Let your Mac boot in style with BootXChanger, a simple application that allows you to replace the gray apple with something with a bit more pizzazz.
You can choose from a variety of images, including the colored Apple logo, the Happy Mac and more, or make your own if you’re feeling extra adventurous.
Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a price of free.
[Via: UNEASYsilence]
Like everything Apple, the iPod Touch’s design is a study in simplistic beauty.
However, as with most things tech, there are those that just can’t help but tinker, which is why one crafty designer named 6mik has created a theme for jailbroken iPod Touches called Whitoken that gives a whole new look and feel to the default interface. (And reminds me a lot of Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.)
[Whitoken]
The Mac Sale is another great Mac bundle that includes 10 great apps like Flux, Scribbles, Iris, WriteRoom, REALbasic, Interarchy, HoudahSpot, TaskPaper and MarinerCalc for just $49.99.
It also has an awesome website, so be sure to check it out even if you’re not in the mood for some new apps.
Get your app on with the Mac Bundle Box, a collection of 12 great apps for just $49.
Titles include Freeway, Simon, DEVONthink, myNotes, iCash, DaisyDisk, Chronicle, Stomp and Exces, and you’ll save almost 90% off retail by buying them together, so what do you have to loose?
Thumber is an interesting Mac application that allows you to take snapshots of a movie at one-second intervals and then stitch them together into one giant image. (The above is from Blackhawk Down.)
The result is a look at a movie in a way that’s never been done before, where you can start to see the pacing, color palate, and other directorial decisions that often get missed when viewing movies at full speed.
[Thumber]
[Via: Kottke]
If you’re tired of waiting for Apple to release a tablet, then check out iTab, the creation of a user that just wasn’t willing to wait for Apple’s typical release cycle.
Made by Frankensteining together a Wacom Intuos and a broken MacBook, the iTab actually looks like it works rather well considering the hacked together nature of the whole project.
If you’re like to find out more info, or if you’re thinking of building one yourself, then check out his site for a full walk-through of the process.
[iTab]
[Via: Lifehacker]
Mac Heads take note: The new MacUpdate Promo Spring Bundle is here, and it brings with it $521.71 worth of apps for just $49.99.
Included in this promo bundle are top shelf apps like Parallels Desktop and TechTool Pro 5, along with apps like NetBarrier X5, Multiplex, RipIt, Paperless, Posterino, and MoneyWell. Plus, unlike some of the other bundle deals, these are all regular, full-octane versions of each app, so there’s no worries about updating or other maintenance needs.
If this sounds like a deal that you’d like to take advantage of though, then you better hurry, because there’s only about nine days left to grab one of your very own.
[MacUpdate Promo - Spring Sale]
It used to be that other phones tried to copy Apple’s style, but with the Palm Pre on the horizon, a few iPhone owners have sprouted some jealousy for the as yet unreleased hotness, and have created a theme that will pre-tend to Pre-ify your iPhone with icons and a wallpaper.
[James Meister - Pre-Tend iPhone]
[Via: Gizmodo]
Birdhouse is a Twitter incubator where tweets can be saved and edited over and over until each of the 140 characters is crafted to perfection.
It’s also an iPhone app with one of the best demo videos ever made, so be sure to check it out:
If you’d like to give your Apple laptop a little something special, then check out the instructions for adding a custom LCD screen into the Apple logo area.
The mod involves replacing the standard logo light with a tiny LCD screen, and actually seems pretty straight forward as long as you’re comfortable with a little warranty voiding, so crack open your case and get hackin!
This year, the MacHeist bundle includes 9 different apps, plus an additional app for the early birds, plus three more unlockable apps that will be available after certain sales goals are met.
This year’s bundle features a core lineup of a dozen award winning and popular apps, games and utilities that represent the cream of the crop from the Mac development community. Whether you’re interested in cooking a meal, or playing the best puzzle game of last year, or selling off an old item on eBay, the MacHeist bundle has you covered.
In addition, they’re donating 25% of each purchase to a partnering charity of your choice, so buying a bundle does more than just add to your app collection.
So what’s included in this year’s bundle?
- iSale
- Picturesque
- SousChef
- World of Goo
- PhoneView
- LittleSnapper
- Acorn
- Kinemac
- WireTap Studio
- Big Bang Board Games (Early Bird)
- BoinxTV (Unlockable)
- The Hit List (Unlockable)
- Espresso (Unlockable)
If all of the sales goals are met and the full bundle gets unlocked, that equals more than $975 worth of Mac programs for just $39.
Hurry though, because this is a limited time offer, and once they’re gone, they’re gone!
The iTunes 8.1 update includes a new feature that I think has gone unjustly unnoticed: The new iTunes DJ. Now, in addition to acting as the world’s cheapest Sonos, the iPhone and iTunes combo can help turn you into the world’s best DJ.
The iTunes DJ playlist builder, which is designed to keep the music flowing at any party, allows you to collaboratively build a playlist with any of your friends that have an iPhone and the Remote app installed. With the app, they can log into the iTunes DJ playlist builder, view your library, suggest songs that should be added to the playlist, vote on upcoming songs, and generally help match the music to the mood of a party.
It’s easy to set up, with just a few check boxes and a welcome screen to enable, and once you’re up and running, the music you play will always be what a majority of the party-goers want to hear. (Hopefully…)
How cool is that?
There’s something about Macs that just makes the app developers want to bundle, and the latest offering is the Mac Bundle Box (their fourth!), a collection of thirteen apps worth more than $333 that is selling for just $49.
In addition to the great deal they’re offering buyers, they’re also offering to do some good too, with 5% of each sale is going to Charity:Water, an organization that’s helping to build wells for the more than 1.1 billion people who don’t have safe drinking water.
The included applications are Relationship, Code Collector, DrawIt, Espionage, Cover Stream, DEVONnote, QuickScale, Project Calculator, Transcriva, Magnet, Involer, Stuf and Blog Assist, so if you’ve been looking to pick up any one of those, then perhaps now’s the time to pick up all of them and do some good while you’re at it.
[Via: TUAW]
If you were disappointed by the fact that Apple used MacWorld to debut a new, larger laptop rather than a smaller, netbook style computer that many had hoped for, then worry not, because one clever modder named Gregory has found a way to turn an Asus Eee PC into the mini Mac of your dreams.
Called the Eee Mac, it’s a 9-inch netbook that uses a custom install of OS X, and even includes a glowing Apple logo in the back that’ll really psyche your friends out. Plus, the wi-fi, USB, SD, and most things work, with the exception of the ethernet port and the camera, and it boots in just 40 seconds into either OS X or Linux.
Not ready to dig into the case? Then Gregory also makes a 22mb disk image available that will get you up and running on your very own Eee Mac with just the addition of a retail OS X disc.
[Eee Mac]
[Via: TUAW]
Here’s an interesting idea for a pair of old iPods: Replace the scroll wheels with speakers to turn them into a portable stereo system.
According to Jordan, the maker of the speakers:
I was looking through a bunch of old stuff when I came across my original iPod. I had long ago scavenged it for parts, so I came up with another use for it. Although I already had the iPod speaker “shell”, I wanted to make two speakers so that it could be stereo sound. My iPod speaker shell was barely recognizable with too many scratches to count, so I ordered two front panels and two back panels.
The total cost ended up around 100 USD for everything. It was mostly the shipping prices that made it so expensive. If I had spent some more time finding cheaper prices, or finding the parts locally, the cost would have been about 60 USD.
[Voiding Warranties - iPod Speakers]
[Via: MAKE: Blog]
To celebrate the 10,000+ apps now in Apple’s iPhone App Store, Tap Tap Tap put together a mosaic of the iPhone that uses the icons from each one of those 10,000 apps to form one giant iPhone.
It’s available on Flickr in its original size if you’d like to print out your very own copy, and definitely puts the number of apps currently available in perspective for those that have trouble grasping numbers with more than four digits.
[Via: Tap Tap Tap]
It’s no secret that Apple has mastered the art of design, and with every iteration of their product line, they continue to wow with small and often subtle changes that contribute to an overall feeling of amazement when interacting with their computers. Each and every piece and part has its own place in the end result, and everything feels like it should be there, rather than needed to be there.
With the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro, Apple “Redesigned. Reengineered. Re-everythinged.” their way into one of the most stunning laptops ever built thanks to a new unibody construction that begins life as a single piece of aluminum, and ends as a computer that has been machined down to the micron, thus reducing size, weight, complexity, and opportunity for failure.
Even things like the thickness of the display don’t escape the watchful eye of Apple’s designers, as they opted to use LED backlight technology across their entire notebook line, rather than the CCFLs that are standard for the industry. In addition to the fact that they take less space to create the same amount of light, LEDs reach maximum brightness instantly, unlike CCFLs, which take time to warm up.
It’s also no secret that Steve Jobs has a thing for buttons, and specifically the removal of as many buttons as possible, so for the latest version of Apple’s trackpad, they’ve removed the buttons entirely and replaced them with a trackpad that is itself the button. Users can click anywhere on the trackpad and it will register as a click, allowing for new ways of interacting with the computer through Multi-Touch gestures that had never before been possible.
Think no part is too small to escape revision? According to Apple, designers worked on hundreds of versions of the thumbscoop (the indentation that allows you to open the display) before they got it right.
If the scoop is too deep, you put too much pressure on the display to open it. If it’s too shallow, you struggle to open the display. It may seem incidental, but if the thumbscoop is well designed, it makes the difference between a bad experience and a good one.
How important was it for Apple to get the thumbscoop right? They examined their options under an electron microscope until they were happy that they had gotten it just right.
The sleep indicator light?
During the CNC process, a machine first thins out the aluminum. Then a laser drill creates small perforations for the LED light to shine through. These holes are so tiny that the aluminum appears seamless when the light is off.
A light when you need it and nothing when you don’t?
That’s what I call attention to detail.
And don’t think that just because Apple is obsessed with perfection that they’re willing to let the environment take a hit as a result of their designs.
In addition to being brighter and thinner, LED backlighting is also mercury and arsenic free, and uses 30 percent less power than a CCFL display. The circuit board? Now polyvinyl chloride (PVC), brominated flame retardant (BFRs), bromine and chlorine free.
Even the packaging has been optimized, with a reduction of 37 percent when compared to previous generations. Fewer trees used for boxes and less fuel used for transportation means a healthier environment, and when all is said and done and it’s time to upgrade to the latest and greatest, almost every part of the new MacBook line can be recycled.
Is it perfection?
Probably not, since I’m sure they’ll find ways to improve their products and their processes in the future, but until then, Apple’s laptop line is a design force to be reckoned with.
[For Designer Daily - Design You Love: A Group Writing Project]
Matt Gemmell created Favorites for the iPhone, a ‘Speed-dial with style’ application that lets you dial your contacts by face instead of name, and created a very thorough and lengthy blog post about UI design decisions he made along the way, as well as some of the lessons learned during the development process with regard to creating software interfaces for the iPhone.
If you’re the type of person that enjoys knowing the decisions behind the design, then this post is for you, as it leaves no stone unturned in the quest to build the perfect app.
Given the current economic crisis, Bloomberg’s iPhone Easter egg seems rather appropriate.
In the bottom corner of the left monitor on their iPhone application’s loading screen, Bozo the Clown stares back at you from the blackness.
To see it, just snap a screenshot and play with the levels until he appears.
At least someone’s getting a laugh out of the situation.
[Via: TUAW]
Apple went iPod crazy on Tuesday, and released an updated Nano, a new Touch, a larger (and cheaper) Classic, and Shuffles in all new (for them) colors.
The tech blogs have all managed to beat this news into the ground already, so I’m not going to dive into the details, but what I am going to wonder aloud about is this: Why did it take Apple so long to release an iPod in a rainbow of colors? (Or Nano-Chromatic in Apple speak.)
While Apple was busy doling out doses of iPod five flavors at a time, ColorWare managed to make an entire business out of taking your iPod and adding color to it, and they even charge an extra fee to do so.
It’s obvious that the demand for colors has always existed, as evidenced by Apple’s decision to release their products in various (limited) colors along the way, and the mere existence of ColorWave, so why hasn’t Apple jumped on this bandwagon before?
The world may never know…
