In a press release issued earlier this morning, Apple has announced that Bertrand Serlet, SVP of Mac Software Engineering, will be leaving the company.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s VP of Mac Software Engineering and Serlet’s long-time protégé, will assume his responsibilities and report directly to chief exec Steve Jobs.
Serlet originally joined Apple in 1997 and has played an instrumental role… → Read More
When Sparrow first launched in October of last year, I raved about its design and simplicity, but noted a few downsides. One was that it was Gmail-only. And even though it was Gmail-only, it lacked some of Gmail’s power features, such asPriority Inbox. With version 1.1, both of those issues have been addressed. And a whole slew of new features more has been added.
First and foremost, Sparrow… → Read More
Earlier today my colleague MG Siegler wrote about EightBit, a new social game and included the above video, with plenty of demo screencasts of the EightBit app. Those screencasts were via Sound Stage 1.3 for Mac, a desktop app that in addition to recording HD desktop screencaps, hooks into an iOS simulator to take screen captures of iPhone app demos.
The app launched its new revamp yesterday and… → Read More
Apple has officially launched its JointVenture support for small businesses. Support comes from the Apple store and will be provided by the Apple Genius Bar. The plan is only available to business customers when purchasing a Mac, but the $499 service will include training and support for up to five “systems,” which include iOS devices and Cinema Displays. → Read More
Back in October of last year, we wrote about Sparrow, a beautiful new mail client for the Mac. But whereas most mail clients are now web-based, Sparrow decided it was time to focus on making a great native email experience once again. And today that gamble appears to be paying off. Sparrow 1.0 has just launched in the Mac App Store and it has immediately shot to the number one paid app in many… → Read More
During the earnings call following Apple’s blockbuster Q1 2011 results, a questions was asked about Apple’s Mac business as it relates to the iPad business. The iPad business, after all, is growing much faster (and just overtook the Apple portable computer business in terms of revenue). So is it affecting the Mac business by eating into it?
“Was there any cannibalization? Honestly, I don’t know… → Read More
At one point, a long, long time ago, Twitter was just a super simple website with some SMS integration. Then it became a slightly more robust website. Then it became an iPhone app. Then an Android app. Then an iPad app. Then a very robust website. BlackBerry, Windows Phone, etc. Now, as of today, there’s an official Mac desktop client, Twitter for Mac. Just about all of the bases now seem to be… → Read More
The Mac App Store just launched this morning (it is a separate app store from what’s in iTunes that comes with the latest update to Mac OS X), and already the top free app is Twitter for Mac. I just installed it and started to play around with it. My first impression is meh.
Twitter for Mac is a stripped down version of the excellent Twitter for iPad app. Imagine if you took just the left-hand… → Read More
Apple this morning announced that the Mac App Store is now open for business, as previously announced, with more than 1,000 free and paid apps.
The Mac App Store brings the iTunes App Store model straight to the Mac – it’s available for Snow Leopard users through Software Update as part of Mac OS X v10.6.6. → Read More
For a long time after the launch of the iPhone, despite thousands of apps for just about everything you can imagine, there was no killer RSS reader app. That changed when the 2.0 version of Reeder arrived earlier this year. It’s so good that I often prefer using it to reading feeds in Google Reader, long my go-to RSS reader. And the iPad version is even better. And now it’s about ready to launch… → Read More
It feels like we’re on the verge of something — “feel” being the keyword. Personal computing has more or less been the same for a few decades now. It’s the mouse, the keyboard, the monitor, and the machine. With things like notebook computers, this has been altered a bit, but it’s the same basic idea. But with the rise of smartphones and now tablets, the whole concept is finally starting evolve. → Read More
This weekend, Ryan Block put up an interesting post on gdgt entitled: Will the Mac App Store have enough to sell? He raises a number of good points for why Apple may not be able to replicate their current App Store success with this new desktop store. But I’m left wondering if the store won’t lead to a new class of app: a sort of micro-app for the desktop.
Block makes the following points: a)… → Read More
Is there really any doubt the Mac App Store will be anything other than a huge hit when it debuts in 90 days? Seven billion downloads on the current App Store would suggest that Apple knows what it’s doing (and that people really love to slingshot cartoon birds into buildings). And the benefits of the App Store are clear: it’s an easy-to-use, one-stop source of safe, tested software. → Read More
Today during their Back to the Mac event today at their headquarters in Cupertino, Apple gave a first glimpse of the next version of OS X. As anticipated, OS X 10.7 is going to be called “Lion”. What perhaps wasn’t so anticipated (though we guessed), was how inspired it would be by iOS.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that iOS came from OS X. But he noted that with IOS, they’ve invented new things and… → Read More
Today, during their Back to the Mac event at their headquarters in Cupertino, CA, Apple kicked things off with some numbers they wanted to share. COO Tim Cook took the stage to rattle off these numbers. Specifically, he wanted to talk about the Mac.
Of all of Apple’s revenues, Macs represent 33 percent of the revenues in the past year. This means the Mac is a $22 billion business. This means that… → Read More
You don’t need to look any further than Apple’s stock price over the past several months to know that they’re on a roll. A year ago, the stock price was at about $190 a share. Today, it closed at $317.93 a share — an all-time high. In fact, they’ve hit several all-time highs this month alone. Their market cap is quickly approach $300 billion. And now the company has just announced their Q4 … → Read More
As you’re well aware by now, this morning, Apple sent out invites to an event taking place in one week at their headquarters in Cupertino, CA. The invite reads, “Back to the Mac.” and asks those invited to “Come see what’s new for the Mac on October 20, including a sneak peek of the next major version of Mac OS X.” But the most interesting thing about the invite has to be the picture. It’s an… → Read More
For the longest time, all I’ve wanted is a solid native Mac client for Gmail that supports starring of messages. Sure, there have been some out there, but they’ve all been lacking. Today, I may have finally found a good one.
Sparrow is a super-simple Mac client for Gmail. If you’ve used Tweetie for Mac (which is now owned by Twitter, but development is more or less frozen), you’ll feel right at… → Read More
Good news for Mac gamers: Left 4 Dead 2 is coming tomorrow. If you already own it for the PC, you will own it on the Mac. If you don’t own it yet, go buy it. Steam is including all of the previously released DLC as well, so you won’t miss out on any of the L4D2 gaming goodness. See the press release after the jump. → Read More
Much love has been thrown in Google Chrome’s direction of late, not least of which because, well, it’s quite snappy. But let’s not forget the trailblazing browser that helped open the door for all these non-Internet Explorer browsers: Firefox! Yes, Mozilla is closing in on version 4.0 (I’ve been running the betas for some time now, and I’m a fan of the new Mac interface, while the Windows one… → Read More
You know what comes out on Tuesday, September 14? Halo: Reach, right, but besides that? Parallels 6, the virtualization software that makes certain Mac users’ lives a little bit easier. It runs on 64-bit processors this time around—woo! → Read More
QUOComputer, a company that jumped in on the tail of the Psystar saga, is manufacturing a $3,765 Mac clone using lots of nice parts including an Asetek liquid cooling system. Why? I have no idea, but a $4K Mac clone sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. A $4K PC with some nice liquid cooling… yeah, I could get behind that. Press release after the jump. → Read More
If you’re like me, your MacBook Pro is “gently loved”, and the lid is a little scratched up. Or maybe you just want something that looks a little more custom then what the rest of the Mac users are packing around. Whatever the reason, Recover’s skins are made in my home town of Portland, Oregon from real wood veneer. Compared to the prices you see from some vinyl sticker… → Read More
Remember when the iPad was unveiled and some people tried to paint it as a lose-lose for Apple? The line of thinking was that even if the iPad was a hit (which many were skeptical of at the time), it would likely cannibalize sales of the Mac. You know, the higher-priced, and more importantly, higher-margin Apple products.
If the iPad was the future of computing, it was going to come at a cost to… → Read More
Of all the stellar numbers Apple released today with their Q3 2010 earnings, the most impressive has to be this: Apple sold 3.27 million iPads during the quarter. To put that into context, that’s only 200,000 fewer units than their entire Mac division sold. And it was the best Mac sales quarter ever.
In other words, in just about any other quarter, the iPad would have outsold the Mac. And this is… → Read More
This is a counterpoint to The Three Mac Features I Want On My Next PC PCs suck. They’re underpriced, underpowered, and nothing more than disgusting commodity hardware stuck into a box with no regard for usability and peripheral compatibility. But I still want one. Well, sort of. I don’t want to give up OS X my Mac’s performance record or, well, my freedom. So I guess really what… → Read More
Just a heads-up to let you Mac users out there that Counter-Strike: Source, “the number one online action game in the world,” is now available on Steam for Mac. → Read More
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it 1,000 times: the best way to stay safe online is to keep your wits about you and not to venture off into the darker corners of the Internet, if you know what I mean. I bring this up because there’s a nasty bit of kit out there that means to attack unsuspecting Mac users. It sorta makes sense from the malware creator’s perspective: Mac users tend to operate under… → Read More
Have you launched VLC today? If so then you’ll already know that it has been updated to version 1.1.0. The biggest feature in this version is the addition of GPU decoding for Windows (Vista and 7 only) and Linux users. That is, you can use that fancy GPU of yours to help decode that 1080p MKV you’ve got there, leaving your CPU with enough room to breathe, or whatever. Fair warning: if you’re on… → Read More
Remember back when anti-mac fanboys use to say that “the Mac doesn’t have gaming, it’s not 1337”. Then Apple entered the gaming world as a noob, and now look, OS X is running Steam. → Read More
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