You will need to update your Mac iOS to version 10.6.6 if you would like to use the App Store. You will find the App Store under the apple in the upper left corner of your desktop as seen in the screen print here:

It will open up and you will see something similar to this:

There are both paid and free apps and they are split out by categories. There are not anywhere near as many apps as there are for the iPhone, but it has a very good start.

Evernote

If you have not tried Evernote (link to App Store), I recommend you download it now. It’s free!

I have an article at MyBlogalicous about how to use Evernote.

As you can see below, the newest and most popular are first. You can search by category or see lists of Top Paid, Top Free and Top Grossing apps.

iWork and iLife Purchases

One of the coolest things about the App Store is that now you can download iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand separately (links are to the App Store). I never use GarageBand, but I’ve always had to buy the full iLIfe version so I can update iPhoto & iMovie. The same goes for the iWork applications.

You can buy Pages, Keynote and Numbers (link to App Store) separately now. A lot of Mac software developers are offering their software here at the App Store for easy purchase, download and updates.

App Store Updates

At the very top of the App Store, you’ll see Updates (last icon). Whenever there is an update to software you have downloaded, you will see a number there (for the number of apps that need updating). You can click on “update all” and it’s a very easy update.

I like the App Store because it makes it so easy to find software for the Mac. It is all categorized with reviews. If you have a Mac, go check it out.

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Here are the changes I noticed:

Hard drive free space -I didn’t take note on my Macbook, but on my iMac, I gained about 15 GB of space on my hard drive. That alone, made the upgrade worth it.

Speed – I noticed a difference in the speed of everything on my computer. My mail, calendar and address book opened faster. Firefox seems to be running faster.

Restart – Definitely faster

Finder – You can change the size of the icons in the finder and get a large preview of the document/picture without opening it up. This makes it a lot easier to find that one document or picture you are looking for. That is the control in the lower right hand corner (inside orange circle) that you slide to control the icon size.

This is the view of the finder in the pictures folder on the largest icon setting.

And this is the Documents folder on the largest icon setting. It will be much easier to find the pdf or Word documents I need now.

Dock – The orange arrow is pointing to the scroll bar that now appears when you open  the Applications or Documents folder in the Dock. Now you don’t have to click on the Arrow that opens the Finder window to find the apps that start with a ‘Z’.

None of these changes are earth shattering, but they have made my life a tad easier and that is worth the $49 upgrade for both my Desktop and Laptop.

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iPhoto ’09 – I like iPhoto, but I don’t love it. I do like the event stacks and how you can quickly scroll through it without having to open the whole folder, but since I’m used to using Picasa for Windows, I miss a lot of features. But the new faces and places features for iPhoto excites me. I am always looking for photos of certain people when I’m scrapbooking. I can’t wait to try it out and see how accurate it is. The places feature will tell you exactly where the picture was taken if your camera has GPS. I guess that will mean I may need a new camera. I told you…I love gadgets and I’m a geek. But I guess my iPhone can do that so I’ll have to make do with that for now. You can also upload directly to flickr and facebook which are the 2 places I always upload to so that is exciting.

GarageBand will teach you the piano and the guitar. Since all my kids like to play both and do not know how, that is pretty cool. I guess they use celebrities like Sting to help teach you.

I don’t use iMovie and iWeb much. Mostly because I haven’t found a use for them. I have tried iWeb and it doesn’t do enough to satisfy my needs, but this new version looks like it might work better. I want to use iMovie, but I just haven’t made the time to do it. And to be honest, I have no idea what iDVD even does. I’ve only had my Mac for a few months so I haven’t tried everything yet.

But I do know, I will definitely be upgrading to iLife ’09.

Technorati Tags: ilife 09, apple, mac

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