digital posts

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, Apple Financial, iTunes, iPod touch

Analysis: iTunes holds 12.6% of the US music market

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Dec 4th, 2008

Stick with us here: a new report by Forrester Research claims that of all the music purchased in the US, digital purchases have jumped to 18% of the total, and they expect it to go up to 41% of total sales over the next five years. That means that about 20% of all the music sold in the US is bought digitally. And distorted-loop.com is doing a little reasoning from those numbers -- since Apple's iTunes accounts for 70% of US digital sales, DL has decided that Apple accounts for 12.6% of all music sold in the US.

Can't really argue with that reasoning, and given that we know iPod sales are up (and increased sales of the iPod touch means more people can buy from iTunes straight to their iPods, not to mention that one of the biggest days for iTunes sales is Christmas, thanks to all the new iPods under the tree), we can probably look for that number to head even further north next year.

Tags: analysis, digital, distorted-loop, ipod, ipod-touch, itunes, itunes-sales, music-sales, report, sales, stores, us

Filed under: iLife, Multimedia, Software, Odds and ends

Jade 1.2: digital image processing for Leopard

by Steven Sande (RSS feed) on Jul 31st, 2008

Italian developers DataMind Srl have announced the release of Jade 1.2, the latest in a series of image processing apps from the company. DataMind also has a version of Jade for iPhone and iPod touch (link to iTunes App Store) for enhancing photos on the run.

Jade provides one-click enhancement of digital images (see example at top of post) using a set of algorithms invented by the company founders. These algorithms enhance colors, contrast, and dynamics, and you can fine-tune intensity, contrast, and color correction to acheive perfection. I tried Jade on a few iPhoto pictures and found that the enhancements were less harsh than those provided by iPhoto.

The application is available in both Home (€19.99) and Pro (€49.99) versions for Mac and Windows. There's also an Aperture plugin, and the app works well with iPhoto. The 1.2 upgrade doesn't appear to add any major new functionality other than the ability to upload to Flickr directly from the application. It does, however, have a number of ease-of-use and preferences changes that streamline the image enhancement process.

Not sure if Jade is what you need? There's a 30-day free trial download available for the desktop version.

Tags: aperture, digital, iphone, iphoto, ipod touch, IpodTouch, photos

Filed under: iLife, Software, Video

Free Aperture web seminar for iPhoto users

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on May 10th, 2007

Our faithful reader and tipster Nik Fletcher just passed a link our way to a new web seminar Apple has made available called Aperture for iPhoto Users. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet (I wanted to share it with y'all before diving in myself), but details on the site reveal exactly what you would expect: the seminar explores the advantages of stepping up to Aperture from iPhoto, as well as how to migrate your library (spoiler: it's really just a one-click process - I recently did it myself as I'm testing out the Aperture demo) and even how to use both applications for your photography workflow (something I'm particularly interested in). Apple also includes links to other Aperture resources such as the O'Reilly-dedicated Aperture site with links, blog posts and tips of their own, as well as another Apple seminar that covers the world of Aperture extensions.

If you ask me, this seminar was far too long in coming, but it looks like it could be a great start on answering all those 'why should I move to Aperture?' questions for anyone interested in stepping into the world of professional digital photography management.

Tags: aperture, digital, digital photography, DigitalPhotography, iphoto, photography, switch, switching, upgrade

Filed under: Hardware, Hacks, Cult of Mac, PowerBook, Mods, Macbook Pro, MacBook

MacBook Marionette

by Dan Lurie (RSS feed) on Nov 23rd, 2006

Most puppets scare me. Horrid little creatures, only coming alive when controlled by some being of perceived omnipotence manipulating every aspect of their pathetic little lives. But enough about my puppet paranoia, and on to this awesome hack. Some cunning (and brave! I'd never swing my notebook around like that!) soul has created a piece of digital artwork using the motion sensor built into his PowerBook. When he swings the machine, a little animated man on the screen reacts with realistic physics to the movement. Hooray for digital inertia!

[via UneasySilence]

Tags: digital, hack, marionette, motion, powerbook, puppet, sensor

Filed under: Accessories, Gaming, Multimedia, Video

EyeTV Hybrid

by Dan Lurie (RSS feed) on Aug 21st, 2006

TV on a Mac is a foreign concept to most people, but EyeTV hopes to change that with the introduction of the minuscule (just a bit larger than an iPod Shuffle) EyeTV Hybrid USB TV tuner. Capable of receiving both digital (S-Video via an adapter) and analog (using the built-in coax plug or the included composite adapter) signals, the Hybrid can pick up regular run-of-the-mill standard standard definition TV, as well as up to 1080p HDTV over-the-air programming (if you have either a dual G5 or Core Duo). With that delicious combination of input options, I can hook up both my Xbox OR digital cable to my PowerBook, sit back, and relax. The EyeTV Hybrid goes for an extremely affordable $150.

[via OhGizmo!]

Tags: cable, coax, composite, console, digital, eyetv, hdtv, hybrid, s-video, tuner, tv

Filed under: iTS, Software

eMusic hits No. 2 in digital music sales, thanks iPod

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jul 31st, 2006

eMusic, a seemingly small-time digital music service that sells DRM-free MP3s of independent artists, has quietly overtaken other big name rivals such as RealNetworks, Yahoo! and even Napster for the #2 spot in digital music sales. The company attributes its success largely in part to the iPod's widespread popularity and the fact that MP3s play just fine on it, but also says "the consumer confusion over interoperable formats gives us a great advantage". In other words: the tower of babel that is the digital download industry has opened the door for a service that speaks everyone's language to snag the second largest piece of the pie. While not everyone is happy with 2nd place, eMusic seems to be enjoying their 11% of the industry, right after the iTMS at 67%, but way ahead of Real Rhapsody with 4%, Napster - 4% and MSN Music - 3% (data according to NPD Group).

[via iLounge]

Tags: digital, download, emusic, industry, itms, market, service, share

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Reviews

Get organized: a survey of digital junk drawer apps

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jul 11th, 2006

A while ago I decided to bring some sanity to the way I do things and organize all my stuff. I'm working on a design thesis in my multimedia undergrad degree, I'm constantly doing research for my blogging work, and I have countless other projects and ideas that were growing in both size and disorganization in my Home folder. When I decided to finally start getting organized, I realized I might not be the only person in this position, and I figured I would turn my research and testing experiences into a post; a sort of survey of what some call 'digital junk drawer' applications.

What follows is a pro and con summary of four of the most popular junk drawer apps I looked at, but read this post with a few of my criteria in mind:

I like keyboard shortcuts. I like them a lot. Being able to highlight a chunk of text in a browser or a PDF I'm reading and hitting a couple of keys to send it to a junk drawer app is far more efficient and less workflow-intrusive than having to use a mouse to drag and drop it to some far corner of my display.
I decided not to touch apps that employ entirely different paradigms such as the wiki-like VoodooPad; I'm not denying the usefulness of these other ways of working, but adding that entirely new level to this survey would've meant putting this post on the back-burner for longer than I would like.
I'm using a MacBook Pro 2.0 Ghz with 1.5 GB RAM, and while I synced my notes library across these apps to gauge performance 'n all that jazz, my library is a mere 500 notes (URLs, PDFs, etc.) strong, so your mileage may vary.

With that said, check out my survey of some Mac OS X apps that could help you bring order to your digital chaos, and feel free to post your thoughts or mention apps that should've made this list, and why.

Continue reading “Get organized: a survey of digital junk drawer apps”

Tags: browse, browser, devonthink, digital, drawer, feature, features, file, journler, junk, organize, research, review, save, soho notes, SohoNotes, survey, system, yojimbo

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools

Chronos replaces StickyBrain with SOHO Notes 5.5

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jul 9th, 2006

StickyBrain, one of the leading 'digital junk drawer' apps that recently entered a 4.1 beta testing phase, has been officially discontinued by Chronos in favor of SOHO Notes 5.5. Current registered users of StickyBrain 4.0 will receive an upgrade to SOHO Notes for free, while users who own licenses for any previous StickyBrain versions (1.x, 2.x and 3.x) can upgrade to SOHO Notes 5.5 for a mere $25, the price offered in the past for upgrading from StickyBrain 3.x to 4.x.

Why is StickyBrain being dissolved in favor of SOHO Notes, you ask? Chronos has published an announcement and FAQ explaining the decision, but here's the short version: SOHO Notes is basically the big brother of StickyBrain; they're almost the same app, derived from the same codebase, except SOHO Notes included three key features that Chronos used to charge extra for:

SOHO Notes can synchronize notes between multiple computers using a .Mac account (seamlessly, in the background).
SOHO Notes can access multiple note databases simultaneously.
SOHO Notes is multi-user capable which means users can share notes with others over a network using the product's client/server technology.

Now, with SOHO Notes taking the helm, its price has dropped to $39.99 to keep it more in-line with StickyBrain's previous price, as well as the competition like Yojimbo and DEVONthink.

Feature-wise, this new version of SOHO Notes 5.5 offers some powerful new goodies, such as the ability to import and catalog almost any kind of file, send notes to your blog, a DockNote that makes it easy to get info both in and out, audio recording notes, full-screen editing of notes, a Daily Journal/Diary category that can automatically date/time stamp notes and much more.

Whether you love your hate ~~StickyBrain~~ SOHO Notes, this should be good news for the 'digital junk drawer' market, as this price drop and the new features should help keep everyone's innovative juices flowing.

Tags: audio, chronos, digital, drawer, feature, features, free, junk, notes, organize, organizer, replace, replaced, soho, stickies, sticky, stickybrain, upgrade

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