Apple has released Aperture 2, an update to its photo editing and management software. Boasting over 100 new features, including a new image processing engine. Aperture 2 also features a new lower price ($199).
New features include a redefined UI, new imaging tools for highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning, and new output options that lets users directly post their portfolios on the .Mac Web Gallery* for viewing on the web, iPhone™, iPod® touch and Apple TV®
A free 30 day trial is available for download (138MB). If you purchased Aperture on or after January 1, 2008, you are entitled to an upgrade for only $9.95.
Category: News,Software
See story here. Now ask yourself – if you are seeing slowing growth, which do you think will spur sales – raising prices, or lowering them? I’ve never heard of anyone increasing sales by raising the prices, so I’m really puzzled by AT&T’s moves.
Disclosure: I’m currently an AT&T subscriber, and I am using their $10/month plan (a condition forced on them by the FCC as part of the Bellsouth merger). It’s not the fastest connection to the ‘net, but for $10/month, it does the job. However, AT&T is only obligated to offer this plan for two years. Once those two years are up, and AT&T jacks up their rates, I will most certainly head for speedier pastures.
Category: News
Shirt Pocket software released SuperDuper! 2.5 today after a long testing period. The new version, a free upgrade to current owners, is Leopard compatible. SuperDuper! 2.5 allows for creating a bootable backups on the same volume as a Time Machine backup. Additionally, there are Spotlight enhancements and other bug fixes. SuperDuper! 2.5 is $27.95, although you can use the program for free with various limitations.
Category: News,Software
Apple today released updated versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone is now available in a 16GB version for $100 more ($499), and the iPod Touch is available in a 32GB version for $499. The previous 8GB iPhone ($399), and 8GB ($299) and 16GB ($399) iPod Touch models are still available.
Category: iPhone,iPod,News
You probably noticed that we were down for a couple of hours today. We migrated our site off of MediaTemple’s Grid Service for several reasons. First of all, their uptime recently hasn’t been the greatest. Second, their automatic backup tool was removed from their control panel back in December, with the promise of a new, better back-up tool “real soon”. Two months without an automatic back-up tool is two months too long. Finally, they were supposed to give all their Grid Service customers a two month credit from their last outage. My credit never materialized, so I dumped them.
Everything is up and running now. If you see any wonkiness with the migration to the new servers, please let me know.
Category: News
Financial journalists/analysts are never ones to let facts get in the way of a good headline. At least, that’s the only logical explanation for this article.
Priya Ganapati, Apple will not have to avg 2.5 million phones a quarter to reach their goals. Their goal wasn’t 10 million phones sold in 2008 – it was 10 million phones sold by the end 2008. They have already sold 4 million. That leaves 6 millionlion more to reach the goal, with a year. That is 1.5 million per quarter, not 2.5 million.
Additionally, Apple makes such good money on the contract, that they can afford to (if needed) drop the price $50 or $100 on the phone to increase sales. I’m sure they will probably do that anyway once the 3G version intros later this year.
Jeesh. These people deal with numbers all day. You think they could get something as simple as this right. (more…)
Category: News
I’ve noticed that Google has made two quiet improvements to the Google Reader application. First, if you have a large amount (I believe 50 or more) items in your reading list, and you check “Mark all as read”, you will now get a confirmation box asking you if you are sure you would like to do that. Nice touch.
Second, on the mobile version (when viewed in Mobile Safari), clicking on the “See Original” link now opens the link in a new page/tab.
If you use RSS to keep track of all your websites, you owe it to yourself to give Google Reader a try. Being able to keep all your feeds in sync whether you are at home, the office, or on the go is extremely useful.
Category: News
I love my Mighty Mouse. It feels great in my hand, the scroll ball is absolutely a joy to use, and it tracks extremely well in OS X. The downside is that the scroll ball has a tendency to get dirty over time, and it can impair its ability to scroll. My Might Mouse started to suffer these problems, and after a couple of days, lost the ability to scroll down altogether.
A quick search of the web yielded a few different options on how to clean it. One of them takes it to the extreme and shows you how to dismantle the mouse and clean the internal parts individually. Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary for my mouse.
Apple has a knowledge base article on the topic, along with a Quicktime video demonstrating how to clean the mouse. Luckily, this was all I needed.
In short, I tried rolling the ball while wiping it with a slightly damp cloth. It didn’t help much at all. On Apple’s suggestion, I turned the mouse upside and performed the same action. Bingo. That did the trick.
So, the next time your Mighty Mouse stops scrolling, turn it upside down and give the scroll ball a few pushes. And if that doesn’t work, you can always disassemble it.
Category: News
NetNewsWire, which is arguably the best desktop news reading client available, just changed the game by reducing the cost of the application to zero. You heard me – NetNewsWire is free. Brett Simmons, the developer, has a full run down of what prompted the decision to release NNW as freeware.
The change of status accompanies version 3.1, which includes numerous enhancements and bug fixes. For those who aren’t aware, NetNewsWire can sync your feeds with NewsGator’s online service, allowing you to keep up with your feeds on your mobile device (say, an iPhone).
I’ve long loved NNW, but always felt the price was too high. Especially considering that I had multiple licenses of NewsFire. However, since I’ve had an iPhone, I’ve been loving Google Reader. Being able to have all my feeds in Google Reader and keep up with them through the day on my desktop, and then in the evening on my iPhone during my bus ride home has been wonderful. Sure, Google Reader isn’t as slick as NetNewsWire, but I think this is definitely an instance where the cloud app’s convenience factor outweigh’s the slickness of the desktop client.
(Via Inessential.)
Category: News,Software
Macinstein is reporting that among the other various bug fixes in Mac OS X 10.5.2, there is an “enhancement” to the way that Stacks works. In short, Apple has added the ability to display Stack’s content as a Folder or Stack, and as List items, the way they were presented before Stacks.
If this enhancement ends up shipping in 10.5.2, I will be one happy camper.
Category: News
