I’d like to take a moment to say a big thank you to this week’s sponsor, Jumsoft. In particular, we’d like to highlight a fantastic offer they’re running at the moment on two of their Pages products: the Inspiration Set, and Clipart.
Both of these are currently on offer over at the Mac App Store for the reduced price of $9.99. This is a great deal for a large collection of Pages add-ons, which can really boost what the application has to offer.
The Pages Clipart package contains a total of 1,200 polished clipart pieces to help you compose even more thrilling text documents. This isn’t your average, boring Microsoft Word clipart – the high quality of design fits what you’d expect in graphics built for an Apple app.
The Inspiration Set includes 150 Pages templates: 100 from the previous version and 50 brand-new additions that have only been released in the past few weeks.
Check out the offer on either Clipart or Inspiration Set, and make the most of this reduced price before it ends on Friday 15th April!
First things first – I’m not a “hardcore” gamer. In fact, some of the few games I play are Flight Control, Plants vs Zombies and racing games like the Need for Speed series. I was asked to review Asphalt 6: Adrenaline newly available on the Mac App Store and was interested to hear that it was a ported game from the iOS platform, which I why I was eager to take a look at it.
Now we’re all familiar with the “Back to the Mac” ideology where developers bring back elements of the iOS platform into Mac applications. One of the best examples is Reeder and Day One. How well would this work with a game though? Would the UI stay the same or would it be just the major game elements that would match?
On my 13-inch MacBook Pro, screen real estate is at a premium, so I often have a hard time seeing all the windows I need to see at once. BetterSnapTool aims to help organize windows on your Mac for more efficient multitasking, or for working with multiple apps at once.
Since Windows 7 introduced Snap, several Mac apps have surfaced to mimic its window-resizing behavior, including Cinch, SizeUp, and Divvy.
BetterSnapTool is the new kid on the block — how does it compare?
Ever since Apple’s initial foray into touch screen technology with the iPhone, people have wondered whether touch based input would make the transition to the Mac desktop. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have an iMac that you could reach out and touch, swiping between applications and interacting with your media?
Well, maybe. Consumers are divided on whether or not this would be a good thing and, despite many other computer manufacturers including this technology in their machines, Apple has taken a fairly out-spoken stance against it. It’s now almost four years since the release of the first iPhone and we’re yet to see any sign of touch screen input making its way to the Mac.
But will this always be the case? And – even if Apple does decide to start shipping new-fangled touch screen Macs – would it be something we’d really use?
Let me be frank. Full, up-front disclosure: I’m not a graphic designer or a photographer. I know very little–all things considered–about light, exposure, hue, saturation and filters and all of those other things that prolific users of Photoshop concern themselves with.
What’s interesting is that it ended up seeming as though it were these precise qualities (or lack there of) that made my reviewing Imagerie rather fitting. App4Mac set out design an image editor for every day use–for people without the expertise needed for professional grade image editing software. For people like me.
But is Imagerie the tool for the lay-persons image editing needs?
We’re taking a step away from the usual weekly competition today to bring you something a little more exclusive! This week only, Mac.AppStorm readers can get a copy of Wallpaper Wizard completely free (usually $6.99).
This is an application we’ve covered a few times in the past, and our review is a great place to start if you’d like to find out more. The bottom line is that Wallpaper Wizard gives you a great solution for finding and applying thousands of fantastic wallpapers for your Mac desktop.
Read on to find out how you can grab your own free copy of the full version!
Brent Simmons, the author of inessential.com, has just released a new free version of popular RSS reeder NetNewsWire. It’s called NetNewsWire Lite and is available on the Mac App Store.
Stripped back and simplified is by far the best way to go with any ‘lite’ version of software as it gives new users an easy way into your software and, in the wake of some huge Mac App Store successes, can lead to increased interest in the full version.
Let’s have a look at whether it can work for NetNewsWire…
Launching applications is a functional, necessary action that you take every day. Rather than being an exciting process, when it comes to opening an app, the less friction and interaction required the better.
For a long time, Mac users have favoured a dedicated application launcher for doing just this. Although you can store plenty of handy application shortcuts in your Dock, it soon becomes cluttered and difficult to navigate (and it requires the use of your mouse).
For speedy application launching, few options are better than a piece of software such as Quicksilver, LaunchBar or Alfred. For the purists among you, OS X’s built-in search tool – Spotlight – is perfectly adept at this. Just invoke it using Cmd-Space and type the name of the application you’d like to start!
But which do you prefer to use on a daily basis? Or are you perfectly happy with the OS X Dock? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
We’d like to say a big thank you to this month’s Mac.AppStorm sponsors, and the great software they create! If you’re interested in advertising, you can purchase a banner advertisement through BuySellAds, or sign up for a Weekly Sponsorship slot.
Thank you to the fantastic applications we had sponsoring each week during the month, all of which we personally recommend you download and try out!
- Jumsoft – This is a fantastic selection of fifteen beautifully hand crafted themes for Apple’s Keynote, designed to make your presentations stand out from the crowd.
- Ensoul – With this nifty Mac app, you can create beautiful iPhone backgrounds and contact images with just a few clicks, work in a gorgeous interface, and transfer everything to your iPhone easily.
- Twitterrific – I absolutely love every application that the Iconfactory produce, and this Twitter client is no exception. It’s thoughtfully designed, beautiful to look at, and a pleasure to use.
- Pixelmator – One of my all-time favourite apps, this is a fantastic alternative to the increasingly-bloated Photoshop for all manner of graphic editing work.
Finally, thanks to you for reading AppStorm this month, and for checking out the software that our sponsors create. I really appreciate it – you make the site what it is!
When you open up your computer to get to work, you open up a world of distractions. As a writer, you could just pick up pen and paper, and forgo the entire digital realm – until, that is, you have to type up what you’ve written and double your workload. Minimalist writing apps like Byword attempt to recreate the simplicity of the pen-and-paper experience while supplying the benefits of digital convenience.
Whether or not these apps are necessary is itself a whole argument (Kevin Whipps’ article proved that people are very passionate about their workflows) but love them or hate them, how does ByWord stack up? Read on to find out whether it’s worth giving a try!
