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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Apple, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Would Blackberry's price minimum ensure a quality App Store?

Here's an interesting idea for the App Store. Gizmodo posts that the new Blackberry "App World" has set a minimum price on its apps, asking no less than $2.99 for whatever you buy in there. At first glance, that's pretty rough -- there are a lot of free apps on the App Store right now that we wouldn't pay 99 cents for, much less $2.99. But then again, Gizmodo is willing to at least suggest the benefit of the doubt: maybe it's done on purpose, to get us past the scourge of the many fart and other useless apps populating the App Store. Maybe if every app is sold for $3 or more, they'll end up all being worth that much, too.

But we have to agree with Gizmodo's conclusion, too: while it would be nice if every app on the store was worth more than $3, there are definitely a few apps out there that are worth having the lower (and free) prices for. And to add to that, it's hard to believe that, even at $3, every app would strive to live up to that price -- most likely what will happen is that you'll end up with just as much crap on the Blackberry's store, except that you'll be paying $2 more for it.

Still, it's an idea. If Apple did a little price tweaking, is it possible that they could ensure a little more quality to what shows up on the store? Or, in the case of the junk that's on there now, will we just end up with higher-priced junk?

Filed under: Audio, Software, Blogs

Rogue Amoeba offers teaser and sign-up to test new mystery app

Oh Paul Kafasis, you clever Rogue Amoeba. What with your two-punch post of a teaser and sign-up offer for a new mystery app dubbed "AHT." What could this new app from the makers of Audio Hijack, Fission, Nicecast and Airfoil be? Is AHT simply a code name, or an acronym? Will AHT complement Rogue Amoeba's presence in the audio space, or will it be some new venture into RSS, video or even GTD? No one knows yet, but Paul said they'll be picking their first pool of testers on Wednesday, February 28th, so head on over and toss your name into the hat to test what I'm sure will be an excellent new offering from one of Mac OS X's much-respected 3rd parties.

[Update: Rogue Amoeba has filled their list of testers for now, so the submission form has been closed.]

Filed under: OS, Rumors, Software

LeopardTracker.com


Tired of sifting through newsfeeds and googling for tidbits on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard? Maybe LeopardTracker can help put an end to your obsessively sleepless nights - it's a new site that does all that searching for you and catalogs Leopard-related articles for anxious Mac users everywhere. Of course, no one but The Steve and Apple's engineers really know much about this next version, but the site documents the rumors and table-scraps from Apple's own announcements, as well as articles and blog posts that criticize the areas where Apple's OS fails and could still use some polish. Links are also organized into categories, such as Finder, Hardware, Virtualization, etc., to help you get your Leopard on a little easier. Check it out.

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools

Pukka updated to v1.2

Pukka, the versatile, multi-account and light-weight del.icio.us posting client, has been updated to version 1.2. New features and fixes include:
  • Pukka now uses the new SSL del.icio.us API for increased security as well as a more reliable means of storing passwords in the keychain.
  • The tags field now resizes in height as necessary to accommodate all of the tags that you type.
  • There is a new option to disable warning messages when resetting, closing or quitting with unposted data.
  • Bug fixes and tweaks: hiding behavior, more reliable determination of successful posting, success dialog "Visit del.icio.us" button, pasting into tags field, added tooltips, smaller font in Bonjour drawer, problem with semicolon in posting fields, only attempt to use Growl when it's running
A demo of Pukka is available from Code Sorcery Workshop, and a license will cost a mere $5.

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Internet Tools

Menulicious


Menulicious is a utility like Delibar that allows you to access your del.icio.us bookmarks right from your menubar. One nice option of Menulicious is that it can display a bookmark count for each of your tags. An annoying quirk, however, is that your tags are listed under a "Tags >" menu; not directly under the utility itself.

Regardless, Menulicious is a Universal Binary, so it'll run a little faster on your Intel Mac. Menulicious is free and available either from Versiontracker or Kainjow's iPod-like website - surf to Software > Freebies > Menulicious.

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools

iSale 3.1 adds eBay interactivity, prepares for upcoming site changes


iSale, the application our own Scott McNulty dubbed 'the Delicious Library for eBay auctions', has been bumped to version 3.1 with some very useful site interactivity and significant changes under the hood. iSale 3.1 can now relist unsold auctions and allow you to watch how many people have looked at and are watching your auction - right from within iSale. An improved widget can also display the watch count, hit count, highest bid and feedback from the highest bidder. Last in this new version is a localized and active links preview for English, German and French languages. Under the hood, iSale has been tuned for an upcoming change to eBay's communication standards which goes live on July 1st.

For a refresher, here's a list of the other features iSale already offers: beautiful auction templates, a 'funky pinboard' with photos of auction items, one-click locating of buyers with Google Maps, 'Smart Date' simplified auction scheduling, description importing from Amazon and eBay, Address Book/Mail integration, .Mac syncing, iCal scheduling and much more.

iSale 3.1 is a Universal Binary, offers a three-auction demo and sells for $39.95 USD. Upgrades from iSale 2.x are $14.90 USD.

Filed under: Universal Binary

Fast posting to del.icio.us with Pukka 1.0

Pukka (pronounced: puck-uh) is "a minimalist posting client for del.icio.us." It is a very slim but powerful stand-alone del.icio.us client that features tag auto-completion, handling of multiple accounts, Bonjour discovery of other Pukka users, bookmarklets, Growl alerts, .weblog and .url compatibility, keyboard navigation and more.

It looks like a good amount of time and, perhaps more importantly, a lot of thought went into Pukka 1.0. I remember hearing its name when beta versions of NNW 2.1 started landing, which is another advantage Pukka has: it should be able to work with most newsreader apps that can either post links to del.icio.us with an external editor, or readers that use some kind of 'blog this' functionality.

Pukka is a Universal Binary. A demo is available, and a license will cost a mere $5.

Filed under: Hardware, Software

PC World welcomes Apple to their charts

In a move that's causing many to check out their window to see if the sky is falling, PC World has laid out a welcome mat for Apple's hardware into their Top Power PCs testing charts, thanks to Boot Camp. So far, no Macs have made the charts due to some policy quirks (they typically only test stock PCs - Macs don't ship pre-installed with Windows) and test compatibility hiccups, but from a blog entry covering their initial tests, the iMac running Windows XP fared pretty well.

We certainly live in interesting times with Macs running Windows, rumors of virtualization in Leopard and now Apple's hardware being put to the test alongside its now (let's face it) PC brethren hardware. We'll keep our ears out for more results on just how well these new Macs stack up.

Tip of the Day

Holding the Command key (aka the Apple key) and pressing Tab will cycle through your open applications. It's easier to Cmd-Tab if you are Copy (Cmd-C) and Pasting (Cmd-V) to and from various applications.


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