If you have a gaming controller lying around, chances are you can use it with your Mac.

As Adobe finds its footing in a cloud-based world, it pulled a move that most likely will generate a backlash from the students and creative professionals that rely on its software.

Adobe announced that the Creative Suite software will be rebranded as Creative Cloud and confirmed it will no longer develop the Creative Suite line. Adobe CS6 will still be supported and available for purchase, but all future products will be provided through the subscription-only Creative Cloud service. As part of this announcement, Adobe demonstrated the first version of the new Adobe Photoshop CC.

The move shouldn't come as a huge surprise. The writing's been on the wall since the launch of the Creative Suite subscription service in 2011 and Creative Cloud in 2012....

David Ellefson and Chris Broderick give you some tips on playing guitar and bass. Ellefson is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Facebook has updated its Facebook Messenger for iPhone and iPod touch application to add the popular Stickers functionality. Stickers will roll out to users gradually and is already available in the standard Facebook for iOS app. Additionally, by popular request, the company has brought back swipe-to-delete functionality for conversations. The update also includes unspecified bug fixes. The...

Samsung is steadily improving its profitability in the smartphone area, but Apple continues to be the dominant player when it comes to making money on smartphones sales according to the latest report from Canaccord Genuity. Apple's lower profit margin on smartphones in the first calendar quarter of the year led to a significant drop in its share of smartphone profits but was enough to allow the iPhone maker to claim 57 percent of the entire industry's profits, with Samsung taking the remaining 43 percent.... ...

Last week we added Apple CEO Tim Cook and SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk to the speaker roster at our 11th D: All Things Digital conference, which takes place in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on May 28, 29 and 30.

Along with those important tech leaders, we also have onstage Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside, Pinterest CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann, GE CEO Jeff Immelt, new Google Android chief Sundar Pichai, Sony’s Kaz Hirai, the San Francisco 49ers’ Jed York and more.

And because we want to ratchet up the interviews to 11, we are now announcing a trio of top entertainment managers...

Adobe’s kicking Creative Suite 6 development to the curb to focus purely on Creative Cloud.

An anonymous reader writes "While Apple views the tablet and PC markets as two separate entities, Microsoft takes the opposing view. During a CNBC interview this morning, Gates continued to toe the party line insofar as he praised the benefits of Microsoft's tablets and Windows 8 while explaining that iPad users are frustrated because they have trouble typing and creating documents. 'With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain share in what has been dominated by the iPad-type device. But a lot of those users are frustrated, they can't type, they can't create documents. They don't have Office there. So we're providing them something with the benefits they've seen that have made that a big category, but without giving up what they expect in a PC.'"

...

Smithsonian Magazine spent some time tracing the origins of the QWERTY keyboard layout, including research that debunks the myth that it was invented to slow typists down. We've all heard that myth, but some Japanese researchers said that the QWERTY layout evolved from the needs of telegraph operators and the peculiarities of Morse Code. The article also talks about keyboard layouts for tablets and the KALQ keyboard. Cool stuff. The attribution path is a lengthy one: @LeoLaporte > Next Draft > The Atlantic.

Now here are some Apple accessories I'd love to review: Denon has added some new networked AV receivers to its INCOMMAND line, all of which support Apple's AirPlay wireless standard.

With that AirPlay support, owners of any Apple iOS device or Mac running a current or recent version of the appropriate operating system can stream lossless music to the receivers from their devices. The pricing for the receivers begins at a very reasonable US$449 for the AVR-X1000, which includes support for 5.1 surround sound and supplies 80 watts of output per channel. Next up is the...

European Union regulators Monday issued a formal complaint against cellphone maker Motorola Mobility, over the Google Inc. unit’s bid to enforce a patent injunction against Apple Inc. in Germany, adding to their record of intervention in the industry.

The European Commission said Motorola’s actions ultimately harmed consumers, after the company sought court injunctions against Apple over the use of its patents, instead of properly licensing the technology to its rival. Motorola now has eight weeks to reply to the so-called statement of objections.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Ben Evans takes a look at the global market for phones like the iPhone, and decides that there are about 1.6 billion people left who might get one.

∞ Read this on The Loop

A long-time champion of tablet computing, one has to wonder how former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates feels given that Apple seemingly swooped in out of nowhere and quickly claimed the tablet market as its own in 2010.

Indeed, the latest data from IDC indicates that the iPad amassed a 39.6% marketshare during the first quarter of 2013. In contrast, tablets from Microsoft accounted for just a 1.8% share.

While Apple views the tablet and PC markets as two separate entities, Microsoft takes the opposing view.

During a CNBC interview this morning, Gates continued to toe the party line insofar as he praised the benefits of Microsoft's tablets and Windows 8 while explaining that iPad users are frustrated because they have trouble typing and creating documents.

With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to gain share in...

Shares of Apple have continued to rise since mid-April, setting the stage for the company to "change the narrative" beginning with WWDC in June, one analyst believes.   ...

Adobe today announced Project Mighty — a pressure-sensitive Bluetooth pen that will rely on the company’s Cloud servers for the transfer of settings, enabling the pen to be used on multiple devices without reconfiguration. The pen features a rechargeable battery, interchangeable tips, and on-board memory. Few other details are available…

Apple devices keep their value, which makes them an attractive target for thieves. Two recent stories highlight how both individuals and Apple stores are vulnerable to theft. One report involves a movie-like high-speed chase, while the other one features a well-timed smash-and-grab heist.

The New York Times has a fascinating story about a thief who stole an iPhone from an unsuspecting lady waiting on a corner. He snatched the iPhone from her hand and took off into the crowded streets of Flushing, Queens. She called police who tracked the culprit using Find My iPhone. They hunted him down by car...

Apple is getting ready to retake control of the narrative, according to Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes. At the same time, that means that Apple lost control of that narrative in the first place, and Bryan Chaffin says that Apple can only blame itself.

Those who want to charge an iPhone and an iPad,  on the go, at the same time with one charger should check out the Gum Max Duo from Just Mobile. It does both and fits in most pockets.

Despite the media's best attempts to make it appear that Apple is in dire financial straits, Fortune today reported that the company has made it into the top 10 of the Fortune 500 list.

Apple arrives in the top 10 in the number six spot, replacing HP (now #15) as the leading tech company. Here's the amazing thing -- just last year, Apple was listed as #17 in the Fortune 500. Two years ago Apple was a distant #35, the spot now occupied by Microsoft.

The ranking of the Fortune 500 is based on revenues, with Wal-Mart Stores at the top of the list with 2012 revenues of US$469.2 billion. Three US oil companies -- Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Phillips 66 -- made up the second through fourth positions respectively on the list, with Warren Buffett's investment firm Berkshire Hathaway just...

Adobe showed off a hardware project for drawing it has been working on at its MAX Conference. Project Mighty is a pressure-sensitive stylus for tablets that is connected to the Adobe Creative Cloud, while Napoleon is an accompanying ruler that effectively works as a protractor for Project Mighty to work with in the tablet app....  ...

Over the weekend, Cult of Mac ran a story about how new technologies are threatening to leave the iPhone behind. The premise there is that there is no longer room for vision, that a technology race determines the ultimate winner. John Martellaro weighs in with a rebuttal.

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world.

You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here.

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Daily Update for May 6, 2013 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 May 2013 13:47:00 EST. Please see our...

Adobe has officially dropped support for its CS6 suite today and made the announcement at its MAX 2013 conference that it is moving to updates for Creative Cloud members only going forward. We have already detailed a ton of new features coming to Photoshop, video apps such as Premiere and After Effects, and its brand new CC design tools including updates to Illustrator, InDesign, and new Kuler, and Adobe Ideas iOS apps.

Adobe also announced today that it is rolling out big updates for its design...

Smartphone usage is up in the U.S., with Apple and Android the preferred brands for the first three months of 2013, according to a recent report from comScore. Apple's iPhone accounted for 39 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in the first quarter of the year, a 2.7 increase in market share from the previous three-month period. That puts the company in first place ahead of its chief rival, Samsung, which also had a slight market share bump to claim a 21.7 percent share.

Adobe has outlined a large number of changes for its web-development products, as part of its major announcements today. Flash Professional CC has been rebuilt to be more modular and streamlined, Edge Animate CC and Edge Reflow Preview 3 add some workflow improvements, and Dreamweaver CC introduces a visual editing tool for CSS, PhoneGap build support, and other extra tools....  ...

Today at Adobe’s MAX 2013 conference the company is showing off a piece of hardware in addition to the many software updates it announced for Creative Cloud members. ‘Project Mighty’ is a new Bluetooth LE enabled pen that Adobe is clearly gearing towards users of its collection of iPad apps by integrating a number of features that users can adjust through Adobe’s cloud sync settings feature. For instance, users can set preferences for double taps or pulling up tools using the button built into the pen.

Adobe made a point of noting that the Mighty pen is connected to the Cloud, allowing users to move from one device to another while keeping the settings specific to the user’s cloud settings.
...

As a part of today's major Adobe announcements, the company has gone into detail for the upgrades present in its design software. Illustrator CC features a new Touch Type tool, which lets people manipulate individual characters in text while still maintaining control over font and other edits. Multi-touch devices have been added as a form of input....  ...

One of the core pieces of today's Adobe announcements is Photoshop CC, its rebranded and updated photo-editing software. Among new features in the software is Smart Sharpen, which analyzes images and attempts to produce the best-possible sharpening, while minimizing any halos or noise. The process can be tuned as needed....   ...

Adobe isn’t just announcing big updates to Photoshop and its web & design products for Creative Cloud customers It’s also rolling out a ton of new features for its video products including Premiere, After Effects, Audition, Prelude, SpeedGrade, and Story Plus. Below the fold we have all the details on new features:

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Premiere gets one of the most notable updates among all of Adobe’ brand new video Creative Cloud video apps that it showed off on stage at MAX 2013 today. Among the new features is “a redesigned Timeline, intuitive track targeting, and dozens of helpful new shortcuts. Dupe-detection markers, through-edit indicators, and clearer labels.” Adobe is also including a new “Link & Locate” feature to search for files that have been renamed, moved, or transcoded, Sync settings that most apps received today...

Adobe unveiled the next version of its popular graphic design, Web design, and video editing applications at Adobe MAX on Monday, and the collection is changing names from Creative Suite to Creative Cloud, hinting at a future where Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver are available only through subscriptions instead of traditional licensing. Adobe is also pushing the collaborative features of its apps through its purchase of Behance at the end of 2012.

Adobe’s MAX 2013 keynotes are happening right now, and below we have the details on the brand new features added to its suite of Creative Cloud products that are now branded with “CC” and apparently replacing its CS6 offerings, which will no longer be supported going forward. We’ve already covered big updates rolling out today to Photoshop and Adobe’s video products such as Premiere and After Effects, but the company also just announced some of the biggest updates yet to its design tools including many highly requested features for apps such as Illustrator, InDesign, Muse, a new iPhone app for Kuler, and new features for the now free Adobe Ideas iOS app.

Head below for all the details:

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Illustrator was a big focus at today’s MAX event with Adobe demoing new features including a Touch Type tool that allows characters to be “manipulated like individual objects” with support for multitouch devices and stylus, images in brushes, the ability import...

Courtesy 2K Games

When you think of mobile games, you probably think of titles like Angry Birds, Temple Run or Fruit Ninja — not the sort of micromanaging strategy games for which Sid Meier is best known.

And yet the creator of the hit Civilization franchise and his company, Firaxis Games (owned by Take-Two Interactive), are moving more troops into mobile after testing the waters with ported games like Pirates! and Civilization Revolution. Rather than just producing, Meier himself was one of three programmers on a new mobile-first Firaxis game, Ace Patrol.

Although the WWII dogfighting game — scheduled to launch on May 9 — will be iOS-only, Meier acknowledged that “there’s certainly a logic into looking into other platforms and seeing what the possibilities are.” He caught up with AllThingsD on the phone recently to talk about how he sees the changing landscape of games...

Dreamweaver, one of the first, and perhaps the most famous visual Web-design app, has evolved over time into a powerful development tool that can facilitate almost any kind of website or project. Today the app—alongside Flash Professional and the HTML5-oriented Edge Tools & Services suite—joins Adobe's new Creative Cloud Web-oriented lineup. The company's new cloud initiative, announced at the Adobe Max 2013 creative conference, offers enhancements to all the Web-design applications.

In Adobe's transition from licensed Creative Suite to Creative Cloud subscriptions,...

After several years of sneak peeks, Adobe’s propensity for revealing aspects of its new video and motion graphics applications to a select audience prior their release qualifies as something of a tradition. The captive audience at this year's National Association of Broadcasters national convention—the favored venue—saw an abbreviated version of what will soon be released as the new cloud-based Premiere Pro CC and After Effects CC, and more.

As Adobe wraps all of its professional creative apps into the cloud, Premiere Pro benefits from universal cloud features such as Sync Fonts and Sync Settings that let remote videographers and artists get down to work right away in a familiar tool-based environment, regardless of where they’re working.

In Adobe's transition from Creative Suite to Creative Cloud, familiar apps get an upgrade while...

Live from Adobe’s MAX 2013 Creativity Conference in LA, the company has just unveiled possibly the biggest update yet to its suite of web, design, and video products for Creative Cloud members. Today the company is announcing it is rebranding its Creative Cloud products to “CC” and introducing a ton of new features that will only be available to Creative Cloud members when they launch in June.

One of the biggest updates goes to Photoshop CC with a long list of highly requested new features including: All-new Smart Sharpen, Intelligent Upsampling, Camera Raw 8 and layer support, features from Photoshop Extended, and much more.

Enlarge a low-res image so it looks great in print, or start with a larger image and blow it up to poster or billboard size. New upsampling preserves detail and sharpness without introducing noise.

Other new features rolling out today include live previews up to a 100x faster...

With the announcement of fresh updates to its flagship publishing applications—InDesign and Illustrator—Adobe redirects its attention to its roots in the print and graphic design arena. Today, at its own Adobe Max Creativity Conference, the company is revealing more details about the new version of its desktop nonlinear editing and motion graphics programs. Here are some of the highlights. In a departure from the intense focus on the mobile market that marked last year’s CS6 release, Adobe says that at least 75 percent of all program updates to the debut release of Creative Cloud desktop apps were devoted to its traditional image editing and publishing software.

Both InDesign and Illustrator—part of the original Creative Suite—will receive a series of upgrades, including a dark interface, support for Mac Retina...

In conjunction with Apple's recently-announced countdown to 50 billion app downloads, the company last week issued an updated list charting the most popular iPhone and iPad apps of all-time. Per usual, the listing is broken up between free and paid apps. As one might expect, the list is extremely game heavy, with Rovio's Angry Birds making a number of appearances on both the paid and free list. It's also worth noting that a number of Apple's own applications make appearances on the list of most popular paid iPad titles.

So without further ado, let's take a look at the apps that iOS users simply haven't been able to get enough of over the past few years.

All-Time top 25 paid iPhone apps

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Doodle Jump
4. Cut the...

Google has launched an updated version of its Gmail app for iOS, introducing support for opening links in their respective apps. Available since 2011, the official Gmail app has also included support for opening links, however, prior to this update directed users to a browser for all links. YouTube, Google Maps and Chrome links all direct to their respective apps unless the setting is disabled within the app. Additionally, the update also adds support for signing out of a single account when multiple identities are active....  ...

Apple is becoming more strict about enforcing an App Store guideline against titles with app recommendation functions, says PocketGamer. One developer in particular comments that his app was rejected despite being tailored to conform to the guideline. "We thought that basing our recommendations on sharing was suitable for Apple, as it had previously stated that if you bake in social or local into your app discovery, you would be fine," the person says. "I think they aim to be the only provider of recommendations for apps, along with being the distributor."...  ...

With almost $145 billion in the bank, why is Apple borrowing money to buy back stock? And what does the share repurchase and increased dividend mean for Apple’s future? David Rabinowitz goes digging for some answers.

Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Chief Apple rival Samsung is leaving no corner of the smartphone market unaddressed, as the tech giant revealed on Monday the Galaxy Core, which packs many of the features of its high end model into a lower-cost handset.  ...

Verizon is set to launch a new promotion taking $100 off the iPhone 5 later this month, according to evleaks.

Upcoming Verizon promotion: $100 off iPhone 5 beginning mid-month.—
@evleaks (@evleaks) May 06, 2013

We’re starting to see more competitive pricing between the carriers that that all the major companies and many smaller companies carry the the iPhone.

Sprint currently offers $100 off for new iPhone customers switching from other carriers while T-Mobile offers its iPhone 5 for $99 with a financing option.

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Notes took a great leap forward with the introduction of iCloud and OS X Mountain Lion. Once a static app that sat on your iOS device, Notes now allows you to jot down quick messages and sync them across your Apple devices. In a post from this weekend, Sandro Cuccia of The Mac Observer takes a deep dive into the Notes app and discusses how it can be immensely useful.

Cuccia starts off with step-by-step instructions on how to enable iCloud syncing on all your devices. It's a simple, but critical step that ensures your notes are available on all your devices. The rest of his tutorial covers managing your notes, creating folders to organize notes and some basic text formatting tips. You...

Fortune has released this year’s Fortune 500, its annual ranking of America’s largest corporations, and Apple has cracked the top ten for the first time. Despite well-publicized issues that have deflated the company’s stock value, Apple rose to 6th on the list, up from last year’s rank of 17th.…

The idea that Apple is going to make a cheap iPhone just doesn't sit well with me because the low-end market is something the company has historically been willing to leave for its competitors to fight over. That said, Apple also has its own way of systematically working its way down the market ladder and eating into what little it previously left for its competition, and that could be the company's modus operandi for the smartphone market, too.

Business magazine Fortune has released the 2013 edition of its list of the 500 biggest corporations in the US. One of the most significant shifts in the list is the ascendancy of Apple, which has jumped from 17th place to sixth, breaking into the top 10 for the first time. Fortune comments that while the company has "maintained more than disrupted" its product line, and even had to apologize for iOS 6 Maps and its Chinese warranty services, it "remains an innovation icon."...  ...

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).

Deals from Dealnews

• eBay: [Battery Chargers & Accessories] 12,000mAh USB External Battery Pack for $16 + free shipping
• Adorama: [Digital Cameras] Olympus E-P3 12MP Micro 4/3 Bundle for $379 + free shipping
• MegaMacs: [Mac Pro] Refurbished Mac Pro Xeon Quad 2.66GHz Workstation for $510 + $27 s&h
• ...

Seth Godin:

If you use a typeface that reminds me of the script on the menu of a French restaurant, then no, I’m not going to instinctively believe that you’re a good doctor. If you use a thin, elegant wedding invitation font in your Powerpoint presentation, you haven’t been clever, you’ve merely confused me.

So true. I see people do crazy things like this all the time and it just makes me angry.

∞ Read this on The Loop

It has been busy in the App Store with a handful of new apps like Angry Birds Friends landing on iOS and OS X. Take a few minutes and check out our list of standout apps from the past few days!

iOS Apps

Toy Defense 2 [iPad; Category: Games; $1.99] Set in WW2, this action/strategy game is packed with more levels, amazing new features, a big selection of fighting units for each world, and more intense action than ever.

Glory of Generals [iOS Universal; Category: Games; $2.99] Over 60 campaigns in 4 battlefields of World War II are waiting for your challenge.

Mind Blitz [iOS...