Google introduces new replacement for Google Drive’s desktop app

Google is making it easier for Drive users on the desktop to backup files on its platform. The company is set to introduce a replacement tool called Backup and Sync. It combines the Google Drive and Google Photos Backup app into a unified client interface. It can monitor and backup the files and photos inside any folder that you specify, including your desktop, Documents/Pictures folder, etc. We don’t know yet what you can do with the app but Mac Rumors reports that the new tool will respect any current folder settings you have on your device to make the change seamless.

Backup and Sync is recommended for consumer users and is set to come out on June 28^th. Meanwhile, Google tells its business customers to continue using Google Drive for now and wait for the release of Drive File Stream, an enterprise-focused solution, later this year.

Apple's Craig Federighi dishes on Swift in open source

Apple's SVP for Software Engineering Craig Federighi - Photo By Gadjo C. Sevilla

Apple's Senior Vice President for Software Engineering Craig Federighi was a guest on John Gruber's The Talk Show podcast recently and gave some insights on Swift in open source. Swift is Apple's unified programming language which it hopes developers will shift to from Objective C. Apple released Swift into open source recently hoping to make it widely available to all developers. 

Federighi said that Swift is the most popular language on Github, which is a widely used repository for open source programming and resources.  Expected to be the major language for the next 20 years and the lynchpin of Apple's various OS ecosystems, Swift is now also available for Linux where it can be used on servers. 

 "I think our team is a really seasoned team in the world of developing languages and we know that a language really can’t be developed in a vacuum," Federighi noted. "The first step is you have to crystallize your basic ideas and have a starting point. But we knew we needed feedback then to work toward the language that ultimately Swift has become and will become in the future." For more information on Swift, check this link.

Source: Daring Fireball

WWDC 2015: Mac OS El Capitan will focus on refinements and performance

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

San Francisco - Apple revealed the latest version of its desktop operating system called OS X El Capitan. Continuing the tradition of naming their operating systems after popular Californian locales, El Capitan, which is located within Yosemite (the previous OS X's codename), can be likened to an evolutionary update similar to what Snow Leopard was to Leopard and Mountain Lion was to Lion.

Focusing on refinements and requested user features, El Capitan improves Window Management, boosts performance for graphics and power applications with Metal for the Mac which developers like Adobe are supporting to make their apps run faster and more efficiently on desktops and notebooks.

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Review: MacPhun Software's Lost Photos

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

MacPhun Software has made some of the most innovative Mac software I’ve had the pleasure to try. Their SnapHeal image editing app is one of the most effective ways to remove items seamlessly from a photo and they recently released the Lost Photos app, which scours your email account’s history for images and attachments and places them in a separate folder for ‘rediscovery’.

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