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Apple

iTunes 11 Has Finally Arrived

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Yes, Apple has officially released iTunes 11, which I must say is the biggest change to iTunes in sometime. My first impression of the new iTunes is a bit of a surprise, Apple has done a really nice job with this release. Of course with all things that are new, it will take a while for us to truly evaluate the new and improved iTunes, but so far things are looking pretty impressive.

So what’s new? Well, quite a bit actually. iTunes has essentially been completely redesigned and you will notice these changes the moment you first launch the application.

iTunes 11 ScreenShot
(Credit: Apple)

Preview History:

iTunes 11 now features preview history, something that I greatly appreciate. I actually find that I will preview certain songs and then move on with out keeping track of them, then when I want to go back to the one I liked, I completely forget the song name. This new feature gets rid of the guessing game and it does so across all of your devices thanks to iCloud. The preview history is not just for music, it will also store any movies or TV shows you previewed as well.

Saving your place:

You can now pause any movie, podcast, TV show, iTunesU Lesson, or audiobook and pick up where you left off on any device.

New Mini Player:

Apple is all about mini these days and it’s no different when it comes to iTunes. The new mini player offers up a nice way for you to be able to gloss through your library by providing you with a mini version of it. You can also see what song is going to play next by clicking on the new “Up Next:”  button. The “Up Next:” feature is also available in the full size version of iTunes 11 and will also allow you to queue up music ahead of the song your currently listening to. This feature should come in handy when you’re in charge of the party music.

miniPlayeri11
The New mini Player in iTunes11 (Credit:Apple)

A Clean New Design:

Yeah, I know looks aren’t everything, especially when it comes to software. I use a ton of great apps that for lack of a better word look like, crap, but are extremely useful. iTunes 11, however, looks great. The new redesign is enough to make you feel uncomfortable at first, but once you settle in you quickly realize that things are where they need to be and that everything looks great. The interface just seems to get out of the way and it lets my content shine. This is also true of the iTunes Store which now features a very image rich experience.

iTunes Store Now Features a Gift Card Scanning Feature:

 

iTunesCardRedemption
New iTunes11 Card Redemption (Credit:GWE)

You can now just take a photo of your iTunes Store gift card to redeem it, which is actually a really nice little feature that I missed initially, thanks to MacRumors, who pointed this out.

 

Featured App: Smart Aliens

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Smart Aliens is a social hangman-like game that you can play with your friends via Facebook, or 3 random people from all over in real-time. At first you may think..”oh, hangman, okay whatever”, but this game is actually way better than I expected.

You first pick your alien avatar, then you choose to play the arena mode, or duel mode. In arena, you will be asked to make your bet amount, Rookie Arena-5 gold, Gamblers Arena-10 gold, and Psychopath Arena-15 gold. Inside you are joined with 3 other actual players, no CPU. The game will give you a category and letters to choose. You must choose carefully, once you lose all your lives you lose your bet twice! The game’s gold coins are used in the shop to buy bots, different avatars, traps and medikits. These things will help while in the arena with other players to make sure you win, by taking lives away from them, or refilling your lives.

ArenaMultiplayer SmartAliens
Arena Multiplayer, SmartAliens

 

The avatars are cute and funny looking, some come at a high price, and there is one that you must have the paid version to get. Although you don’t have to buy the app (since there is a free version) the paid version gives you some perks, like extra gold. I wanted a certain alien, but she was very expensive and the winnings for each round, really don’t add up very fast, so I feel like they know you will definitely buy the full version and more gold to get what you want, otherwise, you would be playing for a pretty long time before you got it. That is the only con that I believe this game has. Overall at $1.99, I think it was a good buy.

Available at the App Store and coming soon to Google Play. You can also check out their website at www.smartaliens.com

Features include:

DUEL mode: Challenge your friends in a turn-by-turn game.
ARENA mode: WARNING! ADDICTIVE GAME! Play against 3 other aliens in real-time!
FACEBOOK: Connect with Facebook, invite and challenge your friends.
TRAPS: Assured victory by trapping your opponents with the lightning, the psycho keyboard or the kidnapping.
SUPER POWERS: Upgrade your alien to reveal letters at the beginning of a round, block lightning or resurrect from death.

 

 

iTunes 11 Possibly Right Around the Corner

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iTunesScreenShot

According to MacRumors, iTunes 11 may be launching in the next few days. A German music distribution service Feiyr, sent out an email to artists asking them to prepare for the next release of iTunes. iTunes 11 will feature a new interface that relies heavily on graphics. In the email the artists are being asked to add more photos and to make sure they are of a high resolution.

iTunes 11 has undergone some delays and was supposed to have been released earlier but hopefully the extra time will make the new version that much more stable.  Hopefully, this new version will impress us as most iTunes releases don’t. This version will include integration with Facebook and Twitter. As always we will keep you up-to-date on the latest.

Do we Really Need Certain Apps for our PC?

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With both OSX and Windows now featuring an app store we can now get many of our favorite applications all in one place and with peace of mind when it comes to security. I have been using Windows 8 for some time now and one of the apps that I use is the Netflix app. The app has been somewhat buggy as of late, but over all it seems to get the job done. I finished watching an episode of Mythbusters and then went off to run some errands. I came home later and jumped onto my Macbook and started working. Square modern app icons.

A hour or so had passed and I decided that I wanted to watch another episode of Mythbusters. I started to head to my web browser when I suddenly stopped and wondered if there was a Netflix app for OSX, something similar to what Windows 8 has. I quickly opened the App Store and searched for Netflix, only to find that it doesn’t exist. I thought that it was kind of strange considering OSX has been around for a while and it seems like it would be useful.

I quickly began to realize that the lack of a OSX Netflix app isn’t actually that big of deal. I only need to click a bookmark in my web browser and I have access to all of the content and features that any app would have. Then I started to question the need for apps like these in the first place, at least for your laptop or desktop. What’s the difference between an app on my desktop vs a link on my desktop that takes me to Netflix? Where is the benefit? With new web browsers that harness the power of our machines more than ever by making use of our GPU and extra processing power, why bother with an app? I am looking for any opportunity that can save disk space and the lifespan of my SSD.

What makes the web based app more appealing is the fact that it’s often more reliable. I mentioned earlier that I have been dealing with quite a few bugs since I have started using the new Netflix app, but when it comes to the website, I have had virtually no issues. Some of this could be due to the website being around much longer than the app and therefore less buggy. Why bother with the app at all when we seem to be moving toward a cloud based world? If we are trying to create a much more seamless experience then why leave the browser that we spend so much time using, just to open an app? The answer isn’t so clear at this point, which is why the pros don’t seem to know either. This is basically the wild west era of the OS and everyone seems to be trying a little bit of everything and then waiting to see what consumers end up doing.

We can always look at things from the other prospective, which seems to be a movement away from the web as we know it today. Maybe we just make everything an app, including all our favorite websites and instead of downloading them, we just launch them from the cloud. Perhaps, we can just get rid of the web address altogether and then just use google to search for apps instead. Who knows how strange things will become and how practical any of this actually is.

One thing is for certain, we are in the middle of a long evolution that will leave us with a much different computer experience than currently we have today. We are stuck in a phase between old and new and it feels weird but I think were headed in the right direction, it’s just going to take another five years or more before we can fully adapt this new way of doing things. It is ultimately up to us, the consumers, to figure out what we want. If we don’t buy it, it won’t continue to exist and so we ultimately decide what works and what doesn’t. So what do you think?

 

Pondering Apple Software with Jonathan Ive in Charge

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The recent shake up in Apple’s executives has left Jonathan Ive in charge of software design as well as hardware design. This change up could have Apple’s next big software release featuring some big changes.

Jonathan Ive
Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc.

Jonathan Ive has always pushed the idea of keeping things simple and clean and he will likely bring this mentality into play when working with Apple’s software. In every corner of OSX and even iOS, you will find bits and pieces of texture and art incorporated right into the UI. One only needs to perform a few common tasks on any Apple OS to find these little decorations. For instance, the wooden bookshelves in iBooks, linen textures on the side panels, and torn paper on the calendar, these are all things that Ive will likely remove in future versions.

I personally don’t have a problem with them but then again I don’t have any doubt that Jonathan Ive will do a great job in overseeing the design aspect of Apple’s software. Simplicity can be just as beautiful as any decorative pattern or texture. If anything, the application itself should be the centerpiece not what surrounds it, but there needs to be some balance. Take away too much and you risk making the OS feel too utilitarian and dull but add too much and it can become distracting. Some critics of Apple believe that these little decorations date the software and make it look silly. It will be interesting to see what the critics say about Ive’s spin on the next generation of Apple OS software.

I can’t help but wonder what other changes are in the works for the next release of Mac OS. It’s not perfect but OSX has been around for sometime now and it’s still just as enjoyable to use as it ever has been. Will we see a move away form the Dock? It is possible that the next Mac OS will more closely resemble iOS, even more than it does already. This seems to be the case with Windows 8 which feels a lot like Windows phone and the Xbox dashboard mashed together. I feel the Dock is effective and elegant but at times unnecessary.

I like the way iOS handles open applications by keeping them out of view at the bottom of the screen, you only need to swipe up to access them. I would like to see the new Mac OS handle open applications in a similar way. I understand you can hide the dock but it’s just not the same. We could have open applications and their corresponding windows be in this bottom slide while all of our other applications could be accessed through the Launchpad. Also, since the Dock will be removed, we will need a quick way to access the Launchpad, preferably by gesture.

We can only offer up our best suggestions, but given Apple’s record of releasing OS software we technically should have little to fear. We will just have to wait and see what Ive and the crew at Apple come up with.