Apple News

Facebook iPhone App Update Brings Push Notifications, Contact Sync

January 7th, 2010 at 12:44am Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

It seems like forever ago that Facebook promised push notification support in version 3.1 of its incredibly popular iPhone app (iTunes link). Now it has arrived, just in time to usher in 2010. 3.1 brings the promised push notifications, and also the ability to sync your Facebook contacts with your iPhone’s Address Book for a [...]

By Darrell Etherington Continue Reading Facebook iPhone App Update Brings Push Notifications, Contact Sync1 comment

Two Growl styles worth a serious look

December 18th, 2009 at 02:00pm Under Hot Apple News

Filed under: Software

Designer/Developer Christopher Lobay has been hard at work making some excellent Styles for the system notification app, Growl. Growl displays temporary, floating notification windows above your desktop to let you know about things like new messages, completed downloads, changes in Skype availability, etc. Many applications have Growl support built in, so if you’re not using it already, you should check it out. Once you do, you’ll want to customize the way it looks, and that’s where Christopher, among legions of others, comes in.

Published a while back, the first Growl style I want to highlight is “Basics.” Basics provides a very minimalist black background on which it animates the icon of the application responsible for the notification. If you, like me, have grown all too accustomed to notifications popping up around your desktop, this little bit of animation (just a slide across the bar) can make the popups much more eye-catching, without being distracting. It is, as its name implies, basic, but has an air of class not always seen in Growl styles.

Second — and brand new right now — is “Mono.” This latest one is even more subdued, with a very nice bezel and it’s the text that animates rather than the icon. This has much the same eye-attracting effect but is even less distracting. It’s some great work by Christopher, and definitely worth a peek if you’re using Growl. Both styles are available for free, so go get ‘em!

TUAWTwo Growl styles worth a serious look originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple – TUAW – Growl – Skype – Utilities

By Brett Terpstra Continue Reading Two Growl styles worth a serious lookAdd comment

Growl at 1.2, with 64-bit support

November 18th, 2009 at 03:10pm Under Hot Apple News

Filed under: Software, Freeware, Open Source

Ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard, the one remaining 32-bit niggle I have has been with Growl’s preference pane. Today, however,* Growl has released v1.2 of its famous application notification system with, among other things, 64-bit support.

While most of the updates in 1.2 are “behind the scenes,” the biggest user-facing improvement is in the upgrade to 64-bit. What this means is that for Snow Leopard users, selecting the Growl preference pane does not require Preferences.app to re-launch in 32-bit compatibility mode.

In addition to the Growl preference pane, GrowlMail and GrowlSafari have been updated to 64-bit and are now Snow Leopard compatible. Further, the Growl framework has been re-written in Cocoa dropping support for the Carbon-based API.

You can see the full list of changes over at Growl’s version history page. Growl users should have received a notification to download the update. Alternatively, you can head over to Growl’s homepage and click “download” to get your ticket to the notification express.

*Several readers have pointed out that version 1.2, while the current version, wasn’t released today but in fact has been out for several weeks. Our apologies.

TUAWGrowl at 1.2, with 64-bit support originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OpenSource – Application programming interface – Cocoa – Programming – TUAW

By Aron Trimble Continue Reading Growl at 1.2, with 64-bit supportAdd comment

Get your notifications: experimental Mac app from Facebook

September 10th, 2009 at 06:15pm Under Hot Apple News

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, Beta Beat

Mac-using Facebook fans are going to be happy to learn about Facebook’s experimental Desktop Notifications app. Desktop Notifications sits in the menu bar, and pops up notifications (using Growl if you have it) when they occur. It also gives you quick access to your news feed, profile page, and quick ways to update your status or start a new Facebook email message.

There are two things about Desktop Notifications that are compelling, yet have nothing to do with the app itself. The first is the fact that it’s a native Mac application, rather than yet another Facebook client written on Adobe Air. The second is that it was actually developed by Facebook themselves [Update] Thanks to Raul and Nate for pointing out in the comments that the application is marked as “not developed by Facebook”, though one of the developers listed works for Facebook. It’s unclear at this point how serious this project is; it’s clearly marked as experimental, which is clearly becoming the post-Gmail way of denoting that something is beta.

In terms of raw functionality, Desktop Notifications is pretty barebones, since most of what it does is take you to a particular Facebook page. Personally I kind of like it that way. It’s relatively light in terms of memory usage, and uses virtually no CPU cycles at all unless you are actively interacting with it, which is exactly what I want from a utility that is running all the time.

My one beef is that the built-in hotkey that pops up a status update dialog box conflicts with another utility on my system, and there is no way to modify it. Since Desktop Notifications is still in the experimental stage, that’s a pretty small complaint.

[Update] Commenter Scott points out that there is a preference setting to change the hotkey.

[via TechCrunch]

TUAWGet your notifications: experimental Mac app from Facebook originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Jason Clarke Continue Reading Get your notifications: experimental Mac app from FacebookAdd comment

Push Gmail For iPhone (Almost) Here

July 7th, 2009 at 11:15pm Under Hot Apple News+ Iphone

One of the only reasons I’ve stuck it out with my MobileMe account, despite numerous quirks, annoyances and outright failures, is push email. For the iPhone to be useful to me as a business device, I need it to keep me up to date on my email in real time (or as close to it [...]

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By Darrell Etherington Continue Reading Push Gmail For iPhone (Almost) HereAdd comment