It’s week three of November and we’re back with another set of app deals. Featured in this edition are Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Cloud Outliner, Sketcher, SkySafari, and more. There’s even a whole section dedicated to Star Wars.
TunesArt
A few weeks back, I rounded up ten of the best themes available for Bowtie, a desktop artwork display for iTunes and other music apps. While I do enjoy using the app, there are some great alternatives out there. TunesArt is one of them. In addition to showing artwork on the desktop, you can read the lyrics to the song, search your iTunes library, and share things to Twitter. There are more features too — that’s just the start. Featuring support for the MacBook Pro with Retina display, this app is hard to resist as a more modern alternative to Bowtie. It’s on sale until the 20th, so grab it while you can.
Price: $6.99 » $2.99
Requires: OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Jibapps
Sketcher
There’s always a photo app on sale. This week there are two, Sketcher and FX Photo Studio. The former has never been in our weekly deals, so it feels fit to mention it first. If you ever find yourself wanting to make a photo look just like a painting, now’s your chance — and at an extremely low price. This app adds a texture to your photos, giving it an old canvas look. There are settings available for customizing the look of each photo as well, letting you change the filter type, strength, detail, saturation, brightness, and more. At $1.99 instead of $14.99, this is a bargain.
Price: $14.99 » $1.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later with a 64-bit processor
Developer: Neatberry
FX Photo Studio and Pro Version
We’ve mentioned MacPhun’s FX Photo Studio multiple times in the weekly deals, which means that you’ve probably heard of it before, but I’ll give you a quick summary of its features anyway. Basically, the app offers a quick way to add effects to your photographs. Instead of using something like Photoshop to manually create layers, blend them, and manage the way they look, this app does it all for you. The regular version has 173 total effects and the pro version includes all those with 40 borders to give your photos a framed look. When you’re finished processing, you can share everything to a social network or photo sharing service like Flickr. This app is perfect for beginners who just want to process things fast, but it’s nothing compared to Photoshop.
Price: $9.99 for regular, $39.99 for pro; $7.99 and $19.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: MacPhun, LLC
Cloud Outliner
Outliner apps are available on every App Store corner. Whether you want something professional like OmniOutliner or a more minimal approach like Scribe, solutions are out there. But not like this. Cloud Outliner combines the minimal beauty of Scribe with the functionality and iCloud sync that any app of such a genre should have. It supports the usual OPML format so you can continue where you left off with your previous app. There’s an iOS companion as well, so you can keep everything in sync and continue your projects on the go. Lastly, concentrate on things with the fullscreen mode. All this at an affordable price of $6.99.
Price: $9.99 » $6.99
Requires: OS X 10.7 or later with a 64-bit processor
Developer: Xwavesoft
Star Wars Titles
It seems like every week, the developers of Star Wars games for Mac decide it’s time they put all their popular titles on sale. So, continuously, we’re offered impassible deals. Sadly, Star Wars Battlefront has still not made its way to the Mac, and it probably never will. That doesn’t mean we don’t have deals to offer though. Whether it be a thrilling, Retina-pleasing game of The Force Unleashed or something more strategic like Empire at War, we’ve got three of them this week.
On a side note, before you start, consider looking into Angry Birds Star Wars, another popular spinoff of the franchise. It’s only $4.99 and probably won’t go any lower than that.
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
It’s the dream of every Star Wars fan to become a Jedi. There’s a certain thrill to being the most powerful character in the films, with the force at your fingertips and many opponents to slice with a lightsaber. Of course, there are times when a good blaster cannon and set of thermal detonators do you good. For such things, this game will suffice. You get to use a range of weapons, from a legendary lightsaber to the aforementioned simpleton damage-inflicting tools and more. The game is now only $7.99.
Price: $14.99 » $7.99
Developer: Aspyr Media, Inc.
The Force Unleashed
Set loose your inner dark side, or join the force for good — this game does not care. The only thing that matters is your control of the game, along with your close following of the intricate story in this game. Have fun wreaking havoc with the powers at hand. Never before has the force been so close at such a price. Of course, the download size is 10.41 GB and it does require 26 GB of hard drive space, so make sure your computer meets those requirements first. Also, you’ll need a modern graphics card to run this game. Refer to the App Store page for more information on what’s compatible.
Price: $19.99 » $9.99
Developer: Aspyr Media, Inc.
Empire at War
Last up in our Star Wars section for this week is a classic strategy take on the Lucas universe. Being one of the many soldiers in a battle and surviving is one thing. Commanding the entire army and feeling the power of the Empire in your hands is another matter entirely. Wage an galactic civil war against the enemy. This game is immersive from the start, meaning that you don’t have to go gather those precious raw materials to start off your “village” as you would in games like Age of Empires. Hop right in to the battle and learn as you go — or die. This game is only a 2.14 GB download too, so you’ll be up and running in no time.
Price: $29.99 » $14.99
Developer: Aspyr Media, Inc.
Anything We Missed?
If you’ve found any other app deals, whether it’s later in the week or right now, we’d love to hear about them. Hopefully they’re still available next week too so we can include them with the deals then. See you in a week!
Death Star icon property of Artua.