“I charge twenty bucks. Forty if you are a Wall Street analyst asking about Apple rumors.”
Ever want to drop a meteor or fire a missile at someone? Well, now you can do it, at least on video, with the Action Movie FX app. You shoot a few seconds of video and then it applies a dramatic special effect to it. Works surprisingly well and is at least worth checking out even if you don’t upgrade from the free effects that are included.
You can turn your Mac into a cool visual jukebox using the Lion screen saver. Just go to System Preferences, Desktop & Screen Saver and select the iTunes Artwork screen saver. Then hit the Test button if you can’t wait to try it. The screen shows all of your album artwork, and unlike other screen savers you can use the cursor without disturbing it. Then click on an album to start playing a track from it. Fun at parties!
The non-Apple tech world is focused on the Consumer Electronics Show this week, leaving Apple news outlets to reminisce on fourth quarter and holiday sales and look forward to Apple’s next move. A Piper Jaffray analyst estimates that Apple sold 30 million iPhones last quarter, higher than expectations and up from last year. He said that the iPhone now accounts for nearly half of Apple’s revenue, and the iPad for 21 percent.
The MacBook Air line showed an increase in sales of 20 percent according to some reports. This contrasts with sales in the rest of the laptop industry which were down.
Apple confirmed this week that it purchased Anobit, a maker of high performance flash memory. Apple is the largest buy of flash memory in the world, using the chips in all iOS devices.
There are rumors of a special Apple event coming on Jan. 19 in New York. This could be an announcement of a new textbook service for the iPad. The Steve Jobs biography mentions that Apple is interested in changing how textbooks are distributed.
“I ‘liked’ your restaurant. I also gave it a thumbs up, five stars, +1 and added it to my favorites.”
“I’d rather just get a decent tip for once.”
Another decent Texas Holdem poker game out there is the popular Zynga Poker. This is actually better known for being a Facebook app, but playing on your iPhone or iPad actually puts you in the same pool of people, I believe. You never know what you are going to get in terms of player styles and conversation, so be warned. But it is sometimes good to practice in this just-for-fun poker game.
If you go into your Trash folder you can Control+Click on some items and select Put Back to move the item back to its original location. This only works with files that have been cleanly moved from the Finder to the Trash by dragging or similar actions. It won’t work with items moves to the Trash by other applications or in special situations, like from system folders and some other locations.
Apple has started going after web sites that allow people to obtain iOS apps without paying for them. This week Apple started issuing take-down notices to sites that help people with jailbroken iOS devices get App Store apps for free. Apple faces many difficulties in helping app developers, since these sites are mostly outside of the U.S. and can move and change easily.
Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, was knighted this week by the Queen of England. Ive is the talent behind many of Apple’s recent designs, including many iMacs and MacBooks, the iPhone and iPad.
In Lion you can create a new folder and place the currently selected items in it with one command. Just select the items you want to put in the folder, then choose File, New Folder With Selection. You can also use Control+Command+N.
Remember the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Art, when Indiana Jones runs away from the temple after stealing the gold idol? That’s basically the idea behind the very addictive and free Temple Run for iPhone and iPad. You run down a path jumping, sliding and dodging obstacles to see how far you can get before you trip up. A fun, quick play.
“I want to get that new novel, but I can’t decide on the format.”
“You mean hard cover or paperback?”
“What is this 2010? I mean iPad, Kindle, Nook or audio book.”
