Oh, Google… now you've gone and done it! The biggest shocker on Wednesday was tucked away inside a blog post detailing a number of lesser services the search giant decided were no longer relevant, but the tech world wasted no time lamenting the loss of Google Reader, which the company plans to give a dirt nap on July 1. The petitions to keep it alive are already out in full force, but something tells us Google won't be changing its mind on this one...
The demise of Google Reader wasn't the only bombshell the company dropped on Wednesday. CEO Larry Page took to the search giant's official blog to announce that the father of Android, Andy Rubin, has stepped down from overseeing the mobile OS, handing the reins over to Sundar Pichai, the man responsible for Chrome and Google Apps. "While Andy’s a really hard act to follow, I know Sundar will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward," Page concluded, promising that "it's an exciting time to be at Google." Rubin will remain at the company, where he plans to start "a new chapter."
This isn't really a surprise, but coming on the same day as other changes in the tech world, it's a sad one nonetheless. TechHive reported Wednesday that Adobe plans to end packaged copies of its Creative Suite software, with two resellers confirming May 1 as the effective cut-off date. The company will focus all of its efforts on online sales and subscription-based services such as Creative Cloud, and affects both Mac and Windows platforms. While we've seen this move coming for awhile -- especially when most computers don't even come with optical drives -- it's definitely the end of an era for those who grew up buying software on floppy drives and later, CDs or DVDs.
Readdle announced Wednesday that its Calendars app is being rebranded Calendars+, with a free version now taking over the original name. The paid Calendars+ will allow users to track and sync tasks, set appointments with multiple reminders, create recurring events and invite people to join events in addition to all the basic tasks featured in the free version, such as pulling together calendars from both iOS and Google in one application. The new Calendars is available free from the App Store, while Calendars+ 3.5.3 can be purchased for $6.99 with improved sync stability and minor bug fixes.
If you're using the 2008 or 2011 flavor of Microsoft Office for Mac, the folks in Redmond highly recommend that you download its latest update, which includes a number of critical security patches outlined in Security Bulletin MS13-026. This vulnerability "could allow information disclosure if a user opens a specially crafted email message" in Outlook for Mac, which also receives a number of less-critical bug fixes. Finally, Word and PowerPoint also get a bug fix each, the former to handle a scrolling problem that crashed the application and the latter to resolve graphics issues with transitions. The updates can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, or by using AutoUpdate, which can be found under Help > Check for Updates.
In addition to the announcement it will be killing off boxed copies of its Creative Suite software, Adobe released the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 Editor to the Mac App Store on Wednesday. The $79.99 photo editing software comes unbundled from the Elements Organizer included with the $99.99 retail version, but otherwise includes all the same great features, such as pro-level effects including tilt-shift and vignettes, new filters like Comic, Graphic Novel and Pen & Ink, intelligent Photoshop technology for extracting objects and sharing via email and social networks.
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