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The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
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MacBook Air owners, c'mon out for the talkcast Sunday night
Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts, MacBook Air
Last week's talkcast featured Tod Maffin of the CBC, some interesting technical challenges, and the debut of our Yahoo Live video simulcast -- an experiment we'll be trying again as soon as I get some additional upstream bandwidth. Thanks to Tod for a lively evening and an unflappable demeanor. Download direct, listen in your browser or subscribe to the TalkShoe feed in iTunes.

Join us again on Sunday night for our next live show, 10 pm ET, where we want to hear from you -- specifically, the new MacBook Air owners among you. Is it everything you hoped it would be? Are the design choices / limitations of the world's sleekest laptop beginning to make themselves felt? Join cohosts Christina Warren and Chris Ullrich for the MBA chat and a review of the week's top stories.

As always, you can join the conversation on TalkShoe either with or without an account by using the shiny new browser-only client (no downloading required and no registration needed). Just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077.
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iTunes compiles Rock Band tracks
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, iTS, Odds and ends, iTunes

I've been rocking on Rock Band almost since it came out (almost done with expert on guitar and hard on drums -- stupid bass pedal is driving me nuts -- and the band my friends and I formed, Fel and the Boatmen, just got ourselves a jet). And now, iTunes has made it easy to rock even away from the game: they've collected all the Rock Band tracks all in one place. That's the good news -- the bad news is that all together, the tracks will cost you a whopping $73.26. That's still 99 cents a song, so exactly no price cuts for a bundle purchase.

The tracks don't exactly match up to the game, either; first of all, even where the game has cover tracks, iTunes has the original artists (and sometimes, live versions of the tracks, which aren't necessarily the same as the game). And there are no bonus tracks -- Freezepop is in iTunes (as is Mother Hips, my other favorite bonus song) but not on the Rock Band list at all. Still, if you absolutely have to own one of the Rock Band songs, I guess it's nice that iTunes put them all in one place for you.

[Via X3F]
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Will Wright: Mac users will love Spore
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Multimedia, Retail, Odds and ends
Well, who won't, right? If you haven't read a single gaming blog this week (you serious worker bee, you), then you may not have heard the big news: Will Wright's rumored-to-be-a-masterpiece Spore has gotten a release date. It's hitting stores (for both PC and Mac simultaneously-- now that's what I like to hear) on September 7, 2008. Which means that later this year, PC and Mac users alike will be playing God, and creating creatures that virtually evolve from amoeba form all the way up to space travel.

Mac|Life got a chance to sit down with Will Wright himself, and not only did he reveal some fun news about the game, but he thinks it will especially appeal to Mac users-- they expect the creative creature creator to do great things with Mac minds. Unfortunately, the game is a Cider port, and it's being released by Aspyr (that's right, I'm breaking my informal press boycott on them to talk about Spore-- don't disappoint me, Aspyr), but Wright sounds like he's expecting quality from this release, so I guess we should, too.

And just like all the other great developers out there, he's very interested to see what happens with the iPhone SDK -- Wright is apparently an iPhone owner, and would love to get Spore on there. Believe me, Will -- I'd love to play it.

[Via IMG]
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"Podmaps" concept patent sought by Apple
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, iTunes, Podcasts, Apple

AppleInsider has uncovered news of an Apple patent application for a software concept called a "podmap," which is more or less what it sounds like -- a series of maps or driving directions accompanied by an audio version of the same, downloadable into a portable media device. The way I understand it, think of it not just as downloadable directions, but also a kind of real-world tour. There is even mention of episodic content delivered via RSS.

Like many Apple patents, there's no indication (or even suggestion) that anything like this would ever see the light of day, but it does tell us that Apple is looking at doing more with marrying their hardware with maps software, just like the great improvements we saw in the iPhone's 1.1.3 update. Hardly a surprise, too, that a company so strongly turning towards portable computing is thinking about the needs of portable users. But a cool idea nevertheless, and it also confirms that Apple sees the iTS's podcast model as a strong and easy way of quickly distributing content of all kinds.
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Yahoo! Mail now works with Safari 3
Filed under: Software, Freeware, Internet, Internet Tools

I have no idea just how big this intersection might be (in terms of sheer numbers, it has to be pretty big, I guess), but if you're a Yahoo! Mail user and a Safari 3 user, prepare to smile, because Yahoo! says that you can now get in on the "All-New Yahoo! Mail" fun. "All-New Yahoo! Mail" is apparently an AJAX-based, slick piece of webmail software built on the Oddpost engine -- I wouldn't really know all the features because Gmail has wrapped its simple-to-use tendrils completely around my life, from iPhone to all the different browsers I use.

But if you've been dedicated to Safari 3 since it came out, and chomping at the bit to use this "All-New Yahoo! Mail," now's your chance. Yahoo! does specifically say "Safari 3 on the Mac," but I'd assume it would work for the Windows version of Safari 3 as well -- if you have any problems, they'll probably fix it, and then they'll have to call it "The Newer All-New Yahoo! Mail." God forbid they come up with something newer than that.

[Via Ars]
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1Password update fixes 10.5.2 Safari problems
Filed under: Software, Internet Tools
OS X 10.5.2 threw a few curve balls at developers, and many of them are doing an admirable job of catching them with updates so timely you might think they were prescient. 1Password developer Dave Teare ranks high on that list, having put out an update yesterday that rapidly fixed the Safari problem that 10.5.2 introduced.

1Password is a favorite at TUAW, and it's possibly been mentioned previously for its time-saving, form-filling, credit card-remembering abilities. In addition to the Safari fix, there are several other enhancements to the application, such as user-assignable "restore form" shortcut keys in Firefox that should help keep my Services menu happy by avoiding conflicts, and an improved credit card fill should ease some frustrations with not-quite-filled forms and help speed up the draining of my available cash during the occasional online shopping spree.

So that bleeding-edge surfers aren't left out, the release also adds support for the latest Firefox nightly builds, as well as Camino 1.6b2. And improvements to the new iPhone Logins bookmark should also be welcome for those surfing on the small but oh-so-touchable screen.

1Password runs $29.95 for new users and the update is free for current users. You can download the new version (free demo) at the 1Password site.
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