This week has been another fairly quiet one in terms of app news but we’ve still managed to find a couple of stories to keep you ticking over till next week.
Enjoy!
Apple may be moving away from Intel chips?
We don’t often report on rumours here on Mac AppStorm but this one seemed so important that we felt it criminal to abandon it. According to a profile on the company by Bloomberg Businessweek, there is a desire within the company to shift away from Intel chips in future Mac models, replacing them with a different kind of technology (Apple were in talks back in 2010 with AMD about switching over to them). This change is certainly quite soon, as Apple only in 2006 transitioned all their computers from the ageing PowerPC architecture to the new chipsets.
Apple chose to migrate to Intel processors back in 2006 from the ageing PowerPC architecture, but may now be considering other options (e.g. AMD).
The move back then was extremely successful and warranted a revived interest in the Mac computer and its showcase in more mainstream life, as applications could be more easily written for the new platform. It also made Macs able to run Windows natively without any kind of emulation. Although the move isn’t imminent (mostly due to the logistics of migrating all Macs to a new processor architecture), it would allow Apple to distinguish its products further from competitors that run Intel’s chips and Microsoft’s Windows software.
We’ll keep you updated on this story if anything updates.
Amazon Cloud Drive update adds easy iPhoto uploads
The latest Cloud Drive update has brought not only support for the service to Italy and Spain but also a new “Import from iPhoto” option, allowing users to import their photos directly from their iPhoto library to their cloud drive. This option is fantastic for users who want an easy backup option of all their iPhoto albums, which are often squirrelled away within your home folder. You can also select from multiple iPhoto albums before uploading to Cloud Drive as well.
The update can be grabbed directly from Amazon’s website by heading over here.
Tweetbot for Mac submitted to the App Store
After remaining in both alpha and beta stages for several months, the final version of Tweetbot for Mac has been submitted to the App Store, according to a tweet by Tapbots, the developers of Tweetbot. If it is approved then it will fill the gap left by Twitter for Mac, which apparently is no longer in active development. Tweetbot for Mac will also be one of the few Twitter clients on the Store that is also optimised for the retina display on the new MacBook Pro.
We will have a full review of Tweetbot when it comes out on the App Store.
Supplemental updates to Mountain Lion and Lion released
Apple has pushed a couple of “supplemental updates” to both Mountain Lion and Lion which bring along fixes for three issues, according to the support documents. The version 1.0 Mountain Lion update addresses a couple of issues within Mail and Safari and for Lion it addresses an issue with Time Machine that may speed up the time of very long backups. As usual, the updates can be downloaded from Software Update and require a restart to be installed.
Heard Anything Else?
If you’ve heard anything else exciting that’s happened this week then go ahead and post a link to it in the Comments section below for the benefit of our other readers!