Sandvox is the WYSIWYG web editor from Karelia that's won praises from users and the design community (including an Apple Design Award) alike. You can read our previous coverage here.

This week, Karelia has released version 1.5, which offers a slew of changes. You can use Sandvox to publish to any webhost (including FTP, SFTP and MobileMe) or create a blog. The pro version lets you edit the HTML and both the pro and basic version include attractive templates that you'll actually want to use. Changes to version 1.5 include

• Major improvements to media processing, making it easier than ever to create and publish multimedia and media-intensive sites
• Improvements to all pagelets, including an enhanced Contact Form and a brand new YouTube pagelet
• Seven all-new designs, plus enhancements to other designs, bringing the total to 50
• New blogging features, including a Collection Archives pagelet to better manage and display older entries, automatic navigation links between entries, and "continue reading" links to better manager longer entries

There's much more, and you can read the full release notes here. As we said, Sandvox is a very nice tool for people who want to put up a page or site with no fuss. Sandvox requires Mac OS 10.4 or later, is a Universal Binary and comes in both pro ($79US) and standard ($49US) versions. Version 1.5 is a free upgrade for registered users.

Google Gears has been around for Firefox on the Mac for quite a while. However, Safari users have been left in the cold. Google Gears allows you to access certain Google services, most notably Docs and Reader, offline (as well as other offline-enabled web services like Remember The Milk). This week, a beta for Safari has become available.

With Google Gears, for example, you can view all of your Google Docs offline -- and even edit them (word processing docs only, spreadsheets and presentations are viewable but not editable). When you connect back to the internet, you will be able to sync the changes back to Google.

We're glad that Google has finally seen the light and released a version for our Safari-using counterparts. To make Google Gears work with Safari, you will need to download and install the Google Gears package for Mac OS X. Once installed, navigate to a "gears enabled" page, you will be able to use the Google Gears system. Remember, this is a beta and we've heard there might be issues if you've tweaked Safari in certain ways.

Oh, and there appears to be limited support for Fluid, which is nice.

[via the Apple blog]

According to HitsLink, the people who track web usage statistics, iPhone users account for about a third of one percent of web browsers on the Internet, the largest of any mobile platform.

iPhone ranks fourth overall in terms of operating system market share, behind Windows, Mac, and Linux. On August 16, the stats peaked at 0.45 percent. That's a two-fold increase since the iPhone 3G was released July 11.

Jim Goldman, of business television network CNBC, says that "it's a key metric that shows market penetration and customer use." He cited a report by analyst Andy Hargreaves that suggests the increase in browser market share highlights the iPhone's key, long-term advantages. Well, duh.

"Consumers seem to know what some investors are having trouble grasping -- or believing: that Apple might be positioned better in so many key markets than any of its competitors," Captain Obvious Goldman said.

[Via MacDailyNews.]

Camino, the best Gecko-based browser NOT named Firefox 3, has just been updated to version 1.6.3. This update, which seems to have rolled in 1.6.2 along with it (at least I never got the 1.6.2 notification, and I use Camino pretty frequently), sports the latest update to the Gecko 1.8.1 branch, including several critical stability and security fixes with better ad-blocking. Plus, it no longer crashes if a pop-up is displayed while dragging a bookmark.

Even though Firefox 3 is now a largely native Cocoa application, I still appreciate Camino's interface and speed. If nothing else, it's great to use as a Firefox 2/Gecko 1.8.1 testing agent when developing websites for compatibility.

You can download Camino here; optimized builds aren't available as of this writing, but check this site over the next few days for updates.

A while back, Qik announced that they would be creating a video broadcast client for the iPhone. When they first announced it, Qik was only available in a limited beta to jailbroken phones. However, Qik has announced that all jailbroken 1.1.4 iPhones will be able to get the client through Installer.app. Since Apple hasn't yet allowed streaming video using the iPhone's camera, jailbreaking is the only way to use Qik.

Qik, as you may already know, is a way to broadcast live, streaming video from a mobile device. While they are not offering an App Store version of their client, you can download it via Installer.app by adding "http://qik.com/iphone1" to your sources list. If you are using iPhone 2.0 software, you might be able to downgrade to 1.1.4, however, the risks outweigh any advantages you might get.

There seems to be a growing field of jailbreak applications as Apple continues to disallow some SDK-built apps. Even though we have the official SDK, there are still too many limitations for some apps and their users.

[via TechCrunch]

Though I'm far too dumb to understand what they're talking about, I like the Black Hat hacker guys. Most of the Internet is all "New Vegas" now; all (supposedly) family friendly and glamorous and glitzy. But those guys are back on Fremont Street, gambling with everything they've got and shoulder to shoulder with the dregs of society.

Unfortunately, Apple's marketing department doesn't share my feelings. Computerworld says they've put the kibosh on a speaking engagement they were supposed to have at the conference next week in Sin City. In fact, they can't even say they were asked to pass -- everyone involved in organizing the panel, which was set up early last month and "abruptly canceled" late last month, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Which is a shame -- organizers of the conference say the panel was supposed to be all about how serious security is at Apple and how they're committed to keeping users secure. And it wasn't even supposed to be a Q&A, which is why the organizers thought it would easily be approved by marketing.

That, however, wasn't the case -- while the panel wasn't yet approved by the conference folks, the request to have the panel was pulled. We're sure the Black Hat guys will still have fun (it is Vegas, after all), but it's a shame we couldn't get that look inside Apple's security team.

I'm a pretty big user of Google Calendar, because I like how I can automatically sync it with my BlackBerry. The problem for me has been that on my desktop, I really prefer iCal's interface. Syncing the two can be cumbersome. We've written about third-party programs that can sync iCal and gCal together in the past, and although those are great -- I have still wanted a native way to sync the two calendars together.

Well, fortunately, Google has just quietly introduced CalDAV support to Google Calendar. CalDAV is the protocol that iCal uses to transmit data over the web. Although some other mail and calendar programs support CalDAV, right now Google Calendar is only compatible with iCal. Finally, iCal and Google Calendar can sync without having to use third party programs!

After following Google's detailed instructions, you can add your Google calendar account to iCal. Any changes you make in iCal will be transferred over to Google and appear in Google Calendar within about 15 minutes. Likewise, any changes made in gCal will be updated immediately from iCal. If you use a BlackBerry, which also syncs directly with gCal, those changes will be updated on all sides as well.

So does this mean that third-party syncing utilities have no place? Well, just based on my initial tests this morning, they are safe for at least a little while. Although sync support works perfectly, you have to create a new calendar account for each individual calendar you want to access. Additionally, if you have a calendar called "Home" on your Mac and a different calendar called "Home" in gCal, you can't just sync those two together. You'll need to either import all your iCal data into Google first, and then sync with the new calendar, or transfer the information over from one calendar to the other within iCal. Programs like BusySync and Spanning Sync allow syncing of designated calendars with one another.

Still, this is a huge step in the right direction and I'm just happy that I can import my mobile calendar onto my desktop without having to run a background utility. CalDAV support for Google Calendar requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's version of iCal. The Google Calendar service is free.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[via Google Operating System]

The iPhone will no doubt see it's fair share of Twitter clients (just as the Mac has). Twitterrific is the big name in the Mac/iPhone Twitter app space, but in a client from Tapulous called "Twinkle" has also been generating some interest. Originally released as a jailbreak application for the iPhone and iPod touch, Twinkle has just debuted on the App Store with the ability to location-base your tweets.

While Twitterrific seems to have more precise locating abilities, Twinkle uses the location-based tweeting in interesting ways. For instance, you can see tweets originating within a certain mileage range from your location. Twinkle allows you to easily view your direct messages.

Overall, Twinkle looks like it will give Twitterrific a run for its money. Best part of all? Twinkle (iTunes Link) for iPhone and iPod touch is absolutely free.

Check out our gallery for some screenshots.

When the App Store first launched last Thursday, I saw Pandora and AOL Radio and immediately wondered if they would work on my first generation iPhone using EDGE. The quick answer is yes, however, you do make some sacrifices in one of the applications. Read my full review below to get the full details.

About Pandora (Download Link)
Pandora is a part of the Music Genome Project and allows you to create "stations" of your favorite artists. Pandora then pairs those artists to others you might like and plays an unlimited playlist based on your favorite artists. Pandora tracks your likes and dislikes and will play songs based on those results. Pandora lets you find new music for free, and who can argue with that?



About AOL Radio (Download Link)
AOL Radio is a CBS Radio partner that provides online streaming radio stations. Unlike Pandora, AOL Radio is a true streaming radio station in the sense that you can play local stations which support in-audio advertising. AOL Radio can use the location feature in order to find CBS affiliate stations that bitcast near you.



User Interface
Both Pandora and AOL Radio follow a similar user interface design: they both look like the iPod feature on iPhone/iPod touch. Both of the interfaces are nice, however, I have the same gripes for both. The volume controllers in both seem to be independent of the iPhone's volume controller. This can cause the audio to be distorted if you turn it up too much in the applications themselves since you can use the volume buttons on the side to control the audio volume as well.

Secondly, I would love to be able to quit the application and have the audio keep playing (I know, this is an Apple/SDK restriction, but it would still be nice). You can, however, lock the phone and keep the audio playing (which is a nice feature).

Both applications allow you to purchase the currently playing song from the iTunes WiFi Music store. AOL Radio also provides a link to find out more about the currently playing song on AOL Radio's site.

WiFi (or 3G) vs. EDGE Use
When you are playing the music over WiFi (or the 3G cell network), you get awesome audio quality. Both applications seem to provide audio quality that matches that of purchased iTunes songs. On EDGE, however, AOL Radio falls short by providing very low quality audio (I would guess 56k audio). However, Pandora on EDGE seems to maintain good audio quality when you have a signal that is greater than 2/5 bars.

So, who wins?
Since both of these applications are absolutely free and have equal pros and cons, I would recommend downloading both to see which one fits you the best. If you are on a 3G iPhone, both will work well no matter where you are (assuming you're within 3G coverage). However, if you have a 2G iPhone, you might prefer Pandora because it provides better audio quality over EDGE. You can download both applications by clicking the download links above.

Disclaimer: The Unofficial Apple Weblog and AOL Radio are both owned by AOL.

Facebook always seems to be on the forefront of iPhone development. They were one of the first social networking websites to have a good web application specifically designed for iPhone, and now they are one of the first big-name social networking sites to have a decent native application on the iPhone.

The native application looks very similar to the web-based version, but with a few minor "upgrades." You get photo taking/uploading support, iPhone-esqe photo galleries, and Facebook chat. Facebook chat really works wonders, especially if you have been using the web-only client.

The Facebook iPhone/iPod touch application is available right now for free from the AppStore.

There are historic days, people. The App Store went live, and all of a sudden, we're drowning in new things for the iPhone. But it's not just a big deal for iPhone owners -- this is a huge day for society and technology in general. While there have been lots of PDAs, and lots of apps to run on them, there's never been anything like the App Store before -- here's five ways that Apple's platform for iPhone application distribution will change our world.

1. Ubiquitous computing.

Any science fiction writer will tell you that we're already living the future -- we can teleport things, robots are easy to make, and almost anything dreamed of can be done if you have enough money to do it. But a technology really doesn't move from fantasy to reality until it's everywhere, and thanks to the iPhone 3G, computing has become just that. You can't take a laptop around with you all the time (as in, to a fancy restaurant or to the movies) to edit photos or post to your blog, but you can bring the iPhone. It's the ultimate ultramobile platform, and it's now cheap enough to be everywhere, and powerful enough that almost any common computing task can be done.

Four more huge changes after the jump.

We've all awaited the .Mac to MobileMe switch for a while now (some more than others). However, Apple's 6 hour time table for upgrading to MobileMe turned awry and led into an almost 24 hour up, down, up, up, down cycle.

If you're like most users experiencing the 24 outage, then you haven't been able to login and experience MobileMe first hand. So why not take a look at our gallery? We've got pictures of the entire MobileMe suite of web applications and user preferences: from the login screen to storage partitioning.

[via GearLive]

Tonight, we will all say "goodbye" to .Mac, a service that has been a small part of Apple for almost 8 years. iTools, .Mac's predecessor, was launched on January 5, 2000 at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco and was a free service that included a HomePage, iCards and the much coveted @mac.com e-mail address that is commonplace today (as well as the forgotten 'KidSafe,' which was a database of kid friendly websites Apple compiled so you could make sure your children weren't up to no good on your Mac). As more users came to the service and the cost of bandwidth went up, Apple began charging for the service and called it .Mac.

The name ".Mac" was born at the Macworld Expo in New York on July 17, 2002 and provided several new services including: a beefed up iDisk (with a dizzying 100 megs of space), Backup, and a free copy of Virex. On September 17, 2002, Apple announced that it would discontinue the free iTools service in favor for .Mac.

That brings us to, well, tonight. Apple is scheduled to take down .Mac and replace it with a newer, rebranded service named "MobileMe." While some scoff at the name, TUAW can't help but see the other side of the picture: look how far iTools has evolved over the past 8 years. So, join us in saying, "So long old friend, we hardly knew ye."

Do you have a favorite story to tell about iTools or .Mac? Be sure to mention it in the comments below! Apple is scheduled to take down the .Mac service between 6 p.m. and 12 a.m. pacific time.

How did we ever get by without tabbed browsing? Think back to the days of OS 9 and IE 4. Ugh.

JimD at creativebits has shared a cool trick (Firefox and Safari) for quickly returning to a previously visited website in a new tab, thus preserving the site you're currently browsing.

This got us thinking of some of our favorite browser tricks, like this one. If you've got several tabs open, you can move from one to the other with keyboard shortcuts. In Firefox, it's Command-Option plus the arrow keys. In Safari, it's Command-Shift plus the arrow keys.

Quickly jump to the address field with Command-L (both Firefox and Safari). It selects the full text, so you can either just start typing or hit Command-C to copy the url. Of course, Safari 3 lets you grab Web Clips and turn them into Dashboard widgets.

Have you got a favorite browser trick to share with newcomers to the Mac?