Brand: MacNews

Apple has released iOS 8.3 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. It includes performance improvements, bug fixes, and a tweaked emoji keyboard with more than 300 new emoji.

iOS 8.3 allows you to start speaker phone calls via Siri commands. The “personal digital assistant” also now recognizes languages like Portuguese, Russian, Thai, and Turkish.

TheKeptPromise has introduced Create Booklet 1.0 (http://tinyurl.com/nyvqmx7), its new PDF booklet creation solution for Mac OS X.

Create Booklet is both an application and PDF Service that allows you to create a booklet “off almost anything from almost anywhere.” It puts your pages side by side re-sorted for booklet printing.

Create Booklet requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later. It’s being offered at the special introductory price of US$4.99 (50% off) and is available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Utilities category.

Karelia Software has shipped Sandvox 2.10 and announced a new Sandvox Hosting service.

Sandvox 2.10 now provides access to the new Sandvox Hosting service in this update to the website building software for OS X. New Sandvox Hosting provides fundamental hosting from directly within Sandvox, integrated and optimized for hosting most Sandvox sites.

Mac OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite has arrived and includes the new Photos app. It’s a free upgrade via the Mac App Store.

Both Aperture, Apple’s US$79.99 pro photo editing software, and iPhoto, geared more toward non-pro end users, are replaced by the Photos, which Apple debuted during the 2014 Worldwide Developer Conference. The new “grounds-up photo solution” will  mirror features of the Photos app in iOS 8. Features of the Photos app, according to Apple, include the ability to:

° Browse photos by time and location in Moments, Collections, and Years views

Apple’s 12-inch MacBook, which goes on sale Friday, features a single USB-C port for both power and connectivity. This prevents the laptop from charging your iPhone, iPad or any other standard USB device without additional adapters.

However, you can add Twelve South’s (www.twelvesouth.com) PlugBug to the new MacBook USB-C Power Adapter, and gain back a standard USB power port to charge your iOS device and your new MacBook at the same time — all from one plug. PlugBug World even adapts your new MacBook for international travel.