Astropad has offered its studio app for creative professionals that turns iPad into a Mac drawing tablet since 2017. Now after hearing lots of feedback from users, Astropad has launched a beta to convert iPad into a PC drawing tablet.
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Yesterday, well-respected venture capitalist Mary Meeker released her annual Internet Trends Report. Inside the over 200 slide PowerPoint were some interesting numbers relating to the continuing battle between iOS and Android. As we reported last night, Meeker’s report showed iOS continue to decline in marketshare, while Android continues to gain. In many ways, the current split between Android and iOS in terms of market share and unit shipments is very similar to the split between Mac and PC shipments and marketshare. And it’s been a long time coming for Apple.
IDC has today published its latest report concerning the PC market, and once again, it shows Apple outpacing the rest of the industry, albeit at a slightly slower pace this time around. According to the data, Apple saw its total market share increase during the first quarter of 2016, though it actually saw total sales fall year-over-year.
We’ve seen DIY solutions in building a Mac Pro-style Hackintosh out of actual trash cans, but others who aren’t as inclined to follow a DIY route may be excited to hear about the Dune Case. Dune Case is currently running a Kickstarter campaign of its Mac Pro-inspired PC case. The case would allow anyone to get a Mac Pro look at a fraction of the cost at only $189. Boasting a design that helps support airflow, strikingly similar to the Mac Pro, the Dune Case comes in either a black or gold color options.
This comparison of the differences between Microsoft Office on Mac, Windows, and iOS devices was put together by Kurt Schmucker who (disclaimer) works for Parallels — the company that makes slick virtual machine apps for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac — but he also happens to know a thing or two about the subject after his previous role as Senior Mac Evangelist at Microsoft and on the Office team. So what exactly is missing on Mac and iOS devices compared to Windows when it comes to the Office suite?
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Apple CEO Tim Cook with IBM CEO Ginni Rometty
Deploying Macs to employees has helped IBM significantly reduce its IT staff and cut down on time and costs, the company’s VP of Workplace-as-a-Service Fletcher Previn explained at a recent talk during the JAMF Nation User Conference (JNUC). Previn offered some insight into how offering Macs has improved efficiency for the company’s internal IT staff since IBM for the first time started offering its employees Macs as an official alternative to PCs back in May.
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Microsoft comparing its new Surface Book laptop/tablet combo with Apple’s MacBook Pro
At Microsoft’s event today it unveiled a huge array of ambitious and interesting tech which should be enough to make Apple stand up and take notice. The once-giant of the consumer electronics world has had to reinvent itself over the past couple of years, and judging from today’s event, it’s doing enough to get people interested again at the very least. At best, it could transform the way we see technology and computing.
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If you want quality, reliable tech support for your computer, get a Mac. That’s according to the results of a new Consumer Reports survey that ranked Apple top among PC manufacturers for technical support post-purchase for the ninth year running…
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Google today released its Chrome Remote Desktop app for iOS after a release on Android devices last year.
The app, available for both iPhone and iPad, allows users to remotely access their computer via the Chrome Remote Desktop app available in the Chrome Web Store.
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While developers are warning iOS 8 and Mac users to avoid upgrading to Apple’s new iCloud Drive feature before the release of OS X Yosemite, Windows users now have access with an updated iCloud for Windows utility released by Apple. With the update, Windows users can now view and edit content stored in iCloud Drive through File Explorer (via Ars Technica).
As for Mac users, Apple explains in its support document: “If you upgrade to iCloud Drive before OS X Yosemite is available, documents on your Mac won’t be kept up to date with documents on your devices with iOS 8, or on iCloud.com.” Apple allows users to upgrade to iCloud Drive on devices running iOS 8.
Windows users can download the latest iCloud for Windows here to access the new iCloud Drive features, while Mac users will have to wait for the OS X Yosemite release this fall.
With iOS 8 launching later today, it’s worth taking a look at how you should prepare your device for the new operating system. Before installing the update, it is recommended that you have a backup of your data. This how-to is going to walk you through backing up your iOS 7 device and transitioning it over to iOS 8:
Microsoft is launching a cheaper ‘Personal’ Office 365 subscription today that will give you access to the cloud services and mobile apps for $69/year or $6.99/month opposed to the $99/year Home subscription. The new Personal subscription only provides access for one Mac (or PC) and iPad (or tablet) instead of the 5 PC or Macs and 5 tablets you get with a Home subscription.
You might want to hold off on the new subscription, however, as Amazon is currently selling the full Home subscription for just $63 (37% off). That’s cheaper than the new $69 Personal plan, but it’s possible Microsoft could soon end that discount and change prices on Amazon now that the new Personal subscription is launching.
The Office 365 subscription gives you access to full editing features in Microsoft’s recently released suite of Office apps for iPad, but also access to desktop and online versions of Microsoft’s Office apps, 7GB of cloud storage, and 60 minutes of Skype credit a month.
In case you missed it, Microsoft finally released its suite of Office apps for iPad today with the introduction of standalone Word, PowerPoint, & Excel apps in the App Store. The Office app for iPhone remains the same apart from dropping the requirement of a 365 subscription (it’s now free for all!), but the new iPad versions of the Office apps WILL require an Office 365 subscription to create or edit documents. So, if you plan on using the Office apps on your iPad in the future, you’ll want to take advantage of a big discount on 365 subscriptions currently on Amazon.
Normally $99/year or $10/month, you can grab a 1 year Office 365 Home Premium subscription for $67.15 with free shipping. That’s a savings of $32.84 (33%) and gets to an access code for 5 Macs or PCs with access to all Office 365 app and services. That includes 20GB OneDrive storage for each for up to 4 household member, 60 minutes of Skype calls per month and all the apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, and Access.
1 year Office 365 Home Premium subscription for $67.15
Word, PowerPoint, and Excel are now available on the App Store.
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IDC has announced preliminary PC shipment numbers for the fourth quarter of 2013, with Apple dropping from third to fourth place on the list. Apple shipped about 438,000 fewer machines than the same quarter in the previous year, allowing Lenovo to catch up and overtake them, despite Lenovo’s gain of only 163,000 shipped units.
HP, Dell, and Toshiba maintained the same positions as the previous year. While most companies lost a portion of their market share this year, Lenovo and Dell managed to claim most of the free space in the market. Overall the market saw a 1.6% drop over last year’s sales—about 285,000 shipments.
Gartner, on the other hand, reports that Apple actually gained quite a bit of market share. How these two numbers are so far apart is a mystery, but it’s possible that IDC included Surface-style tablets in its numbers, potentially skewing the results in comparison to Gartner’s numbers.
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If I could only make one game recommendation for Mac users, at the moment it would have to be BioShock Infinite. The game received amazing reviews from critics on the consoles and our friends at Aspyr quickly followed up with a flawless Mac version back in August. If you’ve yet to pick up a copy, you now officially have no excuse: GameAgent and 9to5Toys are offering BioShock Infinite for Mac for 75% off from now until Sunday.
That means you’ll get BioShock Infinite for $10 instead of the usual $40, and we’re also throwing in the $4.99 Columbia’s Finest DLC for free. Best price on Amazon: $31
On top of that, GameAgent is giving away some crazy prizes to celebrate its brand new site redesign. The new site has a “Mac Match” feature that lets you setup profiles for your Macs to easily find supported content, and also a new Wish List feature to get automatic deal alerts when games you’re interested in go on sale.
Go create an account on GameAgent.com and make sure to put a name and legit email when completing the contest entry page to win a fully loaded 27-inch iMac with a 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i5, 16GB of RAM, 1TB drive, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5 graphics. It will also come loaded with every BioShock, COD, Duke Nukem, Quake 4, Civilization and Star Wars title GameAgent sells, along with a long list of other titles and DLC, and there are many other prizes too. Full details of the contest rules can be read here (contest rules).
To get your 75% off BioShock Infinite, click here and enter promo code “9to5Mac” at checkout. Deal expires 11:59pm CST, Sunday, November 17. Note: BioShock Infinite through GameAgent is the Mac version of the game and authenticates on Steam.
GameAgent also announced the release of the BioShock Burial at Sea- Episode 1 DLC yesterday with a same day release as the PC title.
Update: GameAgent ran into some “inventory issues” because so many of you are trying to take advantage of this awesome deal. Everything is sorted now and the deal is still live, but if you ran into issues, GameAgent will sort you out:
[tweet https://twitter.com/GameAgentStore/status/401009258348961793]
[tweet https://twitter.com/GameAgentStore/status/401009299557978112]
Update 2: The deal site PC gamer spambots have officially ruined the fun for everyone. GameAgent had to shut the deal down due to a high amount of fraud from bots eating up all the inventory on the deal code. We’re working with GameAgent to bring the deal back. Stay tuned.
US Mac sales fell year-on-year as part of the global decline in the PC market as consumers switch to tablets, phablets and smartphones – but the two major market analysts produced wildly differing estimates of the size of that fall.
IDC has a dramatic drop of 11.2 percent, from 2.14M in the third quarter of 2012 to 1.9M in the same quarter this year, while Gartner shows a much more modest decline of 2.3 percent from 2.2M (close to IDC’s number) to 2.1M. The only point on which both agree is this is the first Q3 decline in Mac sales since 2002, a quarter usually assisted by the back-to-school market …
Apple has announced that iOS 7 will be available tomorrow, September 18th. Before installing the update, it is recommended that you have a backup of your data. This how-to is going to walk you through backing up your iOS 6 device and transitioning it over to iOS 7:
Gartner is today out with a report detailing its estimates for Q2 2013 global and U.S. PC shipments. Globally, the industry average for shipments is down 10.9%. This is the fifth consecutive decline for this specific metric.
“We are seeing the PC market reduction directly tied to the shrinking installed base of PCs, as inexpensive tablets displace the low-end machines used primarily for consumption in mature and developed markets,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. “In emerging markets, inexpensive tablets have become the first computing device for many people, who at best are deferring the purchase of a PC. This is also accounting for the collapse of the mini notebook market.”
According to a report from Nikkei (via Reuters), Microsoft has signed up Japan-based game developer Klab Inc to bring some of its console and PC games to the iPhone and Android devices. There aren’t many other details, but the report claims Microsoft’s next title to arrive on smartphones will be a free-to-play version of Age of the Empires:
Microsoft’s “Age of the Empires” will be available as a free-to-play game worldwide on smartphones by the end of the fiscal year 2013 and other titles will follow, the report said.
KLab is behind a few titles already on the App Store and Google Play, including Arcadia, Gigabot Wars, Eternal Uprising, and Lord of the Dragons.
It actually wouldn’t be the first game that Microsoft has published for iOS devices as it recently brought its previously Windows Phone only title “Tentacles: Enter the Dolphin” to the App Store for both iPhone and iPad.
Amazon just announced it would expand in-app purchasing to games on Mac, PC, and Web-based platforms, according to a press release, letting folks use their Amazon accounts to buy “virtual goods and currencies”.
Amazon’s customers can use any credit card, Amazon gift card, or Amazon credit when buying in-app items. The online retailer also offers its in-app purchasing API and services to Android and Kindle Fire, so developers from a variety of platforms can offer a “trusted and secure buying experience.”
When Amazon launched in-app purchasing for Android and Kindle fire last year, the company’s appstore director, Aaron Rubenson, explained it would take a 30-percent cut from transactions, similar to how Apple and Facebook does, but Amazon can also set pricing so developers can still receive 30 percent of the list price.
Amazon noted other benefits to today’s expansion include opening its fraud detection technology to developers, providing transaction and customer service support, and offering marketing options like in-app items available on Amazon.com via best seller lists, recommendations, campaigns, etc.
Get more information at Developer.amazon.com/games/in-app-purchasing, or check out the press release below. Amazon’s introduction video from last year on in-app purchasing is also after the break.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index is out today with its September report for appliances, computers, televisions and video players/recorders. Not surprisingly, Apple is able to maintain its lead among personal computers despite a drop of 1-point to 86 over previous reports. While the report noted Apple continued to lead the category by a margin of 5- to- 9 points, Apple’s lead is slightly smaller than previously, according to the report, “due to an across-the-board customer satisfaction increase for Windows-based computers.” Apple’s score comes as the PC industry as a whole gains 2.6-points and hit all-time high satisfaction score of 80.
Skipping past HP, Acer and Toshiba, the aggregate of smaller PC makers (including tablet producers Samsung and Amazon) improves customer satisfaction by 4% to 80 while simultaneously gaining market share at a pace that outstrips even Apple… “What may be occurring is that the defection of the least satisfied customers of traditional PC brands such as Dell, HP and Acer to Apple and other smaller tablet makers actually may be boosting customer satisfaction for all,” says Fornell. “The companies that lose market share will maintain their most loyal and happy customers, while those who migrate to other companies in search of new products are more pleased as well.”
