If you love reading online articles, but don’t usually have time to read them in full when you’re using your browser, then you’re like a heavy user of a reading later service. There’s three popular web apps to help you save articles to read anytime: Pocket, Readability, and Instapaper. While all these services have native apps for your iPhone and more, only Pocket has a native Mac app (one that used to be the best Instapaper app for the Mac).
So what’s an Instapaper or Readability user to do, if they want to read their articles on the Mac? There’s two new apps that are great options: ReadKit and Words App. We’d looked at Words before, but found its interface rather lacking for a full reading app. Their dev team went back to the drawing board, though, and their newly released Words 2 is easily one of the nicest ways to read longform articles on your Mac. If you didn’t try it out the first time around, you should definitely take a look at Words 2.
Here’s why.
You know you shouldn’t use the same simple password on every site online, but password managers can be so complex to setup, not to mention expensive. Perhaps you should try out PassLocker, our sponsor this week, which is a new take on a password management app.
PassLocker is a nicely designed menubar app that makes it dead-simple to generate random passwords for your online accounts and save your account info in one place. You won’t have to install any browser plugins to use it, and there’s no extra features or settings to make it complex. It’s just a simple way to manage your passwords. We called PassLocker “the simplest password app” in our recent review, and found it to live up to its claims as an easy-to-use password app.
Best of all, PassLocker works great on the iPhone as well, so your passwords will be with you wherever you go. And you won’t have to worry about staying in sync, either, since PassLocker will automatically sync all of your info over iCloud. PassLocker is a promising alternative for those who are tired of complexity of other apps, or who don’t want to pay a fortune for managing passwords.
Go Get It!
Ready to get your passwords organized in a simple way on your Mac and iPhone? Then go download PassLocker today from the App Store. At just $4.99 on the Mac and $1.99 on the iPhone, it won’t break the bank, and it’s so quick and easy to use that you’ll have your accounts more secure without much trouble at all.
As a podcaster, having an audio editing tool that is simple, quick, and easy to use is priceless. So when Rouge Amoeba, the Mac developers known for popular audio tools like Audio Hijack Pro and NiceCast announced version 2 of their Fission audio editor – I took note.
Although it distinguishes itself from the crowd with the promise of “fast & lossless audio editing”, Fission still faces fierce competition from both ends of the spectrum. To carve out a meaningful niche for itself, Fission 2 needs to be a worthwhile option against the likes of professional tools like Logic Pro, and free options like Garageband or Audacity. So does it succeed? Read on to find out!
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If there’s one enduring set of apps that’s practically a requirement to use in most business and education settings, it’s Microsoft Office. Love it or hate it, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are the de facto standards for their categories.
On a Mac, you’ve got a ton of options these days. You could obviously use Office for Mac, though it’s often a bit behind its Windows counterparts despite coming out for the Mac before Windows was even around (though sometimes it does seem ahead of the Windows versions — see the Publishing layout options in Word for Mac). Then, there’s Apple’s iWork apps, though you might end up with some compatibility issues if you have to regularly share heavily formatted documents (but, for most purposes, iWork really is fine, while being nicer to use than Office. Really). There’s also OpenOffice and its new counterpart LibreOffice, though they come with their own slew of issues. You could also use web apps for free these days instead, from Google, Zoho, or even Microsoft itself.
Or, you could use Office for Windows on your Mac, either in Bootcamp or in a virtual machine. That way, you could use Office 2013 today on your Mac, or stick to an older-and-trusted version of Office in an old XP virtual machine. I personally have Office 2010 in a Windows 7 virtual machine, as well as an Office 2013 trial in a Windows 8 virtual machine for testing and more. We’d love to know if you use Office for Windows on your Mac. If so, we’d love to hear how you use it, and what version you’re using in the comments below!
You’ve probably already got a great notes app with syncing for moving chunks of text around, but what about the other stuff? Let’s face it, when you’re sending stuff from your Mac to your phone, you’re mostly just trying to get the directions to your cousin’s wedding or send the link to that awesome Harry Potter fanfic you’re halfway through.
BeamApp, a lightweight menu bar app, has you covered. With simple sharing to your iPhone, you’ll wonder what you ever did without it.
MacTuts+ is the superb new site dedicated to teaching people how to use their Mac, and OS X, more effectively. We’ve got you covered for apps, but combine that with an in-depth knowledge of OS X and you’ll be unstoppable, limitless!
This is a quick roundup of the best tutorials from MacTuts+ in February, from Use Your Phone to Automatically Lock Your Mac When You Walk Away to How to Move Your iTunes, iPhoto or Aperture Library to an External Drive.
Puzzle games are a dime a dozen, and to set itself apart, a puzzler is going to have to be pretty special. More than just exchanging pigs for birds or coins for jewels, a great puzzle is more than a gimmick. It challenges how you think.
A great puzzle game will also challenge how you see games, and that’s what the developers at Cipher Prime are working on. Their newest offering, Splice, isn’t just a great puzzle, but it may also change your definition of what a game can mean. Don’t get me wrong, all of the great puzzling fun is there, but it’s more than a place to sink a few minutes. Splice will create an experience that frustrates you but also surprises you with its beauty and genius. (more…)
If you are the kind of person that enjoys keeping and showcasing a beautiful and clean desktop, you may be interested in finding out how you can inject some life into it with a simple application.
If so, let us introduce you to Live Wallpaper. Live Wallpaper is a small application that gives your wallpaper added functionality. Granted, it may not be as intricate as other applications like it, but let’s take a look at how it fares on its own.
We’re back!
After a long hiatus, we’re back with a weekly news and deals update, along with some extras that’ll make our weekly news post the one you won’t want to miss. We’ve even thrown in the best longreads and podcasts from the world of tech, to give you something extra to add to your reading list this week. It’ll be brought to you weekly – each Thursday – by our writer Phillip Gruneich, and should be a great sidekick to our normal slate of reviews and roundups.
Grab some popcorn, then dive into this week’s best news, deals, and longreads!
When it comes to purging caches and improving your Mac’s performance, there’s nothing like MacPaw’s CleanMyMac. The utility has been around since the summer of 2009 and has been the most reliable way to keep your Mac running like it’s new.
On the 5th of March, a brand new version of the app released with many changes and improvements. I’ve been using the new CleanMyMac 2 since late January, and here’s what I’ve observed. (more…)
