Brand: MacNews

With the release of version 6.6, Ergonis Software (www.ergonis.com) celebrates the 10th anniversary of Typinator, their text expander. Along with this release, Ergonis Software has published two new Typinator sets for easy access to the symbols in the new Apple Color Emoji font introduced in OS X Yosemite 10.10.3.

To celebrate the anniversary, Ergonis Software is offering a 25% discount on new purchases before July 15. The offer is good for all Ergonis products, including PopChar and KeyCue.

Autodesk has announced the new Autodesk Design Academy iTunes U course. Developed by educators and industry experts across the globe, the Autodesk Design Academy (http://academy.autodesk.com) provides hundreds of standards-aligned class projects to support design-based disciplines, while using Autodesk’s 3D design, engineering and entertainment software.

iTunes U is the world’s largest catalog of free education content. The Autodesk Design Academy features a growing collection of lessons, projects and courses that help educators support students as they develop technical skills.

Soundtrap has launched what it says is the first online music and audio recording studio where users can find and collaborate with people from all over the world on a multitude of devices across iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Mac OS X,and Windows platforms.

It lets users record a tune or podcast by accessing a browser across multiple platforms.  Coming out of beta, Soundtrap has also announced US$1 million in seed funding and the commercial availability of its platform. 

For branded tablets, the year 2015 is off to a rocky start. For the first time since inception, the popular consumer item experienced its largest QoQ [quarter-over-quarter] decline to date of 35%. In addition, tablets experienced its largest YoY [year-over-year] decline of 16%.

According to marketing intelligence firm ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com), there is no denying the market is losing its momentum and leading vendors are feeling the squeeze. Apple and Samsung have been key market players and continue to dominate a significant majority of the tablet market.