Apple Mac Store Opens it's Doors on January 6th

 

Apple has announced that it's Mac app store will be available for download on January 6th next year. This is Apple's desktop version of the already incredibly popular iPhone and iPad app stores. But everyone still running 10.5 needs to upgrade to 10.6 to take advantage of the Mac App store as it only runs on Snow Leopard. Apple is planning on launching it around the world in 90 countries and will include free and paid apps of a wide range of apps for Apple's computer OS from developers all around the world. However Apple is not taking submissions of apps that are trials, demos, or betas, you will have to go to the developer's website to get these, but if you are a developer, I would suggest getting yours in there to get better exposure as it will probably be as big of a hit with developers and consumers alike as the iPhone and iPad app store. 

Read the press release below. 

Apple's Mac App Store to Open on January 6

CUPERTINO, California-December 16, 2010-Apple® today announced that the Mac® App Store℠ will open for business on Thursday, January 6. By bringing the revolutionary App Store experience to Mac OS® X, the Mac App Store makes discovering, installing and updating Mac apps easier than ever. The Mac App Store will be available in 90 countries at launch and will feature paid and free apps in categories like Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity and Utilities.

"The App Store revolutionized mobile apps," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can't wait to get started on January 6."

The Mac App Store lets you browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what's hot, view staff favorites, search categories and read customer ratings and reviews. Like on iPhone®, iPod touch® and iPad™, you can purchase, download and install apps in just one click and start using them immediately. Purchased apps can run on all of your personal Macs and updates are delivered directly through the Mac App Store so it's easy to keep all of your apps up to date. The Mac App Store is available to Mac OS X Snow Leopard® users as a free download through Software Update.

Mac developers set the price for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

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Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.6.5 Update

 

The next maintenance update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard is here after a very long wait. Around 5 months to be exact. You can expect the usual bug fixes, speed increases and general tidying up in this update alongside some big improvements with the reliability of Microsoft's Exchange servers, image processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture and this update addresses stability and performance of graphics applications and games. The update is available now within Software Update

Full changelog below:

General fixes and improvements

Improves reliability with Microsoft Exchange servers.
Addresses performance of some image-processing operations in iPhoto and Aperture.
Addresses stability and performance of graphics applications and games.
Resolves a delay between print jobs.
Addresses a printing issue for some HP printers connected to an AirPort Extreme.
Resolves an issue when dragging contacts from Address Book to iCal.
Addresses an issue in which dragging an item from a stack causes the Dock to not automatically hide.
Resolves an issue in which Wikipedia information may not display correctly in Dictionary.
Improves performance of MainStage on certain Macs.
Resolves spacing issues with OpenType fonts.
Improves reliability with some Bluetooth braille displays.
Resolves a VoiceOver issue when browsing some websites with Safari 5.
Improves Bluetooth pairing with Magic Trackpad.
Resolves performance issues with third-party displays that use InstaPort technology.
Add SSL support for transferring files with iDisk.
Resolves an issue when opening 4-up Photo Booth pictures in Preview.
Addresses keyboard responsiveness issues in the Dock when Spaces is turned on.
Resolves an issue syncing Address Book with Google.
Fixes an issue when replying to a Mail message sent by a person whose name contains certain characters such as é or ü.
Improves performance for users bound to an Active Directory domain.
Improves reliability of Ethernet connections.
Systems with a Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009) installed can now be put to sleep. For more information, see Mac Pro RAID Card (Early 2009): Enabling system sleep.
Improves reliability of fibre channel connections, resolving a potential Xsan volume availability issue.
Adds RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras.
Security improvements; for information about the security content of this update, please visit this article.
Additional Information
This update also includes the improvements found in the Mac OS X v10.6.1, 10.6.2, 10.6.3, and 10.6.4 updates.

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Apple's Back To Mac Keynote Predictions

 

With Apple's return to the Mac after the mountain of mobile devices announced, it is meant to be a huge announcement. Starting at 10 am PST tomorrow, and the invite sent out to media last week, caused the entire internet to explode with predictions of what Apple is going to announce, and here is mine. 

For starters, if you look at the invite above, you can see a Lion behind the Apple logo, which probably means that the next version of Mac OS will be announced as Mac OS 10.7 Lion, as all recent versions of Mac OS  are named after big cats. Main features of the new version of the new Mac OS that have been floating around are touch screen support, drastic speed increases and subtle UI changes to stuff like the dock and the menu bar. The reason that touchscreen is in there, is because Apple has filed several patents about touchscreen iMacs and MacBooks, and this would be a great time for Apple to include some parts of iOS into Mac OS, i.e. the touchscreen aspect. Call me an Apple fanboy, but I cannot see what drastically new features Apple could add, as I think it is as good as it can get, yet we will find out tomorrow. 

 

In terms of hardware, the rumours about the long overdue update to the MacBook Air are picking up again. These rumours are saying that the new MacBook Air will be smaller with a 11.6" screen, a new version of SSD that is similar to a stick of RAM that is supposedly really fast and even slimmer profile. There are also some rumours of the MacBook and the MacBook Pros being updated, but I don't think that will happen as the Mac laptops got updated around April, and the MacBook family usually have a refresh cycle of around 9-10 months. Alike the laptops, I do not think that the desktops will get updated as they got their refresh this summer. 

So, not long to wait until we find out so stay tuned to the live blogs like Engadget's for all the latest stuff coming out of Cupertino. However, it is still not clear if Apple will be streaming the event itself, like the iPod event, so get ready for the Lion to come out of the cage.

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Update on 2010-10-20 16:51 by Patrick Rigby

Apple has just posted the live stream page. Check it out here.

Apple To Hold "Back To Mac" Event on 20th October

 

Yes your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Apple is holding an event that is not about a mobile device! Weird huh? Anyway, what should you expect from this event? Well I presume Mac OS 10.7 Lion, hence the Lion in the background. No word on features but expect the usual speed increases and other stuff that is under the hood that we don't care about. In terms of hardware, I would put my money on a long over due update to the Macbook Air. Rumours say a 11.6" screen, more USB ports and a HD iSight camera. But, per usual nothing is certain till Jobs announces it on stage. And talking of the event, it starts at 10am PST on the 20th of October and hopefully it will be live streamed like the last Apple event.

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