Software

Meet the winner of 25 billionth Apple App Store download

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M.I.C Gadget:

Fu Chunli, a citizen of Qingdao, China, downloaded the 25 billionth app from Apple’s App Store early this month, pushing the mobile software store to a new milestone. The young lady downloaded a free version of Disney’s popular mobile game ‘Where’s my water?’As the winner, she received an iTunes gift card worth 10,000 US dollars. Last week, Apple invited her to the Beijing Apple store to collect her prize.

Windows 8 fail

Written by

Tim Bajarin:

This is a very important OS for PC vendors and most are betting their companies on it for any future growth. I am just not convinced that it will be a raging success out of the gate without the proper optimized alternate input that matches the touch input that is supposed to be the center of Metro’s real user value.

Windows 8, the new Vista.

Sidekick

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This has to be the most amazing sponsor page ever made. The guys at Oomph made this page to promote Sidekick as the sponsor on The Loop this week. (Tip: click on the lightning bolt on the right hand side).

Sidekick is a stealthy little Mac app that automatically updates laptop settings based on where you are. It takes care of annoying tasks so you can focus on what you need to do.

Screens

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Many thanks to Edovia for sponsoring The Loop this week with Screens. Screens VNC for iOS and Mac. It just works.

Mastered for iTunes: It’s about quality music for the customer

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I’ve been listening to quite a few new tracks from iTunes under Apple’s new “Mastered for iTunes” program. This is something Apple voluntarily started to help improve the audio quality of the music we download from iTunes. From my perspective, it’s great, but Apple has received some self-indulgent criticism in some circles. […]

Nike+ FuelBand

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Bobby Solomon tests Nike’s newest lifestyle product, which the company describes like this:

Nike+ FuelBand tracks your activity through a sport-tested accelerometer, then translates every move into NikeFuel. Nike+ FuelBand tracks running, walking, dancing, basketball – and dozens of everyday activities.

MacUpdate bundle: 11 Mac apps for $49.99

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MacUpdate started its spring Mac software bundle today. The bundle features 11 Mac apps worth $378 for $49.99. Apps in the bundle include VMware Fusion 4, Drive Genius 3, PDFpen 5.

A crock of shit

Written by

Fred Wilson:

Yahoo! thinks they can bully Internet newcomers with their bogus patents. And that’s a line they should not have crossed. Because other companies have bogus patents too. And they’ve opened themselves up to be sued back. Frankly I’d like to see it happen just to show them how stupid they are.

Telling it like it is.

Loyalty and Instapaper

Written by

Rian van der Merwe:

My loyalty comes from the fact that I’m unable to separate Instapaper from its creator, Marco Arment.

And it works really well.

After 244 years, Encyclopaedia Britannica stops the presses

Written by

New York Times:

After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered sets of reference books that were once sold door to door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued, the company is expected to announce on Wednesday.In a nod to the realities of the digital age — and, in particular, the competition from the hugely popular Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools, company executives said.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica was probably the first “adult” books I ever read as a kid. They opened the world up to a fat little kid in Nova Scotia.

Watch a live feed of the Northern Lights

Written by

Wired Science:

Are you too far south or in too bright of a city to catch the spectacular auroras that have been streaking across the sky lately?Not to worry. The Canadian Space Agency’s AuroraMAX Camera — located in the City of Yellowknife, near the Arctic Circle — can fulfill all your Northern-Light-viewing needs every night from now until late May.The AuroraMAX camera, run in collaboration with the University of Calgary and Astronomy North, will turn on automatically when darkness falls (around 7:30 MDT tonight) and provides spectacular, full-sky views of the Northern Lights. Peak aurora activity is expected in the hours just before and after midnight (Mountain Time).

Canadians are such nice people.

Sidekick 4.0 [Sponsor]

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Sidekick is a stealth little Mac app that automatically updates laptop settings based on where you are. It takes care of annoying tasks so you can focus on what you need to do.

By controlling a huge variety of settings, Sidekick makes your laptop more secure, efficient, portable, and personalized. It can automatically change your default printer, connect to a server, run a command in Terminal, lock the keychain, change the system location…the list goes on. Visit the Sidekick website to learn more.

Try Sidekick 4.0 for free. It’s super powerful and very easy to use.

Use the coupon code THELOOP to save 20% on Sidekick.

IfAlarm – a smarter alarm

Written by

Digital Nomad:

IfAlarm is the first ever alarm to set alarms not just by times but by real world conditions.If Alarms are set like they’re said: * “If it’s a beautiful day wake me at sunrise.” * “If I slept at least 6 hours wake me shortly after.” * “If it’s been raining wake me around 7, otherwise wake me at 8.” * “If it’s been snowing and it’s a clear day wake me at sunrise, otherwise don’t wake me at all.”IfAlarm keeps track of the details while asleep, and intelligently wakes up when asked, in plain English. Set alarms to wake early to avoid bad traffic, to go for a morning stroll, a dawn surf, to be the first on the mountain if there’s fresh powder, or sleep in till the last minute if really needed.

As someone who works at home, I don’t get up at a set time each day. It changes according to the time I went to bed and what I have planned for the following day. So I’m always changing my iPad’s alarm clock Wake Time. IfAlarm isn’t a complete solution but it adds some very interesting configurability.

Skype 5.6 for Mac now available

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Skype Garage:

Today, we are pleased to announce the release of Skype 5.6 for Mac. Please download the latest Skype for Mac to ensure you’re receiving the best quality from Skype on your Mac.New features and improvements in Skype 5.6 for Mac include:Automatic Updates Improved UI for group video calling New full screen mode in OS X Lion Ability to delete conversations Ability to disable Audio Gain Control

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 now available

Written by

Adobe:

Adobe announced the availability of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 software for Mac OS and Windows. First released as a public beta in January 2012, the final version of Lightroom 4 is now available for US$149 for the full version and US$79 for the upgradeAccording to Adobe, “Lightroom 4 introduces refined technology for superior shadow and highlight processing, ability to create photo books, additional local adjustment controls, and enhanced video support.”

The problem with Readability

Written by

Ben Brooks:

I like what Readability has tried to do with the service, and the apps are gorgeous, but I have a big problem with the approaches being taken by them. For one I can’t figure out if they want to be a great place to save articles for reading later, or do they want to be a middleman that helps make money for independent publishers and large publishers alike, or… I don’t know. The motives matter to me and I can’t figure out Readability’s.

I’m a long time user of Instapaper. I pay Marco for the service and have no plans to stop.

Apple’s App Store hits 25 billion downloads

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Apple’s App Store has been open for almost four years and Apple announced late on Friday that the 25 billionth app had been downloaded.

No contest winner has been announced but they will receive a $10,000 gift certificate in iTunes or Mac App Store.

Capo adds mastering-quality audio slowing engine

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Integrated a new mastering-quality audio slowing engine that significantly improves the clarity of slowed down music; fixed a bug that affected chord entries when a tranposing capo was set up in the note settings.

The new audio engine is amazing. IF you play guitar and haven’t tried Capo, you’re missing out.

Mountain Lion security and AppleScript

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Lex Friedman: To the average user, the two new security technologies coming to OS X this year—sandboxing and Gatekeeper—should be virtually invisible. But they could be all too visible to more advanced users, particularly those who use AppleScript and Automator. … Continued

Instapaper improvements

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So the bookmarklet now sports a completely new design that’s highly visible at every screen size, and works in more browsers, too.

The new version also supports multi-page articles. I didn’t even have to do anything, it just updated. I use Instapaper every single day and love it.

Deal of the Day – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 for $90

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If you find Apple’s iPhoto not powerful enough for your photo editing needs, take a look at both Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom apps. Both apps have free 30 day trials you can download and play with.

Aperture is available on the Mac App Store for the ridiculously low price of $80.00 and Amazon has Photoshop Lightroom available for a limited time for only $90.00.

Neither application has won the war of “Which is Better”. Both have their plusses and minuses. I’ve used both and like Lightroom better but for no other reason than a preferred interface, not functionality.

For those who want to play on the bleeding edge, Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 4 is now in public beta.