Here is what popped up in the Apple-sphere during the month of March.

• Apple announces iPhone 3.0 Software (Beta Now avalaible)
• Google’s Chrome browser gets one step closer your Mac.
• Apple announces HD movies rentals for iTunes.
• Skype announces free VOIP app for iPhone.
• Sub $1K 17″ educational iMac looming.
• MacBook Mini in the works?

Here is whats in the works for April.

• Web Based Photo editor round-up.
• Unique Mac Apps
• Core i7 MacBook Pro?

In what appears to be a step closer to a beta release, Ars has revealed that Google’s praised browser is now even closer to becoming a realization for OS X users.

Now, as much as an avid Firefox supporter as I am, the amount of time and effort Google is pushing into this release makes me feel like Chrome is going to be able to hit the ground running. The day this browser is released will be the day it will go head to head with Firefox for the default browser spot on my Mac.

You can find the full story here at ArsTechnica.

While still not overly stable, the new beta of Camino can give you a good idea of what to expect in the finished product. The Mozilla based web browser for OS X has improved tabbed browsing and also implemented Growl support for download notification. Other new features includes:

• Optional flash animation blocking on a per site basis
• Tab rearrangement through drag and drop
• Gecko 1.9 rendering engine for faster graphic rendering and compatibility

Camino has aspects of both Safari and Firefox which make for excellent usability and even better design.

If you are interested in learning even more of what Camino has to offer check it out here. Camino 2 Preview

I have been using Safari Beta 4 for close to 48 forty-eight hours now. While not blowing my mind wide open, it does offer a few useful features.

• Cover Flow, while useful in iTunes, finds a way to be even more useful as a web browser feature. Cover Flow in Safari allows you to visually search your bookmarks and history, a welcomed feature for someone like me who tends to forget names much easier then faces.
• Top Sites. While not being incredibly useful, is in my opinion, much better then a static home page. The ability for it to inform you of which pages have changed since you lasted visited them is a nice RSS-esque feature.
• Nitro Engine. While totally having a lame name, it’s always nice to be able to load the many pages of the www just that much faster.

So, as LeVar Burton would say:  You don’t have to take my word for it. Check it out for yourself. Apple.com/Safari

Today the Google Mac team announced the introduction of a new App called the Quick Search Box. While it is only a developer preview, it seems like it may be a promising app for those constantly on the search for web information.

From Google-”This Mac version is much more experimental than its iPhone sibling, Google Mobile App, and through it you will be able to see many of the areas we are exploring: contextual search, actions, and extensibility. It is by no means feature-complete, but is a very good indication of things to come.”

I know I’m gonna give it a try and it may actually be nice, not having to launch FF every time I wanna Google something. This will save me a good 3 seconds every time I search. That’s about 30 seconds a day or about 182 minutes a year! In all seriousness, A truly useful app to add to your dock.

You can download it here: Google code site

Back in 2006 when BitTorrent Inc. purchased uTorrent, it promised us Mac users a version to call our own. Fortunately, that day is here. On Nov.28th uTorrent for OS X 10.5 was released in beta.

Most of uTorrent’s well-known Windows features tagged along on the journey to the Mac, though some, such as RSS downloading, torrent creation, and the webui, aren’t here yet (boo). Fortunately, uTorrent’s developers are planning to bring and keep uTorrent for Mac in feature parity with the Windows version. Read the rest of this entry »