'Amazing Photo and Video' Promo Offers 50% Off Popular Apps for Mac and iOS [Mac Blog]

Apple today launched a new "Amazing Photo + Video Apps" promotion in the Mac and iOS App Stores, discounting a number of popular photo and video editing apps by 50 percent off or more.



In the iOS App Store, there are 23 apps available at discounted prices, including options like Spark Camera ($0.99), Camera+ ($1.99), Over ($0.99), Mextures ($0.99), Word Swag ($1.99), Union ($1.99), and Juxtaposer ($0.99). There are apps for taking photos, editing them, and adding interesting photo effects, and there are also a few video-centric apps available.





In the Mac App Store, there are 12 apps available at 50 percent off, including popular photo editing app Pixelmator, a favorite Photoshop alternative for Mac users. With the discount, Pixelmator is priced at $14.99, down from its original price of $29.99. Other popular Mac apps on sale include CameraBag 2 ($14.99), Tonality ($9.99), Snapheal ($6.99), Flare 2 ($6.99), and ScreenFlow 5 ($49.99).



The discounted apps are available through each of the App Stores, and the price cuts will be available until next week.

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Posted in 2015 at 08:32PM, April 02

HTC One M9 Plus hardware specs uncovered in leaked teaser images

There's no question that the HTC One M9 is the best phone that HTC has ever released, but something even better appears to be right round the corner. On Thursday, several promo images of a new HTC phone leaked on to the Internet. Although we can't confirm the identity of the device in the photos, we're willing to bet that it's the HTC One M9 Plus.

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Posted in 2015 at 07:55PM, April 02

Apple Seeds Seventh OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite Beta to Developers, Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the seventh beta of OS X Yosemite to developers, three days after seeding the sixth OS X Yosemite beta and two months after releasing the first OS X 10.10.3 beta.



The new beta, build 14D130a, is available for registered developers through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Developer Center.



OS X 10.10.3 includes several new features, like the Photos for OS X app. Designed to integrate with iCloud Photo Library and the Photos app on iOS, the Photos for OS X app is a replacement for both iPhoto and Aperture. Reviews have suggested that while Photos is a suitable replacement for iPhoto, with more advanced tools and performance optimizations, it may leave professional users disappointed in its initial incarnation.



Along with the new Photos for OS X app, earlier OS X 10.10.3 betas have introduced a redesigned emoji picker that consolidates emoji into a single scrollable page with clear labels, new diversified emoji and emoji skin tone modifiers, new flag emoji and updated emoji for the iPhone, iMac, and Apple Watch, and support for Google 2-step verification when setting up accounts in System Preferences.



With the fifth and sixth OS X 10.10.3 betas, there were just two minor bug fixes, and today's update likely includes similar small changes. Given that we're on the seventh beta, OS X 10.10.3 is undoubtedly getting close to completion and we may see a public release of the software in the near future.

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Posted in 2015 at 06:14PM, April 02

MacRumors Giveaway: Upcoming Photo Editing App 'Noiseless' [Mac Blog]

Macphun is launching an early preview of its newest photo editing app Noiseless today and giving 20 MacRumors readers the chance to win a copy of the complete Pro version of the software ahead of its launch.



Noiseless is designed to give users an easy way to improve low-light photos by removing the "noise" or graininess in those images. Noise often plagues photos taken with smartphones and other non-DSLR cameras in poor lighting conditions.



The app provides several one-click presets with different strengths that remove the noise from an image in a few seconds. There are also deeper adjustments that give users finer control over the noise removal in the app. The standard version of the app will be priced at $19.99, and the Pro version, with support for RAW photos, a Loupe view, and plug-in functionality, will be priced at $49.99. Those who download the preview version of the app can pre-order the pro version at a $10 discount.





Removing the noise in an image with Noiseless is done through some targeted blurring, which has the side effect of removing a lot of the finer details in a photo, so the effect may not be appropriate for all photos or appealing to all users. We recommend checking the app out during the trial period before deciding to purchase later on.






All MacRumors readers can download a preview copy of Noiseless with limited functionality (no sharing or exporting) from the Macphun website to check it out ahead of its April 16 release, but we're also giving away 20 copies of the full Pro version of Noiseless.



To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube Channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the intricacies of international law regarding giveaways, this giveaway is open only to U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older.



a Rafflecopter giveaway
The giveaway will run from today, Thursday, April 2 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through Monday, April 6 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Winners will be chosen randomly on April 6 and will be contacted through email. A response to our email is required within 48 hours or the winner will forfeit the prize and we will pick a new winner.

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Posted in 2015 at 06:05PM, April 02

Deal of the day: ZeroLemon’s slim portable solar charger takes care of your charging needs for good

Who needs outlets? Charge your devices anywhere with the ZeroLemon SolarJuice 10000mAh Battery, a slim and lightweight battery pack that lets you take control of your power-up needs. For a limited time, you can get this for $26 at BGR Deals!

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Posted in 2015 at 05:25PM, April 02

Watch the stunning 60 FPS trailer for GTA 5 on PC

We're less than two weeks away from the long awaited release of Grand Theft Auto 5 on PC, but you won't have to wait that long to see just how incredible the port is going to look. On Thursday, Rockstar Games released a trailer for the PC version of the game running at an eye-popping 60 frames-per-second.

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Posted in 2015 at 04:22PM, April 02

Microsoft Launches Standalone 'Office Lens' Scanning App for iPhone [iOS Blog]

Microsoft today announced the launch of the Office Lens app for iPhone, following its debut on Windows Phone last year. Office Lens turns the iPhone into a portable scanner, much like popular scanning app Scanner Pro , but it has the ability to upload scanned documents to both OneNote and OneDrive, making them accessible on all devices.



Office Lens' scanning capabilities are already built into Microsoft's OneNote app for iOS, but today's Office Lens release is a standalone app. It's able to scan things like business cards, notes, restaurant menus, whiteboards, receipts, and more.






Office Lens is able to detect the corners of a document that's being photographed, which allows it to automatically crop the image to the right size. It also cleans it up images and enhances them for better readability, and it can even straighten images taken at an angle.



The app includes optical character recognition (OCR) to make receipts and scanned documents searchable via key word in OneNote or OneDrive, and it's able to convert images of paper documents and whiteboard notes into Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDF files.



There's also an option to automatically generate contacts when business cards are photographed, and images scanned can be inserted into OneNote or OneDrive in different formats, including DOCX, PPTX, JPG, and PDF. Images can also be saved, exported, and shared.



Microsoft's Office Lens for iPhone app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

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Posted in 2015 at 04:04PM, April 02

SwiftKey for iOS Updated With Tap Map Feature, Usage Statistics [iOS Blog]

Popular third-party keyboard SwiftKey for iOS is being updated today with an interesting new feature called Tap Map, which gives an inside look at how the app works. With Tap Map, users can see how the SwiftKey AI adapts to their typing patterns to help them make fewer typos.

The Tap Map, similar to our heatmap on SwiftKey Keyboard for Android, shows how SwiftKey uses artificial intelligence to adjust the keys on your keyboard 'behind the scenes' to better fit your typing style. For example, if you typically hit the right half of the F key when you're aiming for G, the shape of G on your Tap Map will probably be larger and skewed to the left.

SwiftKey is hoping users will share their different Tap Maps on Twitter, and has promised to give prizes to the tidiest and sloppiest SwiftKey users.



Today's SwiftKey update includes usage statistics, letting users see data on how much they've typed, how far they've Flow-ed, and how many words have been predicted and corrected. It also includes information on how much a user's productivity has been improved through the SwiftKey keyboard.



Along with the new usage information, there are also three new language packs available in SwiftKey, including Arabic, Hebrew, and Farsi.



SwiftKey can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

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Posted in 2015 at 04:00PM, April 02