Celebrate the Mac

Written by

Great site put together by Jonathan Zufi, the man behind the Iconic book.

Universal Audio’s Apollo Twin

Written by

This sleek 2×6 Thunderbolt audio interface for Mac combines the same high-quality 24/192 kHz audio conversion of Universal Audio’s acclaimed Apollo series with onboard Realtime UAD SOLO or DUO Processing. With its ergonomic desktop design, rugged aluminum construction, and front panel headphone and instrument connections, Apollo Twin allows Mac users to record in real time (at near-zero latency) through the full range of UAD Powered Plug-Ins.

I had some time to play with this today and it’s gorgeous. It’s like a mini version of the Apollo that delivers the same high-quality audio that we’ve come to expect from UA. It’s rugged too, so it will travel well.

VOX AC15C1 guitar amp

Written by

The AC15C1-V-RD limited edition features a Celestion V-Type speaker, custom “British Garnet red” tolex and Bronco patterned Tygon grill cloth. This custom colour projects a powerful presence in any environment – on stage, in the studio, or at home. The V-Type speaker has been built using a carefully balanced ‘recipe’ of both old and new design techniques. It’s a sweet-sounding speaker with a superbly balanced tonal signature that imparts a vintage musicality with authentic Celestion tone that’s suitable for any playing style.

I want one of these amps. I love the Vox sound.

Korg releases Gadget mobile synth for iPad

Written by

Korg releases Gadget for iPad, a mobile synthesizer studio that offers the ultimate mobile synth collection for iPad. It was designed for anyone looking to explore software synthesis, musicians looking for a diverse palate of synths in one integrated app, or those looking to take their iPad music production to the next level.

Eleven Rack Editor

Written by

Avid today introduced Eleven Rack Editor, providing owners of the Eleven Rack guitar system with a faster, more open workflow for creating and editing high-quality, inspiring guitar tones. The no-cost application makes Eleven Rack software control available for Pro Tools 11 and third-party digital audio workstation solutions.

This is huge news for Eleven Rack owners, like me. As a standalone app, I can now use Eleven Rack with any of my software applications.

Pixelmator 3.1

Written by

Enjoy incredibly fast and powerful editing of high-quality pictures. Fully optimized for the new Mac Pro, Pixelmator makes image editing completely seamless. Leveraging the full power of dual-GPU architecture, Pixelmator now supports 16-bit per channel images for the first time.

There are so many changes in this new version, including the ability to order prints and many other features. Great update.

Line 6 AMPLIFi guitar amp and iPad app

Written by

Line 6 on Thursday announced a new amp it is calling AMPLIFi. While the amp was just announced today, I’ve been using one for the past couple of weeks to test it out.

Amplified: No Mac Pro for Me

Written by

While at NAMM, Jim joins Dan and special guest Merlin Mann to talk about their favorite Macs new and old, the future of the computer in the home, the power of portable and wearable devices, amps, guitars, Yamaha’s purchase of Line 6, new gear, why Jim isn’t getting a new Mac Pro, and more.

Sponsored by OmniGraffle (use code for % off), Harvest (use code 5BY5 for 50% off), Hover (use code BEARD for 10% off your first purchase), and Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME114 for 25% off).

Calendars 5

Written by

Calendars 5 is complete re-imagining of what the best mobile calendar experience should be.

Calendars 5 is smart, excels in both tasks and events and runs on any iOS device you might have.

This looks really nice.

Logic Pro Expert coming Feb. 1

Written by

This is a new site from Russ Hughes, the man behind Pro Tools Expert. Russ has turned Pro Tools Expert into the must-go-to site for everything Pro Tools and is now turning his attention to Logic Pro. Russ won’t be doing the new Logic site on his own—he’s turning to Dennis Van Den Driesschen, who is the founder of the popular Danski’s Logic Pro Blog. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see if Russ and Dennis can turn the new Logic site into something as big as Pro Tools Expert. With their history, I’m betting they can.

Courage

Written by

Matt Gemmell:

So I’m going to try this. Maybe it’s foolish, and from a commercial point of view it certainly looks that way, but I must try. As of this moment, I’m no longer developing software, either for myself or for others. I’m writing full-time.

Matt is one of the few writers on the Internet that I truly enjoy reading. I’m really looking forward to reading more.

Navigation bars in Web design

Written by

I agree with most of what Kendra Gaines has to say about navigation bars. I don’t mind some controlled navigation1, whether in the sidebar or on the top of a site. I don’t believe that we’ve gone too minimal overall, because I think we’re giving users what they want—or maybe that’s what readers want access to—that’s the content. If you make readers jump through hoops to read your Web site, you’ve failed, regardless of the design element you’re talking about.

  1. In other words, not a bunch of hierarchal Flash menus with 100 items in them. That’s unruly and not necessary. You failed. ↩

Nest CEO tries to reassure customers about Google and privacy

Written by

Nest CEO Tony Fadell:

“The data we collect is all about our products and improving them,” Fadell said, reiterating a statement he issued about the company’s smart thermostat and smart smoke detector following the announcement of the acquisition. “If there were ever any changes whatsoever, we will be sure to be transparent about it, number one, and number two, for you to opt in to it.”

I’m not convinced. Google’s recent changes to Google+ show they are an opt-out company and could care less about their users.

Apple Must…

Written by

Great article from Harry McCracken detailing some of the people that said “Apple must…” do this or that.

Why we fear Google

Written by

Rene Ritchie wrote a great article on Google, and all large companies for that matter. I agree with everything he said, until this:

I value my privacy. I’m deeply concerned about who collects my data and how they use it. But I’m no more concerned about Google owning Nest than I am Nest existing in the first place.

The problem that I have is that Nest sold a product—we bought that product, used it and we’re satisfied with that transaction. With Google, the transaction is Google mining my data looking for information so they can show me the best advertisement.

With Google, I am the product.

Apple will insist on anti-cloning provision in negotiations with Samsung

Written by

When the CEOs of Apple and Samsung, accompanied by several in-house lawyers, meet for their (court-requested) settlement negotiations on or before February 19, there will probably be flexibility on both sides relating to the billions of dollars in license fees that may change hands, but if Samsung wants a deal, it will have to accept, as HTC did before it, an anti-cloning provision that would allow Apple to still bring lawsuits if Samsung’s products resembled Apple’s offerings too closely in ways that could actually be avoided by means of designarounds.

Good. There is no sense in going through all of this only to have Samsung copy the next thing Apple comes out with.

Rethinking the Mac mini

Written by

Peter Cohen:

The Mac mini is overdue for a major refresh. It’s been well more than a year, and it’s been several years since the Mac mini had any significant work done to it. That’s got me thinking about what Apple could do it and probably should do to it.

It will certainly be interesting to see what Apple does with the Mac mini. Clearly, Apple’s interest has been with the iPhone and iPad, as well as the MacBooks and Mac Pro in recent years.

St. Louis TV station causes school lockdown, then reports on it

Written by

On Thursday night, KSDK in St. Louis reported on a high school lockdown. And it was one that they had caused. Kirkwood High School went into lockdown earlier that day and, after more than an hour, people in St. Louis began finding out why.

I would be pissed off.