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GeneralThe folks at Humble Bundle continue to ship the finest game bundles the ‘net has ever seen, and this week, their third Android bundle is on sell. Even if you’re a dedicated Apple customer who would never dream of owning an Android device, this Humble Bundle includes copies of each game for OS X, Windows, and Linux in addition to Android.
Our friends over at Android.AppStorm have written in-depth reviews of each game in this Android Humble Bundle. If you’re a Mac user that also uses an Android phone or tablet, now’s the time to check out the reviews and see which of the games you’d love to get for you’re device. Or, if you’re just looking for some new games for your Mac, you can check out the reviews to see what the games are all about before downloading to play on your MacBook!

The third Android Humble Bundle is only available for a little over a day longer, so if you’re looking for a cheap way to pick up Fieldrunners, Spirits, SpaceChem, Osmos, and more, be sure to grab a copy before it’s over! It’s a great way to get some great games and support indie devs, ones that support Mac gaming at that! Plus, since we’re nearing the end of our August Gaming Month here at Mac.AppStorm, it’s a great time to get a great deal on some Mac games, even if you can’t put the Android versions to use.

Our sponsor this week is Chronicle, a great app for keeping track of your bills and paying them online. A single late payment can cost $30 or more, and cause your credit score to plummet by up to 100 points. That’s why anyone who pays bills needs Chronicle. Chronicle reminds you to pay your bills, even when it isn’t running.
With Chronicle, all you’ll have to do is enter the bills you have and their due dates, and it’ll automatically remind you to make sure they’re paid on time. It’ll then let you set recurring bills so you can setup your payment schedule and never have to worry about it again. Combine that with detailed statistics about your bills and a built-in browser so you can pay bills online from one interface, and it’s quite a powerful app for keeping up with your bills.
Chronicle has been a great app for keeping up with your bills for years, but the newly released Chronicle 5 makes it even better. It now features beautiful retina graphics, along with a redesigned interface and a faster backend that’ll make it a joy to use. It also now supports native OS X Notifications, so you’ll never forget about a bill again.
Go Get It!
If you’ve been looking for a better way to keep track of your bills and make sure you never incur late fees, you should give Chronicle a try. You can download a free trial from their site, or purchase it from the App Store for just $9.99, 30% off its normal price celebrating the release of Chronicle 5.
This week has been a relatively quiet one in terms of app news (if you don’t count the Apple v Samsung legal battle) but we’ve still found a couple of stories for you to mull over this Sunday.
Enjoy! (more…)
As always every Wednesday, here are our weekly picks of the best deals on the App Store for this week.
Happy downloading! (more…)
Since 2008, Apple has shifted the design of all MacBooks with a unibody aluminum shell, starting with the original MacBook Air and continued with the MacBook Pros. Today, if you buy a MacBook, you’ll have to get one with an aluminum unibody, as that’s all they sell now. Apple’s hailed the design as stronger yet lighter than previous designs. It’s certainly proved popular with customers. Every high-end PC, it seems, tries to one-up Apple’s unibody design.
Plastic cracks and scratches, and rarely would hold up to any heavy blows or falls. Aluminum is much more resilient, but is still susceptible to scratches from hard objects and even bends from hard falls. It’s far from the hardest or strongest material on the planet. Just search for bent MacBook Air, and you’ll find some horrifying pictures online (of course, if a plastic notebook took the same blows, it likely would have cracked and shattered instead of just bending … but still).
That’s why we’re wondering how your unibody MacBook Pro or Air is holding up. Have you gotten some small scratches and bent corners, or does yours still look factory-fresh? Is the unibody design working better for you than other laptops you’ve had in the past? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Our weekly sponsor this week is Pixelmator, the most beautiful image editor designed for the Mac. Its got more features than ever, has been designed for the Retina Display, and for a limited time, is available for only $14.99!
Pixelmator has been a leading Mac image editor for years now, and even won an Apple Design Award in 2011. The team hasn’t sat still since then, quickly adding new features and enhancements to the app. The most recent update brought a number of new features to Pixelmator, including iCloud support, a Retina Display ready interface, a ton of great new effects in a dedicated Effects Browser, alignment guides, and Mountain Lion native sharing.
That’s in addition to the great editing features that users already love in Pixelmator. With advanced layer support, drawing and retouching tools, file versions, web export features, and more, there’s something for everyone to love. Best of all, it’s built on the best OS X technology, letting it take advantage of your GPU to speed up your work and helping you work faster with Automator integration.
Go Get It!
If you’re ready to get started editing photos and creating beautiful digital art on your Mac in an app that’s designed to make the most of OS X, head over to the App Store and pick up a copy of Pixelmator before the summer sale ends! Pixelmator usually costs $59, but you can get it for just $14.99 right now. You can even download a free trial from their site to try out all of Pixelmator’s features for free for 30 days.
As always every Wednesday, here are our weekly picks of the best deals on the App Store for this week. We’ve also included a couple of app bundles at the end of the article for your enjoyment as well.
Happy downloading! (more…)
iOS started off as OS X’s younger sibling, but it’s grown to dominate the world of technology more than OS X in many ways. Most new hit apps come out on iOS first, it seems, especially if they’re social networking or entertainment apps. Then, though, we’re seeing a return to the Mac, with Apple putting more iOS apps and features in OS X, and more developers bringing their iOS games and apps to the Mac. Some of the best productivity apps, such as Apple’s iWork and iLife apps, and the Omnigroup’s apps like OmniFocus, started out on the Mac, and have since then been recreated for iOS.
iCloud makes it much nicer having the same apps on iOS and OS X. When you use apps like iA Writer, iWork apps, and more, you’ll see your documents seamlessly pushed between your Mac and iPad or iPhone without having to do anything extra to sync. For apps that don’t have iCloud integration, such as OmniFocus and Things, most with OS X and iOS versions have their own sync system to keep your data up-to-date everywhere. That makes it that much nicer to use the same apps on both platforms.
That’s why we’re wondering: do you use the same apps on iOS and OS X? Do you feel bad having to pay for both copies? What’s your favorite app that runs on both platforms? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

