On July 25, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals charging techniques for Solid State batteries. Solid State batteries fall into low-power density and high-energy density categories. On the latter side of the equation, Toyota is working on a Solid State battery for 2020 vehicles that will deliver 3 to 4 times battery life. Obviously Apple is interested in the low-power side of Solid State batteries for iDevices and likely future wearable computers. According to ...

What Globe Telecom is adding is what they call iToolbar. It’s basically an opportunity for them to track what you do, and inject ads into the sites you go to.

That’s just sleazy, but the best part is their answer to whether they will push unwarranted advertising.

∞ Read this on The Loop

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DEVONthink Pro is your essential assistant for today's world, where almost everything is digital. From shopping receipts to important research papers, your life often fills your hard drive in the form of emails, PDFs, Word documents, multimedia files and more. Questions eventually pop up, like where do you store all of this stuff? How do you organize these very different file types, and even better, how do you find the exact file you're looking for the second you need it? It's almost as if you need a second brain just to keep your digital life straight.

DEVONthink is the solution to the digital age conundrum. It is your second brain, the one and only database for all your digital files, be they...

Save 10% with our exclusive coupon code: MACUPDATE10

DEVONthink Personal is a knowledge base and information manager.

Everything is digital today. But where to store all these e-mails, PDFs, Word documents, images and multimedia files you accumulate every day? How to organize them, and find the right one when you need it?

DEVONthink is the solution for the digital age, the one database for all your documents. And it's flexible. It adapts to your personal needs. Use it as your document repository, your filing cabinet, your e-mail archive or your project organizer. Collect and organize data from the Web for a publication, enrich it with sound and movie files, and export everything as a Web site, drag it to an Apple Pages document for...

Algoriddim has launched a sequel to their popular djay iOS app. Djay was originally a Mac application, but has since found wide popularity on the iPhone and iPad. The iOS version has won a 2011 Apple Design Award and has seen millions of downloads.

The new version offers a revamped user interface, drum machine, sampler, and improved scratching/syncing tools and more.

Most notable are features related to offering users direct visual feedback of music. Songs are now actually mapped to "virtual grooves" which reflect the peaks and valleys just like on traditional vinyl. The music waveform is now colored, mapping specific colors to similar sounds, allowing you to visually identify song sections and instruments.

Retaining the simplicity of the traditional DJ turntable look-and-feel, djay 2 adds a stunning new...

The consumer-grade solid-state drive (SSD) market is getting more crowded every day. There are drives of every capacity and speed, fitting nearly every budget and performance niche. Announced last week, Samsung is soon to ship the 840 Evo series of 2.5-inch SSDs. Immediately after the announcement, Electronista and MacNN Labs were given the opportunity to test one of the new large-capacity flash-storage drives. As the unit uses a new fabrication process and a few new advances, how does the drive measure up to its predecessors? Read our review to find out.... ...

BillGuard began life as a a Web app for monitoring your credit cards. You grant the service access to your credit card accounts, and it monitors them for rogue or unwanted charges. And now, there’s a BillGuard iPhone app, too.

The company says that so-called grey charges are often legal, but they’re still unwanted. Most of these unwanted charges are hard-to-notice small amounts on your bills, BillGuard says, in the $12 to $18 range.

BillGuard can show you all of your recent charges.

BillGuard looks for “zombie” subscriptions, recurring memberships, unwanted auto-renewals, slowly increasing monthly fees and the like, and warns you when such charges come up—complete with push notifications with the app.

When you first use the BillGuard app, you’re...

DEVONagent Pro helps you search more efficiently on the web. It searches multiple sources, frees you from hunting for the really relevant results, and gives you power tools for your research.

• Filters bad results so you don't have to
• Shows results the way you want
• Creates reports in many formats
• Saves searches so you can continue later

Your personal meta search engine
DEVONagent Pro is not a simple Google interface. It knows how to talk to search engines, and how to squeeze the best out of them.

DEVONagent connects to as many search engines as you want, collects the data, and weeds out the junk that managed to slip through. It also scans your favorite websites and notifies you when it finds something that matches your query. It can even do all of this while you're sleeping; the results will be ready...

DEVONagent Express brings Web search directly to your menu bar. Just like Spotlight searches your computer, DEVONagent Express searches the Web and presents the results directly in its menu. A great selection of top-notch search engines and large tool tips with preview pictures and summaries let you find the right page before you open it in your Web browser. You can even query all three major Web search engines all at the same time or use pre-fab collections such as a thumbnail gallery search set.

Your search assistant: While the 'express' mode just collects the results the 'agent' mode does a lot more for you in the background. It downloads each page, filters advertisements, error pages as well as pages that don't fit your question, and applies its own ranking. No more Error 404 pages, no more pages that have nothing to do with your search at all.

What DEVONagent...

DEVONagent Lite puts Web search where it belongs: next to Spotlight into your menu bar. Search all major and many specialized search engines and databases with a single click.

• Web search always at your fingertips
• All major search engines and many special ones
• Opens results directly in your Web browser
• Use it free of cost!

Search the Web like with spotlight
DEVONagent Lite adds a Web search field to your menu bar. Google, Bing, and many more always at your service. Its global keyboard shortcut saves you even that click.

Just click DEVONagent Lite's menu bar icon, or press its keyboard shortcut, and start typing instead of switching to your browser, opening a new window, and clicking the search field first. Hit Return and DEVONagent Lite opens the search results in your default browser.

...

Toolbox for Keynote from Jumsoft is a free download that contains links to the ultimate collection of themes and illustration elements for Apple’s Keynote. Besides, the first item in each product category is available free of charge -- just click Open!

The toolbox offers numerous options for creating professional and inspiring slideshows for business or entertainment. Whether you choose to purchase a single clipart image or a full Keynote Themes set, you will receive a beautiful, easily customizable product which will make your work more efficient and its results more enjoyable.

Toolbox for Keynote provides access to five product sets that can be purchased from within the app:

• Keynote Themes
• Infographics
• Graphic Styles
• Elements for Keynote
• Clipart Prime

Once you have purchased an item, you can...

The consumer-grade solid-state drive (SSD) market is getting more crowded every day. There are drives of every capacity and speed, fitting nearly every budget and performance niche. Announced last week, Samsung is soon to ship the ......   ...

There are some trends in the wind, and from what I'm seeing, I'm wondering if we're not heading toward a larger iPad. First, Mac sales were down a bit last quarter. No big deal -- there haven't been any major upgrades, and the MacBook Air upgrade came late in June. Sold well, apparently. Still, it's clear that an awful lot of traditional computing has shifted to smartphones and tablets. Personally, even when a laptop is relatively handy, I'll see friends, family, colleagues and strangers look up things on their smaller mobile devices.

Manhattan Edit Workshop (MEWShop), an authorized digital training destination for post-production and content creators, now provides certified training in Autodesk Smoke 2013.

The latest version of the high-end editing suite was unofficially launched in early 2012. It offers both editing and effects capabilities.

Interested students can learn the basics of the program in Smoke 101 and more advanced compositing in Smoke 201. MEWshop is also offering bundle pricing for students interested in attending both workshops. Learn more at www.mewshop.com .

On July 25, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals methods for forming three-dimensional structures which may be configured to provide desirable characteristics with respect to light, sound, and fluid travel therethrough. Further, the three-dimensional structures may be configured to define desired stiffness, weight, and/or flexibility within a device. The three-dimensional structures may be employed in embodiments including heat sinks, housings, speaker or vent covers, springs, etc. Apple's patent FIG. 5 noted in our cover graphic illustrates an example embodiment of a three-dimensional structure that includes connecting members defining a box structure. Hidden within Apple's patent is the fact that it relates to liquid metal applications.

Spectrum is an app for easily and intuitively creating beautiful color schemes. Inspired by principles of color theory, Spectrum allows you to:

• Create color schemes based on harmony rules
• Instantly explore tints and shades for a given color to fine tune the palette
• Automatically create color schemes from a photograph - great for inspirations
• Organize your palettes and create a searchable collection of color schemes
• Capture color from your screen using the built-in color picker tool
• Export your color schemes to CSS and ASE (for use in Adobe's Creative Suite)
• Import colors from existing CSS and ASE files
• Instantly preview your color schemes using a variety of visualizations
• Configure color profiles
• Switch between two color wheel modes - perceptual and uniform


Version 1.5.0:...

The computer graphics (CG) industry has been a growth industry since it was established in the late 1970s. It has weathered the storms of the recession over the last five years and is now showing signs of renewed vigor and potential, partly due to a big boost from mobile, according to new data from the Jon Peddie research group (www.jonpeddie.com).

read more

Default Folder X attaches a toolbar to the right side of the Open and Save dialogs in any OS X-native application. The toolbar gives you fast access to various folders and commands. You just click on the buttons to go to your favorite and recently used folders, manage the folders and files shown in the list, and make changes to your settings. It also fixes a number of problems in Open and Save dialogs, "rebounding" to the last selected file, putting the path listing back in the top menu, and correcting bugs in scrolling column views.

Features:

• Directory assistant: You can access the contents of your recent, favorite, and open folders right from Default Folder X's toolbar.
• Real time saving: If you're constantly saving things inside the same folder, Default Folder X can remember that folder for you....

Soxy eliminates the guess-work. There's a common problem when there are multiple versions of applications like Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress, or Adobe Illustrator installed on the same computer: double-clicking a data file's icon will often cause the wrong application version to launch. As a result, you might unwittingly re-save a document into a more recent file format, which could be a bad thing. Maybe it's a customer file, and the customer might not be able to open the updated file when you e-mail it back to her.

To work around this problem, we've created Soxy. With Soxy installed, there is no second guessing, and a double-click in the Finder will open the correct application.

Version 1.6.5:

• Added support for Adobe InDesign CC files.
• Added support for Adobe InCopy CC files.
• Added support for Adobe Illustrator CC files.
• Added...

With SEEdit's fast and powerful Editor Toolbox, insertion of code and classes is always just one click away. Its handy, advanced Tag Editor also handles CSS classes and JavaScript functions. Other powerful features include Tidy Checker for standards-compliant code, the Quick CSS Tool for rapid CSS development, extensive multi-language support and auto-complete. SEEdit also support other editors like BBEdit, TextWrangler, TextEdit, and Dreamweaver.

CSS - With SEEdit's Quick Insert CSS Tool, CSS development takes only a few clicks. Insertion of images, links and XHTML code with a CSS class is just one click. Using auto-complete is another quick and error-free way to insert CSS code. Insertion of a CSS class to old code takes just a click from the Insertion Menu. In SEEdit Maxi 2007 r4 and later, the CSS classes are also available when using auto-complete in an XHTML document. SEEdit also...

Get more free space with Disk Diet.

• Removes unused language translations from applications.
• Removes old legacy code from applications.
• Cleans out old logs.
• Cleans up caches.
• Cleans out temporary files.
• Cleans out the downloads folder.
• Cleans out the mail downloads folder.
• Empties the trash.
• Choose which drive to put on a diet, including external and USB drives.
• Works on all Macs including MacBook Airs.

If you have any issues, please email Tunabelly Software and we will usually get back to you within one business day.

Version 4.0:

• Added in-app purchase for cleaning out old Derived Data folders for developers.
• Added Russian localization.
• Showing the available space for the selected drive.
• Showing the extra languages for each...

When Apple reported earnings for its second fiscal quarter back in April, CEO Tim Cook touted the period as the company’s “best quarter ever in Greater China” and celebrated the 8 percent growth it had seen in the region. Three months later Apple’s trajectory in China has taken a decidedly different turn and Cook’s upbeat proclamations about the company’s future in the country have morphed into stalwart reassurances.

In Apple’s latest quarter, revenue from Greater China — which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan — fell 14 percent year-over-year to $4.6 billion. That’s a 43 percent decline from the previous quarter, the one Cook touted as Apple’s best ever.

What happened?

That’s not entirely clear. Attempting to explain the decline during an earnings call with analysts this week, Cook said...

CM Batch Photo Resizer helps you in performing the mundane and tiresome task of having to batch resize and rename all your photos while giving you back the time to doing what you enjoy doing.

Resizing was never easier, as it provides you with several methods such as downsizing by pixel, downsizing by percentage, with several quick ratios to use.

The renaming feature allows you to add prefix and suffix to your existing filenames and/or include an auto-generated sequence number to it. You can add text tags to the filenames so that in the near future, when you refer to those photos, you will know where and when they were taken.

CM Batch Photo Resizer can also help you rotate photos and add that extra spark through its manipulation options, some of which include Sharpen, Blur, Oil Paint, Negative, Grayscale, Sepia, and Equalize effects.

...

Ringo is a desktop companion to WaniKani, an SRS-based Japanese kanji and vocabulary learning site. Ringo helps you keep track of your kanji studies, notifies you about new lessons and reviews, and allows you to complete reviews and lessons without opening a Web browser.

Compact. Ringo lives in your menubar, making it easy to complete your reviews and lessons right on the spot; no web browser needed!

Informative. Through integration with OS X notifications, Ringo informs you of new lessons and reviews as they become available.

Focused. Ringo's study window has a fullscreen mode, allowing you to focus entirely on your kanji studies without distractions.

Version 0.7:

New

• Ringo now has an icon!
• Completely revamped preferences window with new options:...

Disco XT is a versatile audio application for DJ mixing, music playback, and music management. The software has been designed for both realtime live performances and for creating mixes offline.

Disco XT includes:

• Manual and automated mixing modes, digital audio decks, mixer, sampler, extensive music library, playlist creation, effects, microphone input, recording mixes, customizable user interface, and more.
• Two audio players with waveform displays and tempo / time-stretching.
• Mixer with filters, EQs, crossfader and BPM detection.
• Automated mixing with different editable transition types and a transition editor for creating precise transitions for particular songs with transition prelistening.
• Dual output for separate headphone and speaker listening.
• Limited / basic support for hardware controllers.
• Music library...

TouchCopy (was iPodCopy) lets you copy your music, video, photos, games, and more from your iPod or iPhone back onto your Mac or directly into iTunes. It also saves all your music metadata, play counts, ratings, and album artwork. Search your iPod directly for specific tracks. You can also play music through your Mac directly off your iPod.

But you can do more than just copy movies and music. With TouchCopy you can copy your photos from your iPod to your Mac - even if you didn't copy the full resolution photos to your iPod.

Features:

• Copy your games purchased from the iTunes store back into your iTunes library.
• Create, edit, and Delete notes on your iPod.
• View and save notes, calendars, and contacts on your iPod to your Mac.
• Play and copy voice memos from your iPod or iPhone to your Mac.
• Browse, add, and remove...

Sometimes during a spare moment, you will browse through your camera roll and notice two photos that would look great together. You don't have Photoshop on your iPhone and your Mac is miles away at home, so what should you to bring your composition to life? One easy-to-use solution for these moments of creative inspiration is Image Blender. As its name implies, Image Blender lets you blend two images together into one.

Image Blender prompts you to choose a background image and a secondary image that is superimposed on top on the base photo. You can pull these images from your camera roll or snap them as a new photo. If you have Camera + installed, you can import images in from that app as well.

Once you choose your two images, you can select a blending mode to get the right effect. All the familiar blends like Multiply, Overlay, Screen, Color Dodge and Color Burn as available within the app. You can also change the overlay...

The sometimes-accurate Taiwanese online journal DigiTimes claims that local supply-chain companies expect Apple to ship some four million MacBook models during the current quarter, the company's fiscal final quarter of 2013. A combination of back-to-school demand and the expected debut of a Haswell-powered MacBook Pro model is said to spark the growth -- though the prediction, if true, would mark a shocking spike in MacBook sales compared to both the previous quarter and the year-ago period....  ...

Apple apologized to developers on Wednesday evening for the ongoing outage of the company's developer website. In the letter, Apple laid out its plans for bringing services back online, though the company didn't specify when that would happen.

With Skitch, taking, annotating, and sharing screenshots or images is as fun as it is simple.Communicate and collaborate with images using Skitch and its intuitive, engaging drawing and annotating features.

• Create a note. Use Skitch's image capturing features to take screenshots, then edit and share these and other images with your collaborators.
• Make your point. Markup and annotate key components of your images to communicate with others.
• Share it all. Share your thoughts with your collaborators with streamlined feedback options; share summaries of your notes; share your notes on Evernote or social media with ease.

Version 2.6.2:

• New feature to auto-suggest email addresses in the PDF email composer
• Fixed a bug with Evernote integration for Premium users that were not signed in to Skitch
• Fixed a bug with resizing the Skitch...

MacNN has received reports that iTunes Connect, a crucial part of Apple's crippled Developer channel, is now online after an unprecedented week of closure following a hacker attack by a security researcher that exposed some data. While the attacker, Ibrahim Balic, has claimed he was just doing "security research," the company shut the system down and said it has been "working around the clock" to overhaul developer systems, update server software and rebuild the entire database to close vulnerabilities. Apple has launched a new "system status" page for the Developer Center.... ...

XPressive is a CSS3 live authoring tool. You can rapidly and easily create web content. XPressive has many intuitive editing features for HTML5 and CSS3. Edit, tweak, and save coding changes directly while you preview your web content. Your ideas will become reality as soon as you think of them.

In the past, it was necessary to repeatedly stop coding in order to preview changes. It was a cycle of endless rebuilding. But now there is a new process - "live" design. Enter the new process of "live" design with XPressive.

Version 1.0.4:

New:

• Xpressive for the Retina Display is now perfectly available.
• You can create keyframes rule with 0%-100% properties at same time.
• You can duplicate single selector by copy and paste action in the style manager.
• The UI for backup history was redesigned.
• Auto...

The Classic Snake game on the Mac! Eat the pellets and grow - but don't bump into yourself!

Version 1.6:

• Speed control. Play at slow pace for a relaxing experience - or speed it up for some adrenaline rush!

• OS X 10.7 or later

More information

Download Now

Cloak is a service for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad that keeps you safe when you're connected to public wireless networks like those found at coffee shops, hotels, airports, and conferences.

Note: You must first sign up to use Cloak.

Exactly how unsafe are public hotspots? Here's a recent CBC report about Firesheep, a hacking tool that makes it shockingly easy to steal your stuff.

With Cloak, safety is just a click away. Here's why:

• No setup or configuration: it just works.
• Automatically detects insecure networks and keeps you safe.
• Rock-solid, industry standard encryption technologies.
• Protects all your apps, not just...

Thumbpics is a fast movie thumb image and cover art image manager for use with DLNA Servers and TVs. Are you using a DLNA TV or set top box with media that has missing Cover Art or Poster Images? Thumbpics can help you identify and manage them.

Features:

• Supports DLNA 160x160 size thumbs, and custom thumb sizes.
• Backup feature to transfer your Thumbs to your local drive. Includes the ability to rename, and delete Thumbs.
• Direct Web title searches.

Added ability to resize all currently viewed thumbs to current selected template size. Refreshed GUI Elements Added new back up feature, you can now back up thumbs to your local drive. You can choose to backup thumbs on Quit. You can switch sound effects On or Off. Fixed an issue with scroll bars that may cause Thumbpics to quit unexpectedly.

OS X 10.6.6...

Swinsian is a music manager and player for OS X.

Features:

• Supports FLAC/Ogg Vorbis as well as MP3, AAC, WAV, APE, AC3, WavPack, WMA and cue files
• Copies tracks from iPods and iPhones
• Watches folders for new files
• Fetches album art
• Quick control window
• Imports iTunes libraries
• Playback over AirTunes
• Duplicate finding
• Bulk tag editing with regex support

Version 1.8.1:

• Fixes issues with gapless playback of Apple Lossless files.
• Improves grouping of tracks in the album art columns.
• Fixes possible crashes when connecting iPods or iOS devices on OS X 10.6.
• Fixes issues with keyboard navigation of UI.
• Includes improvements to desktop art display.
• Fixes several bugs when viewing playback queue.
• Now...

Apple’s Developer Center outage continues with no end in sight, following a hack last week that forced the company to take it offline. In a message to developers Wednesday, Apple said it continues to work “around the clock” to bring its developer systems back online, and while it didn’t say when it expects that to happen, the company has created a status page charting its progress and dev services availability.

Right on schedule and one week after the previous build, Apple has again made available a new beta of the forthcoming OS X 10.8.5 for developers to test. Also like last week, the new version (12F26) is just three build numbers higher than the previous one, suggesting that the company is nearing the end of testing....  ...

Let this be a lesson to all of you business-minded iPad owners out there: showing off your plans to clients using your pricey slate may leave you entirely tablet-less. Guampdn reports such was the case for DFS Galleria, a duty-free luxury retailer bidding for a spot in the Guam International Airport. The company -- along with several others bidding for a spot in the concourse -- showcased its plans for a new shop space to airport representatives, but what set DFS apart was that it decided to use eight iPads to display its proposal rather than use simple paper binders.

Rather than returning the tablets to DFS after a decision was made -- for which DFS's proposal didn't make the cut -- the airport is hanging on to them, as per its policy. The airport's guidelines for such proposals states that all documentation from bidders will be kept by the agency's procurement office.

So the iPads...

Display technology company AOC, in partnership with DisplayLink, have announced the new AOC E1659FWU -- a portable 16-inch monitor that receives both power and signal through a single USB 3.0 cable. Compatible with both Mac and PC, the USB 3.0 Monitor has a 15.6-inch viewing window that supports 1366x768 resolution at 60Hz....  ...

Following the attempted breach into Apple’s iOS and Mac Developer Center and its subsequent closing, Apple has posted an iCloud-like Status Page so developers can track Apple’s work for re-implementing Developer Portal Features. Additionally, Apple has outlined its approach to restoring these features.

We apologize for the significant inconvenience caused by our developer website downtime. We’ve been working around the clock to overhaul our developer systems, update our server software, and rebuild our entire database. While we complete the work to bring our systems back online, we want to share the latest with you.

We plan to roll out our updated systems, starting with Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, Apple Developer Forums, Bug Reporter, pre-release...

I just can’t imagine doing this, but I’m sure there are a lot of people that would.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Last Thursday Apple's developer site suddenly went offline. Apple announced the interruption was attributable to an "intruder" who was attempting to access the personal information Apple's developers. So who was responsible for the downtime? A Turkish security researcher named Ibrahim Balic thinks he might be the cause. He caused a stir this week with the release of a YouTube video explaining exactly what security holes he reported to Apple, and what went wrong.

Now iMore has published an interview with Balic in which he aims to shed more light on exactly what happened, the methods he used to test the developer center's security, and his thoughts on Apple's response.

Balic found an exploit not directly in the Developer Center, but in Apple's iAd Workbench, which...

New submitter transam writes "After a long stint at Apple doing all kinds of Unix-y goodness, Jordan Hubbard has moved onto iXsystems to lead engineering and development, including heading up the FreeNAS project. Apple's loss is their gain."

...

I've just come back from an amazing trip (how many of you have ever been 635 miles from the North Pole or driven a dog sled?), which means that it's time to get back to work while trying to unpack and recover from jet lag. Since it's Wednesday, that means it's TUAW TV Live day.

Today Doc and I will be chatting about Apple's latest earnings report (and the resulting rise in the share price today). Plus I've got a lot of unboxing to do, and I'm sure we'll have other things to talk about for an hour.

To join in to watch the live feed and participate in the chat, just click here. You'll join us on the AOL On Network. If you can't watch the entire show today, come back to this page within 24 hours to see the video or visit http://tuaw.com/tuawtvlive to see the latest show. Past shows are also available on the...

Google on Wednesday pushed out a minor update to its cloud-connected Google Drive iOS app, bringing hooks to the mobile versions of Safari and Chrome, as well as a new way to insert columns and rows into spreadsheets.  ...

Nike today rolled out an interesting update to its Nike+ Running app for iOS. The app update introduces social challenges into the mix, enabling runners to invite friends to run and compete in an old fashioned race.

Dubbed Nike+Challenges, the feature also lets runners communicate with each other mid-race via group chats. This is a great way for racing runners to talk a little trash or deliver words of encouragement and inspiration.

Naturally, the feature monitors everyone's progress and encourages friendly competition through leaderboards and medals. Users can put together one-off races or see who can hit 100 miles the quickest.

The full changelog reads:

o.Ready to take on your friends? With Nike+ Challenges, you'll compete with your friends and motivate each other to go farther and faster than ever before. Track your progress, top the leaderboard, and snag a medal. Every run counts.
o. Choose a distance and invite your Nike+ friends.
o....

One week after the last build, Apple has seeded OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5 build 12F26 to developers. For those running previous 10.8.5 beta builds, the new update is available via Software Update in the Mac App Store. Because the Apple Developer Portal is still unavailable, the downloads are not available for download online. The new seed is also available to AppleSeed members along with a new Safari build.

Thanks, D!

...

Over at Macworld, senior editor Chris Breen has an answer to this all-important questions: should your Aunt Vilma buy an iPad? Her name may be Rosalie or Helen instead of Vilma, or it may be a father or uncle, but you know the type -- a well-meaning older person who has seen all the "cool kids" in his or her age group getting one of these futuristic tablets and then asks you, the younger hipster with all of the latest gizmos, if buying one is a good idea.

As Breen notes, it's not an easy answer and people often don't find out how useful an iPad can be until they've used one for a while. Breen provided six areas of discussion for Aunt Vilma to consider before dropping the coin on an iPad:

Portability -- an iPad, especially an iPad mini, is made to be carried with you pretty much all the time. Portability means that you're able to use the device...

While Apple watchers are still waiting for an iPhone-style Retina display to make its way to the iPad mini, Android lovers got such a screen with the redesigned Nexus 7.

The second-generation Nexus 7 is capable of showing full HD content thanks to a screen that shows a whopping 323 pixels per inch — well into the territory of screens where the individual pixels are too small to be recognized by the human eye from a reasonable reading distance.

Numbers aside, that means that the Nexus 7 can show movies in full 1080p high-definition, a feat Apple’s iPad mini can’t match.

While the larger iPad has a greater-than-HD retina display, it uses a totally different type of screen technology from the iPhone, and the mini is still in the...

The good, speedy Sprint stuff is coming to New York City.

Per The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Sprint has begun rolling out LTE service for parts of New York City, including the Bronx and Brooklyn. Sprint says it will flip the switch for those areas on July 30.

Sprint has been way behind AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in rolling out high speed LTE services. There is currently some coverage in Queens, Manhattan and Staten Island, although there has been no official start date announced.

New York City is the most populated city in America, and implementing new cell service is difficult due to interference from tall buildings and finding...

One of the cool features of Google’s new Chromecast device: It lets users move whatever they can see on their computer’s Chrome Web browser onto their TVs.

One group of people who might not think that’s cool: TV executives, who are still trying to draw a distinction between things you watch on your computer and things you watch on your TV.

For example: Chromecast’s mirroring capability poses an issue for Hulu. The video website has tried to restrict user’s ability to watch its free Hulu.com service on TV screens; instead, it sells the ability to watch Hulu on a TV as part of its $8 a month Hulu Plus service.

Hulu says it is working with Google to bring a Hulu Plus app to Chromecast, and when it does it will be an “optimized” viewing experience.* And not all of Hulu Plus’s content is available on free Hulu. But a lot is. So in theory, that should make Hulu Plus a harder sell for...

Unified Color has released HDR Expose 3, an update of its HDR image creation tool for Mac and Windows. An emphasis of v3 is on additions allowing handheld photography, including ghost removal and keyframe-based merge alignment. Other features have been implemented as well though, namely adaptive tone-mapping -- for targeting specific parts of an image -- and a new Image Browser, which helps quickly identify bracketed exposures....  ...

A FaceTime conversation with Apple devices is terrific experience, once you get it set up.  However, configuring properly across multiple devices, Macs, iPads and iPhones, with different addresses, can be tricky.  John Martellaro explores some of the basic FaceTime addressing dos and don'ts so that the desired device answers the call.

Google continued its push into hardware manufacturing on Tuesday by announcing Chromecast, a new streaming device that will go head-to-head with the Apple TV set-top box for just over a third of its price.  ...

It’s looking increasingly likely that Apple is readying a cheaper iPhone with a plastic case instead of the glass-and-aluminum case of the current line. But why not just sell the iPhone 5 at a discount once the presumed iPhone 5S appears? Josh Centers digs into the numbers to explain why.

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Yes, the articles saying Apple is doomed are back, but Bryan Chaffin takes one to task for clearly not paying attention.

∞ Read this on The Loop

Shares of Apple Inc. jumped more than 5.5 percent on Wednesday in the wake of the company's third quarter earnings report on Tuesday. Investors were cheered by the news that Apple sold more than 31 million iPhones during the June quarter, well above even the most optimistic analyst projections. The company's guidance was also taken as an encouraging sign by investors. Bryan Chaffin explains why this matters.

After revealing the latest version of the Nexus 7 tablet, Google today introduced an HDMI dongle that will stream videos and show other content from smartphones, tablets, or computers to a HDTV or other large displays. Hinted at by an FCC filing in May, the Chromecast plugs straight into a TV, and can be controlled remotely via mobile devices or the Chrome browser over a local Wi-Fi connection....  ...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement with Google in which it will license standard-essential patents it obtained from Motorola under FRAND terms.  ...

Google on Wednesday fired a shot across Apple's bow, unveiling a revamped version of its Nexus 7 tablet that's aimed at outdoing Apple's iPad mini at a lower price.  ...

Escape Medical Viewer (EMV) is a flexible viewer and converter of DICOM and common images. It uses QuickTime, Apple's complete digital media technology, on your Mac or PC with unparalleled quality, ease of use and functionality. EMV uses QuickTime to read and write image and movie formats that no other medical viewer supports.

Version 4.3.5:

• Decompressing some types of JPEGLossy MONOCHROME2 images was crashhing the program. Fixed.
• Fixed the opening of folders or CD/DVDs containing big files (>100MB) that appeared to hang the program. More detailed progress info and a read/write error counter are now displayed in the Open progress dialog to help diagnose problems with CD/DVD media.
• Eliminated the red window background that appeared sometimes when opening single-frame images.
• Cine playing of a single series, with Autoplay and...

SimpleImage is a full-featured media viewing, cataloguing and slide show application, updated to take full advantage of Mac OS X.

Version 6.0.2:

• Improved slideshow service: SimpleImage now displays the Start Slideshow panel to let you set additional options when the 'Slideshow with SimpleImage' service is used with folders
• Improved random slideshow transitions: Random transitions are now less random, making them seem more random
• Improved file relinking: SimpleImage is now more responsive when relinking browser and recent items, particularly on shared volumes
• The left and right arrow keys now wrap in thumbnail views
• The 'Preserve transparency' option is now shown only when it's applicable
• Fixed slideshow images not displaying correctly on certain Macs
• Fixed transformed slideshow items not displaying correctly
• Fixed an...

Apple's own Apple Store app for the iPhone received a small update this week that improves search features. The app lets users shop for Apple products and accessories, set up Genius Bar appointments, and complete in-store purchases.

Google has revealed the new version of the Nexus 7 tablet, one year after the launch of the original, at its breakfast event today. Appearing briefly at Best Buy earlier today, the new Nexus 7 is said to be a more portable version of the tablet line, having shaved a few millimeters from each edge and 50 grams of weight, while retaining the screen size of the first version, and will be the first device to ship preloaded with Android 4.3....  ...

Apple's upcoming new products will be the key to the company's emergence from its current doldrums, CEO Tim Cook told analysts during its third-quarter earnings call Tuesday. Asked by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster if there were any product categories big enough to move the growth needle for Apple, Cook responded: "We'll see, Gene. We're working up some stuff that we're really proud of. We'll see how it does."
"We'll announce things when we're ready."

Ben Bajarin sees a sea change in the way PCs are being sold.

∞ Read this on The Loop

This Dynamic Link Media Server update provides several bug fixes and resolves colorspace issue when Photoshop imports a file created with Canon 5D Mark III cameras.

Version 7.0.0.92:

• Bug fixes





• OS X 10.6 or later
• Adobe Photoshop CS6




More information

Download Now

In a recent post highlighting the state of mobile advertising during the second quarter of 2013, Opera Mediaworks reports that advertising on iOS is doing rather well.

With respect to ad impressions, both iOS and Android garnered about a 30% share during the quarter gone by. When it comes to monetization, however, iOS reigns supreme.

While mobile ads on Android accounted for 28.08% of mobile ad revenue, the iPhone accounted for 36.44%. When we factor in the iPad and the iPod Touch, the difference becomes even more stark with iOS commanding a 49.36% share of mobile ad revenue.

There's a lot more information worth taking a look at in Opera Mediaworks' report, including breakdowns detailing which type of apps generate the most revenue and serve the most impressions.

Opera says iOS...

DVDxDV is a DVD ripping and convertor program that creates videos that are compatible with a range of devices. Choose to maintain maximum DVD quality, export to mobile devices, or even upload directly to YouTube.

Version 2.5.4:

• Send a DVD directly to an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch without iTunes via Pic Share It.

• OS X 10.5 or later
• QuickTime 7.0.3 or later (for iPod video export)

More information

Download Now

Sonnet has introduced the Presto Gigabit USB 3.0, a USB 3.0-to-Gigabit Ethernet adapter, which provides users with a s way to add Gigabit Ethernet-wired networking connectivity to Mac and Windows computers with USB 3.0 ports.

read more

Appsoft Studio has released Screenshot FX, which enables you to draw any shape on the screen and then take a precise screen shot of that portion of the display.

The draw tool of Screenshot FX allows the placing points of the shape anywhere on the screen. You can outline the area that you want to capture. Straight lines can be combined with curves, so screen shots of any custom shape can be taken.

read more

Quark has formally unveiled QuarkXPress 10, the next edition of its design and layout software. The release incorporates a number of major improvements, such as a long-awaited switch to a Cocoa code base. The change should help boost performance, and make it easier for Quark to support future versions of OS X....  ...

It's time to save some of that hard-earned cash with our Daily Deals, featuring a handy list from Dealnews and our own hand-picked selections that include some sweet deals on iOS and OS X software (all prices are USD and subject to change).

Deals from Dealnews

• StackSocial: [Graphics & Publishing Software] 192-Vector Icon Bundle for PC and Mac downloads for free
• Best Buy: [MacBook] Apple MacBook Laptops at Best Buy: Up to $200 off + extra $100 off for students
• mwave: [Serial ATA Drive Enclosures] iStarUSA 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s...

Major games publisher Electronic Arts revealed this week that it makes more money from Apple's iOS App Store than any retail distributor, including Best Buy, GameStop, or even its own Origin digital download service.  ...

Slender tells you which asset files aren't being used in Xcode projects, while also you to see which assets are missing their @1x counterparts, or if your @2x images have incorrect pixel dimensions. Not only does Slender shrink your projects by removing unused files, it can help make them prettier, all while working non-destructively; everything is saved to a backup folder.

Version 2.0.1:

• Addresses bugs with OS X 10.7

• OS X 10.7.3 or later

More information

Download Now

Zeus Terminal is a feature-rich, highly customizable tabbed terminal emulator that allows for deep system and performance tuning.

Version 3.0:

• Autocompletion on typing (from history and from the screen)
• Automatic file recognition from *ls* command output
• Added extended 'ls' command
• Advanced contextual menu for files from *ls* command output (Get Info, Show in Finder and other useful options)
• URL recognition
• Background image
• Tabs color customization
• Regular and vertical block selection
• Improved scrolling performance
• Bug fixes

• OS X 10.6.6 or later

More information

Download Now

Text2Speech is a free text-to-speech utility with configurable speaking rates and voices, as well as support for several languages in OS X 10.7.

Version 1.32:

• Added: Save settings
• Added: Read the text using the text encoding (automatic)
• Added: Automatic loop
• Added: Automatic reload and reread the text file

OS X 10.6 or later


More information

Download Now

The International Lunar Observatory Association is teaming up with Moon Express to put a telescope on the Moon. A telescope, on the Moon. They're planning on landing a 2-meter radio antenna/optical telescope combo on the rim of the Malapert crater at the Moon's south pole. The location minimizes harsh environmental changes, allows for direct Earth-based control, and is clear of atmospheric and radio interference. The telescope will be able to look deeper into space with much better clarity than any current devices offer. The team is looking to get their telescope to the Moon between 2016 and 2018 with a small probe test launch as early as 2015. They're also hoping this is a first step towards a manned lunar base. Moonbase Alpha, anyone?

Apple may have tipped its hand during its third fiscal quarter earnings report on Tuesday and hinted at the launch date for the next iPhone model. That date, according to Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um, is September 27.

The Mac Observer Spin:
Apple already confirmed iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks are coming this fall, so that looks like a perfect time to release new iPhones, too. Mr. Um is right in that Apple typically launches new iPhone sales on Fridays, so September 27 looks like a pretty logical date to roll out the iPhone 5's successor.

InFlight Labs will introduce a new proprietary product -- SkyBridge InFlight Video Communications -- in the third quarter of 2013.

read more

Opera is a fast, elegant and easy-to-use Web browser. Renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, Opera's cross-platform browser technology gives users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience.

Version 15.0.1147.147:

General and User-Interface Changes

• Opera 15 is a major reinvention for Opera. Going forward, the browser's source code will be based on Chromium and Blink, a fork of the WebKit rendering engine.
• Everything for this browser is new:
• New rendering engine based on WebKit
• New user interface
• New capabilities
• New features
• Improved site compatibility
• Silent auto updates

New features

• Combined address and search bar. Opera 15 combines the address and search bar, allowing for multiple predictive...

Google has just updated its Google Drive app for iOS with a couple new features and performance enhancements. After adding support for opening links in native Google apps from the Chrome iOS app last week, it has now updated the Drive app with an option to open links within files in Chrome and Safari.

Also new in version 1.5.0 of Google Drive for iOS is support for inserting rows and columns via the “+” button within Google Sheets, as well as stabilization and other bug fixes:

What’s New in Version 1.5....

Comments about the fourth quarter during Apple's Q3 results call suggest a September 27th launch of a new iPhone, says Wells Fargo Securities analyst Maynard Um. He notes that Apple indicated a new product launch in the fall, which runs from September 22nd through December 21st in the northern hemisphere. If Apple holds to its preference for Friday launches, September 27th would be the earliest opportunity. The iPhone 5, for instance, shipped on Friday, September 21st 2012....  ...

The purpose of OneWaySync is to safely create mirrors of folders in a simple and quick way.

This tool will sync in only one way, this means the source directory will not be changed and only the destination directory will be affected. By switching off the option "Delete on Destination" you can keep all files backed up even if it no longer exist on the source directory. You can also choose whether or not to copy the hidden files and directories.

Key features:

• Create backups (mirrors) of 10 preconfigured folders.
• Only copy the changes.
• Option to delete files on the destination that no longer exist on the source folder.
• Option to copy hidden files and directories.
• Option to start copying as soon as the tool is executed. (useful for creating schedules to run this tool from iCal for example).
• Option to...

As noted by VentureBeat, EA revealed today during its earnings call with investors that for the first time, Apple has become “EA’s biggest retail partner as measured by sales” as a result of the App Store. It’s a big announcement for the publisher that previously sold the majority of its content through retail channels for console games, and it could be a sign that EA will be investing more in iOS and other mobile titles in the months to come. In its earnings release, the company noted that it was “the #1 global publisher in the iOS game market in the June quarter,” and also highlighted a few of its more successful iOS titles, including:...

Contexts is a radically faster and simpler window switcher. It gives you 4 ways to switch windows:

1. Switch with one click to any window: An auto-hiding sidebar shows your windows organized in groups. To switch to a window just click its title in the list. It is as simple as that.
2. Switch with one keystroke to 9 windows and with two keystrokes to any window: This is super fast. Each window gets a window number based on its position in the list. To switch to a window just press Option+window-number. It you are a keyboard person you will love it.
3. Cycle through recently used windows: Command+Tab switcher fails if your applications have multiple windows. With Option+Tab Contexts lets you cycle through individual windows and switch to any of them directly.
4. Switch with search to any window: Invoke...

With Skitch, taking, annotating, and sharing screenshots or images is as fun as it is simple.Communicate and collaborate with images using Skitch and its intuitive, engaging drawing and annotating features.

• Create a note. Use Skitch's image capturing features to take screenshots, then edit and share these and other images with your collaborators.
• Make your point. Markup and annotate key components of your images to communicate with others.
• Share it all. Share your thoughts with your collaborators with streamlined feedback options; share summaries of your notes; share your notes on Evernote or social media with ease.

Version 2.6.2:

• New feature to auto-suggest email addresses in the PDF email composer
• Fixed a bug with Evernote integration for Premium users that were...

CrossDJ is based on the acclaimed pro DJ software Mixvibes Cross and Mixvibes 10 years DJ software technology; this new mixing software is now available on Mac App Store.

Whether you are a professional, mobile, or beginner DJ, CrossDJ will satisfy the needs of everyone in a nice and intuitive environment. With the instant iTunes access, finding the right track and building your DJ playlist has never been so easy!

Get now access to all professional DJ features:

• Perfect mix including the 100% optimal BPM analysis and synchronization technology
• Automix playlist
• High quality effects: Flanger, Reverb, Low-Pass with ultra-knob control
• 2 colored DJ decks plus a preview player
• Intuitive Mac Laptop / Desktop keyboard shortcuts
• 6 precise Cue-points to set and store up
• Smart music and playlist management with artwork browsing
• Instant mix recording in low, mid, high quality format
...

A new report out this morning states that an estimated four million MacBooks will be shipped in the third quarter of 2013, increasing over 10% on quarter, but significantly decreasing from previous years, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers. Yet the report doesn't acknowledge the bigger context.

The loneliness of the long-distance runner may have been reduced by the latest update to the Nike+ Runner app. Version 4.3 allows you to challenge friends at other locations to virtual races, set a distance and duration, and then the app keeps track of how you are doing against your mates.

A group chat function allows you to encourage them or mock them as the mood strikes.

The free app uses your iPhone’s GPS and accelerometer to record your progress – no additional hardware is required.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of Nike’s best-known fans, sitting on the Nike board and sporting a Nike FuelBand.

...

Samsung Electronics today announced availability of the companyís first Near Field Communication-enabled color laser printers. The NFC-enabled Xpress C4x0 series consists of two printers: the C410W color laser and the C460FW color laser multi-function printer, both designed with home and small office users in mind....  ...

Caffeinated was a polished Google Reader RSS client with a great layout; but the demise of Google Reader forced developer Curtis Hard to rewrite the core components of the app and liberate it from its Google roots. Now in version 2.0.1, Caffeinated is a very capable standalone RSS reader for OS X.

Caffeinated looks likes most RSS readers with a three column layout that includes your RSS feeds on the left, a feed preview in the middle and a full article view on the right. Now that Caffeinated is no longer tied into Google Reader, you'll have to manually add your RSS feeds or import them if you have an OPML file that you exported from another service. I was able to import my Google Reader backup without an issue and was up and running with Caffeinated in just a few minutes. Manually entering feeds is equally as easy -- just enter the URL of the website or...

OutBank is Germany's most successful online-banking application, suitable for almost all German banks and savings banks (incl. PayPal -- see prerequisites), and is now available on your Mac!

Secure
Data will be transferred directly between your Mac and the bank server, without detours and fully encrypted. All data are stored locally encrypted by AES-256.

Simple
The Setup Assistant brings you to your account status in three steps. You need, e.g., your German bank number, account number, and the PIN of your bank. Optionally you can directly import a backup of your iOutBank for iPhone/iPad.

Fast
Type in your personal password and OutBank presents you your bank accounts -- when desired with time-controlled synchronisation. Within a few seconds, all your transactions will be downloaded. Thus you have your...

PortsMonitor is a system utility for monitoring system TCP/IP network connections by application, and connections' status. With search-expression support, you can filter connections with preferred conditions.

Features:

• Monitor all system connections and open ports
• Filter connections by search expression
• For search-expression grammar please visit http://tickplant.com/portsmonitor/
• Filter profile support
• Uses color to indicate item status: green for new connection, yellow for state changed, red for removed connection
• Growl notifications for new connection
• View remote IP information with map (Powered by geoiptool.com)
• Whitelist for Growl notifications
• Auto refresh connections and ports
...

Market watchers were impressed by the results for Apple's June quarter, as iPhone sales came in higher than expectations and guidance for the September quarter was positive. But investors are still pinning their hopes on Apple's anticipated next-generation iPhones and iPads to be blockbuster hits.  ...

File Manipulator is a simple utility plug-in that gives FileMaker Pro the power to copy, rename, move or delete files and folders on local or networked drives.

Version 3.0:

• Added new functions to implement Zip/Encrypt/Unzip/Decrypt:
• PCFM_CompressAndEncrypt( Source ; Destination ; Password )
• PCFM_CompressFile( Source ; Destination )
• PCFM_DecryptAndExpand( Source ; Destination ; Password )
• PCFM_DecryptFile( Source ; Desination ; Password )
• PCFM_EncryptFile( Source ; Destination ; Password )
• PCFM_ExpandFile( Source ; Destination )
• Modified plug-in name consistency between Windows/Mac.
• Implemented GetLastError functionality.
• Updated Developer's Guide.
• Updated Functions Guide.

• OS X 10.6 or later
• FileMaker 8 or later...

In a recent Parenting tip, I discussed photographing your children using your iPhone. Today, I am going to expand on that article and give you some tips on taking videos of your children. The iPhone is always in my pocket, which makes it perfect for capturing a quick video of my children doing something memorable.

Over the years, the quality of the videos recorded by the iPhone has steadily improved. The iPhone 4 is capable of recording 720p HD video at up to 30 frames per second with audio, while both the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 bump up the video quality to 1080p HD. You don't have the dedicated microphone jack and 50x zoom you would find in consumer grade video cameras, but for most...