MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Note Taker HD

| $4.99 | Software Garden

How an iPad Speeds Reporting from NASCAR's Pit Row - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Dave Burns has been covering stock car racing from pit road for seventeen years, including spending the past twelve covering NASCAR's premiere Sprint Cup Series. These days he's a Pit Reporter for ESPN, covering Nationwide and Sprint Cup practices, qualifying, and races, all over the course of a single weekend -- every weekend -- for months at a time. Working the pit lane means dealing with dozens of teams, drivers, mechanics, and more; all while keeping viewers informed across hours of live programming. When he started covering NASCAR for NBC in 2001, Burns developed a sophisticated note-taking system that "catered to our programming, the way my brain worked, and portability." He started with half-sized legal pads and advanced to custom-bound pads that he would print and bind at home. He has since accumulated hundreds of binders filled with information. "I have boxes and boxes of notepads that impressed the crew chiefs and race engineers every time," Burns said. Enviously, the teams would ask "Who does that for you?" Burns response? "I do, with a laser printer and a big ol' stapler!" For taking notes, both hand-written and typed, he uses , a $4.99 iPad app [App Store]. "Note Taker HD has gone through a couple of valuable updates and has been rock solid all the way. I appreciate the "output" feature which allows me to save or email myself a copy of the weekends' work." For downloading and storing statistics as well as the weekly NASCAR Media Guide, he found the $1.99 app Simply PDF works best [App Store]. "Simply PDF has been solid as well, never balking at NASCAR's 100+ page per weekend update books. In addition, I permanently store 1-page race results for Nationwide and Sprint Cup, for every event, dating back to 2004." Originally, Burns used the Boxwave Read More

Cut the Rope: Experiments

| $0.99 | ZeptoLab UK Limited

Apple Launches 'Free App of the Week' and 'Editors' Choice' Promotions on App Store - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

As noted by our sister site , Apple yesterday issued a Tweet announcing that is the company's "Free App of the Week", discounted from its usual $0.99 price [App Store] for the iPhone version and $1.99 price [App Store] for the iPad version. While Apple has previously offered some apps for free through its App Store Facebook page, the new promotion directly through the App Store will make such offers more visible to users. As the official App Store Twitter account posted earlier today, Cut the Rope: Experiments is their "Free App of the Week", which as far as we can tell is the first of its kind. Now, don't get me wrong, Cut the Rope: Experiments is an excellent game and you should go download it immediately if you haven't already, no matter what the promotion is. But it will be interesting to see if this is something that Apple keeps doing each week, and I'd be curious to know how they decide on which games or apps to promote. As noticed by The Verge, the Editors' Choice terminology has also been picked up in the Mac App Store, with Cobook [Mac App Store] being the initial recipient of the designation. Deus Ex: Human Revolution [Mac App Store] has also been made an Editors' Choice pick, but there appears to be no Free App of the Week in the Mac App Store to correspond with the feature on the iOS side, although is a free app. Read More

Facebook Camera

| FREE | Facebook, Inc.

Facebook Launches New iPhone App Dedicated to Posting and Sharing Photos - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Facebook today released a new standalone iPhone app dedicated to posting and sharing photos on the 900-million strong social network. aims to make using photos on Facebook "faster and easier", according to a press release. The app, much like the Facebook Messenger app launched last year, is designed to streamline a single Facebook feature that users are constantly interacting with, rather than using the clunkier Facebook iOS app. Photos are such a large part of Facebook that the company recently spent $1 billion to purchase photo sharing service Instagram. Facebook built the app to make it much easier for mobile users to share multiple photos to the network -- something that is cumbersome in the standard Facebook app. , made by a dedicated Photos team, streamlines browsing photos that friends have posted, a task which is all many users want to use Facebook for. From All Things D: Facebook seems to have learned a heck of a lot from Instagram. Photos in Facebook Camera are full-bleed, spanning the entire width of the iPhone’s screen (which was probably tested when Facebook tweaked the photo experience for mobile last week). You’re able to comment and like photos directly from the stream. And of course, there are filters (albeit ones with names nowhere near as fun as Toaster or Valencia). More than this, it’s very lightweight. The app moves much faster than browsing photos within Facebook’s proper app. And by introducing a separate camera app, it’s another way of bypassing the cumbersome, clicky process of adding pictures via the main Facebook app. and may seem like competitors -- and within Facebook they will be, sort of. Ellis Hamburger reports for The Verge: The Facebook Camera team has been working on the app for months, and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly kept his desire to purchase Instagram Read More

TWC TV

| FREE | Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable and Viacom Settle Lawsuit Over iPad Television Streaming - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Time Warner Cable and Viacom have settled their legal entanglements regarding Time Warner's streaming of Viacom video content on its iPad app, according to the New York Times. The breakthrough comes as a result of a settlement between Time Warner Cable and Viacom, which owns cable channels like Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV and others. For months there had been a heated dispute over whether the cable company should have access to Viacom programs through its TWCable TV app. On Wednesday, Viacom said that the companies had agreed "to resolve their pending litigations" and that "all of Viacom’s programming will now be available to Time Warner Cable subscribers for in-home viewing via Internet protocol-enabled devices such as iPads." The companies have been fighting over streaming rights for more than a year. Time Warner argued that its existing agreements give it the right to provide video streams on any screen, rather than just the television. Viacom said the app was "unlicensed distribution of Viacom's programming." Viacom still has a pending lawsuit with Cablevision over its Optimum live TV app. Viacom's programming will roll out on the Time Warner Cable app over the next few weeks. Time Warner's app, , is available free on the App Store for its cable customers. [Direct Link] Read More

WatchESPN

| FREE | ESPN

Apple in Talks to Bring 'WatchESPN' App to Apple TV - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Bloomberg briefly reports that Apple and Disney are in talks to bring sports network ESPN's WatchESPN application [App Store] to the Apple TV set-top box. ESPN subscribers with AppleTV would gain access to the network’s Internet service on their TV sets. [Sean] Bratches, the network’s executive vice president of affiliate and advertising sales, spoke in an interview today. The brief report doesn't specify exactly how access to the WatchESPN functionality on the Apple TV would work, but currently customers of a number of cable and Internet companies have varying levels of access to the app's content on iOS and other platforms, which includes nearly all of ESPN's live broadcasts including online-only ESPN3 content. Currently, cable subscribers through Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon FiOS, and Bright House have full access to WatchESPN content, while subscribers on a host of other Internet services can receive access to the ESPN3 content through the app. Update: has expanded its article with additional comments from Bratches: “We’re a platform-agnostic content company,” Bratches, the network’s executive vice president of affiliate and advertising sales, said today in an interview. “To the extent that in the future there’s an opportunity with Apple to authenticate through the pay-TV food chain as we’re doing with Microsoft, that’s something that we will participate in.” Read More

Adobe Proto

| $9.99 | Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe Launches Creative Cloud and Muse, Augments iOS App Offerings - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

In line with its Creative Suite 6 announcement from earlier this week, Adobe today launched its Creative Cloud subscription service. As part of the Creative Cloud debut, Adobe has also publicly debuted Muse, a subscription-based website creation package that allow users to easily create websites without needing to know HTML. Muse has been in public beta since last August. Adobe Creative Cloud Membership Delivers: - Access to download and install all CS6 applications, new HTML5 desktop products – Adobe Muse and Adobe Edge preview – and integration with Adobe Touch Apps - Easy storage and sharing of content across desktop, mobile devices and the cloud - Integrated website publishing and hosting - Ongoing innovation that provides members with the most up-to-date products and services Individual pricing for Creative Cloud is set at $49.99 per month with an annual commitment or $74.99 on a month-to-month basis. Muse is included in that package, but is also available as a standalone subscription product priced at $14.99 per month with an annual commitment or $24.99 on a month-to-month basis. Adobe's Creative Cloud launch has also seen several improvements to the company's suite of iOS applications, including the launch of two new iPad apps: Adobe Proto [App Store] and Adobe Collage [App Store]. Plans for the two apps were announced last October as part of Adobe's push into tablet apps. Proto is a protoyping tool that allows users to create wireframes of websites and apps right on their iPads using touch gestures, while Collage is a mood board app allowing users to combine images, video, and text to help define creative concepts and share them with others. Adobe has also updated its existing Photoshop Touch [App Store] and Ideas [App Store]. All four iOS apps, which are priced at $9.99 each, integrate with the new Creative Read More

Instagram

| FREE | Burbn, Inc.

Facebook Buys Instagram For $1 Billion - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

...years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests. We believe these a... Read More

Kidney News

| FREE | BlueToad, Inc.

Charges Filed After Chinese Teenager Sells Kidney to Purchase iPhone and iPad - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Reuters reports that five people have been charged with intentional injury in southern China after a teenager sold one of his kidneys in order to purchase an iPad and iPhone. According to the report, those charged include the surgeon who removed the kidney and another person who arranged for the transplant into an undisclosed recipient. The boy, identified only by his surname Wang, now suffers from renal deficiency, Xinhua quoted prosecutors in Chenzhou city, Hunan province as saying. According to the Xinhua account, one of the defendants received about 220,000 yuan (about $35,000) to arrange the transplant. He paid Wang 22,000 yuan and split the rest with the surgeon, the three other defendants and other medical staff. The iPad 2 in Apple's Chinese online store ranges from 2,988-5,499 yuan, while iPhone pricing begins at 2,888 yuan for an unlocked iPhone 3GS and goes up to 6,788 yuan for a 64 GB iPhone 4S. The report indicates that Wang is from Anhui, one of the poorest provinces in China, and that he is suffering from renal deficiency since the transplant, a condition that is continuing to worsen. Interestingly, a nearly identical story surfaced last June, and while the teenager in that case was identified by a surname of "Zheng", the cases are so similar in their details that they may be referring to the same event. Trading and sale of human organs is banned in China, where low organ donation rates have led those in need of transplants to seek out alternatives to established organ matching programs. Read More

FileMaker Go 12 for iPad

| FREE | FileMaker, Inc.

FileMaker Pro 12 Adds New 'Starter Solutions' and Broadens iOS Integration - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Apple subsidiary FileMaker today announced the launch of its new lineup of FileMaker 12 database applications, launching new themes and "Starter Solutions" to help users get up and running, as well as significantly enhancing integration with iOS devices. "Databases only boost productivity if people genuinely enjoy using them," said Ryan Rosenberg, vice president, marketing and services, FileMaker, Inc. "Everyone wants a great database, but not everyone is a great designer. Let FileMaker 12 handle the design and you’ll create dazzling databases that are incredibly easy to use, on iPad, iPhone, desktop and the web." Among the key new features in FileMaker 12: - Over 40 new themes specifically designed to translate among desktop, iPad, and iPhone. New tools help users customize the default themes to create their own unique database documents. - Sixteen rebuilt Starter Solutions provide templates upon which users can build their databases depending on the type of data being stored. As with themes, the templates can be easily customized to suit users' needs. - Enhanced container fields for storing files within databases, improving performance and ease of use. - Quick Charts for streamlining the process of creating new charts based off of database entries. - Significantly enhanced iOS compatibility with free new FileMaker Go apps for iPad [App Store] and iPhone [App Store]. The new apps are compatible only with Filemaker 12, and the company continues to offer the $39.99/$19.99 FileMaker Go 11 apps for use with earlier versions of the software. Pricing for FileMaker 12 on the desktop remains the same as in the previous version, with FileMaker Pro 12 priced at $299 for new users and $179 for upgrade users and FileMaker Pro 12 Advanced checking in at $499 and $299 respectively. The basic FileMaker Server 12 is priced at $999/$599, while FileMaker Server 12 Advanced Read More

Air Display

| $9.99 | Avatron Software, Inc.

'Air Display' Updated to Support HiDPI OS X Mode on New iPad - MacRumors: Mac News and Rumors - Front Page

Last month, we noted that Avatron had announced forthcoming support for the new iPad in its Air Display software that allows users to add an iOS device as a wireless external monitor for their Mac. With the new iPad's Retina display running at 2048x1536, Air Display would be able to display a relatively large OS X desktop, but at very small size. But Avatron has been working to make Air Display compatible with the high-resolution "HiDPI" mode that has been quietly built into OS X. Apple has kept the HiDPI feature hidden by default due to an absence of any Macs with ultra high-resolution "Retina" displays that could use it to significant effect. If you have Mac OS X Lion and a Retina iOS device, now you can turn on "HiDPI mode." HiDPI is a built-in Mac OS X feature that makes UI elements render at double resolution. It's absolutely stunning on a Retina display. By default, Mac OS X disables HiDPI because until now, there has been no Mac display with high enough resolution. Air Display on a new iPad, with its 2048x1536 264-dpi Retina display, finally brings HiDPI to life. Air Display is compatible with most Macs running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later. Notably, late 2008/mid-2009 15-inch MacBook Pro models and early 2009/mid-2009 17-inch MacBook Pro models are not compatible with the Air Display Connect computer-side application when running OS X Lion. As we also noted last month, Apple's work on HiDPI mode is becoming more visible in OS X Mountain Lion, with the beta version of Messages available for OS X Lion showing some of the fruits of that labor to the public. Read More