News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
If ever there was a behemoth of a gaming franchise, it’s World of Warcraft, or WoW for short. Over the past four years, Blizzard Software have accumulated more than 11 million users, all willing to pay around US$14.99 per month for the privilege. For WoW obsessives, last week was the equivalent of Christmas with the release of the second expansion pack for WoW, Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK). For Mac users, WoW is one of the few Massively Multiplayer Online Roll Playing (MMORPG) games with full OS X compatability, hence its loyal Mac following.
David Holloway | Nov 18, 2008
I've owned a dock / FM transmitter for 3 years that I was happy with, but it doesn't support the iPhone so I needed to upgrade. I did some research and decided to test drive the Belkin TuneBase FM.
David Holloway | Oct 21, 2008
It's coming up to two months since the iPhone 3G launched in Australia. Over that time I've been keeping a close watch on music applications available on the iTunes App Store and as of today there are 75 music-related applications to choose from. That sounds impressive, but once you remove the tuner and metronome variants plus the numerous novelty applications (does the world really need two cowbell applications for iPhone?) the pickings get a little slimmer. One application that launched this week that shows some real promise is BtBx (short for Beat Box). It's a fairly comprehensive sequencer that allows you to compose via steps or patterns.
David Holloway | Aug 26, 2008
One of the most common accessories we all own are earphones or headphones. I've always preferred headphones - I find earphones too intrusive and uncomfortable. That's why I was interested in having a look at Klipsch's Custom-2 earphones - at $299.00 these can be considered high-end and thus I wanted to see if they could convince me to throw away my headphones. The first thing that stands out is the shape of the earphones themselves - they look more like aural probes than listening devices. The reason for that are the countoured ear gels that are designed to provide a full seal in your ear canal. Five washable ear gel sizes are provided and it's worth experimenting with the sizes until you get a true seal.
David Holloway | Jul 30, 2008
Arturia are one of the small band of software publishers devoted to recreating classic synthesisers of the 60's, 70's and 80's. The Moog Modular V, Minimoog V, CS-80V, ARP2600 V and Prophet-V are all synth icons and Arturia have had them bundled together for awhile now as the Analog Factory 2.0 suite. The Analog Factory Experience adds a CME brand 32-key weighted MIDI controller keyboard - with wooden sides to keep that retro feel. It's essentially a duplicate of the standalone software component and fills that role beautifully.
David Holloway | Jul 1, 2008
Music should always be about fun and it's a word that is easily applied to this little application. Australian developer MachineCodex has been around a couple of years now with this app in various stages of beta, and version 1.0 of AudioCodex marks a milestone in the company's growth. So what can you do with it? AudioCodex is essentially an audio mashup tool with superb integration with Mac OS X's CoreAudio, iTunes and any Apple Loops you may have installed. The level of integration can't be overstated — serious work has gone into making AudioCodex a Mac experience from top to bottom.
David Holloway | Jun 3, 2008
This morning Apple released a new version of its iPhone SDK for developers. iPhone SDK beta 2 includes Interface Builder, a component of Apple’s development tools that lets developers create the interface for their applications. That seems to be the only major change in the latest build, according to the SDK’s read me, which continues to list some known issues. Apple says “this second beta is known to be incompatible with installation folders other than the default /Developer.” Given the importance of UI on the Mac, Interface Builder is a pretty critical tool in the development process, and some developers had chosen to hold off on their efforts until the SDK was revised. Apple unveiled the iPhone SDK at a special event earlier this month, allowing developers to begin building applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Several high-profile companies have already jumped onboard, demoing their applications at the event. Highlighting the demos was AOL with a native AIM client; other applications from Electronic Arts, Salesforce.com, and Apple were also shown.
