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There sure is no shortage of “simple writing” apps for the Mac out there. Just recently we’ve reviewed (and praised) apps like Grandview and Free, and we’ve also had a few roundups where we’ve taken to compare all the options out there in the “distraction-free writing” app field.
Today we’re presenting to you an app that could fit in with any of the mentioned above, but it has a little twist to it: it imitates the look of Mac OS’s Launchpad to create a very cool native-looking app. It’s appropriately called Launch Write; want to check it out?
Our giveaway is now closed, and congrats to Asaf Bendor, Sean Sykes, ck, Dimitrios, and Guy Einy, our random winners of this giveaway. Stay tuned; we’ve got new giveaways all the time!
Keeping up with your bills can be so difficult, and it can be rather stressful to know how badly one missed bill can affect you. That’s why Chronicle is such an exciting app. It’s designed to make it easy to remember to pay your bills, with push notifications to make sure you don’t forget, and an integrated browser so you can pay bills without even leaving the app.
Chronicle has been recently updated with retina graphics and more. We love it in our latest review, and think you’ll love it too. That’s why we’re excited to have 5 copies to giveaway for free to our readers!
Chronicle
Tweet to Enter
If you’d like to win a free copy of Chronicle, all you have to do is click the link below and send out the resulting tweet (or just copy and paste), then leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. That’s it! We’ll then randomly pick 5 winners when we close the contest.
We’ll announce the winners next week on September 12th, so hurry and get your entry in today!
Envato staff or people who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm, however, are ineligible to enter.
If you have a Mac, chances are you didn’t even consider other computers because you wanted one that runs OS X. Apple makes great hardware, but it’s the great software with great hardware that makes a Mac. Even still, there’s many times you might need to run another operating system. From running an Access database for work in Windows or testing out a Linux server config locally, there’s many reasons you still might want to run another OS on your Mac.
Thankfully, there’s many choices. There’s the built-in Boot Camp, which gives you a free way to run other operating systems directly on your Mac. Then, there’s a number of virtualization tools to let you run other OSes on top of OS X, including the newly updated VMware Fusion and Parallels desktop, as well as the free open source VirtualBox.
That’s why we’re curious: how do you run other operating systems on your Mac? Or are you just fine only using OS X? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Have you been staring at the same drab wallpaper for weeks? Are you starving for some new wallpapers and backgrounds. Do you need something to spruce up your iPad and show off the gorgeous screen? Look no further.
Here are some fantastic wallpaper roundups, there’s something for everybody!
Mac apps have gotten away from being highly customizable, sticking instead to a curated set of defaults that often lean towards clutter-free interfaces like most writing apps, or the skeuomorphic designs Apple prefers today. But the highly customizable apps aren’t gone completely.
Today, we’ve had the chance to interview the team behind Calendar Plus, a highly customizable calendar app for the Mac that’s been surprisingly popular on the App Store. Read on to hear their thoughts about developing for the Mac and designing customizable apps. (more…)
This week has been yet another busy one in the world of app news so without further ado, let’s get started!
Happy reading! (more…)
We’d like to say a special Thank you! to our weekly sponsors from the past month, for sponsoring our site and for the great apps they make. If you would like to feature your app on our site with an advertisement, be sure to check out our available slots on BuySellAds or register for a weekly sponsorship for your app.
If you haven’t already checked out our the great apps that sponsored our site last month, be sure to check them out now!
ANTETYPE
Designing user interfaces can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be. ANTETYPE includes pre-designed UI elements for OS X and iOS, as well as Android and Windows, so you can design customized apps that look great any platform. It features a smart layout and responsive widgets that make it quick to apply your changes to your whole app design. It might be just what you’re looking for to speed up your app design process.
Onde iTunes Converter
If you’ve purchased iTunes music for years, chances are you have some older songs with DRM protection. Rather than pay per song to get rid of the DRM, you could just get Onde iTunes Converter to quickly convert all of your songs to unprotected formats. Best of all, you can use it to convert any audio or video you have into the audio format you want, so you can play the music you own anywhere.
Pixelmator
The leading Mac-only image editor continues to lead the way with innovative new features a year after winning an Apple Design Award. Pixelmator now supports iCloud, includes retina display graphics, and a host of new image effects that make it easy to tweak your pictures. You can now make a miniature scene and more with only a couple clicks in Piexlmator’s new effects browser. It’s easily the best alternate to Photoshop on the Mac.
Chronicle
It’s tough to stay on top of all of your bills and make sure they’re paid on time, but paying your bills on time can be crucial to maintaining your credit score. That’s where Chronicle comes in. It makes it easy to remember when your bills need paid, with push notifications and recurring bill support. Its latest version even has retina display graphics, so it’ll look great on any Mac!
And a special thanks to you, our Mac.AppStorm.net readers, for reading and sharing our articles. We couldn’t do it without you!
Our giveaway is now closed, and congrats to Dimitrios Savvopoulos, timlou, and Rafta for winning a copy of Scrawl! Be sure to stay tuned for our upcoming giveaways in the future!
We’re always looking for better ways to take notes. There’s so many things to think about, Post-it notes just don’t cut it, and even Mountain Lion’s built-in Notes app doesn’t fit what most of us need. We need a simple place to put notes and quickly find them again, no matter where we’re working.
Scrawl is a great app for that. It’s a note taking app that lives in your menubar, one we were excited about when we reviewed it earlier this year. Since then, it’s gotten even better, with iCloud integration, native keyboard shortcut and Share Sheet support, and more. It’s a great way to quickly jot down notes in your menubar and find them whenever you need them.
Scrawl normally costs $1.99, but we’ve got 3 copies to giveaway for free to our readers. If you’d like to win a copy, just leave a comment below telling us why you’d love to start using it. For an extra credit, share the giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, or App.net, and then include a link to your update in your comment, and you’ll get two entries in the giveaway.
Our contest will close on midnight Monday, September 3rd, so hurry and get your entry in!
Envato staff or people who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm, however, are ineligible to enter.
eBooks have become an important part the tech world these days. Many of us have dedicated eBook readers or tablets with eBook apps. I personally read more books than ever, but just a couple weeks ago purchased the first paper book I’ve purchased in years. Today, Amazon’s making more from Kindle books than hardcovers and Apple’s even had the DOJ inquiring into its eBook business practices. It’s an infant industry, but one that’s growing by leaps and bounds.
Today, you can buy almost any book you can think of and read it on your Mac or other devices in seconds. The Kindle app is ubiquitous thanks to Amazon’s extensive library of titles, but many indie publishers sell DRM free eBooks that you can read in Preview or apps like Calibre. Apple still hasn’t brought iBooks to the Mac, but many of us hope they’ll release a Mac version of it eventually.
I personally read PDF eBooks in Preview and Kindle books more than anything on my Mac, but I’m curious what you use to read books on your Mac. We’d love to hear your thoughts about your favorite book apps in the comments below!
I don’t know about you, but my music gets really old sometimes. When I’m looking for new music, I often struggle with what app to use. I tend to default to web apps, but I really wanted to find some various Mac apps that I can use to find new and exciting music. I tried a number of different applications and found a pretty decent variety.
Some apps on the list are simply a way to utilize a web app via the desktop. Others are completely unique applications which allow you to discover new music in unique and innovative ways. The list includes just a few of the many applications out there, as I tried to stay away from including too many applications which simply provide a way to play an online service via a desktop application. Follow me beyond the jump to learn more about some of the cool apps I found to discover new music.
