Author: Chris Brandrick

If you miss using Sparrow, you may well be interested in a new app that just arrived in the Mac App Store. Airmail is a new native email client for OS X from app developer Bloop. Available now for $1.99, the developers state you’ll get a “powerful mail client with a minimal design” providing a “modern and easy-to-use experience.”

As a staunch Gmail user I find myself making extensive use of labels — among other key features — to manage, sort and archive the multitude of incoming messages hitting my inbox. Due to this seemingly unwavering dependency on Gmail’s more advanced feature set, I’ve never really found favor with Apple’s default Mail application — yup, it may well suit many, but it isn’t for me — instead I find myself constantly seeking alternative solutions beyond that of the default web interface, despite its humble effectiveness.

Sparrow was one such hope, offering to scratch the itch of a neat desktop mail client that worked well with Gmail, and for a while it definitely fit the bill. Sparrow presented a clean and straightforward design, along with enough features to keep most avid Gmail users happy. However, following Google’s acquisition of the Sparrow team, development on the app came to a sudden halt and thus my search continued. After Sparrow’s death last summer, Ellis Hamburger of The Verge looked at what alternatives were available, concluding that very few clients were actively contending for “the Mac mail crown.”

Now it seems Airmail is ready to take its shot at said crown, quietly launching on the Mac App Store this Wednesday.

Taking it for a spin

Airmail has an impressive feature set, most noticeably its well integrated multiple account support and general speediness. A more thorough run-through of features includes the likes of support for folders — nested or otherwise — aliases, keyboard shortcuts, including support for Gmail shortcuts, drag and drop, filters, Notification Center support, full-screen mode and more.

Prior to hitting the Mac App Store, Bloop’s app has been available in a free public beta since earlier this year, and I’ve been using it on and off for a while now. During my time with Airmail, despite a few issues with slow startup, I have been pleasantly surprised at how unassuming the app is. Once it’s actually up and running Airmail is fast, works exactly as you would expect and has a few neat touches, such as the filters to quickly see new mail, mail messages with attachments, or those from a selected sender for example. Switching between multiple accounts works great, but currently Airmail only supports IMAP mail services.

While in beta the app received updates at a rapid pace, and it seems this welcomed fast development process is going to carry over to the Mac App Store build — while writing this article an update was pushed out, going from 1.0 to 1.0.2 in its first day.

Airmail strikes a favorable balance between offering a selection of great features and a simplistic interface. Like Sparrow that came before it, Bloop’s Airmail is a mail client striving to retain a certain straightforwardness to the act of sending email.

For a $1.99 it’s worth a try, especially for the devoted Gmailer.

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Dots for iOS is a simple color-matching puzzler from the folks at New York City-based Betaworks. The free iPhone-only game launched earlier this month, quickly climbing the App Store charts and rapidly racking up more than 1 million downloads.

Initially Dots seems like something of an odd fit for Betaworks. The young media incubator is probably best known for its acquisition of Digg last summer, followed by its recent gain of a majority stake in popular read-it-later service Instapaper. The company simply doesn’t have a history in gaming, and as detailed on the Betaworks blog, Dots’ introduction was, in fact, something of a happy accident.

Betaworks’ resident hacker Patrick Moberg ended up creating the game following several interaction design experiments. It’s experiments like these that Betaworks hope will help the company in gaining valuable user engagement insight. Speaking to Mashable, Betaworks’ Paul Murphy explained that the release of Dots will help the company learn “how to keep people engaged,” adding that what it gains will be applied to Digg and other Betaworks products.

So, is the free game worth your time, or is it just a bare-bones experiment aimed to help Betaworks better its other products? Well, as it turns out, it can be both.

How it works

The straightforward, visually pleasing puzzler tasks you with clearing your game board of as many colored dots as possible within 60 seconds, all in the pursuit of gaining a leading high score.

To clear the dots you must match a minimum of two, dragging your finger in a straight line from one corresponding colored dot to another. Once a link is made the dots promptly disappear and the board refills, replacing them as quickly as you can remove them. A point is awarded for each dot you manage to clear.

Things get interesting when you manage to connect four or more identical dots in a square formation. Doing this will clear the board of all dots of that squares given color. After a few play-throughs, the importance of making squares becomes overly apparent, as they are key to ensuring that you set a respectable high-score that linear connections alone can’t assure.

Comparing your high score to those of your friends is done via Twitter or Facebook. You can chose to connect to just one service, or both, as a means to see your friends results. Support for Apple’s Game Center is sadly lacking, which is a shame as the ability to challenge friends to beat your tally would be a nice addition, especially considering the connections to Twitter and Facebook are underused — you can’t tap on a friend’s name to fire off a challenge via a tweet for example.

Gaining an even loftier score can be achieved by use of power-ups. Dots presents you with three choices to advance your game further, all of which add a certain degree of strategy into the mix. The first, Time Stops, pauses the one-minute countdown for five seconds, giving you extra time if you feel you’re having a particularly good run, and would like just a little longer to rack up some more points. The second power-up is known as a Shrinker, offering the ability to remove a single dot from the game board just by double-tapping it — these come in handy if one dot is standing in the way between you and completing an all-important square. Finally, the third power-up is known as an Expander — these do the same as a completed square, removing all dots of a chosen color.

To use these power-ups you need to purchase them with your gained dots. You soon amass a decent number from just regular play, as each high score is added to your dots total at the end of each game.

For the impatient, dots can also be bought with real cash — 5,000 will cost you 69 cents, 15,000 will set you back $1.49, whereas 50,000 are priced at $2.99. However, due to the ease of which dots can be attained from normal play, buying extra with real money is in no way essential, and instead just a nice way to add to the tip jar for an otherwise free game.

There are times during play when you’ll see a square for the taking made up of more than four dots, and yet despite how tempting it may be to take the time to join the additional points up, especially due to the delightful feedback you receive with each connection, it is a misuse of your ticking seconds. Whether you score a square of four dots or nine, the end result is fundamentally the same — all those colored dots are going to be added to the tally and disappear regardless, so chaining a larger square is purely wasted time. Initially this lack of reward for forming larger squares may seem like a frustrating omission, yet the truth lies in Dots’ clean and clear simplicity. One dot equals one point, and it always will.

Clearing dots is as simple as it sounds, at times captivating and calming, at others frantic and frustrating. The addition of a few select power-ups give this lightweight game just enough in terms of depth to make the high-score objective appealing and incessantly addictive.

Dots is a wholly satisfying pick-up-and-play game, perfect for those fleeting free moments.

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Twitter surprised OS X users Thursday by pushing out a small update for their long-neglected official Mac (AAPL) app. But new features found in version 2.2 are few and far between: they include support for Retina displays, 14 new language options — including French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish (to name but a few), and slight updates to various icons along with other minor interface tweaks.

Before Thursday’s upgrade the desktop app — which started life as Tweetie – hadn’t seen an update since back in June 2011. In that time many users, myself included, came to accept that perhaps the standalone app was never to see any future improvements. This concern was further solidified when in September 2012 reports surfaced suggesting that the client had been killed off for good with no further development planned. But this latest small-scale update clarifies Twitter’s current position: that it intends to continue to update the popular app.

If a recent tweet by Twitter’s own Ben Sandofsky (as spotted by TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington) is anything to go by, we may be seeing improvements for Twitter for Mac more frequently. Sandofsky tweeted that he is taking a break from working on iOS apps to move over to the Mac client full time.

Whereas it’s good to finally see Twitter put more resources back in to their much overlooked Mac app, this latest update won’t blow you away by any means. Version 2.2 is but a minor improvement on what came before.

One curiosity is the lack of support for Mountain Lion’s Notification Center — the app’s preference pane still touts Growl as your de facto notification choice.

Here’s hoping that future updates come thick and fast, bearing more substance and native support for things such as Twitter’s own Vine, and Apple’s Notification Center, for example.

Oh, and Twitter, your old logo is still showing on the app’s Mac App Store listing.

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Picking up a free app with your morning coffee is about to change, as coffee giant Starbucks announced it’s doing away with redemption cards effective Wednesday. Instead, it’s opting to integrate the long-running “Pick of the Week” promotion directly into its free iOS app.

This switch to digital will see the removal of the cards typically found near cash registers, instead swapping the lengthy codes for a paperless solution. Customers will now need to either connect to the complimentary in-store Wi-Fi, or fire up the Starbucks app and follow the on-screen prompts to download their latest freebie.

Starbucks and Apple first partnered back in 2007 when the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store launched. Initially offering just free music, the promotion soon expanded to offer content from outside iTunes. In 2011, free downloads from both the iBookstore and the App Store were introduced.

Speaking to CNET, Starbucks Chief Digital Officer Adam Brotman explained that the action is a “reflection of Starbucks and Apple working together to strengthen the relationship for customers.” Brotman stated that the company’s apps are now used actively by more than 10 million users, adding that this latest move is just another step in their plan to “integrate more things” into their mobile offering.

To mark the move away from redemption codes the coffee chain is currently giving away for free Rovio’s Angry Birds Star Wars, usually priced at 99 cents.

The established Pick of the Week promotion has presented a great way to get paid apps into the hands of a broad range of customers, which is not only good for Apple as a way promote iOS apps, but also good for Starbucks who gets to give out a freebie with its cup of joe.

Now admittedly, Starbucks choosing to swap the tried-and-tested paper cards for direct downloads is a good move for those regular, more savvy users of the promotion (let alone the environment). Yet it could be argued that the removal of those physical, tangible cards may result in a drop in downloads. Customers could just forget to fire up the app and grab the freebie — the little cards served as a solid call-to-action to at least look at the latest promo item. Let’s hope Starbucks keep some form of in-store promo in place for the downloads, or they may just get forgotten about.

 

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Apple’s iPad is now available internationally, a full 53 days after its original U.S. debut.

This Friday morning early adopters around the world queued up in a bid to get their hands on the long-awaited tablet device. Many of Apple’s retail stores decided to open an hour earlier than usual. The doors opened as planned, ready to serve the scores of awaiting anticipated Apple shoppers that had formed queues from the very early hours of the morning.

Shoppers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK can now get their hands on the device. In the UK a basic 16GB Wi-Fi model can be picked up for £429.99, the same model is priced at $549 for Canadian customers, whereas German consumers can grab a new iPad from €499. More international pricing details for the iPad can be found on your country’s Apple store website.

For those not in the countries outlined above, Apple has detailed that more countries will receive the 9.7-inch device at some unknown point in July. Today’s more widespread global availability comes after Apple had to delay the international launch due to the overwhelming debut the tablet enjoyed in the U.S..

Reports regarding the tablet’s global launch have started to roll-in, detailing the reception Apple’s device has garnered. Several hundred people were queuing outside Apple’s flagship UK store according to UK tech publication The Register. Similar scenes were reported at Spain’s Munich store, where 9to5Mac described the launch event as manic. Apple fans in Japan apparently started queuing days in advance according to a TUAW report.

Following today’s global launch Steve Jobs will no doubt detail how the international launch fared at the upcoming WWDC next month with some early sales figures.

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Apple’s iTunes now accounts for 28 percent of all music sales within the U.S., according to recently released NPD group data.

This four percent gain since Q1 2009 detail that Apple’s digital store still holds the top spot as the number one music retailer within the U.S. Apple has been in this pole-position for some time now, first passing retail giant Walmart in 2008.

For more information on using iTunes, see our iTunes 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).

The NPD findings added that digital music sales now account for a 40 percent share of all U.S. industry sales, a trend which has benefited online retailer Amazon. Amazon, who benefits from sales of both digital and physical music, has risen to second place in the NPD rankings. The firm now ties with Walmart with each holding 12 percent of sales.

Amazon’s MP3 business has attributed largely to its rise to second place, in addition to scaling down of physical CD sales at stores like Walmart. Analyst Russ Crupnick commented on the sales shift:

Online shopping offers consumers who still want CDs more variety than they would get in a brick-and-mortar store; plus, recommendations, and other interactive features that raise the overall value proposition for music buyers.

The battle for digital music sales is no-doubt bound to heat up over the next few years, as sales tactics get more fierce and the popularity of portable devices, including the likes of the iPad, Kindle, Dell’s upcoming Streak and many more, rise.

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Apple has revealed plans to open its retail stores early for the iPad’s upcoming international launch.

The company’s well-received 9.7-inch tablet is due to arrive on a more global scale later this week, with the device making its debut in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom on the 28th. The move, which is no doubt going to please many devout Apple fans, will see the company open its doors one hour earlier than usual.

Apple announced the retail plans via email and have also since updated its website to reflect the special opening times, as shown in this UK example.

This means that those dedicated Apple shoppers can head to their local retail store from 8AM local time and grab their iPad earlier than expected. For those in the UK there are other choices beyond the 27 official Apple Stores — both Currys and PC World will be carrying the new tablet in addition to some select Apple Premium Resellers.

Beyond the launch plans listed above, Apple has detailed that the iPad will launch in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore at some point during July.

For those outside the U.S., its been a long time coming, but the global launch is finally in sight.

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Online casual game developer PopCap are currently offering a selection of its greatest games for a discount price.

The PopCap “Complete Pack” is available now, and offers Mac gamers (Intel based only) a selection of PopCap classics at a discounted price of just $49.99.

The guaranteed time-sink of a deal includes the following addictive titles:

• Amazing Adventures 3: The Caribbean Secret
• Bejeweled 2
• Bookworm
• Chuzzle
• Escape Rosecliff Island
• Feeding Frenzy
• Iggle Pop
• Peggle
• Peggle Nights
• Plants Vs. Zombies
• Mystery P.I.: Lost in L.A.
• Zuma
• Zuma’s Revenge

Sadly, PopCap has not indicated when the sub-$50 deal will be coming to an end, instead only labeling the deal as a ‘limited time offer’ — hinting that the sooner you grab it the better.

With the recent release of Steam on the Mac and PopCap new offer one thing’s for sure it’s finally a good time to be a Mac gamer.

The desire to have a dedicated app store for the sale of Mac OS X software has been around for some time now. In fact, ever since the iPhone’s application store opened its doors back in 2008, Apple fans have been calling out for something similar for the desktop. However, if a recent email from Steve Jobs himself is anything to go by, OS X users won’t be seeing anything of the sort anytime soon.

According to MacStories Fernando Valente, a Mac software developer, emailed the Apple CEO questioning him on whether or not such a service would become a reality. After the email was sent, Valente, like many others, was not expecting a response. But much to his surprise only a few hours after sending it, he received one. The email from Steve Jobs was brief and to the point, simply stating that “nope,” no such service is on the way.

Fernando’s email was sent following last week’s widespread rumor that such a service was on the way. The rumor hinted that the speculated Mac App store would follow the same principles as the current iTunes store, with a strict approval process also in place.

However, Steve’s typically candid response has finally set the record straight, no doubt to the dismay of some, but to the delight of others. There will be no Mac App Store. At least not in the foreseeable future.

Would you like to see a Mac specific app store selling approved OS X software? Let us know in the comments.

Despite numerous reports earlier this week claiming that Google planed to bring its free turn-by-turn navigation to the iPhone, it turns out that the search giant currently does not have any plans of the sort.

Word regarding the alleged move first broke when a Mac User report claimed that a UK-based Google executive had revealed details about introducing the navigation tool to the iPhone, in addition to other mobile devices. The comments were apparently ushered during a London press conference in which Google launched its popular Maps Navigation tool for UK Android devices.

However, in order to kill the rumor before it became any more widespread, Google has now confirmed to PCWorld that this is not the case. PCWorld’s report includes comments from a Google spokesperson who said the following:

“We did not say we would bring it to iPhone, we said to date we’ve had it on Android and that in the future it may come to other platforms but did not confirm this will be coming to iPhone at all.”

For those that don’t know, Google’s Maps Navigation is a free GPS 3D mapping service which offers turn-by-turn navigation, automatic rerouting and voice guidance for Android users. Sadly, no doubt at the joy of GPS makers such as Tom Tom and Garmin, Google’s service will not be on the iPhone any time soon.

If Google decides to offer its free navigation tool to iPhone users is currently unknown.

Apple has announced that the 3G model of the iPad will be made available on May 7.

News of the launch comes following an update to the Apple online store, which finally details the U.S. availability of the 3G capable device. Of course, the listed release date applies only to the U.S. and does not involve the unfortunate delayed international launch.

For those interested in the 3G model of Apple’s tablet, it starts at $629 for a 16GB device, with the top-of-the-line 64GB model coming in at $829. However those who do choose to plump for the 3G device, just like our very own Patrick Hunt, will have to sign up for an AT&T data plan. AT&T is currently offering 3G iPad owners two contract-free options — $14.99 a month for 250MB, and an unlimited plan for $30 per month.

When the iPad does eventually launch internationally this coming May it is hoped that both the Wi-Fi and 3G capable models will be available from day one, and many European carriers have already announced intentions to carry Apple’s device.

Interestingly Apple’s website lists the shipping date as “by May 7th,” hinting that for those who have already ordered there device could be sent out a few days before.

So if you live outside the U.S. the wait for the iPad continues. But for those within the U.S., the wait for the 3G is now only a few weeks away, unless you’re Steve Wozniak that is.

After much debate and speculation as to whether or not Apple would accept it, Opera’s mobile browser, known as Opera Mini, is now finally available for the iPhone and can be downloaded from the App Store.

The free browser application, which prides itself on its speed, was sent off to Apple for approval on March 23, nearly three weeks ago, and at the time many were unsure as to what Apple’s final decision would be. Therefore, today’s decision comes as somewhat of a welcome surprise.

But does this move display a possible turn in Apple’s strict policy on not allowing apps that compete with the pre-installed software applications, in this case Safari? It would seem not, as Opera has cleverly made its browser just different enough to not upset the guys in Cupertino. Unlike Safari, Opera Mini does not make use of the WebKit engine, instead, the new mobile browser loads websites via a proxy, which in turn means pages are not rendered directly on the device itself, bypassing any possible problems Apple may have with how code is seen.

Opera’s proxy compresses up-to 90 percent of data, resulting in a faster load time. The app also promises to reduce bandwidth consumption. In addition to packing in attractive speed features, the app also boasts a feature similar to that of Safari’s Top Sites. Known as Speed Dial, the feature offers visual access to nine of your favorite sites.

Whether this will open the app store up to more browser choice is yet to be seen, but the introduction of Opera’s browser to the store is an interesting one. You can find out more about Opera’s journey to the app store in Liam’s post.

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When Apple first revealed the iPhone back in 2007 many hardcore fans with a keen eye noticed that the images of the then-new smartphone device displayed a somewhat unusual timestamp. All official images released by Apple showed the time on the iPhone as 9:42, and they still do. However, more recently the iPad’s press images have all displayed a similar trend, showing the time on the new tablet as 9:41. Following the iPhone’s original unveiling fans have been scratching their heads attempting to solve the dated mystery, until now.

A recent blog post from Secret Lab developer Jon Manning has finally shed some light on the time mystery, but try not to get to excited as the reasoning behind Apple’s mysterious love for 9:42 is a rather dull and typically functional one.

According to Manning’s blog post, while taking a recent visit to his local Apple store he bumped into Senior Vice President of iPhone software, Scott Forstall. During his trip to the busy store Manning decided to ask Forstall about the time conundrum and settle the debate once and for all. Forstall replied, explaining that when a keynote is taking place the product reveal always happens around 40 minutes into the presentation.

So a simple explanation, as others did previously speculate, now clarifies the puzzle. When the product is first shown at a keynote, the time will roughly match the time the product is announced.

Mystery solved.

Despite Apple’s iPad being just a few short days away from release here in the U.S., the Cupertino-based company has not yet specified a definitive date for the tablet’s international launch. However, according to recent whispers from Apple store employees a date may now be in sight.

When Apple announced the launch date for its new device earlier this month, it only imparted solid details (on both price and dates) for the U.S., providing only a vague ‘late April’ time schedule for the rest of the world. But if Apple store workers from Canada are to be believe,d the iPad could see its international debut on April 24.

According to iPad in Canada, Canadian Apple staff have been informed that April 24 and 25 are “blackout periods.” Apparently these “blackout periods” are an interval of time, typically over a day or two, specified by Apple that employees can not book off. The source claims that these required working periods are rarely called upon and signify that something big is going down.

The speculated date makes sense, as not only does the 24th and 25th fall over a weekend, similar to this weekends launch, it also lines up with Apple’s earlier hints of a late release date in April. Of course it is worth noting that the original report references Canadian Apple Store sources only and does not divulge any further details on international dates. But it would seem highly unlikely of Apple to play around with too many dates.

Finally, iPad in Canada went on to theorize as to when the iPad would be available for pre-order. It is hoping that the international launch will play out in a similar fashion to the U.S., with a pre-order campaign kicking off three weeks before the availability date. If its guess is correct, Apple could be revealing all in the coming days, with international pre-orders possibly opening as soon as this Friday.

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As predicted, an update to Apple’s Snow Leopard and Leopard operating systems, which fixes a record number of vulnerabilities, is now available.

The sizable patch, which weighs in at over 700MB, tends to a number of known security problems within the latest client and server versions of OS X, and is the largest update Apple has ever put out. This new update, known officially as ‘Security Update 2010-002′, fixes 92 problems in total, bringing Snow Leopard up to version number 10.6.3.

For those still running Leopard, and and plenty of you are, this update offers 18 specific fixes for Apple’s older OS. Snow Leopard sees 29 distinct fixes, with the remaining 45 improvements being applicable to both operating systems.

Fixes found within the update include improving the reliability of Airport connections, minor adjustments to OS X’s Mail application, refinements to Time Machine’s backup process and more. One of the most noticeable inclusions within this update were the nine critical updates targeting QuickTime. However, the numerous updates to Apple’s media player, as pointed out by Computerworld, come as little surprise due to the impending launch of the iPad. It’s increasingly common for Apple to update both QuickTime and its iTunes software ahead of the launch of a new device.

More information regarding the update, including a full run down of improvements, can be found within Apple’s official support pages. The update can be downloaded now either online or via OS X’s integrated system updater.

Let us know if you run into any issues with this upgrade.

Apple’s iPad is now only a matter of days away and in preparation for the device’s arrival, major U.S. television network CBS is preparing its website to cater for the tablet’s needs.

Keen eyed Apple bloggers spotted the change on the CBS website earlier this week, noting a number of “iPad test” links on various video content including the likes of CSI and The Young & Reckless. When clicked in a browser, these links navigate to just the normal flash version of the selected video. However, if the website is visited via an iPad, or an SDK iPad Simulator, the viewer is presented with an HTML5 version of the video page.

CBS’ experimental HTML5 pages do not currently have functional video, but the pages’ source code details several other HTML5 elements, including a full-screen mode. Despite the experimentally nature of CBS’ efforts the move hints that more mainstream content providers are beginning to adapt their content to work on as many devices as possible, including Apple’s iPad which controversially does not support Adobe’s Flash.

The use of HTML5 comes after Steve Jobs personally spoke out against Flash, and following the positive estimates as to how the iPad will sell it’s no surprise that major content providers are starting to make moves to accommodate Apple’s upcoming tablet.

Just how long it takes for all the major networks to play catch up and arrive on the iPad is unknown, but the sooner the better.