Intuit and others spend millions to keep the IRS from preparing return-free tax filing.
Software
Apple’s iCloud problem
Ellis Hamburger wrote a great piece about why we haven’t seen more app developers supporting iCloud.
Tabular: Tablature editor for the Mac
Tabular is a brand new tablature editor that lets you read and write music for guitar, bass, drums and much more. It’s the best way to learn new songs, write your own songs and run through practice exercises for nearly any kind of stringed instrument or drum kit.
It’s a nice looking app. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks well done.
10 Mac apps for $50
MacUpdate’s promotion is ending soon.
Google Reader’s readers
MG Siegler:
I can’t help but get the feeling that the ramifications of Google killing off Reader are going to be far more wide-reaching than they may appear at first glance.
RSS is important to many sites and people in a variety of ways. MG looks at it from TechCrunch’s point of view and from his own site.
Quitting Google
Ben Brooks explains how he kicked Google to the curb.
iTunes Business Review
Horace Dediu is getting set to publish a report on iTunes and how the business is doing. He put together an excerpt on his site.
The Life expectancy of Google products
Charles Arthur takes a look at 39 shuttered Google products.
How the Apple ID password reset exploit worked
Nick Arnott give us a walkthrough of how the exploit worked. It’s important to note that Apple has already fixed the security hole, but it’s interesting to see what happened.
Feedbin: A Google Reader alternative
I saw this mentioned on App.net the other day and it looks interesting. I pinged its creator Ben Ubois and asked if it was meant to be a Google Reader alternative and he said yes. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I will.
Trusting Google
Om Malik:
It is hard to trust Google anymore to make rational and consumer centric decisions. I said — nuanced as it might be — that I don’t trust Google to introduce new apps and keep them around, because despite what the company says, these apps are not their main business.
That’s how I feel.
What’s Twitter like for a new user?
Matthew Panzarino decided to start over with Twitter, to get a sense of what the experience is like for a new user.
How-to enable iCloud two-step verification
Cody Fink wrote a nice article on what two-step verification is and how to enable it.
Apple beats Google, Amazon in cloud war
Apple is dominating the cloud storage wars, followed by Dropbox, Amazon and Google according to Strategy Analytics ‘Cloud Media Services’ survey.
In a recent study of almost 2,300 connected Americans, Strategy Analytics found that 27% have used Apple’s iCloud followed by 17% for Dropbox, 15% for Amazon Cloud Drive and 10% for Google Play (see chart).
A FeedBurner replacement
Earlier this week I asked all of my RSS subscribers to change the link they use because I am moving away from Google’s FeedBurner. The biggest problem I face now is how to count my subscribers, the main feature I used in FeedBurner. […]
Mark Morford’s Apothecary
A new app features the content of Mark Morford, the San Francisco Chronicle columnist and culture critic.
New OS X Trojan installs adware in your browser
A new Trojan seemingly focused on OS X installs software that shows ads in your Web browser.
No thanks Google
Om Malik on launching Google Keep after just killing Google Reader:
I spent about seven years of my online life on that service. I sent feedback, used it to annotate information and they killed it like a butcher slaughters a chicken. No conversation — dead. The service that drives more traffic than Google+ was sacrificed because it didn’t meet some vague corporate goals; users — many of them life long — be damned.
Looking from that perspective, it is hard to trust Google to keep an app alive.
I agree completely. How can Google expect users to trust them with an app when they could shut it down at any time. No thanks Google.
Pixelmator crash bug fixed with latest OS X update
The crash was caused by NVIDIA graphics card drivers and is now fixed, according to the Pixelmator Team.
The return of NetNewsWire
Daniel Pasco:
Second, even though we’ve been quiet about it, we have been working on new versions of NetNewsWire for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. We have some great new features and a modern design that we can’t wait to show you.
Great news for RSS users.
PDFpen 6
Smile’s PDFpen 6 is now available, with Word export and other new features.
iOS 6.1.3 fixes passcode bypass bug, improves Maps in Japan
iOS 6.1.3 is available, with an important security update and improvements to the Maps app in Japan.
‘The price of free’
Michael Jurewitz has some wise words for developers scratching their heads about “revenue models.”
Photo viewer for Mac that uses hand motion gestures
A new app called Unbound for Mac allows photo viewing by waving your hands in the air to mimic gestures. I actually emailed the developer to see if the video was real and he assured it was.
Feedly adds 500K + users since Google Reader announcement
Feedly has added more than half a million new users since Google announced plans to stop supporting Reader last week.
Digg: We’re building a reader
Digg has announced that making a new reader is at the top of its priority list now that Google is shutting down its own Reader product.
‘Google Reader is dead, so we built it for you in Zite (in six hours)’
Zite built a replacement for Google Reader in less than a day.
10.8.3 released; Windows 8 support, audio stutter fixes
Apple has released OS X 10.8.3, which is now available through Software Update or from the Web site.
Google Reader’s creator reflects
“When they replaced sharing with +1 on Google Reader, it was clear that this day was going to come,” he said. Wetherell, 43, is amazed that Reader has lasted this long. Even before the project saw the light of the day, Google executives were unsure about the service and it was through sheer perseverance that it squeaked out into the market. At one point, the management team threatened to cancel the project even before it saw the light of the day, if there was a delay.
Nice article from Om Malik.
Transitioning from Google Reader to Feedly
I like the people at Feedly and the service. This could be a good alternative to Google Reader and they’ve promised to work with developers, so hopefully apps like Reeder will support the service as well.