Lion-Compatible Quicken 2007 for Mac Promised in ‘Early Spring’

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Intuit today sent out an email to its Quicken for Mac customers providing an update on the company's efforts to develop a version of Quicken 2007 compatible with OS X Lion. We noted earlier this year that Intuit was looking for a way to make Quicken 2007 compatible with Lion following Apple's discontinuation of Rosetta support for PowerPC-based applications like Quicken. According to today's email and a newly-posted FAQ, Intuit is now promising that a Lion-compatible version of Quicken 2007 will be available by "early spring".As you may know, Quicken for Mac 2007 does not currently work on Apple's latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). I understand the frustration this may have caused you and have put a team in place to address this issue. I am happy to announce that we will have a solution that makes Quicken 2007 for Mac "Lion-compatible" by early spring. There are still details to be worked out, so I ask your continued patience as we work through these.Intuit is also reassuring customers that it has increased the size of its Mac development team as part of a renewed effort to support the platform. Quicken 2007 was a popular personal financial management application for Mac, but instead of building upon the popular application Intuit elected to rebuild the application as a stripped-down Quicken Essentials for Mac. The new version was widely panned by reviewers for its considerable loss of functionality compared to Quicken 2007. Consequently, many Quicken owners continued use the 2007 version, but with Lion's dropping of support for the Rosetta framework needed to run Quicken 2007, users have had to decide between upgrading to Lion or abandoning Quicken 2007. With that dilemma in mind, many customers have already dropped their usage of Quicken and migrated to competing products such as iBank or Mint.com (now owned by Intuit), although each solution offers a slightly different set of tools that may or may not be suitable for a given user's needs. Quicken is clearly hoping to win back some of those lost customers and keep others from defecting to competing products with a reinvestment in the Quicken for Mac platform, beginning with getting Quicken 2007 up and running on Lion machines. It remains to be seen, however, whether Intuit has moved quickly enough for many users.

AMD Announces New Mac Pro-Suitable Radeon HD 7970 Graphics Card

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Earlier this month, we noted that developer builds of OS X 10.7.3 were showing evidence of AMD's forthcoming "Tahiti" graphics card family, the first to be built using 28-nanometer technology. The evidence suggested that Apple was at least preparing for the possibility of the cards being used in a Mac Pro update next year, an update that is reportedly still in question given uncertainty about the future of the line. In the wake of those findings, AMD today officially announced the high-end Radeon HD 7970 from the Tahiti line, billing it as the world's fastest single-chip graphics card.With the arrival of the AMD Radeon HD 7970, AMD has unleashed its revolutionary new Graphics Core Next Architecture that enables new levels of gaming and compute capabilities – realizing an improvement of over 150% in performance/sq mm over the prior generation. Engineered with support for PCI Express 3.0 and AMD CrossFire technology, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics card arrives prepared for the next level of gaming.Engadget has a nice roundup of reviews of the new card, with testers generally reporting significantly improved performance over the current generation of equivalent AMD cards and other high-end competitors such as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580. On the negative side, reviews cited the card's $549 price tag and significant noise under high load. The Radeon HD 7970 will launch on January 9th, and AMD is also reported to be preparing to launch a slightly scaled-down model in the form of a Radeon HD 7950 card. With new Xeon processors from Intel launching in the first quarter of 2012 and AMD's new graphics card offerings lining up for a January launch, parts do appear to be coming together for a significant upgrade for the Mac Pro, which has not been updated since July 2010. What remains to be seen is whether Apple will continue to invest in its professional-level workstation line.

Evernote Releases Skitch for iPad [iOS Blog]

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When image editing and sharing app Skitch was acquired by Evernote earlier this year, we were told iPhone and iPad versions were on the way -- and now Skitch for iPad has arrived. Skitch is the amazingly fun and surprisingly powerful way to move your ideas and projects forward using fewer words. With Skitch, annotate and draw on just about anything that you see, whether it’s a new or existing photo, a webpage, screenshot, map, or a blank canvas. Then, share your work with friends, colleagues or save it all to Evernote. It couldn’t be simpler. There are a number of ways to get content into Skitch including: - Photos and Camera: Choose to work on an existing image from your camera roll or take a new photo with your iPad. Use the camera to take photos of things that inspire you or to draw a mustache on a friend. If you have an iPad 1 with no camera, then the camera option won’t appear. - Screenshot: Skitch for iPad has built in smarts that help it identify recently-made screenshots. Taking a screenshot on your iPad is easy, simply press both the power and home buttons at the same time. The screen will flash and the screenshot will be saved to your camera roll. Open Skitch, tap the Screenshot button, annotate the image, then share it with your team. This is great for everything from mobile app design to showing off your latest Angry Birds score. - Web: Skitch for iPad has its own web browser designed to help you mark up any webpages you encounter. After tapping the Web icon, you can either go directly to a URL or type in a search. When you find the page you want, tap on the Snap icon. Now you have an image of the webpage to annotate. Use this to provide feedback on a web project or to point out something you want to buy. - Map: Have you ever struggled to explain exactly where to meet someone or which building on campus is yours or how to find the best hiking spot? Then the Skitch Map option is for you. Pinch and zoom into the map, then use the Skitch drawing tools to point out a landmark or draw a path. You would be surprised how often the exact place you need isn’t easy to locate without some additional help. With Skitch, you can put an end to driving in circles or walking for hours. - Blank: Sometimes you just need to start fresh. Open the blank canvas and sketch to your heart’s content. Use the shapes, arrows, drawing tools, and colors to compose a work of art or to play a killer game of Pictionary. Skitch for iPad is free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Rockstar Offers Holiday Sale on All iOS Apps, Including GTA III [iOS Blog]

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Rockstar is offering their three iOS apps for up to 40 percent off as a holiday sale, including the just-released Grand Theft Auto III. Today, we are pleased to announce a special holiday sale for Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and Beaterator at the iTunes store. The sale starts today, December 22, and will end on December 29. - GTA III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition – 40% off - $2.99 [Direct Link] - GTA: Chinatown Wars – 40% off - $5.99 [Direct Link] - Beaterator – 33% off - $1.99 [Direct Link]

iPhone Sales Strong in U.S., U.K. and Australia, Weaker in Much of Europe

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Reuters reports on new data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel showing strong sales for the iPhone over the last three months in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, driven by the debut iPhone 4S. The company has, however, seen weaker sales in much of continental Europe in the face of economic difficulties and strong competition."In Great Britain, the U.S. and Australia, Apple's new iPhone continues to fly off the shelf in the run-up to Christmas. However, this trend is far from universal," said Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director. Apple's market share in the 12 weeks to end-November rose to 36 percent in the United States from 25 percent a year earlier and in Britain to 31 percent from 21 percent, Kantar said. However, in France its share slipped to 20 percent from 29 percent and in Germany to 22 percent from 27 percent. Similar drops were seen in Italy and Spain.The iPhone 4S debuted midway through the reporting period in most of the countries mentioned, although it did launch two weeks later in Italy and Spain. Consumer demand for the iPhone eased in the months leading up to the debut of the iPhone 4S amid high anticipation, but sales obviously surged with the release of the new hardware. Kantar Worldpanel also reports its data as market share, and with the global smartphone market growing extremely quickly, iPhone sales are likely still rising in countries where Apple's market share has dropped due to the influx of Android-based devices from a variety of manufacturers. For the holiday quarter, Apple is projecting blockbuster revenue and earnings, with analysts pushing their iPhone estimates for the quarter into the range of 30 million units. That performance would shatter Apple's current record for iPhone sales of just over 20 million units sold during the second calendar quarter of this year.

‘Real Racing 2′ Hits Mac App Store with iPhone Controls [Mac Blog]

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Australian developer Firemint, acquired by Electronic Arts earlier this year, has moved its highly-acclaimed iOS game Real Racing 2 to the Mac, launching the title in the Mac App Store. Among the notable features of the Mac version is the ability for owners of iOS versions of the game to control the Mac version using the touch and tilt capabilities of their mobile devices.- Test your racing prowess on a 16 car grid against highly skilled AI drivers. - Select from 30 officially licensed cars including the 2010 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, 2010 Nissan GT-R (R35), 2012 McLaren MP4-12C, and more! - Work your way from rookie to pro in a robust Career Mode, offering 10 hours of racing enjoyment. Jump into a Quick Race for instant fun – or battle against the clock in Time Trial Mode. - Race in 15 beautiful locations, with 40 miles of highly detailed race tracks, speedways and city circuits – including twilight and night races. - Touch or tilt to steer with your iPhone, iPad – or Mac controls. This innovative control system lets you customize options to fit your personal driving style. - Experience the intensity of head-to-head racing with 5 unique camera angles and breath-taking graphics powered by Firemint’s exclusive high performance Mint3D™ engine. - Purchase Real Racing 2 currency to progress even faster!While the iPhone control is not a unique feature given that other titles like Chopper 2 have had such functionality for some time, Real Racing 2 is a popular iOS game and will no doubt attract fans on the Mac platform as well. Real Racing 2 for Mac is priced at $12.99.

German Court Unlikely to Award Apple Injunction Against Galaxy Tab 10.1N

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Last month, Samsung released a revised Galaxy Tab 10.1N design in Germany in hopes of avoiding an injunction barring the sale of the device under its original design over claims of infringement from Apple. Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1N Arguing that the design changes did not go far enough, Apple quickly filed suit in an attempt to bar the new design as well. But according to Bloomberg, the judge in the new case does not seem inclined to support such an injunction, giving customers credit for being able to distinguish between the devices.The Dusseldorf court that banned sales of the Galaxy 10.1 on Sept. 9 is unlikely to grant Apple an injunction against the Galaxy 10.1N, Presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann said at a hearing today. Samsung has changed the device’s design sufficiently to distance it from the iPad, she said, adding that the view is preliminary. [...] “Consumers are well aware that there is an original and that competitors try to use similar designs, so buyers are vigilant when looking at products,” Brueckner-Hofmann said. “We don’t think that someone buys a Samsung to make his table neighbor at the coffee house believe he owns an iPad.”A final decision on Apple's request is scheduled to be released on February 9. After several early wins in its efforts to bar sales of Samsung's tablet devices, the tide has begun to turn against Apple in a number of locations. In Australia, where an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been lifted, Samsung is now using the legal fight to promote its device, calling the Galaxy Tab "the tablet Apple tried to stop".