Acorn, one of my favourite image editors on the Mac has just hit version 3 and is available to buy from both the Mac App Store and Flying Meats own website.

Always a great alternative to Photoshop for the majority of users, version 3 introduces layer styles (something I really missed), multi-stop live gradients, rotating text and shapes, new filters plus many more features. All the existing functionality is still there, including its ability to take screen grabs and break out all of the individual windows and components into separate layers.

For anybody toying with the idea of purchasing Photoshop for the Mac, then I would strongly recommend you pop along to the Mac App Store and try Acorn first. You may be pleasantly surprised and at £17.99 you will make a massive saving as well!

Really interesting, and surprisingly open post, by Tap Tap Tap, on how successful their application Camera+ has been in the iPhone App Store, both in terms of copies sold and revenue generated. Something I am sure every iPhone developer would give their right arm to emulate!

Byword

Your minimalist typing interface.

Byword starts with a clean full-screen interface that lets you start typing right away—no templates to choose, no type settings to tune, no spacing to adjust. Everything is already prepared for you.

If you want a minimalist typing interface on your Mac, then Byword might be just the thing for you. It looks great and reallys offers a relaxing and clean environment in which to focus on typing and nothing else.

Available on the Mac App Store now. Find out more at their website.

One of my favourite apps Sparrow has come out of beta today and is now available for purchase on the Mac App Store.

Badged as Miminal mail for the Mac, Sparrow takes a Tweetie style interface and applies it to email. Version 1 supports Gmail and Google Apps only but the developers are already working on a 1.1 beta which will expand support to wider IMAP services.

I have been using the beta for a number of months now and have to say I love it! The minimalist approach is fantastic and keyboard shortcuts allow you to churn through your email in seconds.

A free lite version is in review at the moment and should shortly be available in the App Store but with the paid version only being just over a fiver its not going to break the bank.

I will write a wider review shortly but if you are frustrated by Apple Mail and are looking for an alternative I would recommend giving Sparrow a try.

omz:software have just launched a Mac version of their popular iOS RSS Reader NewsRack. Users can run it as a standalone application or use Google Reader as a centralised sychronisation service, similar to NetNewsWire.

Personally I am a fan of Reeder on both the Mac and iOS but if you are looking for something new, then its definitely worth taking a look at NewsRack.

That's right, over 3 months since it was first released and ahead of Macworld 2011, Microsot have finally released a 30 day trial their flagship office and productivity suite of software for the Mac, Office 2011.

I've been using it for over a month though and its a vast improvement on the previous version (2008) and brings many of the features available to our PC cousins to the Mac. Most notibly Outlook replaces Entourage for the first time.

First impressions? I personally prefer iWork on the Mac for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Having using Office for nearly 2 decades I found the PC versions bloated and iWork is a refreshing change. That said if you need to integrate with Exchange or like me work with colleagues using PC's then having a native version of both Word and Outlook is a great help.

The first Mac app I downloaded this morning after finishing the update to Mac OS X 10.6.6 was Twitter for Mac 2.0. This is the app formerly named Tweetie, and it's a free download from the Mac App Store.

I did exactly the same myself and have to admit to being slightly underwhelmed by it myself.

I was a big fan of the original Tweetie but got frustrated by the lack of updates and moved onto other clients. I'm currently using the Weet beta on my Mac, am extremely pleased with it and will be immediately purchasing a license when it hits version 1.

Personally I think the problem with Tweetie 2, or Twitter for Mac as its now called, is that while it stood still other apps overtook it and all this release has done is caught its competitors up.

Don't get me wrong this is still a fabulous application and because its free it will be first choice for many people.  You can download it from the Mac App Store right no, just remember there are other equally good options out there, especially if you are prepared to invest a few quid!

Just stumbled upon Wunderlist, a new task management suite of software that works on PC, Mac, iPhone and sync's through the cloud. It looks great and best of all its free.

Find out more for yourself at http://www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist/