Among the announcements when Apple released iOS 5, a couple of downloadable apps became available at the iTunes App Store. One of them, Cards (free), lets you create fold-in-the-middle greeting cards on your iPhone, then Apple sends them on real paper via snail mail.

While other services have greeting and post cards in the past, Apple's method is very intuitive and convenient with several designs to choose from, and the cost is about what it would be to go buy a greeting card in a store.

Start by selecting your design with several themed cards already available.

Immediately upon launch, you're given an intuitive interface for selecting the exterior of your card. Across the bottom of the screen you can choose from icons to show cards for traveling, birthdays, holidays, and a few others, or you can select all to look at every design. There are a lot of good design choices here, but we think it could have been better with more customization options--perhaps that's something that will come in future updates. To be fair, Apple says the reason the designs are limited is because the Cards are letterpress (debossed on a Heidelberg press), which explains some of the borders and designs that you cannot change. Once you've settled on a design, you can customize with your own pictures from... [Read more]

With the release of OS X Lion, a number of owners of the 15-inch MacBook Pro from mid-2010 found that their systems began showing regular black screens when performing some tasks like manipulating graphics and waking from sleep. We reported on this when it first became an issue and also when OS X 10.7.2 was released.

A short while ago Apple issued a knowledge base article mentioning that it was aware of the black-screen issue with the affected machines, and was working on a fix.

The video update package can be installed manually or automatically through Software Update.

I suspected that this was a hardware-based problem since people affected by it have found it to happen both in older versions of OS X and Windows in addition to OS X Lion; however, Apple's engineers have found a fix for the issue in software, though only for systems running Lion.

The 70MB update that Apple has released toda... [Read more]

These brothers needed to be "joined together by their love of sport," so I gave them a basketball hoop.

When Scribblenauts made its Nintendo DS debut back in 2009, it instantly joined the ranks of the console's showcase games. GameSpot gave it an 8.0 rating and called it "a jubilant experience that is sure to delight."

Scribblenauts just arrived for iOS, going under the name Scribblenauts Remix, and it feels as original now as it did two years ago. It's not perfect, and it's definitely going to appeal more to kids than adults--but if you're looking for a unique gaming experience, it delivers.

The object of the game is to help Maxwell--a weird-looking kid whose limbs flail wildly when he moves--collect the Starite, which is done by solving one or more puzzles within each level. For example, you might need to help a knight cross a bridge, or get a classroom ready for the school day.

The clever twist is that to help accomplish these goals, you can bring into existence just about any object you can think up. A bridge, a dinosaur, a pogo stick, a purple h... [Read more]

Fetch is one of the oldest and most well-loved FTP clients on the Mac, going as far back as 1989. Fetch can handle all your basic FTP needs, including SFTP and FTP with TLS/SSL, along with support for AppleScript and one-click remote file editing (with any kind of file and any kind of application). In the latest update, this old dog has learned plenty of new tricks, making it a worthy upgrade for fans of the classic client.

Also this week we have the latest version of OnyX, a solid utility for conducting routine maintenance and tweaking the interface on your Mac. Our game this week is Mahjong In Poculis, a beautiful tile-matching game with more than 600 layouts.

Don't forget to check out this week's iOS app collection: stunt bike games for iOS.