Smith Micro Software Inc. subsidiary Allume Systems on Tuesday introduced StuffIt Deluxe 10 for Mac OS X, the latest major version of their data compression tool. The new version features Allume’s vaunted JPEG compression technology and other new features. It costs US$79.99 — registered users of previous versions can upgrade for $29.99. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.3. or later.
The new JPEG compression technology — a key reason why Smith Micro acquired Allume from its previous owner, IMSI — shrinks JPEG images and photos up to 30 percent with no loss in image quality, according to the developer. StuffIt Deluxe 10 also lets users view thumbnails for archived JPEG images without requiring them to decompress the archive.
StuffIt Deluxe 10 also gets new features for Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger.” A Spotlight Importer allows Tiger’s Spotlight search utility to index file names for items installed inside StuffIt, Zip and Tar archives. A new Automator scripting tool lets users compress and expand StuffIt, Zip and Tar archives as part of their Automator workflows.
Also included with Stuffit 10 is StuffIt SEA Maker, which allows users to build their own self-extracting archives with control over where files are expanded. You can also add a “splash screen” and text dialog to your SEA.
Other improvements to Stuffit Deluxe 10: