The MacTrack – iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch and Mac News

Byron Bay, NSW/Australia – CoreMelt, creators of GPU accelerated video fx plugins, today announce the release of the much anticipated V2 product range. 180 GPU accelerated plugins for motion graphics artists and video editors using Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, Apple Motion and After Effects CS3/CS4.

Running on the Second Generation vTwin FX Engine which provides enhanced features such as all new intuitive user interface elements, organic color correction curves, and global preferences that allow you to spend less time meddling with settings, and more time creating phat video effects.

The complete V2 product range includes:
* ImageFlow FX(tm) V2 – “Instant Montages”
* TRX – “Filmic Transitions”
* Delta V – “Motion Transitions”
* Luminous V2 – “Glows and Blurs”
* Shatter – “Grunge and Stylised effects”
* Pigment – “Colour Tools”
* Gadget – “Editors Tools”
* VeeYou V2 – “EQ and VU Animations”

Here’s what Steve Douglas from Ken Stone’s Final Cut Pro has to say about the CoreMelt Complete V2 bundle: “… my bottom line is that CoreMelt has really come out with an almost complete package of effects that will leave you desiring little. CoreMelt has clearly made many improvements to what was already an excellent assortment of effects. They were easy to use, reliably worked as they should, and are very worthy of your consideration” – Steve Douglas.

The CoreMelt V2 product range includes the following features:
* Second Generation V Twin FX Engine, stand alone installation and up to four times faster rendering
* Improved Curves based color correction with onscreen curves controls
* Easily change parameters across all plugins with Global Preferences
* Thumbnail based down menus displaying masks, frames and textures
* Vector Masks and Frames are rasterised at project resolution
* Users can add their own masks and frames into the thumbnail drop down menus
* Graphical Multi-sliders gives enhanced effect controls
* Transition Effects are Available as filters in Motion and After Effects
* VeeYou now reads the audio from audio layers in After Effects and WAV and AIFF files in all hosts

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard or higher
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* G5 Processor, 1GHz or faster
* Dedicated 128MB or higher Graphics memory required (256MB required for HD rendering)
* 100 MB Hard Drive space for CoreMelt Complete

Special Pricing and Availability:

Full Retail Pricing:
$299 – For CoreMelt Complete V2 (all CoreMelt products)

$99 – For each bundle box; ImageFlow Fx V2, PolyChrome Transitions V2 (TRX and Delta V), Motion Graphics Box V2 (Luminous and Shatter), Editor Tools V2 (Pigment and Gadget).

Upgrade Pricing:
$129 – Upgrade from CoreMelt Complete to CoreMelt Complete V2
$59 – Upgrade for each individual box; ImageFlow Fx V2, TRX, Delta V, Luminous, Shatter, Pigment and Gadget.

The V2 product range can be downloaded for a 15 day free trial as the CoreMelt Complete V2 bundle, containing all 180 plugins which includes 18 completely FREE plugins. See us at NAB 2009 – Stand: SL2529 in the Plugin Pavilion.

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About CoreMelt

CoreMelt are designers of cutting edge, GPU accelerated plugins for Motion Graphics Artists and Video Editors using Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, Apple Motion, and After Effects CS3/CS4. With over 15 years of combined industry experience, we know what effects artists need and want. Copyright 2009 CoreMelt. All Rights Reserved. Apple Final Cut Studio and Apple Motion, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Washington, DC – The fun and challenge of the classic Etch-A-Sketch game comes to the iPhone with sketchr 1.0, a new app by LizzardWerks. To draw, users tilt their iPhone or iPod touch, and the familiar gray line of the Etch-A-Sketch responds as if rolling down the slope. sketchr stays true to the simplicity and purity of the original. Unlike other drawing apps, sketchr doesn’t throw a bunch of different brushes, shapes, colors, and other complex options at the user. Just that simple gray line, and the challenge of steering it to create an interesting drawing.

The iPhone’s accelerometer allows delicate control over which way the line goes. And if the user wants to start over, they can erase their drawing just by shaking the phone – just like how you erased drawings on the Etch-A-Sketch. It’s intuitive enough for a child to pick it up and quickly start playing with it. But it can also challenge the dexterity and concentration of the most artistic of adults.

When the user creates a drawing they want to share, sketchr can save it to the iPhone’s Photos app. From there, they can email the drawing to friends, and it will sync to iPhoto (on the Mac, Photoshop Elements or other apps on Windows) next time they connect their iPhone or iPod touch to their computer.

Pricing and Availability:
sketchr 1.0 for iPhone is only $0.99 (USD) and available exclusively through Apple’s App Store. Members of the media can request a free review copy by emailing the developer.

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LizzardWerks is an independent iPhone developer based in San Francisco, Calif. Copyright 2009 LizzardWerks. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Ghent, Belgium – In the spirit of Easter, Gorillas, an iPhone port of the famous classic DOS game GORILLA.BAS, released a holiday edition with its second update. Introducing the new feature of player model selection, this update unlocks the first in a series of holiday models: the easter bunny.

Gorillas is an iPhone port of a game that was released together with MS-DOS 5 as a demonstration of the QBasic programming language. The original was basically a simplistic artillery game with a twist. Instead of artillery shooting missiles, gorillas were introduced that threw exploding bananas. The concept was very much in the spirit of King Kong and gorillas were placed in a city scape on top of buildings of arbitrary height. The goal was to find the right angle and velocity to throw your banana such that it would hit the opponent while dodging the surrounding buildings.

The iPhone port of this classic has kept most of the retro-feel which makes it very recougnisable. Improvements include, but aren’t limited to:

* Catchy background music
* Improved graphics such as fires, explosions and smoke
* Manual entry of angle and velocity was replaced by a single touch of the screen
* Camera can follow the action
* Game field can be zoomed for long shots
* Single-player gaming against an AI

The first update of Gorillas introduced a large set of improvements, most notably the addition of several different game styles. Players could now choose between the styles:

* Classic: One-on-one single or multi player gaming
* Dynamic: Much like classic but with adjusting difficulty and a throwing skill meter
* Team Game: This is a multi player exclusive where humans team up against the AIs
* Last Man Standing: A style where multiple gorillas battle it out to remain the last one alive

With the second update came the introduction of player models. Players can now choose to either play with gorillas or one of the unlocked models. The first model that has been unlocked is themed on Easter. Selecting this model will replace your gorillas by Easter bunnies throwing Easter eggs.

The development of Gorillas is an ongoing effort and in the spirit of the original, also completely open source. While many iPhone developers, primarily those starting in the field of game development, have found the resource to be vastly useful, it also welcomes contribution and allows anyone (even non-developers) to track the development progress and report any issues they might experience or ideas they have.

As for the future of Gorillas: Buying the game will not only get you this stunning port, but many features are still in the make. New models will be unlocked with each major holiday and we have great plans for more advanced multi player functionality with the coming of the next iPhone operating system. Moreover, players will be able to submit their scores to an online database and compete with other players or teams around the world.

Pricing and Availability:
Gorillas 1.2 for iPhone is only $0.99 (USD) and available exclusively through Apple’s App Store. For under a dollar, this game will while away the hours in sweet reminiscence of the good old days.

Lhunath
Gorillas 1.2
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Located in Ghent, Belgium, Lhunath is a sole developer who’s been in a lot of places. Starting out in QBasic and .NET/VB, he quickly learned to expand his horizons. Today, Lhunath has developed applications in frameworks ranging from Java SE/EE, Bash, Perl, PHP and Objective C. While a very capable developer, he’s also evolved as a designer. Versed in graphic design and a professional in HTML/CSS, he has several homepages on his name. Currently engaged mainly in development of an identity management solution in Java EE, his past time is consumed by his passion for iPhone application development. All Material and Software (C) 2008-2009 Lhunath. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Los Angeles, USA – ActyMac today announced DutyWatch 1.0, their Employee Monitoring Software for Mac OS X. ActyMac DutyWatch monitor and control employee Mac’s in an invisible, stealth mode. All activity is recorded so you will know everything your employees are posting, opening and use. You will have a quick top-level view of everything they have been doing over the past day, week, month or several months.

DutyWatch is completely invisible to your employees. It runs silently and unobtrusively while logging everything that happens on your employee’s computers. ActyMac DutyWatch captures all keystrokes, makes periodic screen captures of employee’s desktops, as well as logs programs that are opened or closed.

Easy to use, DutyWatch automatically takes hundreds of snapshots every hour so that you can see everything employees do on the computer and Internet. ActyMac DutyWatch includes an alarm system that triggers on keywords. You can program it to notify you by e-mail every time the keyword was used. For example for censored words or any words which can tell you that your employee is up to mischief.

ActyMac DutyWatch records all typed emails, chats, IMs, web sites or web searches. Program capture screenshots of current work and store all running programs. ActyMac DutyWatch is a powerful tool to address employee productivity while protecting your company against security breaches and/or disloyal employees.

Useful Charts and Graphics show all Application and Keyboard usage. You can select a Time Range of monitoring and Export data to most popular format such as HTML, csv or text. Shots pane show you detailed time workscreen of monitored Mac. No special surveillance skills or security training are needed to successfully configure and operate ActyMac DutyWatch.

Feature highlights include:
* Stealth and undetectable Monitoring and Recording
* Real-time monitoring
* Real-time application usage monitoring
* Time tracking for all software applications
* Time tracking for all software applications
* Multi-user and real-time monitoring
* Stealth/Silent installation and invisible running
* Full Time traking of every user request
* Powerful reports of Mac utilization
* Alerts system for words
* Record all keystrokes typed on any application
* Store complete history of communications for every user.
* Keystroke log viewer for all applications in one window
* Export data to HTML, Excel csv or simple Text
* Powerful report for every user shows what applications users spent their working computer time
* Powerful keystroke log viewer for every application
* Useful statistic of every application utilized
* Complete chart of used applications
* Takes screenshots based on user actions, versus just time intervals
* Capture and send screenshots via warning alerts
* Friendly and easy-to-use user interface
* No additional hardware required

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 12.6 MB Hard Drive space

Pricing and Availability:
ActyMac DutyWatch is available for only $99.95 (USD) for a Single License, and may be downloaded directly from the ActyMac website.

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ActyMac DutyWatch 1.0
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Located in historic St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Intelus, Ltd. is a privately funded company founded in 2002. Leveraging their longtime experience in the video industry, Intelus’ goal is to develop best-of-breed tools for the Mac platform, and lead to the creation of Macvide. Copyright 2002-2008 Intelus, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Los Angeles, USA – MacVide is proud to announce iPod Converter 2.4, their video to mp4 conversion utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, iPod Converter allows conversion of the most popular video files to mp4 iPod video. It fully integrates the process into the Mac experience by allowing human interaction on the content during conversion.

All of the most popular formats are supported, including MOV, 3GP, MPEG, AVI and helps bridge the gap between many video standards. iPod Converter is a great tool for using with Apple’s iTunes.

MacVide iPod Converter provides powerful functions to set different settings for your video files. It allows you to select crop video area, the bit rate, frame rate, video resolution. Video preview with “rangebar” allows you to choose the exact video footage you want, anywhere between the first and last frames. With MacVide iPod Converter you will able to convert your entire movie to .MP4 and watch it anywhere and anytime. It’s very easy to use and it supports most portable MP4 devices.

New in version 2.4:
* New style rangebar
* Visible selected range time

Feature highlights include:
* Input format supported: all popular Video formats including AVI, WMV, MOV, MPG, ASF, DivX, etc.
* Playback on multiple players including iPod, iPhone, PSP and Apple TV, Creative Zen, Archos, etc.
* Crop your video area to remove the black video sides
* Powerful video/audio output settings
* Allows to set video resolution and frame rate
* Allows to set video and audio bitrate.
* Customizable dimensions for exported video
* Auto Determination of Movie length
* User can control Movie over Capturing

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel
* 19.4 MB Hard Drive space

Pricing and Availability:
iPod Converter is available for only $29.95 USD for a Single License, and may be downloaded directly from the MacVide website.

MacVide
MacVide iPod Converter 2.4
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Located in historic St. Petersburg, Russian Federation, Intelus, Ltd. is a privately funded company founded in 2002. Leveraging their longtime experience in the video industry, Intelus’ goal is to develop best-of-breed tools for the Mac platform, and lead to the creation of Macvide. Copyright 2002-2008 Intelus, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Hanover Park, Illinois – RemObjects Software, LLC today is proud to introduce RemObjects SDK for OS X, their new framework for Mac and iPhone developers. RemObjects SDK makes it easy for developers to create networked applications that communicate with each other. As a fully native OS X framework, RemObjects SDK was designed from the ground up to fit in with the tools that Mac and iPhone developers use, such as Xcode, Cocoa and Objective-C.

The RemObjects SDK is an award-winning cross-platform remoting framework for building client and server applications that communicate seamlessly, whether in the local LAN or across the globe. It allows developers to concentrate on their core competency when writing applications for the Mac Desktop, the iPhone and iPod touch, leaving the complicated network communication to the framework itself. For example, game developers can focus on developing their game logic, without having to learn about network programming.

RemObjects SDK for OS X is built upon the expertise and knowledge gathered in over 5 years of providing sister products “RemObjects SDK for .NET” and “RemObjects SDK for Delphi” for those two development platforms. It is the first in a suite of developer frameworks for OS X that will be followed later this year with Data Abstract for OS X, which will allow developers to create powerful and flexible database-driven applications for the Mac and iPhone platforms. The SDK is wire compatible with its sister products as well, making it easy for developers to write applications for other platforms (such as Windows clients or Linux based servers), and have all platforms communicate seamlessly.

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.5 Leopard or later
* Xcode 3.1 or later
* Supports iPhone 2.0 and later
* Snow Leopard and iPhone 3.0 ready
* 30 MB Hard Drive space

The availability of third party tools and components has gone a long way towards propagating software development on other platforms. RemObjects software is the first major component vendor to step into the Mac OS X and iPhone development tools market. And with Mac and iPhone gaining market and mind share, RemObjects software believes a vibrant third-party ecosystem will help drive application development for these platforms.

Pricing and Availability:
A single user license is priced at $399.00 (USD). Upgrade options exist for users of RemObjects SDK for Delphi and RemObjects SDK for .NET.

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RemObjects SDK for OS X
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Located in Hanover Park, Illinois, RemObjects Software, LLC is a privately funded company co-founded in 2002 by marc hoffman. RemObjects Software focuses on providing market-leading solutions that form the foundation of their customer’s software projects, and help developers define the very architecture of their application. Their libraries are the infrastructure that successful software projects are built upon. RemObjects Software has been one of the major component vendors for Delphi and a leading vendor in the Microsoft .NET development arena for over five years, and are now expanding the reach of their award winning development solutions to Mac OS X and iPhone developers using Cocoa and Objective-C. Copyright 2002-2009 RemObjects Software, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Apple and the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.