peak standard. They may still do just that, but it looks like we’ve got a couple years yet before we see it.
The Mac App Store has been live for less than a day, but already pirates have figured out how to circumvent its DRM to install and run unauthorized paid apps. It’s not Apple’s fault, though: instead, it looks like developers just haven’t been paying attention to Apple’s own app validation advice.