Here’s a crazy Mac App Store rumor for the day / week / month. AppleTell claims one of those famous ‘inside sources’ has let them know that Apple is targeting next Monday, December 13, as launch day for the Mac App Store.
An inside source has just told us that Apple is targeting a Monday, December 13th launch of the Mac App Store. The company apparently told developers to have their software prepared for a launch as early as Monday the 6th of this month, but our contact would be shocked if that happened at this point. Apple has made no official announcements regarding this, and delays could always happen, but there’s a push to be launched before Christmas, well ahead of the previously estimated January release.
According to AppleTell’s source, Steve Jobs himself is pushing for the early opening of the new store and Apple is ahead of schedule in their preparation for release.
If this rumor proves accurate, the Mac App Store would open well ahead of the originally announced schedule – which had it set to open in late January of 2011.
Rumor News Via: MacRumors
Apple has been doling out a little more information about the upcoming Mac App Store to developers this week. One interesting point is that no trial, demo, or beta versions of apps will not be allowed.
Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore," Apple wrote. "The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.
Presumably this means no ‘Lite’ versions like we see on the iOS App Store. This feels a little dumb to me. It means customers and potential customers need to navigate various ‘storefronts’ if they want a trial version, or they just skip the Mac App Store altogether if they’re happy working with developers’ web sites. It’s not as clean an approach as with iOS – where there is just a single, easy to use, store for apps. I’m sure there are likely solid reasons why this policy is in place, but it doesn’t seem like a great way to get users flocking to the new store.
News via: Apple Insider
VMware Fusion 3 for Mac – the excellent virtualization app – is on offer at a huge discount today at the MacMall site. It is down from $79.99 (standard price) to just $17.99 with a $20 instant rebate and a $30 mail-in-rebate.
I’ve used VMware for many years to run Windows on my MacBooks (generally just to be able to use one specific Windows app) and it has always done a stellar job.
The Mac Mall deal is for today only – 11/29/10 until 11:59 PST – and you can check out the details or place your order here:
http://www.macmall.com/p/product~dpno~7938980~pdp.ficdfbi
Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac – another excellent option for running virtual machines on your Mac – is also on sale today for $20 off its normal price; so it’s at $59.99 rather than $79.99. Details here:
http://www.macmall.com/p/Parallels-Software/product~dpno~8182810~pdp.gcajhfd
If you’re a Mac user and a fan of strategy games this is a good week for you. It has seen the release of one very good looking new title – Field of Fire – and the latest release in an epic and hugely popular series, Sid Meier’s Civilization V.
Here’s an Intro to Field of Glory, which is a turn-based strategy game based on a tabletop title and covering Roman warfare and some epic battles:
Field of Glory is an approachable and fun wargame system for your PC that covers the ancient and medieval worlds. Its intuitive user interface makes it an ideal game to pick up for new comers to the hobby, while it’s subtlety and depth ensure long term interest for the grognard.
Find out what it is like to be a Caesar at the battle of Philippi against Pompey. Command from the rear or inspire your men and risk death and injury in the front line.
[click to continue…]
