Adobe Problems with Lion, 16 GB for New Mac mini from OWC, iMac 1 TB Drive Recall, and More

Mac notebook and other portable computing is covered in The 'Book Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV news is covered in iOS News Review. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.

Lion News

• Adobe Shares Known Issues with Adobe Products on OS X 10.7 Lion
• Where Did the Save As... Command Go?
• Where Did My Library Folder Go?
• Apple Will Have to Pry Snow Leopard Out of My Cold, Outdated Hands
• How to De-iOS-ify OS X Lion
• OWC Offers More Memory Choices for OS X Lion Users

News & Opinion

• Apple Recalls Some Seagate 1 TB Hard Drives Shipped with Recent iMacs
• How to Remove or Install 2010 and 2011 Mac mini Memory

Reviews

• iFixit's Mid 2011 Mac mini Teardown

Apple Updates

• Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update
• Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update v.1.1 for OS X 10.6.7
• Mac OS X 10.6.8 Combo Update v1.1 for All Versions of OS X 10.6

Products & Services

• OWC Announces Industry's First 16 GB RAM Upgrade for Latest Mac mini Models

Software

• Nuance Releases Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5
• Pixelmator 1.6.7 Nucleus Update Released with Major Performance Improvements
• iMissal Catholic App Launched on the Mac App Store

Desktop Mac Deals

Lion News

Adobe Shares Known Issues with Adobe Products on OS X 10.7 Lion

Adobe makes some key production applications for OS X, many of which have been through many revisions over the years and have inevitably collected accretions of legacy code, which is causing compatibility problems with 64-bit only OS X 10.7 Lion.

For example, Adobe says that one Lion's marquee features that allows you to have Lion restore a program's windows just as they were when you last quit the app, won't work at all in Adobe products, noting, "This feature requires new code in order to work properly. Adobe will research adding this functionality for inclusion in future versions of our products."

In the meantime, Adobe has posted a report on the current state of Lion compatibility for its products, noting:

All Products: Files Stored in Library

In Mac OS 10.7, Apple has made the user Library folder hidden. Preferences, presets, and other user customization settings are stored within this Library folder....

Many Adobe applications are dependent on the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for some features to work. Apple recently changed the way it includes Java in Mac OS, and with Lion, Java is no longer preinstalled; it is now an optional install that the user must select.

Since current Adobe installers and applications were built before these changes by Apple, our software anticipates that Java is installed. Adobe and Apple have worked together to ensure that you can install Java at OS install time, or optionally at a later time before you install Adobe applications. At runtime when you launch an Adobe application, you will be prompted to install Java if it is not already installed. If you do not install Java before running an Adobe application, there can be missing or improperly behaving features. If you encounter any issues, installing Java should correct the problems. Corporate IT organizations should take care to preinstall Java (or make sure Java can be installed through their firewalls/security) in order to avoid conflicts with Adobe applications....

In-application scrolling may reach opposite of expected due to "Move content in direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating" feature. To alter this behavior, deselect the feature at the top of the Mouse section within the System Preferences.

Rosetta Support No Longer Included with Lion

CS2 or earlier versions of Adobe products required Rosetta to run on newer Intel based Mac systems. These older versions will no longer be supported, as Apple removed Rosetta support with the 10.7 release.

Mac OS X 10.7 New Features

Lion has some exciting new features such as Autosave, Restore, Versioning, Full Screen Mode, and more multitouch gestures. Since many of these features require new code in order to work properly, Adobe will investigate which ones make sense to our customers for inclusion in future versions of our products. For additional information about the Restore functionality see the following document.

For more, and links to specific issues and workarounds, follow the link below.

Link: Known Issues with Adobe Products on Mac OS 10.7 Lion

Where Did the Save As... Command Go?

Tech Recipes' David Kirk says that one of the consequences of Apple's move away from the traditional Mac OS file system with OS X Lion is that the Save As command is evidently being phased out, with the command having gone missing in the Lion versions of Preview, TextEdit, and the iWork programs

describe why this is occurring and how to accomplish the tasks that were traditionally performed with the Save As function.

Instead, Lion incorporates the Versions feature and autosaving of files. Using Versions, users can see the most recent saved version of a file, and they can also access multiple previous versions, making the traditional Save As command redundant. If you want to Save As to create a different version of a file, you can use Save A Version, or to change formats, you can Export the document to any other available format. Applications using pre-Lion APIs will still have the Save As function, and the Versions features won't be available.

Link: Where Did 'Save As' Go?

Where Did My Library Folder Go?

MacFixIt's Topher Kessler notes that in versions of OS X prior to 10.7, the Library folder was readily accessible in the user's Home directory, but upon upgrading to Lion the Library folder appears to be missing - but it is actually now hidden from view by default in Lion, instead of being available to easily browse through.

Editor's note: I don't know about you, but I access my Library Folder frequently, and this change appears to be another example of the Lion GUI being dumbed-down to supposedly make it less intimidating for the tech-illiterate, but less convenient for the seasoned and serious user. Fortunately, it's reversible. cm

Link: OS X Lion: Where Did My Library Go?

Apple Will Have to Pry Snow Leopard Out of My Cold, Outdated Hands

ZDNet's Ricardo Bilton says Apple wants to change the way you use your Mac. And if you're like him, you sort of resent Apple for it.

Bilton observes that for Apple, Lion is apparently all about creating a convergence between OS X and iOS, making the former seem more and more like the latter - ostensibly in aid of making it easier for the novice user to approach OS X using skills they've developed using iPad and iPhone. While he doesn't reject that approach, at least on a basic level, the more he looks at Lion, the more it seems as if he and Apple have hit a philosophical impasse.

"Why ruin a good thing?" he asks. If one's computer setup is tailored perfectly to one's workflow, optimized so that the OS does its job and stays out of the way, what's the point in changing for the sake of change?

Editor's note: I agree. I'm not reflexively against change, so long as it actually brings with it improvement, but IMHO dumbing down the interface conventions I find work so well for me in the traditions of the Mac OS is a step backward - not forward. cm

Publisher's note: For those still using Classic Mode on our PowerPC Macs, the same can be said of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the last version to support Classic Mac software. dk

Link: Fighting the Lion: Apple Will Have to Pry Snow Leopard Out of My Cold, Outdated Hands

How to De-iOS-ify OS X Lion

Lifehacker's Adam Dachlis says:

"Mac OS X Lion was designed to bring the best of iOS to the desktop, but perhaps you don't believe there is such a thing. If you want to get rid of all the iOS-inspired stuff found in Lion, here's how to do it."

• Restore "Unnatural" Scrolling
• Turn On the (Indicator) Lights
• Don't Autocorrect Your Spelling
• Disable Application Restore
• Let's See Some Scroll Bars
• Disable Launchpad (Sort Of)
• Get the Old Apple Mail Back

Link: How to De-iOS-ify Mac OS X Lion

OWC Offers More Memory Choices for OS X Lion Users

While Apple's official minimum RAM requirement for OS X Lion is 2 GB, industry experts agree 4 GB of RAM is the minimum that should be installed for optimum performance of typical daily computer usage. For more advanced uses such as graphics production, A/V editing, and/or running a virtual machine, 8 GB to 16 GB of RAM is highly recommended.

"With the largest lab of Apple computers outside of Apple, we're pleased to continue our streak of being first to fully test and certify these new 12 GB and 16 GB options for Mac mini 2011 (see below) and furthering their amazing capability," said Larry O'Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. "Having our own on-site memory test lab ensures the quality, reliability, and capability not just for standard factory supported options, but also for development and certification of 'MaxRAM' memory upgrades to support user needs that require higher maximum amounts of installed memory otherwise not factory available."

OWC MaxRAM Lab Confirms Performance And Compatibility

By maintaining its own lab with the industry's most extensive collection of Macintosh computers only second to Apple itself, OWC is uniquely positioned to develop memory upgrade kits that deliver maximum capacity, performance, and savings. OWC Memory Upgrade Kits are engineered with premium quality components and are fully tested and certified to meet, if not surpass, all Apple memory design and compatibility specifications and come backed by a Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty.

The full line of OWC Memory for Apple Macintosh desktop, towers, and laptops, as well as a compatibility guide for the correct upgrades for each specific Apple model, can be found online at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/apple/memory/

Publisher's note: We're longtime fans of OWC, which does a great job supporting not only the newest Macs, but also legacy and vintage Macs as far back as the Macintosh II (they have the rare 16 MB SIMMs so you can max out memory to 128 MB for $80). OWC is a supporter of Low End Mac. dk

Link: OWC MaxRAM Memory Certification
Link: OWC Memory Test Lab

News & Opinion

Apple Recalls Some Seagate 1 TB Hard Drives Shipped with Recent iMacs

MacFixIt's Topher Kessler reports that apparently a batch of the 1 TB Seagate hard drives that shipped with iMac systems between May and July of 2011 may fail under certain conditions, and as a precaution Apple has started up a replacement program for the affected iMac systems.

Link: Apple Recalls Some iMac 1 TB Hard Drives

How to Remove or Install 2010 and 2011 Mac mini Memory

Apple Support has posted an illustrated tutorial on how to remove or install memory into your Mac mini computer.

Products Affected

Mac mini, Mac mini Server (Mid 2011), Mac mini (Early 2006), Mac mini (Mid 2011), Mac mini (Early 2009), Mac mini (Mid 2007), Mac mini (Late 2006), Mac mini Server (Mid 2010), Mac mini (Late 2009), Mac mini (Mid 2010)

Link: Mac mini: How to Remove or Install Memory

Reviews

iFixit's Mid 2011 Mac mini Teardown

PR: Our brand new Mac mini swooned us with promises of "2x faster everything" and the new Thunderbolt I/O. Naturally, we had to take a look inside, just like we did with the new MacBook Air.

This year's mini is a great example of "less is more." Apple has done away with the optical drive and replaced it with some good old-fashioned emptiness. We found that hole (as well as the empty extra SATA connection on the logic board) to be perfect for adding a secondary hard drive - essentially bypassing the $400 premium over the 'server' model.* The only snag in this master plan is being able to find another hard drive cable to hook it up to the logic board, something we'll work on sourcing.

Djuric also extends kudos to the Mini for receiving an excellent 8 out of 10 repairability score. There are no proprietary screws or glue, and you can easily replace the existing RAM and hard drive (or almost any other component) if needed.

Teardown Highlights

• Apple removed the optical drive from this mini, but would love to sell you one for an additional $79. Sweet!
• Some of the screws inside the machine were quite interesting. iFixit found T6 screws that were screwed into the top of T8 screws. A screw within a screw...
• The big question with this Mac mini: "Can I install a second hard drive myself?" The centimeter and a half of extra empty space seems to imply so. There is definitely plenty of room for a second hard drive underneath the first. The only deterrent is the availability of a second SATA hard drive-to-logic board cable.
• The new mini has the same fan as the old mini, and even the older mini. Sticking with the brushless, high blade density blower, this single fan is quiet and effective.
• The Broadcom BCM20702 Single-Chip Bluetooth 4.0 Processor with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support is identical to the chip found in the 13" MacBook Air iFixit took apart earlier.
• Big players on the logic board include:
• Intel BD82HM65 Platform Controller Hub
• Intel V116A068 2.3 GHz Dual-Core i5
• Intel L116IA35 Thunderbolt port controller IC, similar to that found on the Early 2011 21.5" iMac
• Broadcom BCM57765 gigabit ethernet and memory card controller
• Texas Instruments XIO2211 FireWire Controller
• Cirrus Logic 4206B Audio Controller
• SMSC 1428-7 System Management Bus temperature sensor

* Publisher's note: The $400 "premium" for the Mac mini Server includes a 2.0 GHz quad-core i7 CPU (vs. a 2.3 GHz dual-core i5), two 7200 rpm 500 GB hard drives (vs. one 5400 rpm drive in the $599 consumer model), 4 GB of RAM (vs. 2 GB), and OS X 10.7 Lion Server. Apple charges $100 for the RAM upgrade, a pair of 7200 rpm 500 GB drives will set you back about $175 (third party, as Apple doesn't offer these drives), and Lion Server costs $20 more than regular Lion. All of that covers $295 of the $400 difference, and with 60% more raw computing power (according to Geekbench), the Mac mini Server is worth the price to those who need that kind of power. dk

Link: Mac Mini Mid 2011 Teardown

Apple Updates

Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update

The Mac OS X 10.6.8 Supplemental Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and resolves bugs in the initial OS X 10.6.8 release including:

• Transferring personal data, settings, and compatible applications from a Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard to a new Mac running Mac OS X Lion
• Certain network printers that pause print jobs immediately and fail to complete
• System audio that stops working when using HDMI or optical audio out

For information on the security content of this update, visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6.8

Link: About the Mac OS X v10.6.8 Update

Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update v.1.1 for OS X 10.6.7

The 10.6.8 v.1.1 update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including:

• Enhances the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion
• Resolves an issue that may cause Preview to unexpectedly quit
• Improves support for IPv6
• Improves VPN reliability
• Identifies and removes known variants of Mac Defender virus

For information on the security content of this update, visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6.7

Link: Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update v.1.1

Mac OS X 10.6.8 Combo Update v1.1 for All Versions of OS X 10.6

Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including:

• Enhances the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion
• Resolves an issue that may cause Preview to unexpectedly quit
• Improves support for IPv6
• Improves VPN reliability
• Identifies and removes known variants of Mac Defender virus

For information on the security content of this update, visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.6 - Mac OS X 10.6.8

Link: About the Mac OS X v10.6.8 Update

Products & Services

OWC Announces Industry's First 16 GB RAM Upgrade for Latest Mac mini Models

PR: Other World Computing (OWC) has announced through its in-house MaxRAM testing lab the first 12 GB and 16 GB Memory (RAM) upgrade kits available for the new Mid 2011 Mac mini models. These new OWC MaxRAM Kits, estimated to start shipping in seven days, join two existing and most popular memory upgrade sizes 4 GB and 8 GB that are available for immediate ordering starting at $37.99.

OWC MaxRAM Memory Upgrades Up To 16 GB for newly introduced 2011 models of Apple Mac mini and Mac mini Server with 2.0 GHz, 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 2.7 GHz Intel i5 or i7 processors.

Most Popular Memory Size Kits Immediately Available:

• OWC 4 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Memory Kit (2 x 2 GB memory modules) - $37.99 or as low as $33.99 after OWC offered factory 2 x 1 GB memory trade-in rebate. Up to $66 less vs. factory 4 GB option for 2.3 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
• OWC 8 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Memory Kit (2 x 4 GB memory modules) - $79.99 or as low as $65.99 after OWC offered factory 2 x 2 GB memory trade-in rebate. Up to $234 less vs. factory 8 GB options for all Mid 2011 Mac mini models.

Power-User Memory Kits for Available For Pre-Ordering:

• OWC 12 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Memory Upgrade Kit (8 GB + 4 GB memory modules) $749.99 or as low as $735.99 after OWC offered 2 x 2 GB factory memory trade-in rebate. Replaces both existing factory memory modules for 12 GB of total memory.
• OWC 16 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Memory Upgrade Kit (2 x 8 GB memory modules) - $1,399.99 or as low as $1384.99 after OWC offered 2 x 2 GB factory memory trade-in rebate. Replaces both existing factory memory modules for 16 GB of total memory.

Full product and ordering information for OWC Memory, internal drive upgrades up to 1.0 TB, internal OWC Mercury SSD upgrades up to 480 GB, and other accessories for all Mac minis from 2006 up to and including the new 2011 models is available at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/

Link: New Mac mini 2011 Model Upgrades

Software

Nuance Releases Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5

PR: Nuance Communications, Inc. has unveiled Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5, a new release of their speech recognition software for the Mac. Building on improved accuracy, faster performance, and powerful new voice commands introduced in Dragon Dictate 2.0, Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 adds new features that make it easier to create documents, send emails, surf the Web, share social status and interact with many Mac applications. For the first time, Dragon Dictate users can combine dictation and voice commands with mouse and keyboard entry (possible before but not recommended) within Microsoft Word 2011, making it easier to create and edit documents.

Dragon Dictate 2.5 also takes advantage of the recently-introduced Dragon Remote Mic App, a free application on the Apple iOS app store which makes it possible to use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a wireless microphone for Dragon via a WiFi network connection. Many customers have requested to use their smartphones and other mobile devices with Dragon to have more flexibility with how and where they dictate with Dragon. The new Dragon Remote Mic App takes advantage of the nearly 200 million iOS devices in use today, and transforms the device into a wireless microphone that easily captures dictation and controls applications on your Mac (or PC).

Dragon has quickly grown in popularity as a mobile application for the Apple iOS, and millions of people around the globe have downloaded Nuance's Dragon Dictation, which allows users to speak text for SMS text messages, emails, social media updates and more. With amazing accuracy and speed, the Dragon Dictation mobile app for iOS have given millions of people a peek at the power of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. (See Charles W. Moore's recent reviews of Dragon Dictation on MacPrices.net. and Dragon Dictate 2 on Applelinks.)

"We listened to feedback from our Mac-based Dragon customers, and heard a resounding request for more flexibility in how they can use Dragon," says Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager, Dragon, Nuance. "People who have never tried Dragon Dictate before will be genuinely impressed with all the ways it lets you interact with your digital world. Those who are already familiar with Dragon will see some exciting improvements like the ability to mix talking and typing in Word, added flexibility with microphones via the new Dragon Remote Mic App, and the ability to share social status."

If you're not familiar, the Dragon family of speech recognition software lets you control your computer with your voice - a handsfree way to turn speech into text, whether you're dictating office memos, prose, capturing family stories, surfing the Web, posting an update to Facebook or Twitter, or helping your children cut homework time in half. Dragon gives you the option of composing and editing using voice rather than keyboard input.

Current Dragon Users will appreciate the new upgrades and features in Dragon Dictate 2.5, including:

• Full Control in More Applications
• Dragon Dictate 2.5 allows users to seamlessly combine dictation with manual input from the mouse and keyboard while working with Microsoft Word 2011. This ability to mix talking and typing within Microsoft Word was the most requested product enhancement from Dragon Dictate customers. In addition, Dragon Dictate 2.5 offers built-in voice commands for Microsoft Word 2011 to format text, insert tables and graphics, and control many menu items by voice. Dragon Dictate 2.5 also works with other popular Mac applications: Apple's Pages, Mail, TextEdit, iChat, Keynote, iCal, Safari, and more.

New Dragon Remote Mic App for iPhone

• Turn your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into a wireless microphone with the new Dragon Remote Mic App. If you want to free yourself from your corded headset, now you can use a device that you may already have.
• Enhanced Commands and Social Features - Dragon Dictate includes built-in commands for many applications, including Apple Mail, Safari, TextEdit, iCal & iChat, In addition, Dragon Dictate collapses common multistep tasks on the Mac into direct voice commands to search for files, post an update to Facebook or Twitter, search the Web for information, and more. Dragon Dictate 2.5 includes more commands to consolidate multiple mouse clicks and keystrokes into a direct voice command, such as:
  • Post to Facebook [I love Dragon]
  • Post to Twitter [Tweeting is so much easier by voice]
  • Search Google for hula dancing lessons
  • Search Bing for wedding dress repair
  • Search Yahoo for gondola rentals
  • Search Mail for RSVP
  • Search Mac for history term paper
• Getting Started with Dragon is Now Faster and Easier - Dragon Dictate 2.0 made it easier than ever to upgrade your software by automatically detecting existing user data and setting up a new and improved Profile with each upgrade. Dragon Dictate 2.5 includes more updates to the Voice Training component of user profile creation, and introduces new additional training text to help get the best recognition accuracy possible.
• Improved Formatting Control - With Dragon Dictate 2.5, new formatting options make it easier to control the appearance of certain words and numbers. Users have greater control over the way certain data is formatted. Individual preferences can be set for dates and time, numbers and units of measure, addresses, abbreviations, and more. In addition, with a new Numbers Mode, Dragon Dictate can recognize everything it hears as a number or as a command, helping to boost recognition accuracy even further.
• Improved User Interface - With the new Auto Sleep Microphone feature in Dragon Dictate 2.5, if the microphone is on but does not receive input after one minute, it will automatically go into Sleep mode. Users can set personal preference for the time allotted for the Auto Sleep microphone functionality.
• Improved Editing Control Dragon Dictate 2.0 included new editing commands to make it easy to select and delete text, insert new text, capitalize text, and more. Proofreading capabilities were added to Dragon Dictate 2.0 to leverage Text-to-Speech read-back for reviewing dictations. Dictate 2.0 even added a feature to enable users to put punctuation around words or groups of words with simple voice commands.

Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac is available immediately starting at $179.99 through Nuance's Website as well as its global network of reseller partners, software retailers and professional sales organizations. Dragon Dictate 2.5 is a free upgrade for current Dragon Dictate 2.0 users. For additional information on features, editions, pricing and volume licensing programs.

The new Dragon Remote Mic App is available immediately as a free download in the Apple App Store here. Simply follow the instructions included with Dragon to use the new app to turn your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad into a wireless microphone.

Dragon Speech Recognition

Dragon has long been a leading speech recognition application on the desktop, used by millions of people around the world. As demand for speech has grown, Nuance has sought to make speech recognition accessible to more people, from more places and devices. Nuance also offers several Dragon Mobile Apps including Dragon Dictation, Dragon Go!, Dragon for E-mail and FlexT9 for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and select BlackBerry and Android devices. And automotive manufacturers can even harness the power of Dragon to allow drivers to access dynamic real-time information and services by voice right in their cars.

Link: Dragon Dictate for Mac
Link: Dragon Remote Microphone (iOS App Store link, free)
Link: Dragon Go! (iOS App Store link, free)

Pixelmator 1.6.7 Nucleus Update Released with Major Performance Improvements

PR: Pixelmator is a beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast, and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images.

In addition to full 64-Bit architecture support, enjoy incredible image editing performance in every part of the app.

Use Layer Groups to arrange your layers quickly and in a logical order and to reduce clutter in the Layers palette.

Quickly and easily publish your images to Flickr, Picasa, or Facebook - online photo management and sharing applications. Easily import images from cameras, scanners, and multifunction devices, and devices such as the iPhone.

Enjoy Pixelmator's new transforming tools, redesigned to be more precise and powerful yet also much easier to use. Open and edit WebP images as well as save or export images or image slices to the WebP format. Quickly access your Aperture library, projects, albums, smart albums, or folders via the new Photo Browser palette.

Enjoy the precision of the revamped Magic Wand, Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, and marquee selection tools. Use the improved Refine Selection tool to much more efficiently smooth and soften your selections outlines. Use the revamped Gradient Tool to fill your images, layers, or selections with smooth high-quality multiple color blends. Sharing your gradients is as simple as dragging and dropping them from the gradients palette onto your desktop.

Preview and export your JPEG images over 2x faster thanks to the new built-in JPEG Turbo (libjpeg-turbo) compression engine. Blend layers in your compositions with the new advanced Subtract and Divide blending modes.

Instruments to Join the Creative World

Pixelmator, the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editor for Mac OS X has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images.

Precise Selection Tools

Someone who is editing images must be able to select the right shapes, portions or objects in images. With Pixelmator's powerful, pixel-accurate collection of selection tools you can quickly and easily select any part of your images. That means you can edit and apply special effects to portions of your pictures, remove unwanted objects or even cut out objects from one picture to put on another. Thanks to the masks palette in Pixelmator, you can even save your selections for later. Now, that's handy.

Full Assortment of Painting Tools

Another bunch of tools in Pixelmator are painting tools. The real greatness of these tools is the ability to use different brush sizes, shapes, hardness, even blending modes when painting. You can paint with Pixelmator as you would traditionally, play with beautiful gradients or even fill colors with other ones. There has never been a more satisfying way to paint. What's more, Pixelmator's painting tools can be used not only for any style of painting, but also for improving your selections with masks or even retouching.

Retouching Tools

It's a snap to perfect your aging or buggy photos with Pixelmator. With its advanced retouching tools you can easily blur hard edges or sharpen fuzzy areas of your image. Or paint with a sample of an image to remove wrinkles from faces or scratches in your photos. In fact, you can use any of the adjustment or painting tools to polish or to refine your images.

Every Tool You Need

Pixelmator comes not only with handy and powerful selection, painting and retouching tools, but it also has everything you need for typing text on your pictures, analysing colors, cropping, transforming, moving anything in your pictures or navigating through your images.

Layers

Of course, Pixelmator is a layer-based image editor. You can quickly create layers from your photos, other pictures, from selections or even your iSight. Yes, Pixelmator can add a layer to your composition directly from your Mac's little camera. Not only can you link and arrange added layers, but Pixelmator allows you to blend layers, change their opacity, create clipping masks or even add layer masks to hide some portions of layer.

Powerful Color Correction Tools

Pixelmator features a simple and elegant collection of intuitive color correction tools. Using these tools you can fine-tune hue, saturation, and luminance; adjust exposure, color levels, brightness and contrast; use Auto Enhance to dramatically improve less-than-perfect images with one click; even use Curves, Color Balance, Channel Mixer and much more.

Filters and Effects

Pixelmator is the real filter-machine. It has over 130 filters and special effects for your needs. Just choose any of nicely designed distortion, blur, sharpen, color, stylize, halftone, tile generator, transition and Quartz Composer filters and boom - you see the result in real-time.

From Your iSight to Your Composition

Ever thought about what else you could do with that little camera on your Macs display? Sure, you could use it to videoconference with your friends or take photos of yourself with funny faces. But now you can also use iSight with Pixelmator. One click, and Pixelmator takes a picture of you via iSight and adds it as layer into your composition. When you've done that you can, for example, cut yourself out, put in another background and create postcard for your friends.

Photo Browser

The Photo Browser palette in Pixelmator offers quick access to your iPhoto or Aperture library, events, albums, and smart albums. It also allows you to easily browse images taken with PhotoBooth and pictures in your predefined custom folders. Best of all, you can simply drag and drop any of those images as layers to your Pixelmator composition.

Save for Web

Web tools in Pixelmator allow users to prepare and export images for the Web with minimal effort, whether it is an individual image or a complex page layout. Images can be optimized and saved in Web-standard JPEG, PNG, or GIF file formats with different quality settings. Powerful Slice tool in Pixelmator can be used to slice an image into pieces, allowing each piece of an image to be optimized and saved using its own optimization settings. Saving an optimized part of an image is as easy as dragging and dropping it onto the desktop.

Hand-drawing Freedom

Thanks to Pixelmator's graphics drawing tablet support, you can now freely hand-draw or paint with the Pencil, Brush, and Clone Stamp tools, or erase with the tablets eraser. What's more, you can take advantage of the tablets pressure sensitivity to play with incredibly fast Blur and Sharpen tools.

Reign of Mac OS X Technologies

Pixelmator harnesses the full power of Mac OS X. It takes advantage not only of Core Image, Open GL or Automator, it also supports ColorSync, Spotlight and many other technologies. Pixelmator was built exclusively for Mac OS X, and it shows.

Automator: Pixelmator's Best Friend

Your personal automation expert - Automator working hand in hand with your personal imagery expert - Pixelmator does those boring tasks for you. Using very powerful Pixelmator actions in Automator you can quickly enhance, trim, resize, watermark, or transform your images, add any special effects or even export your images to over 100 different file formats. You can do that to as many images at one time as you wish.

Third-party Filters

What if you just love having fun with filters, but think that Pixelmator doesn't have enough of them? Well, think again - Pixelmator significantly outshines other applications with its powerful plugin architecture that takes advantage not only of Core Image units, but also of Quartz Composer compositions. This means you can simply download or create your own Core Image unit or even Quartz Composer composition and play with it right away in Pixelmator.

The World's First GPU-Powered Image Editor

Pixelmator is based on Core Image technology that uses your Macs video card for image processing. Core Image utilizes the graphics card for image processing operations, freeing the CPU for other tasks. And if you have a high-performance card with increased video memory (VRAM), you'll find real-time responsiveness across a wide variety of Pixelmator operations. Pixelmator is blistering-fast on the latest Macs.

Pixelmator Loves Open Source

Just like your beloved Mac OS X, Pixelmator is also built on open source. It uses a very sophisticated foundation to provide you with the most powerful image editing tools available. More than 15 years of development have gone into Pixelmator.

Compatible with Everything

One more thing: Pixelmator supports over 100 different file formats. You can open and save in PSD, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, EPS and scores of other image formats. Above all, Pixelmator can open and save Photoshop files with layers. You are never alone with Pixelmator.

New in version 1.6.7:

• Improves compatibility with the new Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
• For more information about new features, improvements, and corrected bugs, see the complete release notes.

System Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later
• Core Image supported graphics card (recommended)

$29.95, exclusively at the Mac App Store.

Pixelmator 1.x updates are free for registered users.

Link: Pixelmator (Mac App Store link)

iMissal Catholic App Launched on the Mac App Store

PR: Cantcha, Inc. has announced that their Catholic mobile app for iPhone, iPad and Android is now available for Mac computers at the Mac App Store. iMissal is a suite of Cantcha's most popular Catholic applications combined into one easy to use package.

Key features include:

• Missal - A complete Missal including a full liturgical calendar with all the seasons. Official texts approved by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. All Mass Readings for every liturgical cycle, Order of Mass, and Daily Mass audio and video.
• Mass Readings: All the Mass Readings for every liturgical cycle (A,B,C,I,II) are included! This includes First Reading, Psalm, Second Reading, Alleluia, and Gospel for all Sunday and Weekday Masses. Reading text is always available for every day, no WiFi connection necessary. Uses translations officially approved for Mass in the US Great resource for Lectors.
• The liturgical texts provided in iMissal are used with the permission of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and the International Committee on English in the Liturgy. They are the official texts approved for use in the dioceses of the United States by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Beware of other applications which use other translations and cost much more.
• Audio of the Mass Readings. Audio is only available for more recent dates (sliding window of aprx. 30 days).
• Order of Mass: Ever wish you could follow along in Mass and have all the prayers, responses, etc. available. Now you can. Great for RCIA candidates that are new to the faith.
• Mass Videos: Cantcha, Inc. has teamed up with CatholicTV.com and now provides videos of the Mass for you to watch.
• Our Daily Bread - Provides a unique Bible verse for every day of the year with beautiful artwork. It allows you to save favorites, use keyword searches and share your favorites by email or through Facebook. These verses have been hand selected from some of the most popular. Also included are some obscure verses you may have not seen before.

Choose from three different Bible translations:

1. NAB Bible - New American Bible
2. NIV Bible - New International Version
3. KJV Bible - King James Version

Bible translations can be easily switched to compare differences between translations.

• Save your favorite verses for later reference.
• Search on any word across all verses to quickly find your favorites.
• If you miss a day you can easily go back to view previous verses.
• Mix it up by pushing the random button to get new verse each time.
• Email any verse (w/o background) to your friends and family with a push of a button.
• Prayers - Includes over 80 of the most popular Catholic prayers that can be shared by email or Facebook with family and Friends.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6 or later

$4.99

Link: iMissal (Mac App Store link, iOS Store link for iPad version)

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