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Gaming website CVG.com report that Steam for Mac has been given a May 12th release date. This is slightly behind the initial claims of an April release, but I for one can’t wait to test my iMac to it’s limits. I think Half-Life 2 is going to get it’s fourth run through.

I might even buy Episodes 1 & 2 to go with it! Game on!

Valve have finally announced support for the Mac platform, hoooraaar! Yes, that’s right folks, Half-Life & Co will soon be available for your Apple machines. After a series of image leaks, Valve released a statement saying they intended to release their game download service, Steam, in April. I, for one, cannot wait! (as you can probably tell)

Not only will we see the majority of Valve’s titles ported to the Mac, but we’ll also be treated to a simultaneous release of Portal 2 on PC & Mac. Another interesting prospect is that cross platform online gaming will be available, Mac vs PC war-fest anyone?

This announcement is just one less reason for me to be running Windows on my iMac. The only reason I ever have is to play games. There is a major annoyance factor involved in rebooting the machine into Windows just to have a blast on a game. I usually leave my Mac go to sleep, and have all my most used programs open and ready to jump back to. Shutting everything down is a big no no for moi!

Even better news is the fact any purchases on the PC version of Steam will lead to the Mac equivalent being completely free (and I guess vice versa) Great news for me as I have Half-Life 2, and also Episodes One and Two of said game available to download!

So now it’s only a matter of weeks before my 27-inch iMac (i7 incidentally! (stop bragging)) flexes it’s muscles and tears up some Half-Life 2, hell yes!

Since I’m bored and wide awake at the moment, I thought I’d make full use of my iPhone. I rarely use the WordPress App, but after realising today how great the iPhone is as a Netbook replacment, I thought I’d start using it to it’s full potential. Not only have I been listening to my favourite Music, I’ve been playing some great Games. Titles like Chop Sushi, Rogue Planet, Bejeweled, Rock Band, Monkey Island, the list goes on. It’s no wonder manufacturers are chomping at the bit to get their ‘AppStores’ up and running. I recently downloaded the new (and free) Photoshop App, a very cool program that enables cropping, rotation, along with a whole host of visual filters and user adjustable colour balance. Pictures can be shared effortlessy to your favourite online Social Networking sites, whether it be Twitter, FaceBook or Flickr, the iPhone has the power and finesse to keep you up to date at any time. Anyway, enough of my rambling and enjoy the view I’ve had nearly all day (picture edited with Photoshop before you ask!)

Earlier today Apple released a software update for the AppleTV. It’s mentioned in the release notes that it’s been given a “simpler and faster interface”. I’m not sure it’s that much quicker to be honest, the menu lag still pops up on occasions and the remote can be as unresponsive as ever. The front end menu has completely changed, something I’ve been hoping would happen for some time. I got a bit fed up of the bland old menu, this newer look brings more colour to the screen, and uses a menu system not too dissimilar to the PlayStation 3′s. Sorry for the quality of the picture, I took it straight off my TV with the iPhone.

After seeing the ‘Internet’ menu I was hoping we’d see BBC’s iPlayer magically appear, but it wasn’t to be this time. Instead the newest addition, next to YouTube, is Internet Radio. This is a welcome bonus for me as I regularly tune in to the Electronica stations. I tried a couple of stations and everything seemed to work flawlessly, you get a Growl style notification at the bottom left of the screen letting you know what you’re listening while you browse through other stations.

Another new feature added is Genius Mixes. This was introduced in iTunes 9.0 and expands on Apple’s Genius mode. When selected you are presented with a choice of Mixes split by Genre. Once chosen, iTunes (or the AppleTV in this case) will keep playing songs it thinks fit together, until it runs out of ideas music. Notice the notification in the bottom left, showing I’m still listening to a Radio Station.

One of the few new features I was hoping for the most was the ability to view your iTunes LP’s in full screen on your HDTV. Apple granted my wish and have supposedly included this in the update. Only trouble is, the two iTunes LP’s that I own do not show up on the AppleTV no matter what I do. I’ve tried manual sync, creating a dedicated playlist, even tried sharing it off my MacBook, nothing makes the LP’s show up.

UPDATE
After a quick tweet to my friend Sam over at Fruit Bytes, she found a document released by Apple with information about this new feature. It seems we must wait for an email telling us when AppleTV compatible versions of our existing iTunes LP’s are available!

I recently ordered my self a couple of Blu-ray movies from play.com as they had a special “buy 1 get 1 free” offer on at the time. My choices were Valkyrie and I, Robot, both of which I have yet to see at the Cinema. They turned up today and I noticed Valkyrie also included a ‘Digital Copy’ of the film for you to load on your iPod/iPhone. This was the first time I’d come across this before and wondered how it worked. So I went ahead and popped the bonus DVD into my Mac mini and was greeted by this screen.

Once I’d double clicked the icon, iTunes opened and Valkyrie was mounted in the Devices section of the sidebar (much like an audio cd) I then selected that and got greeted with this screen.

The code is found on the inside of the Blu-ray case. Once entered, Apple authorises the movie and it becomes yours as if you’d bought it off the iTunes Store. The file is then copied over from the DVD into your Library.

Overall I’m fairly impressed with the whole process. Whenever I’ve bought a standard DVD lately I’ve always created a digital copy for use in Front Row or my Apple TV. With Blu-ray I’m limited as I don’t have a Blu-ray drive in any of my computers. I’m hoping this isn’t some Sony UMD fad and that more studios decide on including this with their movies.

Over the years I’ve always used a Dashboard Widget to add song lyrics to my iTunes Library. At the beginning we had Sing that iTune, a very popular and nice little widget. Sadly it hasn’t seen an update since 2008 and has stopped working altogether. In light of this I found a fairly decent replacement in Harmonic. This offered similar features, but is now giving a message stating due to licensing restrictions, it can no longer supply lyrics. After all these issues I set about finding an alternative to Sing that iTune and Harmonic, and ended up finding a little gem going by the name of TunesTEXT. Made by Cyan Works, this widget not only finds and adds lyrics to iTunes, it does it VERY quickly indeed.

The great thing about TunesTEXT is that it also searches and adds lyrics to iTunes automatically, without having to launch Dashboard with every change of song. Not only that but it also has a built in iTunes controller and lyrics Editor, so you can easily make adjustments or choose from multiple sources. Overall this is a great little Widget, that I would highly recommend.