Latest Gear Live Videos
2010 Holiday Gift Guide: Free next-day shipping at Apple, Amazon
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features,
Okay, look--we realize that a lot of procrastination goes on around this time of year, and despite us doing our best to give you our gift recommendations in our 2010 Holiday Gift Guide, there are still a bunch of you scrambling to find something to get for the people in your life. Well, you're in luck, because you can still place an order online and have it delivered tomorrow, and Amazon and Apple are doing next-day shipping at no charge:
Apple free next-day shipping: Until 10:00am PST
Amazon free next-day shipping: Until 3:30pm PST
There you have it. You've got just a few more hours to handle your holiday shopping online--you know you don't wanna have to forage out to the local mall...
Advertisement
Mac App Store opens January 6
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,
.jpg)
It's been two months now since Apple announced some of the upcoming features that the Mac platform will be getting. One of the most interesting ones is bringing an App Store to the desktop. Apple promised it would be out within 90 days, and now we know it will open its doors on January 6. This means that if you own a Mac, on that date you'll be able to buy and download applications directly from the Mac App Store. The store will be available in 90 countries for both paid and free apps, and feature everything from games, productivity, lifestyle and education software. Mac developers have already been at work in integrating their applications with the new App Store, and they will get to keep 70% of the selling price while Apple gets 30%. The new store will be available to Snow Leopard users through a free download.
Read More 
| Apple
iTunes 10.1.1 released, squashes bugs
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Music, Software,
If you're an iTunes user, it's time to upgrade once more, as Apple just released iTunes 10.1.1 into the wild. The update seems mostly aimed at fixing a few bugs, so don't expect anything fancy to show up, okay?
iBooks 1.2 available now, bring collections, AirPrint, illustrations
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Books, App Updates, iPad Apps, Apple, Free Apps,
iBooks 1.2 has just been released by Apple, and with it comes a bunch of new features. You get support for full illustrations, AirPrint functionality for printing PDFs and notes in books, and more text fits on the page in iOS 4.2 and higher with auto-hyphenation. iBooks 1.2 also brings a new feature called Collections. These allow you to group your books similarly to how you can group apps into folders.
You can download iBooks 1.2 now for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
Read More | iBooks
Mac App Store to launch without Game Center, in-app purchases
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Apple, Rumors, Software,
Back in October, Steve Jobs explained in length how the iOS successes that Apple is enjoying have convinced them to incorporate it back to the Mac platform, and the first piece of that is the an introduction of an App Store in OS X. Promising that the Mac App Store would be live within 90 days, this puts it at some point in January at the latest. Now, Apple is informing developers that some expected features will not be available for Mac OS apps. Namely, in-app purchases, and Game Center. This means that desktop applications will not have access to these features which have started to be common in iOS devices. Whether this is due to a delay on Apple's part, or they simply do not intend to provide these features on the Mac, is unknown as of yet.
Read More | 9 to 5 Mac
iTunes extends song previews to 90 seconds
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Music,
Is 30 seconds enough time to get a feel for a song? If you said no, Apple agrees with you — today the company is rolling out 90-second previews for some songs on iTunes.
Prior to today, song previews were limited to half a minute, and for many songs they still will be. The 90-second previews are limited to songs that are more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds in length. Songs shorter than that retain their 30-second samples.
For example, looking at iTunes' most recent high-profile addition, the Beatles catalog, "Let It Be" (4:03) and "Hey Jude" (7:11) both get the 90-second treatment while "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (2:26) and "Love Me Do" (2:21) give listeners just 30 seconds to decide if they want to make a purchase.
The extension has been expected for over a month. Reports in early November said that Apple had sent a letter to the music labels informing them of the move, and that it was incumbent on them to opt-out if they didn't support the move. A cursory sampling of music from artists on all four of the major labels indicates none opted out.
For now the 90-second previews appear limited to the U.S. iTunes store. In the letter to the labels, Apple said it was believed that longer previews for some songs would lead to more sales, an assertion supported by research from Robert Morris University.
MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.0 released
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Software,
If you picked up one of the new MacBook Air notebooks that Apple released recently, you'll wanna fire up Software Update to pull down the EFI Firmware Update 2.0. It fixes an issue where the Air boots or wakes to a black screen or becomes unresponsive. We're sure it's rare, but we think we speak for everyone when we say that we'd rather something like that not happen at all, so take care of that update, okay?
Appy Entertainment: Trucks & Skulls Wins Again
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Video Games,
.jpg)
As everyone knows, Trucks are good and Skulls are evil. And when they get together…it's smashing. I'd read a comic book called Trucks & Skulls; I'd watch a movie called Trucks & Skulls; and I'd give my kids a bunch of toys called Trucks & Skulls.
What Trucks & Skulls is right now, though, is a game app for the iPhone and the iPad.
It hasn't been out for much longer than a month and already it's racking up the awards, the great reviews and the downloads.
The reason I pimp for this (again!) is that the game comes from Appy Entertainment and its Secret World Headquarters north of San Diego.
Click to continue reading Appy Entertainment: Trucks & Skulls Wins Again
Read More | Appy Entertainment
2010 Holiday Gift Guide: 11-inch MacBook Air
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Features, PC / Laptop, Women, Men, Techies,
Apple's smallest notebook is the MacBook Air, and all signs are pointing to this being the best-selling Mac this holiday season, so we had to include it in our 2010 Holiday Gift Guide. The 11-inch MacBook Air packs in speedy flash memory that is soldered directly onto the motherboard, resulting is lightning-fast performance. It also means no moving parts, so you get five hours of battery life from the tiny little wonder, and it even sports a full-sized keyboard, which we feel is a must (and is one of our main complaints with other netbooks.) The price starts at $999 from Apple, but hey, if you go with Amazon then its $994 with free shipping, and MacMall has them starting at $969--not bad for the most portable Mac out there.
Orange gives big discounts on iPad with 3G data plan in UK
Posted by John Kilhefner Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Wireless / WiFi,
It’s no secret that Apple’s iPad is a hot-ticket item this holiday season. Though with its price of $499-$699, you better hope your secret Santa has the hots for you this year. No such luck? Well, if you’re in the UK then consider looking to Orange for a contract-tied iPad deal of the decade. That’s right, with a two-year contract of £27 ($42) per month (£25 for existing customers) you can get an iPad Wi-Fi + 3G at prices of £199 ($312) for the 16GB version, £249 ($391) for the 32GB, or £349 ($626) for the 64GB.
This two year monthly plan allows you 1GB of anytime data, 1GB off-peak data (basically between midnight and 4pm), and 3GB of BT Openzone Wi-Fi.
Read More | Orange
