Intel’s "Gulftown" Processors Spark Mac Pro Rumors

Intel announced a 32nm Core i7-980X processor codenamed "Gulftown" this
week, sparking rumors of the new chip potentially making its way into a
new Mac Pro.

The new processor features a speed of 3.33GHz, six cores capable of 12 threads, 12MB of L3 cache, and 130W power.

This particular processor inside of a Mac Pro has been rumored for months, but now it is believed that the Mac Pro could be updated as soon as next week and feature two of these processors for a total of 12 cores. 

The Gulftown processor is set to be released sometime later this month and will be sold under the Core i9 name, with the server version under the Xeon 5600 series title.

via AppleInsider

Source:[therawfeed]

GDC 2010: Call of Duty: World at War Zombies postmortem

Filed under: Gaming, Retail, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store

Continue reading GDC 2010: Call of Duty: World at War Zombies postmortem

GDC 2010: Call of Duty: World at War Zombies postmortem originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

GDC 2010: Call of Duty: World at War Zombies postmortem originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store

Continue reading GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now

GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

GDC 2010: Street Fighter IV for the iPhone out now originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Why Apple Should Buy Adobe

The rumors of Adobe being bought by Apple come up every so often. Apple could easily afford such a purchase and the results would be interesting. I would love to see Adobe restructured by a company like Apple. Adobe has many applications that are the gold standard but it seems to lack focus. These are my thoughts on what Apple could do with Adobe’s biggest apps and make everyone’s life a lot easier.

Video

Adobe’s video market could be trimmed down. Anything that can already be done in Final Cut Studio should be gone, including Premiere and Soundbooth. I’m not sure if After Effects would even be worth it in the end. Most believe that Final Cut is a very nice video suite on the Mac platform and in the PC world, AVID holds the crown. Why is a program like Premiere needed? It’s not quite AVID but way better than Windows Movie Maker. Now throw Sony Vegas in there and it’s starting to get crowded. Apple could create Final Cut for the PC or forget about them altogether. This would come down to money in the long run. I personally don’t think Apple needs to worry about the PC side unless they are going to legitimately compete against AVID for dominance.

Design

Photoshop and Illustrator go hand in hand with Apple. The general public thinks of Apple when Photoshop is mentioned and vice versa. This is known as one of Apple’s strongest markets. Most believe that these design apps run better on a Mac but as we know, Adobe is slow in keeping these flagship apps on the cutting edge. Apple could force them to be designed for the latest and greatest environments. While they’re at it, stop releasing new versions every year that don’t have any significant improvements. Adobe needs the money to keep rolling in through yearly revisions but Apple wouldn’t have this problem. Make a new version when real features are created. In an educational environment, we are forced to upgrade every year because the textbooks only cover the newest versions. This puts a large strain on software budgets.

Documents

Acrobat should also be restructured and brought back to its core purpose. Every other week we hear of an exploit in PDF’s and it’s because they don’t do the simple task they were conceived to do. Strip out all the extra junk and just make PDF’s do what they need to do. Reader should be killed for the Mac OS also, Preview is way quicker and does the job just fine.

Flash

Then there’s the elephant in the room, Flash. Oh my dear old friend, you were once so cool. Animations, games, crazy navigation menus and long site intros were such a treat. Now I have grown bored with you.

The problem is that Flash is so ubiquitous with the web that it can’t just be tossed out into the street. Apple would need to clean it up significantly and keep it around until HTML5 took over. They should only provide security fixes but no new features. This would allow it a peaceful death.

Adobe has so many products that it’s kind of ridiculous. Most of them could either be worked into existing Apple products or forgotten forever. If Apple did purchase Adobe, what about the PC side of Adobe’s business? They would have to crunch the numbers to see what products are worth the extra cost of development, but Apple could really limit what’s available for Windows. Whether that would that be a good or bad thing, I’m not really sure. In Apple’s mind, if it sells more Macs then it’s worth doing.

I believe Apple could really improve Adobe’s products and make them more reliable than they ever have been. It would end the grudge that they have against each other and hopefully get applications like Acrobat and Flash back to their roots. Adding useless features just to sell a different version every year will not win you any fans. Make it a worthwhile upgrade or inexpensive and I will gladly support you.

Source:[tuaw]

Slate comes to the iPhone, along with a lot of advertising

Filed under: Multimedia, Odds and ends, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

I’ve always liked Slate Magazine on the web. It’s sometimes sassy and irreverent, but always interesting — an eclectic mix of politics, culture and tech news.

Now, Slate has come to the iPhone in a US$1.99 app that features all the articles from the site, as well as the blog posts, staff tweets and streaming video from the Slate podcasts. Once content is downloaded you can read it off-line, which is a worthwhile feature. Access to Slate on the web is free, and you can read Slate from any mobile browser by going to mobile.slate.com.

So why the charge for the iPhone app? Slate says it cost something to develop it, and it gives you a much richer experience in a portable form. I can’t argue with that, but I can argue with the ads that appear absolutely everywhere. Even the splash screen popped up with an ad. I think that’s a bit much after I’ve paid for the app, but I’m beginning to see a lot of this in other apps as well.

I do like the app a lot, and it is a better experience for me than reading Slate stories in Safari on the iPhone. I even prefer the app to reading the site on my desktop or laptop. I just think the constant intrusive ads are a turn-off that will keep some people from pulling the trigger on what is an otherwise laudable effort.

Slate works on any iPhone or iPod touch with OS 3.0 or greater. I expect we’ll see an iPad version as well.

Full disclosure: In the dim, distant past I worked at the Washington Post Company, which owns Slate.

Take a gander at some screen shots below:

Slate comes to the iPhone, along with a lot of advertising originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Slate comes to the iPhone, along with a lot of advertising originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Report: RIAA pressured Apple into creating iTunes LP

Filed under: iTS, Retail, iTunes, Apple

This feature over at GigaOM has quite a few interesting insights about the iTunes LP program — while Apple sells it wholeheartedly as “the visual experience of the record album,” it appears the story behind the story is not quite so clean. According to an anonymous source in the industry (note, not Apple themselves), the service didn’t come from Cupertino. Instead, it was designed by record companies, and agreed to by Apple as a “concession” to “make a gesture in favor of album sales.” The piece also states that Apple subsidized the creation of the first few “LPs,” some of which cost up to $60,000 to assemble and license.

As you might expect with any other less-than-popular product at Apple, iTunes LP isn’t exactly being thrown into the spotlight, either. While a much more visual music experience would be perfect for the iPad, GigaOM notes that it didn’t even merit a mention by Jobs at the iPad announcement. It’s certainly possible that iTunes LP could find a new home in the future, if bands really get behind the service and make their own (a few have, as noted, but the cost seems pretty prohibitive, especially if sales aren’t that impressive), but from what this anonymous source says, the LP service is a record company concession that hasn’t paid off for Apple even in the way its originators hoped.

[via iPodNN]

Report: RIAA pressured Apple into creating iTunes LP originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Report: RIAA pressured Apple into creating iTunes LP originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Setting up Parental Controls on the iPhone and iPod touch

My kid wants an iPod touch for her birthday. I’m inclined to fulfill her wishes, but I’m a little concerned about her looking at objectionable content on Safari or YouTube, or running up big bills downloading apps and music. Does the iPod touch come with parental controls?

It does. You can’t limit certain sites in Safari, but you could block the app altogether. And YouTube, the App Store, and the iTunes Store can all be restricted too.

To get started, open the Settings app on the iPod touch, then tap General, and Restrictions. You’ll need to enter a four-digit passcode–don’t share it with your kid, obviously. Then you can disallow Safari, YouTube, the iTunes Store, the App Store, the camera (iPhone only), and Location (which disables the GPS chip in an iPhone or the Wi-Fi-based Location Services on an iPod touch). That’ll turn those apps off completely and forever–unless you go back to the Restrictions list and turn them back on.

Setting limits, like a good parent should.

If you don’t want to totally disable the iTunes Store or App Store while still limiting what they can access, the Restrictions list also has an Allowed Content section. Here you can limit downloaded movies and TV shows by their age rating, exclude music and podcasts rated “explicit,” limit app downloads based on age ratings, and even ban in-app purchasing.

Oh, and if you want to protect your kid’s hearing, you can also check out Settings > iPod > Volume Limit to set the maximum volume to a lower level than the default. This can also be locked with a passcode so your kid won’t go right in and undo what you’ve done.

 

Source:[therawfeed]

Steph Tirion, creator of Eliss, annouces Faraway

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK

Steph Tirion is an excellent game designer who I’ve had the good fortune to meet a few times. He first released a great game called Eliss on the App Store and he’s now announced the second game he’s been working on, called Faraway. Eliss was a terrific little arcade game that made great use of the iPhone’s touchscreen, and Tirion says that while his first game dealt with “planets and space management in sectors, Faraway will be about constellations and infinite space travel.” Sounds exciting. The game will be playable at GDC this week, so I’ll definitely make time to run by and check it out.

Tirion has also announced a new company to represent and sell his iPhone games, and he’s calling it LITTLE–EYES. It’s really great to see a very smart, independent developer come into his own like on a platform like the iPhone — there’s really no other mainstream gaming platform out there that lets developers really jump in headfirst and release experimental games like these to a a mainstream market. We’ll keep an eye out at GDC this week for all kinds of indie developers making it big. While it’s cool that Valve and other larger companies are finally coming around, we have to be sure not to forget developers like this either.

Steph Tirion, creator of Eliss, annouces Faraway originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Steph Tirion, creator of Eliss, annouces Faraway originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Enter to win Trip Journal 4.0 for the iPhone DO NOT POST

Filed under: Software, Developer, iPhone

iQapps has updated their app Trip Journal to version 4.0, and the new update adds a fair bit of functionality to the already pretty impressive set of trip recording and tagging features. As with previous versions, you can track pictures, notes, and maps of your trips, and communicate via a number of social networks and features with friends and family. The newest version allows for either manual or automatic waypointing as you travel around the world, multiple trip management, and hooks into social networks like Google Earth, Picasa, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, straight from the iPhone 3GS’ GPS and video camera.

The app is on sale for 99 cents right now, but it’ll be back to the standard $2.99 price soon. We’ve got an even better deal, however — iQapps has offered five download codes for us to give five lucky commenters on this post. Just leave a comment telling us where you’d like to travel to, and we’ll choose five random winners after 48 hours to win the app for free. Here are the rules:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us where you’d like to travel with Trip Journal
• The comment must be left before March 11th, 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Five winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prizes: Promo Code for one copy of Trip Journal (Value: US$2.99)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Good luck to everyone who enters!

Enter to win Trip Journal 4.0 for the iPhone DO NOT POST originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Enter to win Trip Journal 4.0 for the iPhone DO NOT POST originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source:[tuaw]

Snow Leopard’s Been Out for Six Months, Why Are So Many of Us Still Using Leopard?

So here we are, just past the six month mark since Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard was sprung last August 28, and I’m still using OS 10.5 Leopard.

I have lots of company. The NetApplications HitsLink Market Share data for February 2010 shows that Leopard is still the most widely-used OS X version, with a 2.21 percent global market share compared to 1.8 percent for Snow Leopard, and good old OS 10.4 Tiger still hanging in at 0.72 percent.

Why the Procrastination?

So, why the procrastination about upgrading? It’s certainly not the cost holding me back. Snow Leopard is the cheapest Mac OS version upgrade in history, other than complete freebies.

Well, for one thing, Leopard works so darned well, and making a major OS upgrade always involves time investment and the hassle of upgrading at least some of your software and utilities (more about that in a moment), and I’ve been short of spare time the last several months. I also tend to be of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” persuasion, and haven’t been convinced there’s anything Snow Leopard has to offer that’s a genuine must-have for me.

Some of the improvements — things like a more responsive Finder rewritten from scratch in Cocoa, faster Time Machine backups, a more powerful version of the Preview application — sound like welcome tweaks, but nothing I find compelling. Stuff like enhanced Microsoft Exchange Server support for Mail, iCal, and Address Book have zero appeal for me since I don’t use that service or any of those features, preferring third-party alternatives. Nor do Snow Leopard’s Safari upgrades fizz me much since I favor other browsers with Safari being my fourth or fifth choice, if that.

Bitten Once…

There is also the bitten once; twice shy factor. I ordered OS 10.5 Leopard from Amazon.com a day or two after it was released on October 26, 2007, and immediately installed it on my then main production machine, a 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4. I’m not by nature or temperament an enthusiastic early adopter, but Leopard, hyped by Apple as being “the largest update of Mac OS X” yet, incorporating more than 300 new features, had so much cool stuff I really wanted to check out. Especially the Spaces and QuickLook features, which were every bit as good or even better than I had anticipated, and what I miss most on the two old G4 upgraded Pismo PowerBooks I still have in daily service running OS 10.4.

However, there was pain associated with my early move to Leopard, notwithstanding all the good stuff. I’m a windowshading junkie, and I simply can’t abide not having that feature, for which no function built into any version of OS X comes remotely close to being a satisfactory substitute. Windowshading’s been integrated into my work habits for more than a decade. Typically I may have two dozen or so windows open, scattered amongst nine Spaces views, mostly windowshaded, conveniently identifiable by their full title bars being visible.

Unfortunately, OS 10.5 upgrade broke third-party WindowShade X, and I was obliged to struggle along for several months without windowshading until its developer, Unsanity Software, got a Leopard-compatible version of its proprietary and required system add-on Application Enhancer (APE) out the door in February 2008, mercifully restoring WindowShade X support to Leopard.

Withdrawal too Painful to Repeat

Snow Leopard broke Windowshade X and Application Enhancer redux, and I’m not willing to go through that form of addiction withdrawal again.

Unsanity say they’re busily rewriting their more popular “haxie” add-ons to support Snow Leopard, the latest word being that WindowShade X is largely redone, its MIP system rewritten from scratch, and currently at internal beta status, a new build seeded to testers on February 13. A public beta should be released any day now. Until it is, I’m sticking with Leopard.

How about you? If you’re among the plurality of Mac users still running Leopard, and not because you’re on a PowerPC Mac, is something else in particular holding you back?

Source:[tuaw]

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