This week Apple tweaked up the iWork.com service a tad by including new sharing features and improvements to the UI, according to AppleInsider . Delving in, Apple stated that users can now create a public link which will allow them to share documents with large groups of people or on websites and social networks.  You’ll no longer need to set a password or send out an invite.  Anyone who is in possession of the public link will be able to view documents that are shared in such a manner, but cannot add comments or notes. Apple also went to say that users would now be able to download documents that get shared on iWork.com without ever having to leave from the Shared Documents page.  That same page also gives users the capability to track the number of times that their public documents are viewed. Lastly, Apple also redesigned the iWork.com’s Sign In and Shared Documents page for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, in order to make it less of an effort for users to access their documents while they are on the go. "The new interface and improved scrolling help you find your shared documents faster," according to Apple.  "Visit www.iwork.com from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to view your shared documents." However, in order to get the most out of this service, Apple is advising users to make sure they are using the latest and greatest version of iWork on their Mac.  And if you so enjoy the service, they are requesting that you leave them some comments on the new updates. iWork image courtesy of macsales.com  

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Filed under: Apple We’ve had a few concerned readers contact us, worried that Apple has deleted or otherwise discontinued the “Downloads” section of its Web site. Fear not, gentle reader, they are still available in the same place as always: http://www.apple.com/downloads/ . What caused the confusion was the redesign of Apple.com that took effect at the end of last week. In order to make room for an iPad tab in the navigation bar at the top of Apple’s Web site, something had to go. Fortunately you can easily locate the downloads section simply by typing the word “downloads” into the search box. Below the links to Apple products, the iTunes store and the Apple store, the bottom link will bring you to Apple’s downloads page, which has a wide variety of applications available, both from Apple and from various third-party developers. You can also click the Support tab if you’re looking for Apple Support Downloads , where you can find downloads for security updates and “point-releases” of software that you might otherwise update via Software Update. Downloads aren’t gone from Apple.com, just less visible originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Downloads aren’t gone from Apple.com, just less visible originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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The Apple store is back online, US customers can pre-order up to two iPads each for April 3 delivery. Updates on what else is new on the store to come.

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Section: Haven’t caught all of the Appletell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles! Appletell giveaway: Saddleback Leather laptop case “A few months ago, the fine people at Saddleback Leather provided us with a medium laptop case for review. Now they’re extending that generosity to you by allowing us to give it away to one of our readers. This is 100% waterproof full grain boot leather with a high density…” MORE » Appletell reviews HyperMac External Battery for Apple MacBook MBP-060 “Provides: Extended battery life Developer: HyperMac Minimum Requirements: MacBook or iDevice needing enhanced battery life Price: $199.95 Availability: Now What’s worse than seeing your MacBook’s battery dip below 10%? Seeing it hit zero? Okay, fair enough. But if this happens to you often, you need…” MORE » Gaming gets serious – Steam coming to Mac “If you’re a serious gamer, it’s unlikely you have an all-Mac setup. If you do, there’s probably enough power to comfortably Boot Camp into Windows 7, and enough for a decent frame rate in the latest titles. Otherwise, it seems developers aren’t so…” MORE » Apple’s iPad ad reveals new details “As reported at Appletell, the first TV ad for Apple’s iPad made it’s TV premiere during the Oscars. And you’re probably not surprised that the story doesn’t stop there. No, we actually gained some real information about the iBookstore,…” MORE » Appletell reviews the Moshi Voice Control Alarm Clock “Provides: Voice activation for alarm and time settings Developer: Moshi Lifestyle Minimum Requirements: AC wall outlet (3 AAA batteries for backup), voice Price: $49.99 Availability: Now What does an alarm clock have to do with Apple products? Not much, in this case. There’s no iPhone…” MORE » Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 9, 2010 “Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 9, 2010:  Macintosh iPod Macintosh FileMaker, Inc. has announced the immediate availability of FileMaker Pro…” MORE » Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad product news – March 8, 2010 “Macintosh and iPhone/iPod/iPad product updates and announcements for March 8, 2010:  Macintosh iPod Macintosh Zevrix Solutions is offering BatchOutput Server—its output workflow automation solution…” MORE » First iPad ad hits screens during the Oscars [video] ” If you were watching the Oscars last night, you may have caught sight of Apple’s brand new advertisement for the much awaited iPad. The ad itself races through (with shortened sequences, of course) several features of…” MORE » What will books actually look like on the iPad?

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Section: Mac Software , Games , Reviews Category: Real-time strategy Developer: Firaxis System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.5.8, Intel Core 2 Duo, 1.83GHz, 1GB RAM, 1GB hard drive space, 128MB video card Review Computer: 2.2GHz 13” Macbook Pro, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM Network Feature: Yes Processor Compatibility: Intel Price: $39.99 Rated: E for Everyone (10+) Availability: Out now I might like Civilization IV: Colonization better if it were just called “Colonization,” rather than associating it with probably the best game series of all time . Then again, maybe not; its restrictive gameplay and limited amount of power in a “god game” make it something of a throwback to the early days of graphic gameplay. You are, as you might expect, a colonist who lands in the New World (either North America or the islands of the Carribean). You establish towns, exploit the land and the natives, and sell your goods back to the motherland, where you recruit more settlers to further expand your hold in the west. Your ultimate goals are self-sufficiency and, finally, rebellion. Stir up enough independent feelings, then you can break away from your homeland and, if you can survive the military reprisal, win the game. Colonization is very much a micro-management game, your population is measured by individual colonists who can be assigned specific tasks such as harvesting food or other raw materials (cotton, sugar, silver, etc.) from the land surrounding your town, or converting those raw materials into finished goods. You can assign any colonist to any task, but specialists will do it better. You can recruit colonists and specialists from Europe (or they may offer to come in search of religious freedom), or you can send missionaries to native villages in hopes of gaining converts to live in your towns.  If you buddy up to the natives, you can send your colonists to their villages to get specialist training. Managing your population and keeping them on task will eat up half your time, with the other half being devoted to trade, carting your goods around to the other colonists or shipping them back to Europe. Producing finished goods (which are more valuable) is a multi-step process; you have to have a citizen harvesting, say, tobacco, as well as another citizen working to convert the tobacco into cigars. You add more people to a particular job, or improve the buildings to make them more productive. And that’s the game, really, to try to build up trade while also building up the desire for independence (that’s a job, too; you add workers to your Town Hall). There’s very little exploration and practially no technology research (beyond building new structures that give you access to new units). Raising armies is a matter of assigning colonists to defend a city (or hiring professional troops).

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Boom! Apple broke App Store accounts for many users with multiple accounts recently. On checking for updates and clicking the helpful ‘Download All Free Updates’ button, iTunes rather unhelpfully states: ‘You can not update this software since you have not owned the major version of this software’. Whether this is a bug (which we hope)

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In the few short hours since we announced our new series, 100 Essential Mac Tips and Tricks For Windows Switchers, we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from you gorgeous Cult readers. We’ve been deluged with emails from brand new, recent, and soon-to-become switchers asking questions and looking for help. It’s clear that there’s plenty of people

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(Images courtesy of AppleInsider) Veteran Mac database software FileMaker Pro 11 was released Tuesday, and among the new features are improved chart visuals, on the fly reporting, Quick Find and a host of new productivity tools to make database creation faster and easier. Apple’s FileMaker Inc. subsidiary announced the latest version of their flagship software today with FileMaker Pro 11. But they didn’t stop there: Updates are available for the entire product line, including FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced, FileMaker Server 11 and FileMaker Server 11 Advanced, according to AppleInsider . "FileMaker Pro 11 is designed for solving real-world business problems, such as the need for interpreting business data," explains FileMaker Inc. vice president of marketing and services Ryan Rosenberg. "With easy-to-use integrated charting, we bring dynamic visual reporting to FileMaker Pro 11 users. We also provide new tools to boost all users’ productivity, helping novice and expert users alike build, share and publish better databases." Among the new features, FileMaker Pro 11 offers dynamic professional-quality pie, bar, area or line charts which allow users to visualize, evaluate and report on data in a new or existing layout. Add a pie chart tab within an existing layout, for example, and you can see your sales charted graphically in any way you choose

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While most developers won’t hesitate for a moment to sign Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement in blood to have even a piece of the App Store action, a new legal analysis reveals some disturbing reasons as to why you might want to think twice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has gotten their hands on a copy of Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement and have distilled a few choice nuggets which should give most developers pause before they drink the Kool-Aid, as it were. Thanks to the existence of the NASA iPhone app , the EFF was able to use the Freedom of Information Act to ask the space agency for a copy of the license agreement dated March 17, 2009, and here’s some of what they discovered. Section 10.4 of the agreement “prohibits developers, including government agencies such as NASA, from making any ‘public statements’ about the terms of the Agreement.” The EFF finds this section “strange,” noting that the Agreement itself is not “Apple Confidential Information” as defined in Section 10.1 — meaning that “the terms are not confidential, but developers are still contractually forbidden from speaking ‘publicly’ about them.” Section 7.2 makes it clear that if you use the iPhone SDK to develop your app, you can’t sell it anywhere but Apple’s own App Store. All well and good, unless your app should get rejected — meaning you are then prohibited from distributing it through Cydia or Rock Your Phone, both available for jailbroken devices. Section 3.2(e) was widely reported on when first added last year, which essentially bans jailbreaking to begin with. But it doesn’t stop there: The EFF notes that “it appears to prohibit developers from tinkering with any Apple software or technology, not just the iPhone, or ‘enabling others to do so.’” That could preclude iPhone developers from making iPods work with open source software, for instance. Section 8 is one of the more draconian: Apple can “revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time.” Yes, that means that Apple essentially has a “kill switch” built into the App Store and they can remove your app from it at any time

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Fret not, Mac gamers. Though your PC brethern may be infiltrating your Twitter feed with inane status updates boasting their Zerg domination, you can lay low knowing deep in your heart that Blizzard is, allegedly, developing StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for both Mac and PC. The current closed beta version is only available for PC users that signed up ahead of time, but a Mac version should be coming soon, accoding to The Loop . StarCraft II picks up where the original series left off 12 years ago, chronicling the ultimate struggle for intergalactic supremacy among the Terras, Protoss and Zerg. As standard with almost all Blizzard titles, the game will also have multiplayer support through Battle.net.  Blizzard expects to ship the finished product sometime later this year.  Artwork from the official StarCraft II site .

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