14 DAY TRIAL // Although Apple continues to leave its Downloads section unattended, you can count on Softpedia to let you in on the latest updates for third-party Mac apps. The latest noteworthy releases come from CodeWeavers and Floola.com, two developers whose solutions can greatly improve any Mac owner’s experience.
CrossOver
CrossOver, a Wine-powered program that enables Macs to run Windows applications, has received a maintenance update, following the major 9.0 release in March, when CodeWeavers threw in a “bold new look,” as well as an entirely redesigned application-install process, and much faster bottle-creation and -manipulation times. Version 9.0.1 now brings the following changes, according to the makers of the software:
- Certain bottles never stopped initializing; now they start up properly. - Renamed downloaded installer files so that you can tell what they are. - Fixed a bug with accessing very old CrossOver bottles. - Fixed handling of custom c4p files on OSX Tiger. - Fixed auto-opening of c4p files (previously the file-type association was broken.) - A few minor cosmetic and behavior changes in the CrossOver. - Application support improvements.
Crossover bridges directly between Windows software and OS X, unlike similar products that run the Windows operating system inside a virtual machine. This, according to CodeWeavers, allows applications to run at greater speeds on a user's Mac. CrossOver is also available on Linux. There’s also a version of CrossOver for Mac that has been optimized for running video games. Appropriately named CrossOver games, the program is available immediately from the second download location below.
Download CrossOver Mac (Update / Trial / Buy)
Download CrossOver Games (Update / Trial / Buy)
Floola
Supporting commonly used iPod features including artwork, podcasts and smart playlists, Floola works on Macs, any Windows (98 and above) release, and any Linux distribution with GTK installed. It's portable, so you can put the application on your iPod and launch it on any computer.
Floola can handle most features typical to an iPod, including photos, artwork, podcasts and smart playlists, and automatically converts any incompatible audio or video file so that you can copy almost any file to it. As long as your device supports Apple's iTunes, you can use Floola to manage the content of your iPhone or Motorola phone with ease. The latest version of the software, Floola 5.7, fixes an issue with deleting items on shuffle3G, and updates localization.