America Online (AOL) today released AOL Desktop for Mac (beta 4) to AOL Beta Central. Mail receives the most improvement in the latest beta release, according to the company, and the application works with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard as well as the WebKit update released with Apple's Safari 3.0 Web browser. The software is available for free via AOL Beta...

The number of Internet users regularly watching video online has finally risen above the halfway mark, suggests a new survey by the research group Horowitz Associates. Whereas 45 percent watched video weekly in 2006, and 71 percent watched monthly, these figures have jumped to 61 and 86 percent in 2007, respectively. 27 percent of Internet users ...

Divine Fiat today released Keynote TV, the company's latest theme for Apple's Keynote presentation software inspired by the Apple TV. "Keynote TV is designed around a stylish pool of blue light and Keynote's reflection feature," Divine Fiat said. "Keynote TV is perfect for any presentation but is particularly useful for displaying art and photograp...

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, iTS, iTunes

A report issued by Forrester Research suggests that contrary to conventional wisdom (or at least the comments here at TUAW), Apple is the loser in their feud with NBC-Universal. The on-going fight, which reached fruition last week, as all all NBC-Universal content was removed from iTunes, hurts Apple more than it hurts NBC. James McQuivey, an analyst for Forrest Research, urges Apple to make-up with NBC, otherwise they risk losing their spot as a major source in the distribution of online broadcast content. Why? Because although iTunes dominates the world of digital music sales, the same cannot be said for iTunes video downloads.

According to the report, which was quoted by CNET, Apple relies on NBC to deliver 30% of their video download sales. This is in line with the 40% figure claimed by NBC in October (I say we split the difference at 35 or call it a third). Furthermore, a Forrester study revealed that only 19% of users buy video content (either TV shows or full length movies) from iTunes and of that 19%, the average amount spent on videos is $30. Meanwhile, competing pay services like Amazon Unbox and the free offerings provided by the networks own websites and through services like the Fox and NBC collaboration Hulu.com make paying for an iTunes download, just so you can watch it on an iPod or Apple TV, less inviting or appealing to users.

Continue reading Report shows Apple needs NBC back, like yesterday

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Dell has unexpectedly run out of brown Zunes, a manager with the company explains. As part of a clearance coinciding with Black Friday and the release of Microsoft's latest Zunes, Dell last month hosted a deal on the original 30GB player. Shoppers could buy it for an extremely low $99, only $20 more than the 1GB iPod shuffle by Apple; this trigge...

LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling has announced that new holiday CD and DVD label template designs with Christmas, Hanukah and other winter holiday images are available for free download...

Filed under: Internet Tools, Widget Watch

Here's something for everyone who uses Tumblr. Version 3 of the Tumblr Dashboard widget is available with some cool new features. It can publish posts, links, quotes, and web photos. Also, it puts a dash (-) in front of the source on a quote, which looks nice on your post.

I've tried it out and it works well. I'd like to be able to drag and drop photos into the body field, though. Maybe next time.

[Via Dave Chartier]

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Developer Ian Page today unveiled Mactracker 5 ñ a tool outlining specifications of every Macintosh computer to date ñ adding Leopard support, and a number of other improvements. In addition to interface improvements, Mactracker now features introductory pricing on each machine's entry in Canadian and US dollars, euros, and pounds sterling, and inc...

Today's Lifehacker interview with Quicksilver developer Nicholas Jitkoff (neé Alcor) has struck a note of gloom into the holiday spirits around TUAW's home office (currently located in an unoccupied storefront of the West Edmonton Mall). While Nicholas is still planning to do what he can to improve stability for the existing b54 branch of QS, the road is less clear for future feature development; he doesn't have the time in his off hours to advance the wildly popular launcher to the next level, and the existing version meets his needs (other than the problem of stability). His words: "that branch is condemned to a long slow death," and "I'm inclined to encourage users to move over to the more stable and well supported alternatives like LaunchBar." Ouch!

This, of course, means an opportunity for some eager young guns to show the world what they can do with the source code to QS, available to one and all. The open source version of QS might never attract the attention and plug-in support of the original, but in the right hands... well, you never know. Visit the Google Code page to get involved with the trunk version of QS, and check out Nicholas' Google Tech Talk video on QS for more behind-the-scenes info.

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IBM has asked for an import ban on some computers built by ASUS, Reuters reports. The former today filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission, alleging that select machines sold under the ASUS name -- and also under third party names, possibly including Apple and Dell -- violate several patents, including ones relating to cooling...

Apple is gaining a lot of new customers through iPods, the "Get a Mac" ad campaign, and the iPhone, some former Mac users and others who have never used a Mac at all. With Christmas drawing closer, and users looking to treat themselves with a new computer, USA TODAY's Edward C. Baig offers his point of view on why people should make the switch from...

&lt;p&gt;New community site dedicated to the business of web app development, founded by the creators of &lt;a href="http://litmusapp.com/"&gt;Litmus&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;div&gt; &lt;a title="Permanent link to ‘Seeed’" href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/december#thu-06-seeed"&gt;&amp;nbsp;★&amp;nbsp;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt; </content>

Filed under: iPod Family, Cool tools, Hacks, Internet Tools, iPhone

Now here's a clever trick. Inventive Labs Gadgets has designed a Safari bookmarklet that adds "tabs" to your iPhone browsing experience. Just drag their bookmarklet into your Safari bookmarks bar, then sync your iPhone or iPod touch. (Make sure you've selected Info > Web browser > Sync Safari bookmarks in iTunes.)

Once synced, open a web page and then choose Tabulate from your iPhone bookmarks list. A small orange icon appears at the top-left of the screen. Next, tap on any link. The three-button control window shown here appears.

Tap on blue to open the link in the current tab, green to open the link in a new tab (i.e. a new Safari page, in iPhone terms), and orange to add the link to the list of flagged links to open later. The flagged items appear in orange at the top-left of the screen.

So how does it work? Not too badly. It's a little annoying opening the bookmarklet for each page and sometimes the javascript "took" better on some pages than others. That being said, I found it very useful to have around and it's staying in my permanent collection of iPhone javascript bookmarklets. Good job, Inventive Labs guys!

Thanks, Virginia. There really is a javascript clause.

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BlackBerry creator Research in Motion this afternoon announced a partnership with Yahoo to offer free Wi-Fi on JetBlue flights. The deal will provide custom Yahoo IM and mail services on both RIM's smartphones as well as on notebook PCs and will allow any device to use the service for general Internet access, including the BlackBerry's 'push' e-ma...

Filed under: Cool tools, Freeware, Widget Watch, Leopard

I don't know what it is-- in all my computing life, I have never once found a ToDo app that's kept me ToDo-ing. I'll decide to get organized, find a system and learn it, and a few weeks later, I'll have about 15 things to do that I never remembered to put on my ToDo list.

But maybe DoBeDo can finally break that pattern. It's not actually an app-- it's just a freeware widget, but according to our commenters, it's the best ToDo app/widget/whatever out there. And it's got an amazing amount of functionality for a widget-- it'll sync right up with iCal, and do everything you'd ever want to do with your tasks with just a keystroke. And as of a few days go, it is now updated for Leopard and ready for 10.5 users to "ToDo" as well.

Unfortunately, as nice as it is, I doubt it'll break my anti-productivity cycle. But until Apple creates an iWillpower that I can buy and install on my Mac, this will have ToDo.

Thanks, BJ!

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For one, “Mac hardware is beautifully designed,” explains Ed Baig (USA Today). And “the underlying software is polished, robust and secure.” For example, new Macs “come with iLife ‘08, a slick multimedia software suite for handling pictures (iPhoto), video editing (iMovie), making music (GarageBand) and websites (iWeb).” And Mac OS X Leopard “has standout features of its own, including Time Machine (dirt-simple backup) and iChat (way cool video chat).” What’s more, Macs “have been immune from the scourge of viruses and malware that have long plagued Windows.” Mac customers “heap lavish praise on Macs for good reason,” Baig concludes.

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Retail

Gothamist has some beautiful photos of NYC's newest Apple Store on 14th street, scheduled to open Friday, December 7th. According to Gothamist, customers are greeted by a concierge team upon arrival in the three-story store. There's a spiral glass staircase (the first to span 3 floors in an Apple Store) and a Genius Bar capable of managing 100 customers per hour.

If you're going to see this store over the weekend (doors open officially at 6:00 PM on Friday), please let us know! You can get subway directions here.

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The Camino Project has released Camino 1.5.4, improving stability and security of the third-party Web browser for Mac users. The latest release upgrades to the Mozilla Gecko rendering engine 1.8.1.11, which includes several critical security and stability fixes. The update also improves compatibility with some DHTML websites, fixes a bug allowing u...

As announced earlier this week, MacUpdate is offering a Promo Bundle with at least 7 Best Selling applications for US$49.99 (a savings of $184.81)...

Filed under: Odds and ends, Holidays

The holidays are a time for frivolity, are they not? They are also a time for rhetorical questions, but that is neither here nor there. Today's bit of Christmas cheer comes from iYule.tv. The idea is simple: take that corny old burning fire that some tv stations broadcast for the benefit of apartment dwellers, non-fireplace owners, the aged, and the lonely and put it on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, Mac, PC, XBox, or Zune (hey, it is Christmas, so we have to include everyone). iYule offers up several high quality downloadable versions of this roaring fire (with music, without music, widescreen, and so on) for a reasonable price ($5 - $10) and no DRM.

Some of the proceeds will go to charity, so think about that before you fill the comments with things like, 'Why would I pay for that!' or 'I would buy that if it cost $2 and came with a free Mac.' Also keep in mind that a similar, though free, yule log is available.

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AT&T today announced that it will transition more of Dobson's Cellular One stores to its own AT&T name, and will make Apple's iPhone available at those retail locations. The move will greatly increase the availability of iPhones to customers who were previously unable to obtain the device locally in more than 200 stores in 16 states, and will allow...

Stockicons has released the latest collections in the Plateau family of royalty-free stock icons...

Apple's widely rumored subnotebook is close enough to release that the company has priced it, CNBC show host Jim Goldman has said in a financial TV report broadcast today and observed by AppleInsider. The presenter refers to alleged sources close to Apple's manufacturing plants in southeast Asia who have seen the 12-inch notebook and appear to con...

Users are becoming more comfortable with the idea of adopting the Mac platform, according to several analysts -- a fact that should drive a huge Holiday season in terms of Mac unit sales. Forbes reports that RBC analyst Mike Abramsky upped his price target of Apple shares to $215.00 from $205.00 on Thursday. He maintained his "outperform" rating on...

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, Leopard, Deals

We've covered Jisho, the Japanese to English dictionary for OS X, a few times in the past, so I'm pretty sure that everyone who wants to translate Japanese to English and reads our site has probably seen it already. But just in case you've been waiting on a decision to buy it, wait no more-- not only has James, the creator, recently updated the app to version 2.2 (with Leopard compatibility, results sorting, and a greatly enhanced zooming function), but he's also putting it on sale for TUAW readers: between now and Sunday, December 9th, use the code "TUAWFTW" during checkout, and get the $15 app for 20% off.

Newly updated software and a discount just for you readers? Kirei desu! Sore kudasai!*

*Note: The author of this post does not know Japanese and does not own Jisho. For all he knows, he just said that "You have a nice chicken."

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Google has just released an integrated web application for iPhone and iPod touch. It offers you access to Google search, gmail, calendar, and reader applications in a single, convenient place. A recent Staff Pick, it’s one of the more than 450 news, games, weather, sports, and other web-based applications for iPhone and iPod touch you’ll find on our web apps page. Like information about designing, coding, optimizing, and submitting your own web application? Then visit our iPhone Dev Center.

Samsung is developing two storage technologies that should greatly improve the capacity and size of future handheld devices, the company has revealed in advance of the Consumer Electronics Show next month. In its update, the electronics giant notes that it will soon produce 32 gigabit (4 gigabyte) NAND flash chips. These do more than double the d...

Filed under: iPod Family, Rumors, Software Update, iPhone

TUAW reader Josh Zeller tipped us off to this electronista post suggesting that a big firmware upgrade is about to bow, bringing voice recording and disk mode to the iPhone. If true, these major features would be welcome additions to the ever-growing iPhone user base. On the down side, every firmware upgrade comes as a roadblock to the third-party application community, requiring a new jailbreak. And yes, this would require a new jailbreak despite the possible disk access. Apple traditionally only grants access to the media portions of the unit's onboard storage.

How much do we believe this rumor? Apple has been good about bringing out firmware upgrades every few weeks, so if you wait just a little while, pretty much any firmware upgrade rumor comes true. As to the voice and disk details? These rumors have appeared for nearly every major firmware update--so eventually they may just be right... if you wait long enough.

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Filed under: Gaming, Odds and ends, Freeware

The GameTap lite client has been out on the Mac for a while, but GameTap just finally released a new version of their full player, and it is now fully compatible with the Mac.

Unfortunately, things aren't quite hunky dory just yet-- the Mac player will only play Mac-supported games, which leaves a large number of games completely out-- Sam and Max, Psychonauts, and any other games listed as "Windows" are N/A in the Mac player. However, any emulation titles are in, so Genesis, Neo Geo, and the old arcade games are all playable, according to GameTap's page-- you can get your Sonic on in OS X.

This still doesn't help us with new games, of course, but it is awesome to have a huge library like that now available for gaming on the Mac. The GameTap player is now available for download over on their homepage, and while many games are available for free, a Gold subscription to play all the games is $60 a year.

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4D today announced the release of 4th Dimension 2004.7...

Filed under: Internet, iPhone

Yesterday, TUAW reader Stephen wrote and asked whether dropping EDGE would "stick". And that simple request led me a lot further than I expected. So let me start from the beginning. As you can see from this picture, this month I was charged only for voice minutes. So as far as that goes, dropping EDGE does "stick". But there's quite a bit more to the story.

Continue reading Dropping EDGE: An iPhone follow up

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Apple has officially declared that its newest retail store on West 14th Street in New York's Meatpacking District will open on Friday, December 7th at 6:00 p.m. EST. The new store is Apple's first three-story retail space that boasts two floors dedicated to products and a third dedicated to services, including a 46-foot Genius Bar and specially des...

Two new native applications for the iPhone promise to open up the abilities of the device. A member of ModMyiFone has devised an MMS application, which will finally let users send photos to other phones without e-mailing them. Users simply enter a title and the receiver's phone number, and then select an image from the list of files found. As th...

IBM's Silicon Photonics research group today published news of what it believes is a major breakthrough in increasing processor performance with multi-core processors. Instead of relying on typical copper wire connections between cores, the New York state-based firm has developed a unit it refers to as an electro-optic modulator. The device use...

You’ll find the newest Apple Store on West 14th Street in New York City’s Meatpacking District. And when it opens its doors tomorrow at 6:00 p.m., Eastern time, it will become the largest Apple Store in Manhattan and the first three-story store with two floors dedicated to products and a third to services. On that floor, you’ll find a 46-foot Genius Bar and specially designed areas for workshops and personal training. That includes the first Pro Labs, a new service providing free, in-depth training on such industry-leading pro applications as Final Cut Pro. Apple Store West 14th Street has a staff of more than 175 highly trained Mac Specialists, Mac Geniuses, and Creatives.

Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone

I've been checking my dictionary, but it's hard to find an adequately cromulent word to describe the dramatic enbiggening embiggening of Google's iPhone-specific services. The big G now offers single-screen access to Gmail, Calendar, and Reader among other services, as well as the homerific Search capability, when accessed on iPhones and iPod touches. Rather than introubulating their service, this screen redesign applies a debigulator to the overall Google experience and allows you to use many of the most belovedest features directly from a single screen.

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Wired Inc. has begun shipping its MasonIP network-attached video player and DVD decoder/proofer. The device is designed to deliver flexibility and high image quality for the most demanding playback options, decoding nearly every type of SD and HD video with the ability to output to virtually any professional monitor or consumer TV. The device inclu...

Filed under: Accessories, Analysis / Opinion, Features, Deals, Holidays

You might recall that Apple issued $100 store credits to iPhone early adopters. While the deadline for getting your $100 store credit has passed, the credit itself never expires (sweet). Why not use that 'free' money to buy friends or family a lovely gift from the Apple store? We've compiled a few suggestions to get you started.

Please note that all of the product links in this post point to the online Apple store, since that is where you can use your credit. These items might be found cheaper elsewhere.

Continue reading TUAW Buyers Guide: Spend that $100 iPhone credit

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Boomwave Products today began shipping its Bearaphim, Diablo, and Diablo Spectrum cases for Apple's current-generation iPod nano and iPod classic. Boomwave's new Bearaphim cases aim to protect third-generation iPod nanos in the form of a bear with ears and an extended paw. Diablo Spectrum cases for current-generation iPod nanos appear as 'devilish'...

O’Reilly Media has announced the release of “Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual,” by David Pogue...

Apple needs to work hard towards getting NBC videos back on iTunes, argues a recent report by Forrester Research. Firm analyst James McQuivey claims that when NBC videos dropped from iTunes this past weekend, he warned Apple executives that there was too much at stake. "Don't let the Macgeeks posting angry blogs against NBC fool you," McQuivey's ...

Recosoft today unveiled PDF2Office Professional 4 for Mac OS X, a major upgrade to the PDF-to-Office format conversion tool that brings more than 300 new features and enhancements as well as compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. PDF2Office Professional converts PDF documents to the Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, RTF, and other file formats by recr...

As announced in late August, Apple CEO Steve Jobs last night received his medal for entry into the California Hall of Fame, an institution meant to promote the state's history and culture. The award was presented personally by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, and as Jobs came to the stage, The Beatles' "Revolution" playe...

Dell on Thursday revealed that it will begin selling its computers at Best Buy stores in the US, marking one of the company's most significant ventures into retail. The Texas PC builder will offer both desktops and notebooks from its Inspiron and XPS lines; this includes the iMac-like XPS One, according to the company. Outside of the all-in-one c...

Apple may be preparing a significant update for the iPhone as early as this weekend that will have some heavily requested features, according to a claim from CNET France. The site points to multiple reports that a 1.1.3 upgrade for the iPhone will appear by Saturday which adds both a disk mode for storing general data on the device and a voice rec...

Negotiations between Apple and Volkswagen are at a halt, a German business publication suggests. The companies' respective CEOs, Steve Jobs and Martin Winterkorn, are said to have met in August to discuss the prospect of an "iCar," which would integrate Apple products directly into the design; now however, Capital magazine claims that although Vol...

Jumsoft today announced the release of three new Web site templates — Rainbow, Patronage, and Mental Image...

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, iPhone

After I posted about testing voice recording on the iPod touch, faithful TUAW reader Zach did a bit of hunting around the Internet. He discovered that the iPod accessories communicate using a special accessory protocol and that it may be necessary for the iPod touch to talk to the device properly and tell it to boost its gain while recording voice.

Here are a few of the links he found about this accessory protocol. If any of you have further experience in this arena and can make suggestions on how to try to tell a MicroMemo to increase its gain from an iPhone platform, please chime in in the comments.

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&lt;p&gt;Tons of new features and improvements to one of my very favorite apps, including significant performance gains for large libraries, support for images (including icons) as a native data type, scripting fixes when running on Leopard, and more. See Bare Bones&amp;#8217;s &lt;a href="http://www.barebones.com/support/yojimbo/arch_yoj15.shtml"&gt;copious release notes&lt;/a&gt; for the full list.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;div&gt; &lt;a title="Permanent link to ‘Yojimbo 1.5’" href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/december#wed-05-yojimbo15"&gt;&amp;nbsp;★&amp;nbsp;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt; </content>

Filed under: OS, Leopard

Back to My Mac is one of those 'wow' features of Leopard. It lets you connect, securely, to a remote Mac (running Leopard) and access files and control it from any other internet-connected Mac (which also has to be running Leopard). At least, that's what it is supposed to do. Many people, including scores of TUAW readers, are finding that Back to My Mac is fickle at best. It seems flummoxed by most router setups, and some people without complicated home networks are finding Back to My Mac performance spotty at best.

TidBits reports that Apple is aware of the problem (we should hope so!) and is working on it. Apple even responded to someone who reported a problem to assure them that a fix is in the works and should be available in the coming weeks.

As Glenn Fleishman points out, Apple usually doesn't admit to this kind of thing. Is this the dawn of a new, open era in Apple's dealings with customers? I doubt it, but I sure hope so. Either way, Back To My Mac users, or people who would like to use Back To My Mac, should expect a more pleasant experience in a few weeks.

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Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

In this round of Ask TUAW, we're going to be tackling questions about video codec support, using the Aluminum Apple Keyboard in Windows, getting file paths, setting up a software RAID, sharing an iPhoto library between users on the same computer and more.

As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. And now to the questions!

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Video codecs, Apple Keyboard, software RAID and more

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Filed under: Software, Odds and ends

Google has announced the opening of their new Google Mac Developer Playground. This is basically just a Google Code site that collects together a variety of the Mac related projects that Google's Mac team works on during their so-called 20% time, the time that Google gives their engineers to play around with the things they really want to work on