• About Geek Beat
  • Newsletter
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Login
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Geek Beat

One of the world’s most recognizable technology news brands, delivering daily tech news, tips, and reviews.

  • News
    • Apple
    • CES
    • Editor’s Choice
    • Google
    • How To’s
    • Microsoft
    • Music
    • Mobility
    • NABShow
    • Photography
  • Episodes
  • Reviews
  • Videos
  • Connect With Us
    • Chat Rooms
    • DropCams
    • Geek Beat Live!
    • Product Review Submissions
Home > News > Mac App Store is Live: A Look at Angry Birds, Twitter and Smoovie
Macstore

Mac App Store is Live: A Look at Angry Birds, Twitter and Smoovie

January 6, 2011 by Brodie Beta

Macstore

The Mac App Store went live today bringing the iOS distribution model to Mac desktop apps and so far it’s incredibly novel.

The Mac App Store interface, as we’d expected, is strikingly similar to the iOS app store, offering the general quick link options such as redeem, categories, purchases and updates.

The categories are somewhat the same as the iOS app store minus the navigation categories which host GPS enabled apps but including; business, education, games, news, music, lifestyle.  Apple has also added a new category called Developer Tools which contains apps like Text Wranger, Folder Spy and Coda. We were immediately greeted with familiar apps such as Angry birds, iMovie and iPhoto.

Twitter

The official Twitter app aka (Tweetie 2) is pretty slick and is offered free within the Mac store. The interface provides the usual user stream, mentions, direct messages and additionally offers the user’s profile stream as well.  Each screen’s icon is readily available within the always-viewable control panel flush to the left of the streams. Conversation threads can also be displayed along with the option to search and it offers the trending topics. Sharing images can be changed in the preferences to share with; yfrog, TwitPic, Posterous, img.ly Twitgoo or Pix.im.

Overall, due to its inability to add horizontal columns I think I’ll stick with TweetDeck for now. It’s a feature I personally can’t seem to live without.

Get it for free (Mac Store link)

Angry Birds

angrybirds

We’re huge fans of Angry Birds here at GeekBeat.TV and I’m sure collectively we’ve probably played thousands of hours on our iPhones, Androids and iPads. It was hard to predict whether the controls would translate properly without the use of the multi-touch screen but the trackpad on the Macbook provides a sweet alternative to the usual control scheme.  The gameplay of Angry Birds and the ability to watch it on a bigger screen is a serious treat, so great that I’m afraid there might be a lack of work being done today.

Using a two finger gesture on the Macbook’s trackpad zooms the environment in and out, it’s possible to do that using the mobile version although it seems to work much better on the Mac. Like we’ve said many times before, this physics-based puzzle game is highly addictive and redonkulously fun. A major win for Mac fans.

Get it for $4.99 (Mac Store Link)

Smoovie


Smoovie is a stop motion app that will assist you in creating stop motion movies that can be published directly to YouTube. The app is available for $15 in the Mac Store however we were able to download the free trial on their official site. It works by either using your iSight camera on the Mac or by taking image files to make stop motion sequences.  Each image still is displayed in a reel and as we’d mentioned your movies can be published to YouTube or saved within iTunes.

Get if for $14.99 (Mac Store link)

At first glance, having all Mac apps in one tidy place, is similar to unleashing a kid in a candy store. Mac fans will no doubt be sending a better part of their day perusing the titles. We’d think this would be great news for Mac app developers who will have a farther reach to get their apps to the community. However, it remains to be seen whether this store will force developers to reduce prices to compete with the wealth of apps we’ll see pop up in the next year.  Like the iOS app store, the Mac Store will explode. Non-tech savvy people (and there are lots out there) who were afraid to download apps from the web will help to drive its success and will likely feel more comfortable installing apps from an Apple-approved venue. Using the update tool will be another added benefit that the new Mac App Store brings — a super easy way to keep everything up to date.

We’ll also mention that there are a handful of apps that still offer free trials on the software on their websites, Smoovie included. And, we noticed that after downloading the free Smoothie trial, when we returned to the Mac Store it showed us on the Smoovie app page us that the app was already installed. Hrrm…

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Angry Birds, Apple, social media

About Brodie Beta

Brodie Beta aka @iPhonegirl is a tech blogger, social media strategist and the Co-founder of Drink Social Media. She has written columns for well-known technology sites including The Next Web and a national newspaper in Canada, The Globe and Mail.
Brodie is also the social media strategist at CountMeIn, a social-gifting platform for collaborating on gadgets and products on Facebook.

Comments

  1. prorgoriz says

    July 22, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    🙂

Popular Posts

  • How To Keep A Constant In Excel And Other Spreadsheets by Scott Ellis | posted on April 19, 2012 | under News, Tutorial
  • Complete Sci-Fi Spaceship Size Comparison Chart by giovanni | posted on September 19, 2014 | under News
  • How to Use Your Own Router with AT&T U-verse by Chris Bramble | posted on February 17, 2014 | under News, Tutorial
  • How To Add Sound and Voice to Your Photos by giovanni | posted on July 22, 2013 | under Episodes
  • How Much Money Will Fit in a Briefcase? by John P. | posted on September 26, 2013 | under Episodes
  • How to Access Advanced Boot Options in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 by Robert Albury | posted on September 10, 2014 | under Tutorial
  • How to Build a Dust Collector (with Photos and Video!) by John P. | posted on May 30, 2016 | under Tutorial
  • Tutorial: Adding a Networked Printer with QNAP by Benjamin J. Roethig | posted on July 7, 2014 | under Tutorial
  • How to Set Up a Plex Server on a QNAP NAS by Dexter | posted on April 18, 2014 | under Tutorial
  • Up, Down, Left, Right, Click! by Jenn Castillo | posted on August 10, 2010 | under News

Recent Posts

  • Go Mic Mobile Wireless System for Mobile Filmmakers
  • A RAY OF LIGHT
  • Keep Devices Charged Anywhere in the World with the Twist Plus World Charging Station
  • Final Leaked iPhone 7 Details Before The Big Event
  • Should Snapchat Be A Part of Your Digital Strategy?

Recent Comments

  • Ricardo Garza on Streambox Announces 360 Live Video Streaming to YouTube
  • Sunbya on Review: Blue Lola Headphones bring unparalleled quality
  • Jay Anderson on CES2016 – Autel Robotics X-Star Quadcopters
  • Scott Ellis on CES2016 – The Parrot DISCO – The Worlds First Fixed Wing Consumer Drone
  • Ricardo Garza on CES2016 – The Parrot DISCO – The Worlds First Fixed Wing Consumer Drone

Tags

3D Amazon Apple apps audio bluetooth business CE Line Shows 2013 CES computers fitness gadgets games gaming geek geek beat GeekBeat geek house Google health how-to ios john p. kickstarter Microsoft mobile Mobility Music nabshow new building Other photography Reviews robots Samsung social media speakers storage tech technology travel Tutorial vehicles video vlog

Copyright © 2021 · Geek Media on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in