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Google launches Chrome 78 with forced dark mode and password checker
The latest version of Google's Chrome web browser has landed for Mac, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS, bringing with it a new customization menu for the New Tab page, forced dark mode, support for Password Checkup and a bunch of other features.
Early version of the new 'Plants vs. Zombies' is available today for $30
As we get closer to the October 18th launch of Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, PopCap Games is ready to share a Founder's Edition. Today, fans can play the digital-only version of the game. New features and content will be added weekly over the next six-weeks, as PopCap polishes the title for its official launch.
Microsoft teases a 'modern OS' with 'seamless updates'
Microsoft made a nod towards a possible new operating system at Computex in Taipei this week, when corporate vice president of consumer and device sales Nick Parker took to the stage to outline the company's future OS ambitions. While the event would have been a prime opportunity to reveal the much-rumored Windows Lite, no official announcements were made, but the company did discuss -- albeit cryptically -- what's in the pipeline.
Chrome update rids Android devices of pop-ups and redirects
Android is getting priority treatment again from Chrome as the stable version of Chrome 64 rolls out here ahead of Mac, Windows and Linux for the second release in a row. The version includes the usual bug fixes, plus a host of features designed to make browsing safer and easier. Malicious auto-redirects are out, with the browser blocking third-party iframes unless you've directly interacted with them, and an improved pop-up blocker will stop shady sites from opening new tabs or windows from accidentally-clicked play buttons and transparent overlays.
ArcheAge closed beta coming in mid-July
The good news for fans of the approaching ArcheAge is that the game will be using update 1.2 for the game, news that brought forth much rejoicing. The bad news is that as a result, the game's beta has been somewhat delayed. Trion Worlds has outlined the state of the game in a recent blog post explaining where the game is in testing and what players can expect in the future. In order to get the new version into testing as soon as possible, the developers are not adding in the Trion-specific features to the game which were mentioned previously on the forums. Closed beta events will be starting in mid-July, with a separate alpha server available to see how the 1.2 play environment plays and what benefits it offers. If you're interested to hear about the state of development, take a look at the full update and get ready for the paradigm shift.
TextWrangler updated to version 4.5.2
As TidBITS kindly notes, TextWrangler has been updated to version 4.5.2, and the latest update is available for download right now. As you can see from the release notes, there are lots and lots of different bugfixes in this one, including problems with the Clipboard, various menu and display graphics, and some issues with saving and opening files. TextWrangler is, of course, the free "little brother" to BBEdit, but still a very powerful and capable text editor on its own. BBEdit itself was also updated recently, with the latest version numbered 10.5.4.
Finger Tied Jr. coming next week
Finger Tied is an iPad app that arrived late last year. It's put together by developer Owen Goss, and he says that a lot of users have asked him to create an iPhone version of the app, but given that it's a game that uses the iPad's big screen for lots of finger-swiping space, he didn't want to make it until he was sure he could do it justice. Apparently he found a way, because he's delivering the iPhone version next week, with a game called Finger Tied, Jr. There's a short post up on his blog talking about the game, and as you can see from the picture above, it's more compact than the full iPad title. But that could be fun anyway. Finger Tied, Jr. is due out next week, May 23. Stay tuned for a full look at the app sometime after that.
Heroes and Castles updated to version 3.0
Foursaken Media's Heroes and Castles has been updated yet again, with lots of new content to play. The game, which allows you to level up a hero by defending a town and its various resources against an army of invading minions, has been popular for Foursaken already, and the team told me during GDC that they were planning on adding plenty of extras to the game this year. They've reached version 3.0 now, and the latest update adds three new heroes: an Assassin, a Barbarian, and a Druid, each with their own abilities and weapons. There's also a brand new campaign for the game that must be unlocked to play, with new maps to fight over, and new allied units to join you in battle. You can upgrade buildings and units even further, the graphics now boast real-time shadows, and the game's performance has been upgraded overall. Finally, there are new achievements to earn in the game, which the best players can go after for Game Center glory. That's a sizable update that adds even more value to this excellent $1.99 game. Heroes and Castles can be downloaded right now. [via Touch Arcade]
Pixbits announces Junk Jack X, coming later this year
There are quite a few "sandbox" games available on iOS, including the uber-popular Minecraft, and Majic Jungle's great Blockheads. But my favorite so far is Junk Jack, a 2D sandbox title put together by Pixbits. It's excellent -- its little square tiles are perfect for the iPhone's interface, and almost everything you can craft in the game is useful and interesting. There has been murmuring that Pixbits was going to create a "Junk Jack 2" release soon, but instead, the company has announced a game called Junk Jack X, a brand-new installment of the series with multiplayer, character customization, worlds support, a deeper crafting system and of course upgraded graphics. You can see what the game looks like in the announcement post, and it's definitely very impressive. Liquids will now flow through the game realistically, you can equip and upgrade various items in a few different slots and the game will also have other planets (!) and themes to explore. Junk Jack is a great game, and Junk Jack X looks like it improves on almost every feature. Pixbits says work is going well, but given the vast scope of the title, we probably won't see it on the App Store until Q3 or Q4 of this year. We'll be waiting.
Adobe brings Photoshop Touch to the iPhone
Just about a year ago at this time, Adobe released an iPad version of their flagship app, called Photoshop Touch. Now, a year later, they've announced a version of the app built specifically for the iPhone's smaller screen, that should be propagating out to the App Store very soon, listed at a price of US$4.99. So what's different? Product Manager Stephen Nielson sat down with TUAW a little while ago to demo the new version of the app, and show off just what's been done differently with the smaller screen. One thing is that despite the touchscreen interface, this is still Photoshop. You can open photos, edit them as you see fit, crop and retouch. It also allows you to edit layers with the standard cloning, brush and effects tools, and do nearly everything the desktop version of the app can do. There are even some things the desktop version app can't do -- Adobe built a "Scribble selection" feature for the touchscreen, where you can simply drag your finger around to select, and the app will intelligently nail your choice down. And there's also a "camera fill" feature, where you can choose a selection, and then use your iPhone or iPad's camera to shoot a picture right there and fill it in. And there's a 3D layer-viewing mode, where you can expand your image out into its various layers, and then drag around the touchscreen to view them in 3D. All of this is powered by Adobe's Creative Cloud service, too, so you can seamlessly transfer to and open photos from your phone, work on them and then save and reopen them up on your desktop. It's all very smooth and simple, and for just $4.99, the app seems like a bargain for any Photoshop ninjas out there. Of course, not everything is perfect. First up, as you might imagine, the iPhone and iPad have power limits that your desktop does not, so the biggest image you can open is a 12-megapixel image with three layers. If you open a smaller image, you can trade that off for more layers, so a 3-megapixel image can run up to 16 layers at a time on the iOS versions. The good news, though, is that if you open up an image with more layers than your iOS device can handle, it gets saved into a new format, so you'll never lose your work. The other big missing piece on the iPhone itself is tutorials -- there are some text-based informational tutorials included with the iPhone app, but the iPad had much more involved tutorials and demos. That's not a big loss, however, and Nielson told us it was mostly just to save space in the iPhone's internal memory. But "by and large," says Nielson, the iPhone version has "just about everything" else the iPad version has, despite it being half the price. As for what Adobe has planned next, Nielson said the company will "continue to explore new features for these apps, but also other apps and other services, especially services and workflows that can be enabled by Creative Cloud." Nielson didn't have any other announcements, but promised more is coming soon. Photoshop Touch seems like an excellent (and much cheaper) version of the image-editing standard, and now it's been ported over successfully to the iPhone. It's too bad the company didn't go universal, but given all of the work that went into this new version, and the comparably much higher price of the desktop software, anyone who uses Photoshop regularly probably won't hesitate to grab it right away.
10000000 now available on Mac via Steam
10000000 (pronounced "10 million") is a great game that arrived on iOS last year. It combines a tile-based swiping puzzle game with a fantasy-based progression system to create a very addictive mix. The game is still available on iOS for US$1.99, but Eighty-Eight Games has now made the leap over to the desktop, releasing the app on Steam for both Windows and Mac. As you can see in this trailer, the PC version of the game is similar to the Mac version, and contains all of the various dungeon upgrades and puzzle action that the original is known for. Eighty-Eight tells us that Valve came to them and asked about a Steam release after the success of the iOS version, which resulted in the port that's available right now. There's no Mac App Store version, unfortunately, but getting the game for both Windows and Mac on Steam Play should make up for that. Currently, the title is having a launch sale, so you can pick it up for a dollar off, or just $3.99. If you missed this game on iOS (or just love it so much that you want to play it again), Steam's got you covered.
Minecraft's mobile version outsold others by volume in 2012
Minecraft creators Mojang have released stats on how the game's various platform clients (Windows/Mac, Xbox 360 and of course iOS and Android) have been selling, and the numbers have a surprise. The mobile version is outselling everything else by volume. As you can see above, Christmas sales boosted the mobile version, at least in terms of pure numbers, so that it's beating all other versions offered over the past year. In terms of value, the mobile version didn't fare quite as well as the more expensive Windows and console versions, ending up with about 16 percent of sales as compared to the PC's 44 percent of incoming revenue. Still, Christmas was a huge time for Minecraft: Pocket Edition apparently, with the company raking in money from almost 284,000 copies on that day alone. Minecraft is traditionally known as a PC title, as that's where the platform started, but the mobile version stepped up into its own during the last weeks of 2012.
Barkley RPG sequel seeks $35K on Kickstarter
As expected, the developers behind the strange indie title Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden have launched a Kickstarter campaign to support a sequel sporting the the unwieldy title of The Magical Realms of Tír na nÓg: Escape from Necron 7 - Revenge of Cuchulainn: The Official Game of the Movie - Chapter 2 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa. Or, as they call it, just Barkley 2 for short.The campaign is seeking just $35,000 (and they've raised about half already), and in return is offering lots of digital rewards, game soundtracks to download, and weirder bonuses like a full-sized Cyberdwarf body pillow and more.To get interest growing for the sequel, the developer has released a free Mac version of its initial Barkley title, so even on an Apple computer, you can witness the aftermath of The Great B-Ball Purge of 2041 for yourself.
Pocket for Mac gets a big update, better Twitter, Facebook, and Evernote support
Pocket used to be called Read It Later, and it actually did fairly well under that branding, as I remember. But the app was revamped to Pocket a little while ago, and since then, has been growing a little empire of apps designed to save content on one device, and pass it around to any number of various outlets. Pocket for Mac has just recently been updated to version 1.1, and there are quite a few significant updates still rolling out of the development team. The app now includes hooks into the native support of both Twitter and Facebook in Mountain Lion, as well as support for multiple accounts in Twitter. Evernote sharing has been revamped completely, so that's easier to use. There are new keyboard shortcuts, and the team has introduced a new URL scheme ("pocket://") that seems like it will be more important in future updates. There are also some fixes, including a much more responsive dock badge, which is a nice bonus. Pocket for Mac is available right now, and it remains completely free.
Firefox 17 drops OS X 10.5 Leopard support, adds integrated Facebook Messenger
Firefox 17 is out of beta, but the biggest story for us Mac users is what it doesn't do, namely support OS X 10.5 Leopard. That's right, Mozilla's browser has moved on, so if you're still running 10.5, this latest version is not for you. But it does add a new "Social API," which Facebook has already used to bring an in-browser Messenger interface, and there are a number of new performance improvements and an "updated Awesome Bar experience" to check out as well. Odds are that the 10.5 cutoff won't catch too many people any more, considering we've had three big OS updates since then (heck, Safari 6 doesn't run past 10.7.5). But if you are one of those with a Mac that still needs 10.5, you can of course keep running Firefox 16 for as long as you want. You just won't be able to update it any more going forward. [via Engadget]
New OS X 10.9 appears in server logs
You should take this with the requisite grain of salt, because it's not all that groundbreaking. AppleInsider notes that several references to Apple computers running OS X 10.9 have appeared on its server logs, suggesting that someone visited the site while using an unreleased version of Apple's operating system. True, this type of data can be faked, and it's not much of a surprise to hear that Apple's working on a new version of OS X anyway. Of course Apple will update OS X at some point. But at the same time, server log references like this are often our first indication that something new is on the way, so you can at least store in the back of your mind that a reference to OS X 10.9 may have been spotted in the wild. Feel free to use that thought to fuel excitement through the long winter months. What should we do while waiting for more official information? Why, figure out what Apple should name the new version, of course.
Path for iPad now available
Path is the growing social network founded by Shawn Fanning. The service's popularity has grown as Apple's iOS devices become more and more ubiquitous. Evidence of Path's good fortune can be seen in the release a of a new, iPad-friendly universal version. Users can now update and browse Path from their iPhones and iPads. Path's developers note that the app isn't just the iPhone version made bigger. Instead, it's a brand new experience for Path users, designed to present each user's shared experiences in big, beautiful color. The app features two different modes, one each for portrait and landscape orientation, as well as improved navigation features and a smoother experience. Plus, Path points out that bringing the app to the iPad grows the potential audience for the network, so you may see more of your friends and family on there as well. The Path app is a free download. If you're a habitual Path user, odds are you've already headed over to pick it up.
Romo the iPhone robot is back, Kickstarting version 2
Romo is a little iPhone-powered robot that showed up on Kickstarter around this time last year. It was successfully funded and distributed out into the world, making everyone happy by cycling itself around with the buzz and whirr of tiny mechanics. But as is usual with these things, the team behind Romo had even more ideas and other thoughts about how to make Romo work even better, and do even more things. So they did what worked before: They're back on Kickstarter, this time trying to put together $100,000 to remake a next-generation Romo. In addition to a redesigned circuit board and a friendlier base, this robot will have advanced functionality in terms of moving around and navigating the world. Plus, the team wants to work on some really advanced procedures, doing things like facial recognition, two-way telepresence (so you could see what the robot sees and show up on the screen yourself), and other features. The production line for this robot is already set up, says the team -- it's the software that they are Kickstarting for, as well as the actual product costs, obviously. There is one big drawback, and it's that this new Romo won't work with an iPhone 5 -- the production line that's set up currently works with the old dock connector, not the new Lightning connector. That could be an issue, since lots of early adopters will probably already have moved on to the new dock format. But the Romo team says the next robot is set to work with the iPhone 5 (and be female, by the way), so the hookup is coming, at least. At any rate, if you like the project and want to support this once-successful team yet again, the Kickstarter page is open right now. [via Engadget]
Acorn updated to version 3.5, lots of new options and tools
Photo-editing app Acorn has been updated to version 3.5, and with that update comes plenty of new features to check out. The Magic Wand tool has been updated with the ability to do contiguous or non-contiguous selections, you can now export just a single layer out of the app, there are some new plugin APIs to use and there are of course a whole host of other updates and bugfixes, all available on the official website. In short, a great app has been made even better. You can nab Acorn over on the Mac App Store -- it's US$49.99. If you already own the app, the update is free.
Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition headed to Mac
Feral Interactive has a lot of expertise bringing PC games to the Mac, but they haven't quite figured out how to do it quickly yet. Batman: Arkham City was one of the biggest console hits of last year, but Feral Interactive is only now releasing it on the Mac. The game's going to be available in November, so if you haven't played it yet and you've been waiting for the Mac version, the wait isn't quite over. There is a bright side, at least: This will be the Game of the Year Edition, which means that all of the downloadable content will be included -- the Catwoman content that came with the game plus the Harley Quinn's Revenge pack. The game features an open-world environment, lots of thugs to beat up with a really fun combat system and plenty of cameos from your favorite Batman characters. Arkham City's a great game, and it'll be nice to finally have it on the Mac, but man, it would have been even better to get it a little sooner than November.
