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Time Magazine updates iPhone app to 2.0
Time Inc. has updated the free TIME Mobile iPhone app to version 2.0, building on input from readers of the previous version. The app interface has undergone a huge redesign and is now much faster than before, answering one of the biggest gripes about the earlier version. TIME Mobile now adds podcasts, the video library is optimized for iPhone viewing, and readers are able to customize which sections of the magazine appear on the app home page. You can now save articles for offline reading, search for favorite articles, shake the iPhone to refresh articles in a section, and share articles through Facebook and Twitter. As if that's not enough, TIME also made the app more legible by adding the ability to increase the font size for articles or change the font for the entire app. While it's good to see that TIME has updated the iPhone app, many iPad users are still angry with the magazine's decision to charge $4.99 an issue (through in-app purchase) for the digital version of a magazine that can be had in print for $0.50 an issue. That decision has resulted in close to 74% of all customers giving the free iPad app a poor rating. Time Inc. also has digital versions of Sports Illustrated, LIFE, and the ever popular Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition available in the App Store.
Found Footage: Pulse News Reader for iPad
I've been looking for an iPad RSS news reader for a while, and was totally underwhelmed by what was out there. Fortunately, a reader pointed me to a video demonstrating Pulse News Reader (US$3.99), a new RSS reader from a couple of Stanford grad students. Ankit Gupta and Akshay Kothari have created an RSS reader that makes traditional readers look like, well, cluttered inboxes. If you're one of those folks who follows a few hundred RSS feeds, you may not like Pulse -- the current version has a limit of 20 feeds. The app makes it drop-dead simple to add feeds by searching keywords, and then picking feeds from the search results. The feeds show up as a series of tabbed rows of articles with the newest posts on the far left, oldest on the far right. Navigating posts is done by flicking left or right, and you can read the full post by tapping on the large post icon. Pulse 1.1 still needs some work -- the current version doesn't support video, so the post icon for this article would appear as text only. Still, it looks great and is easily one of the most usable news readers I've seen. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that TUAW is one of their featured sources in the app... We'll have a more thorough TUAW review of Pulse News Reader soon. Thanks to Graham for the tip! [via Cult of Mac]
New MacBook and MacBook Pros now available
Well, the rumors were right on target -- new MacBook and MacBook Pros are finally here! Unlike the very minor updates in November, this refresh features across the board speed bumps, bigger hard drives, more stock RAM and for the MacBook Pro, a few new features sure to make every Apple fan's mouth water. Both lines are now featuring the new Penryn Core 2 Duo chipset, with the higher end MacBook Pro models taking advantage of a spectacular 6MB of L2 cache.MacBookThe price configuration is the same same (starting at $1099 US for the non-Super Drive white base model, $1499 for the BlackBook), but the base features have received a nice upgrade. The significant changes: Processor speeds now start at 2.1 GHz for the base model, 2.4 GHz for the $1299 and $1499 models 120 GB drive is standard for the base level MacBook, 160 GB for the $1299 MacBook and a whopping 250 GB drive for the BlackBook. All drives are 5400 RPM 2 GB RAM standard for all but entry-level MacBooks (that remains at 1 GB) MacBook Pro Processor speeds now start at 2.4 GHz, and are available up to 2.6 GHz (2.5 GHz is standard for the 17"); the new 2.5 GHz chip has 6 MB of L2 cache The MBP 17" now has an LED backlit screen option 200 GB is the starting HD size (this is up from 120 GB in the last revision), 250 GB standard for the upper 15" and 17" models. A 300 GB drive is available BTO, as is a 7200 rpm 200 GB drive NVidia 8600GT now starts at 256 MB of VRAM -- 512 for the higher end 15" and stock 17" Multi-touch trackpad a la the Air. All in all, some very nice updates -- particularly for the MacBook. The basic specs for the BlackBook and entry-level MacBook Pro are so similar, I have to think the MacBook is the better deal for anyone who doesn't need the dedicated graphics card.Update:As the commenters have pointed out, the Apple Remote is no longer included in the box. That's right, you know have to spend an extra $19, for what I think is one of the most convenient Mac accessories. With $18 billion in cash, you'd think they could throw in something that we all know probably costs $0.30 to make. Oh well.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
MacBook Air hands-on
After the keynote we naturally raced to the gigantic Apple booth to get our grubby hands on the MacBook Air. Watch Scott compare it to his now-beastly MacBook Pro. Also watch the nifty new multi-touch trackpad action.UPDATE: Silly me, I ignored Apple's CamelCase naming scheme. All better.Also available on:YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Blip.tv and Crackle
