The Mac version of the App Store will launch on January 6 according to an Apple press release today. The Mac App Store will operate like the iOS App Store, bringing an easy, centralized way to find, purchase and download applications for the Mac.
According to the release, it will feature categories just like the iOS store, plus featured apps, best selling lists, and so on. Developers will get 70 percent of the revenue from any sale, with Apple keeping the rest to pay for hosting and credit card fees.
Not all applications will find their way into the App Store. Restrictions mean that many utility applications that alter how your Mac works will be not be allowed in the store. These utilities will remain as they are now, sold by the developers directly or through other channels. Some developers may choose to remain independent of the store where they can get more than 70 percent of the sale price and not have to submit applications to Apple for approval. The Mac App Store will also feature free apps.
Been enjoying StarCraft II on the Mac. It runs smoothly on both my Mac Pro, and my little 13-inch MacBook Pro. Nice graphics, good gameplay, lots to do. It is a real-time strategy game heavy on the sci-fi.
Here’s another one of our own free apps. With the Snowman Construction Kit you can build your own snowman combining various parts to make a picture. When you are done, you can save it to your camera roll and send to friends or upload to sites. It is based on the web version which we first created back in 1997 and have updated many times since.
When you press Command+F to search in the Finder, the search starts with a default search location. It can either be the entire Mac, the current folder, or the last place you performed a search. To set this preference, go to the Finder and choose Finder, Preferences, then Advanced. Look for the “When performing a search” setting.
He’s on the roof waiting for Santa to bring him an iPad. We’ve been married for 10 years, and I still don’t have the nerve to tell him there’s no Santa.
While no big new announcements are expected from Apple during the holiday shopping season, designers and engineers have been busy improving the online buying experience for Apple users.
One such change is the length of song previews in iTunes. Songs that are longer than 2.5 minutes now feature a 90-second preview. At least, in the U.S. iTunes store. But those outside the U.S. have something to cheer about as they can finally take advantage of App Store promo codes. These codes, given out by developers to get reviews and buzz for their new apps, are free coupons that were previously only available for people with U.S. iTunes accounts.
Last month Apple tried to make its iTunes gift card use a little clearer by offering iTunes gift cards with the iBooks icon on them. These are regular iTunes gift cards, but it shows clearly that these can be used for books. iTunes cards can be used to purchase music, apps or books. Apple also offers an Apple Store-specific gift card that can’t be using in iTunes, and a special card that can only be used to purchase an iPhone.
If you’ve got an old vinyl record collection and want to transfer some of the music to your iTunes collection, then a USB turntable might be in order. I tried and liked the Ion Profile. It is inexpensive at less than $100 and the quality is decent. Forget the software that comes with it as it is not Mac compatible. But it showed up as an audio input device without a problem so you can use Audacity or GarageBand to record from it and slice your own tracks from the results.
THQ has been giving us a steady stream of Star Wars games for the iPhone. The latest, Falcon Gunner, is reminiscent of the old arcade title. It works well on the iPhone with the accelerometers. You put yourself in the seat of one of the Millennium Falcon’s guns and shoot down TIE fighters. A special mode uses your camera to put your reality in the background. Not only is this entertaining, but you get quite a workout wheeling around to destroy all the TIE fighters in your living room.
In Address Book you can add a web address for any contact. In Safari, you can make those contacts available in the bookmarks bar by going to Safari Preferences, Bookmarks, Bookmarks bar and choosing Include Address Book. This puts a drop-down menu in your bookmarks bar that includes all web addresses from your contacts.
One of the major new features of iOS 4.2 is AirPrint, the ability to print directly from your iPhone or iPad. Unfortunately, this only works if you have one of the small group of HP printers that supports it. That makes it a non-feature for most people.
But in the future we hope that Apple allows you to print through your Mac. After all, you can print from one Mac to a printer connected to another Mac. So why not extend that functionality to AirPrint?
Back in the 90s one of the coolest and weirdest pieces of Mac software was Rebirth. It simulated classic synth and drum machines. Lots of fun to play with. Well, now Rebirth is reborn with Rebirth for iPad. And it is just as much fun. You can also find Rebirth for the iPhone though it is much better on the large screen of the iPad.
Winter presents problems: how to operate your iPhone while keeping your gloves on. While you can get gloves that allow you to do this, GloveTips allows you to stick with your favorite gloves and modify them with a kit to allow touchscreen use. They sent me a kit to test out. It takes a little time to install it in your gloves, but certainly works. Now I can finally tell Pandora thumbs up or down while driving on cold mornings.
