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iCloud.com developer beta opens, includes full-featured web interface
Remember when I told you there would still be iCloud web apps once the service took over MobileMe, despite what some other sites were saying at the time? Not to brag or anything, but I was right. Today, Apple launched the iCloud.com beta for developers. Web apps on the service include Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Find my iPhone, and iWork. The interface looks to be heavily overhauled from its earlier MobileMe incarnation, and iCloud.com's design seems to have taken many design cues from the iPad's iOS interface. Of note, if you're not a fan of the "real object" design of iCal and Address Book on the iPad or in OS X Lion, you're not going to like the web app design either, because it's essentially the same. Since many of us are under NDA at TUAW, we're not providing screenshots; 9to5 Mac published a few, which you can check out here. The iCloud.com beta does require installing the OS X Lion 10.7.2 developer beta before you can use iCloud for OS X Lion beta 5, so if you're not a developer and were hoping to check this service out for yourself, you're out of luck for now. iCloud.com should launch to the public this fall, alongside iCloud itself and iOS 5. Apple has also released pricing data for iCloud storage upgrades. All free iCloud accounts come with a standard 5 GB of online storage, but Apple will be offering three upgrade options: 10 GB for US$20/year (15 GB total) 20 GB for $40/year (25 GB total) 50 GB for $100/year (55 GB total) Before it became free to all, MobileMe was $99/year and included 20 GB of iDisk storage, so these new pricing tiers for storage are a much better deal than MobileMe was.
Camino 2.1 now in beta, features improved plug-in control
Camino, an open source third-party web browser for Mac OS X, released a beta of version 2.1 last week. According to the release notes, new features in Camino 2.1 include: Enhanced Location Bar Autocomplete: The location bar's autocomplete feature now displays results in a single list, using an improved ranking algorithm. Improved Plug-in Control: Camino now disables certain insecure or incompatible versions of common plug-ins. In addition, Camino now supports loading plug-ins from the profile's "Internet Plug-Ins" folder. Gecko chrome and component registration: Camino 2.1 Beta 1 supports loading components and chrome from the profile, making it easier to use some simple Gecko extensions. Camino 2.1 Alpha was released in January, and version 2.0 was released in late 2009. The somewhat stately development pace has meant Camino's fallen behind the feature sets of big-name browsers like Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, but this latest release should get the browser closer to being caught up with its more famous cousins. Camino 2.1 beta is a free download, with all the usual caveats that apply for running beta software. The latest stable release is Camino 2.0.7, released in March.
iOS 5 Beta 2 ready for download
iOS 5 Beta 2 is now available for download from Apple's developer site. If you are a paid ($99/year) dev, you can sign in with your developer credentials to gain access to this beta. The beta is, as always, released under the terms of Apple's NDA. For that reason, enhancements, APIs and features are not listed within this post. TUAW's iOS 5 coverage -- researched and written by our non-NDA staffers -- is available here. Happy developing everyone! Thanks, everyone who tipped us.
Apple releases Xcode 4 GM. Again!
Apple has just posted another GM seed (number 2 if you're keeping count) of Xcode 4. Build 4A304a is ready for you to download, install, use and love. You need to be a paid member of either the iOS or the Mac dev programs to access this build. Now, if Apple would only get around to, you know, releasing Xcode 4..., it would make life ever so much more interesting. Be aware that if you are beta testing Lion, you will need to download and install the separate Lion-specific tools. Xcode 4 GM is built for Snow Leopard. A tip of the developer's cowboy hat to Morgan for telling us about the re-release
Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I install a Lion partition on my MacBook Air?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I'm in the Mac Developer program and I'd really like to be able to install Lion on my MacBook Air as a second OS. What are the best strategies to do this? Is it worth going out and buying a second SSD drive and swapping that out with my primary Snow Leopard system? Thanks for letting me know! Love and Kisses, Your nephew G
Sparrow for Mac beta hands-on review
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.0px Helvetica} Sparrow is essentially what happens when Gmail and Tweetie for Mac hook up and have a baby. It's very much what Gmail should be on the Mac -- minimalist and classy. I tried out Mailplane a few months ago, but couldn't quite bring myself to pull the trigger on the purchase. I won't with Sparrow. It's just that good -- especially for a beta. We had a couple of recent pieces announcing the plethora of updates to the program, but now we're getting beyond the pretty icon and we like what we're seeing.
Beta Beat: Dropzone for Mac OS X
The Mac OS X Dock is a great UI invention, but it doesn't have all the functionality that it could have. That's why one developer is looking to expand the functionality and make it even better with an application that he calls "Dropzone." Dropzone is a small application that you can install on your Mac, and as the app name suggests, drag stuff onto. When you drop a file on the icon, you will get a list of options depending on what type of file you just dropped. For instance, you could drop a picture onto the icon and get an option to email, send to Flickr, or upload to an FTP server. Different applications can "register" to work with Dropzone by using a simple API, the documentation for which can be found on the Aptonic website. The more applications that decide to work with Dropzone, the better (developers, did you hear that?). There is currently no shipping date set for this handy little Dock tool, but you can check out a teaser video on the Aptonic website, and also apply to be a part of the beta program.
Beta Beat: Twitter app Lounge
In the history of marketing battles, The Cola Wars have nothing on the Twitter App War that's currently raging online. Twitterrific, TweetDeck and others (popular with commenters: Pwitter and DestroyTwitter) are waging the ground battle, while Twitterrific (mobile), Tweetie and TwitterFon (to name a few) are fighting it out in the air.Today we got our hands on a beta of Lounge, a new client for Mac OS X (and iPhone/iPod touch). It's definitely got a way to go (I saw more beach balls than Memorial Day at Hilton Head), but I see where they're going and I like it. First off, there's support for multiple accounts, and switching between them is easy. A series of buttons appear horizontally in the left of the window, including "My 2 Cents" (which displays just your tweets), Favorites, Friends, Replies and my favorite, Vanity, which finds all occurrences of your Twitter handle.Mouse over a user's tweet to see options to re-tweet, copy the URL, open in a browser and more. I really like the option to view user details, which lets you see just that user's tweets, his followers, those being followed and profile and URL. It is kind of wide (wider than Twitterrific but not TweetDeck, of course) so those with small displays be warned. Also, some may be put off by the pastel-colored icons. Still, it shows promise. Check it out if you're up for it, and provide some feedback to make Lounge better.
Beta Beat: Screenium
Screencasting is becoming a standard method of conveying software-related information. I'm fairly certain that even my mom knows the word, which is my typical buzz-guage. And here you were, thinking "I wish there was yet another contender in the screencast recording arena", right? Lucky you.Synium's Screenium, which is currently in beta preview, is a new arrival in an already teeming category of software. It has standard features like fullscreen, fixed area and mouse-follow capture, hotkey integration and adjustable quality/frame rate with capture presets. It also boasts a single window capture mode and frame rates up to 60fps. I don't know why you'd need to capture a screen at 60fps, but it can't hurt to know it's available. In my testing, Screenium performed exceptionally well in the area of small filesize, high quality captures and its default presets were simple and useful. It also gets high marks for ease of use. And it didn't max out my CPU and turn my fans into Harrier jets after 2 minutes, which is kind of nice when you're recording microphone audio. It's got some distance to cover before the official release in February, but Screenium is looking like a strong contender.
Beta Beat: PictoDrop
Mac Developer Cam Stevenson dropped us a note to let us know that BurrOak Software is looking for beta testers try out PictoDrop. PictoDrop is an image management program that looks like it will help you sort, version, and apply effects to your images in a very Aperture-lite post-processing way. It's a closed beta, so if you're interested you're going to need to send off an e-mail to pictobeta@burroak.on.ca to apply to be a tester. It looks like a fairly cool program, built at least partially using Core Image.
Beta Beat: Parallels Desktop for Mac Update Beta3 (Build 3106)
The coding elves at Parallels must not sleep. They have released just another beta of Parallels Desktop for Mac (this is Beta 3 for those keeping score at home). In case you haven't used the previous Beta, there is a new UI for Parallels, which I am not too crazy about, and a number of bug fixes as well as support for USB 2.0.New in this beta is the inclusion of Transporter Beta3. What does Transporter do? It allows you to migrate an existing Windows install on a PC to a Parallels install over a network. It will also convert VMWare and Virtual PC disk images to Parallel Disk images.
Beta Beat: WriteRoom 2.0
We have written about WriteRoom before and were impressed with its simple idea. Today WriteRoom 2.0 beta has been released and it brings with it a number of changes. The first change you might notice is that WriteRoom is no longer free. It is now shareware with the price tag of $14.95 while in beta with the idea that'll be more when it is fully functional (even though it is in beta. When did it become cool to charge for beta software?). Also new in 2 beta is support for rich text editing, live word count, the ability to save documents where ever you would like, and WriteRoom now stores documents in standard text/rich text format.
Beta Beat: ImageWell 3 updated to Version 3.0b5 - brings back old skool cropping
There's nothing more satisfying than knowing that someone is listening to you - and hearing you - when you're unhappy about something. Well, you spoke and the folks at XtraLean listened. When the ImageWell 3 beta was released in the wild a few days ago, the most common complaint was that image cropping was no longer as easy or intuitive as it had been in version 2.1. It even had me stumped initially, although I, admittedly, didn't mind it all that much once I figured out where the crop tool was hiding. Instead of ignoring their user base, as many freeware, shareware and even major commercial software developers do (I'm talking to you, Adobe), XtraLean quickly went to work to bring cropping, as we previously knew and loved it, back from the dead.A note from the developer says: "We've had some great feedback so far - bug reports, suggestions and complaints. The number one complaint was the cropping feature was too complicated in ImageWell 3. We are happy to announce that we reworked the UI to make image cropping more like it was in ImageWell 2.1. A new build with this better (at least we hope it's better) cropping can be downloaded here. During this beta/release candidate cycle we'll be putting out a new build every two days. Be sure to submit your feedback, bug reports and complaints - so we can try to make ImageWell the best we can. Again, thanks for your support."Thanks you, XtraLean, for caring enough to listen to your users instead of ignoring them. You are a shining example of what the Mac community is all about.
Adium 1.0 beta screenshots
I spend a lot of time in chat (I'm very popular) and sadly all of my friends and colleagues refuse to use the same IM protocol. That's why I eschew iChat and use Adium instead. One of the developers behind Adium gives us a peek at how the beta 1.0 release is shaping up. Before you ask, Adium 1.0 won't support voice/video chat which is just fine with me.This release looks very promising
Beta Beat: ImageWell v3 beta
ImageWell calls itself the "the free and lean image editor" and it is, indeed, both free and lean. It's one of those apps that "just works" and doesn't try to do more than it should. We're fans of ImageWell here at TUAW. It makes our jobs easier. Recently I noticed that the ImageWell 3 beta was available for download and I jumped on it like a rabid dog. Guess what? It "just works" even better.ImageWell rocks for quick and easy edits to images. Just drag an image onto the well, make your adjustments (like cropping, rotating, watermarking and/or resizing) and send the file to the local folder, FTP server or iDisk of your choice. It supports .Mac, WebDAV, FTP and SFTP for uploads. A few simple clicks is all it takes and you'll generally be done with what you needed to do in about the same amount of time it would take for Photoshop to even launch. You can even add text, shapes, thought clouds and balloons with ease without having to launch another app to dress up your pic.Although the basic application is free, ImageWell now also offers a registered version that includes some additional bells and whistles, like more shapes, styles, gradients, and batch resizing. You can upgrade to the registered version for $9.95 during the v3 beta, but the regular price will be $14.95.The interface on ImageWell 3 is a bit different than version 2.x. (no more drawers!) and I was a tad confused by that when I launched it - I'm quite the creature of habit. But once I figured out where things had moved to I felt at ease again. The online help and documentation is very good. though, so if you're confused too, just fire up the help pages and you'll be all set. ImageWell 3 requires OS X 10.3.9 or greater, and is a Universal Binary. If you're looking for a lean and mean image editor, give it a try.
