Category: Mac

This is the first post in a new series that revisits some of our readers’ favorite posts from the past that still contain awesome and relevant information that you might find useful. This post was originally published on July 7, 2009.

AppleScript is a powerful scripting language that comes built-in to OS X. The principal use for AppleScript is the automation of tasks that are normally repetitious and time consuming. For instance, as a freelancer, I hate creating invoices every week for my various clients. To solve this problem I wrote an AppleScript that reads the hours that I log into iCal, creates an invoice in Microsoft Excel based on those hours, and emails the invoices to my clients. All with the click of a button!

The best part about AppleScript is that you don’t have to be a genius programmer to use it. In fact, you don’t have to have any programming experience whatsoever. This article will show you how to write an AppleScript for nearly any application using the simple instructions that come hidden within each app’s framework. Intrigued? Read on!

The Main Window

Getting Started: The Tell Block

To create an AppleScript, open the application “Script Editor” located inside the AppleScript folder within the Applications folder. You should see a simple window containing a large text field with a strip of buttons along the top. Inside the text field type the following code:

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tell application "Finder"
 
	display dialog "Hello World"
 
end tell

AppleScript attempts to use plain English wherever possible to make coding extremely simple. Most commands in AppleScript are located inside a “tell block”. It’s called a “tell block” because you are “telling” a given application what you want it to do. For instance, the code above is telling the Finder to display a dialog window containing the words “Hello World”. After you are finished with a command or string of commands for a given application, you end the block with “end tell”.

Always remember to end your tell blocks correctly or the code will not compile!

After you are done entering the code above, click on the “Compile” hammer icon. If your syntax is correct, your code will automatically format and colorize. If you have made an error, Script Editor will highlight the problematic area and give you a message about what it thinks might have gone wrong. Here is a quick reference to the various colors you’ll see in your compiled code (found in Script Editor>Preferences).

Color Guide

After your code has compiled, click on the “Run” button. You should see the following dialog:

Hello World

Now click the “OK” button and look at the bottom of your Script Editor window. When you run a script, Script Editor tells you what the result was, or what was “returned”. In this case it’s telling you that the “OK” button was clicked.

The OK Return

Declaring Variables

Variables are essentially the same in every programming language. They provide an easy way to access and manipulate lots of information in a compact snippet of code. Creating or “declaring” variables is different for every language. In AppleScript you declare variables as follows:

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set theString to "Hello World"
 
tell application "Finder"
 
	display dialog theString
 
end tell

There are several things to note about the previous example. First, notice that variables are declared using the “set” and “to” commands. By doing this you are setting your variable name, in this case “theString”, to equal something, in this case the text “Hello World”. Many programming languages require that you state the type of variable you want in the declaration (integer, floating point, text, etc.). AppleScript however, is intelligent enough to work with your variables without any instruction about the format.

Also notice how I typed my variable name. You can’t have spaces in a variable name so it’s good practice to use camel case (theString) or the underscore method (the_string). It doesn’t really matter which method you choose, just make sure you’re consistent throughout your code. It’s also a good idea to give all your variables meaningful names. When you are looking another programmer’s code, it can be annoying to see variable names like “myVariable” that don’t give any indication as to what they are or what they will be used for.

Finally, notice that now that I’ve placed the text “Hello World” inside a variable, I can call that variable again and again throughout my code. Then if I later decide to change the text “Hello World” to “Good Morning Dave”, I only have to change the text on the line where I declared the variable.

Working with Variables

You can do all kinds of crazy things with variables, but since this is only meant to be a brief introduction to AppleScript, I’ll just show you a few. Type in the following code:

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--Integer Variables
set theFirstNumber to 3
set the theSecondNumber to 2
 
--Variable Operations
set theAnswer to (theFirstNumber + theSecondNumber)
set theAnswer to (theAnswer + 1)
 
--String Variables
set theString to "3+2+1="
 
--Display Dialog
tell application "Finder"
 
	display dialog theString & theAnswer
 
end tell

You can compile your code quickly by pressing the “enter” key (not the return key). This is located on the ten key number pad on desktop computers and next to the “Command” key to the right of the space bar on laptops.

As your script becomes more complex, a bit of organization is in order. By typing two dashes “–” before a line of text, you can insert a comment. Use comments to separate and describe your sections of code for easy navigation. In this example I’ve created a string variable (text only) and a few integer variables. Notice that you can perform mathematical operations on variables. Here I’ve set “theFirstNumber” to equal three and “theSecondNumber” to equal two and then added them together in “theAnswer”.

Also notice that you can change a variable after it is declared. Immediately after setting “theAnswer” to the sum of “theFirstNumber” and “theSecondNumber” (resulting in 5), I changed the value of “theAnswer” by adding one to it (resulting in 6). If you run this script you should see the following result:

Some Basic Math

Again, this only scratches the surface of the kinds of operations you can perform on variables. For now you should just understand that a variable isn’t static. Much of the power of behind any programming language is the ability to manipulate variables to perform a wide variety of tasks.

The Key to it All: AppleScript Dictionaries

Though AppleScript itself has a wide range of commands that can be applied to any program or item in OS X, the developers of each application are tasked with adding full AppleScript support to their apps. What this means is that developers must write simple manuals for how to communicate with their applications through AppleScript. These manuals are called “Dictionaries”. To view a dictionary, go to File>Open Dictionary in Script Editor. Scroll down the list of applications, click on Mail and hit “OK”. You should see the following window:

The Mail Dictionary

The column on the left contains the available “Suites” of commands and items. When you click on a suite, you’ll see everything contained in the suite displayed below. You can narrow this preview by clicking in the second column, then again in the third. Suites contain commands (C with a circle) and classes (C with a square), classes contain properties (P) and elements (E). To understand how all this works, let’s use this dictionary to create a script.

Create an Algorithm for Our Script

First we need an algorithm, which is a fancy way to say that we need write down exactly what our script will do. We want to create a script to compose and send an email. We’ll want to use variables to make it easy to change the message itself as well as who the message is sent to. As we write our algorithm, we need to keep in mind the way AppleScript works. Here are the steps I came up with:

1. Create variables for the recipient, the recipient’s email address, the subject of the email, and the text for the body of the email.
2. Create a variable that holds our new message along with its various properties
3. Create the new message
4. Send the new message

Creating Simple Variables

We already know how to create variables holding text so we don’t even need the dictionary for step one. Here’s what the code looks like:

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--Variables
set recipientName to "John Doe"
set recipientAddress to "[email protected]"
set theSubject to "AppleScript Automated Email"
set theContent to "This email was created and sent using AppleScript!"

As you can see, we’ve just put placeholder text into the variables for the name and email address of the recipient as well as the subject and content of our message. You can change these to anything you’d like. Be sure to put your own email address in the recipientAddress variable so you can ensure that the the script is working properly when you receive the email.

Creating the Message Variable with the Mail Dictionary

Since we have no idea how to tell Mail to create a new message, this is where we need to refer to the AppleScript dictionary. If you click on “Standard Suite” you’ll see several common commands that come standard in AppleScript. Knowing that we want to “create” a new message, we just scroll through the options and find something equivalent. You’ll see there is no “create” command but about half way down there is a “make” command. That sounds perfect, so we now know to tell AppleScript we want to “make” something.

Next click on the “Mail” suite. We’ve already got our command (make) so scroll down past the commands (verbs) until you see the classes (nouns). The first class we come across is “outgoing message”, which is great because that’s exactly what we want! Now click on the “outgoing message” class and look at the available properties down below.

We need to plug in our variables for the recipient’s name, the recipient’s email address, the subject, and the contents of the message. In the list of properties there isn’t anything about the recipient but there are properties for subject and content. We now know the proper syntax to refer to these properties. Notice that the dictionary gives you the format to define the properties. For instance for the subject, we’ll type the word “subject” followed by a colon followed by the text of the subject.

Subject Content

Also in this suite you’ll find a “send” command, which we can use to send the message by simply typing “send”. We still need to know the proper syntax for the recipient’s name and email address. Since it’s not in this suite, click on the “Message” suite. About halfway down the list of classes we find “recipient”. Click on the recipient class and we see that once again, we can use plain English to refer to the properties of the recipient. We’ll simply type “name” and “address”.

You can use the search feature to hunt down properties, classes, elements and commands quickly.

Now we are ready to create our message variable using the syntax we’ve just learned. Here’s what the code looks like:

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--Variables
set recipientName to "John Doe"
set recipientAddress to "[email protected]"
set theSubject to "AppleScript Automated Email"
set theContent to "This email was created and sent using AppleScript!"
 
--Mail Tell Block
tell application "Mail"
 
--Create the message
set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:theSubject, content:theContent, visible:true}
 
end tell

Notice I’ve created a tell block to enclose all the commands to the Mail application. Then I set a variable (theMessage) to “make” a new “outgoing message” with the properties discussed above. Also notice that sets of properties are always contained in brackets { }.

The Final Step: Setting the Recipient and Sending the Message

Now that we’ve created our message variable, we need to call that variable and create a new message with the properties of theMessage. We also need to set the recipients and send the message. To do this, we’ll use a tell block on our variable. Here’s our finished script.

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--Variables
set recipientName to "John Doe"
set recipientAddress to "[email protected]"
set theSubject to "AppleScript Automated Email"
set theContent to "This email was created and sent using AppleScript!"
 
--Mail Tell Block
tell application "Mail"
 
	--Create the message
	set theMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:theSubject, content:theContent, visible:true}
 
	--Set a recipient
	tell theMessage
		make new to recipient with properties {name:recipientName, address:recipientAddress}
 
		--Send the Message
		send
 
	end tell
end tell

First, we created a new copy of theMessage (which inherits all the properties we’ve put into it) and set it “to recipient with properties”. This tells Mail that we want to add a recipient with the following properties. Here we just used the syntax we learned before and the variables for the name and address of the recipient.

Finally, we invoked the “send” command to send our message. Notice that we have two tell blocks to close this time. Once you’ve compiled your code and fixed any errors hit the “Run”. Mail should automatically create and send the message. Tadaah! Check your sent folder to make sure everything worked.

Mail Message

Congratulations, you’ve created your first AppleScript! You can save it as a simple script that you can come back and edit or as an application that runs automatically when you open it.

Conclusion: Keep Learning

I hope this beginner’s guide has you thinking about all kinds of processes and tasks you’d like to automate. The syntax I’ve shown you along with the AppleScript Dictionaries will get you a long way. However, if you’re really interested in implementing AppleScript in a number of useful ways, you’ve got more reading to do. Apple provides lots of information all about AppleScript on their website. Here’s a good place to start.

Another website I’ve picked up a great deal from is T&B. It offers some really in-depth explanations and tutorials for you to follow (a little dated, but thorough and free). Please feel welcome to leave a comment and let us know if you found this tutorial helpful! What other AppleScript tips would you like to see covered in the future?

Its products are ubiquitous around the world and each announcement from the company generates huge press attention, frantic tweeting and unparalleled excitement. But up till now, hardly anything is known about what actually goes on inside Apple’s core and how the company functions. The company is known for being one of the most secretive on the planet and even employes an internal security service – or Worldwide Loyalty Team (dubbed the Apple Gestapo by some employees) to investigate internal leaks.

However, despite this, Fortune Magazine has just published a long extract from its Adam Lashinsky’s upcoming book Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired – And Secretive – Company Really Works, giving us average Joes on the outside a brief insight into one of the world’s most mysterious technology companies. The book, which is due to be published on January 25th and has been written by Fortune Magazine’s editor-at-large, is based partly on numerous interviews conducted by Lashinsky as well as an investigative report he did for the magazine in August of last year.

Apple is known for its internal secrecy however Lashinsky’s upcoming book may give us a peek into Cupertino's own lion's den

An extract of the book (the full extract is available on the source link) describes the process new Apple employees have to go through. They are expected to be able to connect their newly issued Macs to the corporate network without any additional help, are taught by executives that the hype around new product launches is worth “millions of dollars” to Apple and that the penalty for revealing Apple secrets is “swift termination”. In the book, Lashinsky describes how Apple employees are given no absolute trust at the start:

For new recruits, keeping secrets begins even before they learn which building they’ll be working in. Many employees are hired into so?called dummy positions, roles that aren’t explained in detail until after they join the company. “They wouldn’t tell me what it was,” remembered a former engineer who had been a graduate student before joining Apple. “I knew it was related to the iPod, but not what the job was.”

The book also describes how one employee dubbed Apple “the ultimate need-to-know culture” and how Steve Jobs warned executives that any disclosure of secrets would not only result in immediate termination but would also result in a full prosecution from Apple’s own team of lawyers.

Head over to the full article on Fortune Magazine for a deeper insight. The book will be published on January 25th and can be pre-ordered from Amazon US for $16.92. The book will also be available in Kindle and iBooks format, both priced at $12.99.

For those of us who have trouble finding the proper motivation to make difficult changes in our lives, New Year’s represents a perfect opportunity to start fresh with some resolutions. There are dozens of great Mac apps that can help us to lead happier, healthier, and more organized lives.

This list covers some of my favorite apps for managing your workflow, organizing your Mac, and keeping your mind sharp and your body fit.

Organize Yourself

Last year you forgot about assignments for class, project deadlines for your boss, and to pick up pickles at the supermarket. This year, you are going to organize your life and your Mac into an efficient machine. A good GTD (Getting Things Done) app will help you stay on top of all the things you need to take care of on a daily basis. There is no shortage of task management apps, but here are some of the best options:

Organize Your Mac

Now that you have a streamlined system for organizing your schedule and to-dos, its time to tackle your Mac itself. Last year, you constantly misplaced files on your computer, but now you have resolved to clean it up. Here are some tools to help you organize it, and keep it that way:

Organize Your Finances

Whether we forget to pay a bill or we find ourselves in the dark when it comes to investing, many of us have a tough time staying on top of our finances. This year, we are going to save money on those late fees and finance charges, while planning for our financial future with some great Mac finance apps:

Mind and Body

The most common resolutions generally revolve around treating our minds and bodies better in the new year. Whether you want to learn more about yourself, or get rid of that gut, there are several Mac apps that can help us:

Suggestions?

Those are some of my favorite apps for helping with New Year’s resolutions. Leave any of your favorites in the comments!

This week at AppStorm we’ve looked at not one, but two interesting iTunes companion apps. Notice that I used the term “companion” and not “replacement.” This is because these apps are meant to supplement your iTunes use, not get rid of it.

The two apps that I’m discussing are Ecoute and Sonora, both of which have the same basic goal: to provide you with a simpler, faster way to listen to your iTunes music library.

iTunes is a powerhouse of functionality and serves as the go-to hub for your syncing music, movies, books and apps to various iOS devices. But as great as iTunes is, the increasing popularity of apps like Ecoute and Sonora bring to mind interesting questions about whether or not iTunes has become bloated over the years. In iTunes you’ll find everything from half-baked social networks to ringtones, which is admittedly a lot of extra functionality when you just want to listen to your favorite tunes without all the distractions.

On the other hand, maybe the features aren’t the problem. Perhaps Apple just needs to rethink the interface entirely. The final possibility is of course that we’re all over thinking this. iTunes is exactly what we need and requires very few, if any changes.

What do you think? If you could change one thing about iTunes, what would it be? Vote in our poll and then leave a comment below with your thoughts. Have you tried Sonora or Ecoute yet? Do you think there’s a legitimate market for these types of apps? We want to hear your thoughts.

In the world of screenshot utilities, SnapNDrag Pro stands out as a lightweight, yet versatile and powerful tool for grabbing screen images. Its simple user-interface and flexible method for taking screenshots earns it high marks for getting the job done quickly and easily.

Join us as we take a closer look to see why this app from Yellow Mug Software could be just the screenshot utility you’ve been looking for.

The Interface:

SnapNDrag Pro can be configured to launch automatically at login, or manually when needed. Accessing the app from the menu bar or dock opens a small window that gives the user access to the several methods for taking a screenshot. From within this window, the screenshot details can be configured and fine-tuned before snapping an image.

Main Window

The Methods:

SnapNDrag Pro provides four methods for taking a screenshot. After the user selects the desired type of screenshot, the app’s window immediately disappears from view and the necessary tool for completing the task is shown.

Choosing the “Selection” method brings forth a simple cross-hair for dragging across the screen and sizing the shot. Click, drag and release. The shot is taken.

Selecting the “Window” method brings forth a camera icon that when hovered over any open window, will highlight that window. Click once and the selected window is captured.

Selecting the “Screen” button takes an image of the entire screen.

Finally, there is a “Timed” method for snapping an image after a countdown from the built-in timer. This would be useful when needing to capture the screen at a specified interval of time.

Screenshot Methods

The default filetype for the screenshot image is jpeg. When in jpeg mode, the screenshot image size and quality can be adjusted depending on one’s needs. While this is a handy feature, the output settings of both the image size and quality are limited to pre-defined increments. A full range scale of 0-100% would be ideal, though for most uses these settings will get the job done. In addition to the jpeg format, SnapNDrag Pro can save images as png, tiff or gif files.

Working with the Screenshot:

After taking a screenshot, an image thumbnail appears within the app’s main window. Now, this is where the fun begins with SnapNDrag Pro. Need to get your image into an email? Simply drag and drop the thumbnail right onto the email client’s compose window. Want to edit or annotate the image? Drag it into your image editor. FTP clients, word-processing apps, file-sharing… the list goes on. Whether you’re a developer, designer, or have the occasional need for taking a screenshot, SnapNDrag Pro’s method of capturing and moving your image to its new location is quick and easy.

Working with Screenshots

The Toolbar and Preferences Pane:

SnapNDrag Pro’s toolbar has a few helpful, if not limited features. There is a save button for the current screenshot. The email button will open up the Apple Mail client (the ability to configure this button with other email clients would be a big plus). A history button toggles open the history drawer of past screenshots. The app’s toolbar has enough space for some added tools, perhaps this is in the works.

In the preferences pane, additional settings may be configured such as global hotkeys, time and date stamps, assigning filename prefixes and automatically copying to clipboard, as well as others.

Preferences

The History Drawer:

Keeping track of your screenshots is made simple with SnapNDrag Pro’s history drawer. This handy feature is the app’s way of organizing your collection of past screenshots, should you have a need for them later. As with the thumbnail of the current screenshot, the history drawer’s thumbnails can be dragged and dropped wherever they may need to go. When the history drawer gets too cluttered or you’re ready to empty it, the option to selectively clear any or all of its screeshots is a click away.

History Drawer

Go Freeware or Pro?

Yellow Mug, the developers of SnapNDrag Pro have created a freeware version of the utility called simply, SnapNDrag. The freeware version lacks the ability to scale images and access global hotkeys. It also has a sponsor’s ad. The pro version is available as a paid upgrade from within the freeware version. SnapNDrag Pro is currently on sale for 50% off the webstore price in the Mac App Store.

A Good Addition To Your Toolbox?

Some Mac users will be content with the built-in OS X screenshot commands. While limited in their features, these commands will get you a screenshot. For others, an app like Skitch with its full arsenal of editing, annotation and sharing tools might be a bit over the top. SnapNDrag Pro has taken the best of both worlds, combining simple screenshot functionality with a few robust tools that will meet the needs of most users.

Where it lacks in the ability to edit and annotate screenshots, it well makes up for in its ease of use, convenience and simplicity. SnapNDrag in both freeware and pro versions offers a solid choice for capturing screenshots.

OS X Lion has now been around long enough for us all to dig in and really find some interesting functionality that is either completely hidden or just enough below the service that many users don’t even know it exists.

We’ve spent hours combing through Lion for secrets and put out a call on Twitter for your favorites. This post brings over forty such hidden tricks and tips for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Finder Tricks

1. Bring Back Finder’s Icon Size Slider

With Lion came a ton of visual changes to the operating system we know and love. Everything has a sort of borderless appeal to it now with window graphics going right up to the edge and stopping suddenly without a buffer of any sort.

This makes for a really slick looking operating system, but to achieve it Apple had to make some serious functionality sacrifices that I’m not crazy about. For instance, the Finder no longer has the status bar at the bottom. There’s no quick reference for how many items are in a folder or a slider to resize the icons (a nicety that we only just got in Snow Leopard).

Fortunately, this particular problem has a quick fix. These features aren’t gone, they’re just hidden by default. Bringing them back is as easy as hitting ?/ or going to View>Show Status Bar.

The long lost Finder Status Bar

2. New Group From Selection

Let’s say you have a bunch of stuff scattered across your desktop that you want to throw into a single folder. The old way of doing this is to create a new folder, select everything but that folder, then drag all of the selected items into it. In Lion though, you can now simply select all of those items then Right-Click and choose New Folder with Selection.

3. Merge Folders

Did you know you can have Lion auto-merge the contents of two folders? This one was tricky to figure out. Apple announced it on their site as a new feature in Lion but getting it to work is anything but intuitive.

If you have two identically named folders in separate directories, dragging one in with the other prompts a standard Replace dialog message. However, Option-Dragging the folder to duplicate it into the other directory brings up an additional choice: merge. This will create one folder containing the collected contents of both of the originals.

Merging folders

4. Arrange Apps By Category

The new Finder has dramatically improved the various sorting modes that are available. For instance, organize your files by date and you’ll see some nice subtle dividers that separate the content, making for a much more pleasant viewing experience.

If you’re in your Applications folder, a new option pops up in this menu: Application Category. This will intelligently sort through all your App Store apps and place them in their corresponding categories.

Apps arranged by category

5. Close all Finder Windows

Have you ever found yourself with a ton of different Finder windows open and wishing that you could just kill them all and start over? Look no further than a quick ??W, which will instantly close all open Finder windows. Alternatively, you can ?Click the close button.

6. Drag Something Out of the Sidebar

At least once a week a random click and drag goes wrong in Finder and I end up with something in my sidebar completely by accident. Logic says that to fix this, you’d reverse your previous action and drag the item back out to delete it from the sidebar, but this doesn’t work.

However, you don’t have to resort to the multi-step Control-clicking fiasco, instead try a Command-drag. This will successfully remove the item in the sidebar.

7. Fullscreen Spotlight Shortcut

Let’s say you have a folder full of JPGs and you want to quickly go through them in a fullscreen image viewer. Try hitting ?Space to instantly launch Quick Look in fullscreen. From here, use your back and forth arrows, view a grid or start a slideshow.

Awesome Lion Tricks

8. Show Dock in Fullscreen Apps

Another great Lion feature is the fullscreen mode that you now see on many apps. The immediate complaint that many people have upon entering a fullscreen app though is that their dock no longer pops up from the bottom when moused over.

The truth is, yes it does. The action necessary to make it happen changes ever so subtly though. Typically, any motion near the bottom of the screen will pop up a hidden dock. However in fullscreen mode, you must bring your mouse all the way down to the bottom, then keep going. That little extra effort will tell OS X that you aren’t messing around with the app but instead want to see your dock. It’s awkward to get used to but eventually it starts to make sense.

9. Add a Signature in Preview

Signing digital documents can be a pain. You have to print the PDF, sign it, then scan it back in. Who wants to go through that mess? Fortunately, Preview now lets you skip the hassle.

Open a document in preview and slide open the Annotations Toolbar by clicking on the little pencil button near the top. From there, click on the Signature Button (the “S” with a line under it) and choose Create Signature from Built-in iSight. Now just follow the on-screen instructions and sign a white piece of paper then hold it up to the camera. Preview will even save your signatures for future use.

Adding signatures in Preview

10. Alternate Character Options

This one is something everyone (including me) finds completely by accident when they try to type “nooooooooo!” or a similarly repeating string of vowels in Lion. It turns out if you hold down certain letters on the keyboard, rather than repeating the character, Lion pops up an iOS-like menu that allows you to choose an alternate variation.

Alternate Character Options

11. Address Book/iChat: Import Face from iPhoto

If you use Faces, iPhoto’s automatic face-detection feature, then adding photos to contacts in various Lion apps becomes much easier. When editing a contact’s photo, there’s a little button at the bottom that will automatically match the name of your contact to a “face” in iPhoto.

iPhoto Faces Button

12. Quick Duplicate Open File

I had a very difficult time adjusting to the lack of a “Save As” option in many of Lion’s apps, this is of course a result of the new Versions document system. One of the things that made it easier is knowing how to quickly create a duplicate of a document without running to the File menu.

Duplicate

To accomplish this trick, click on the filename at the top of a Version-enabled file like those from TextEdit. This drops down a menu of options, one of which allows you to quickly duplicate the file.

Command-Clicking on the same place (the filename at the top of the window) will give you the path to that file. You can click on any folder in the hierarchy to open it in Finder.

13. Move Download from Safari

The new Safari download manager that sits to the right of the search bar has some interesting functionality beyond double-clicking a file in the list to open it. You can also actually move the downloaded file out from your Downloads folder by clicking and dragging it right from the Safari menu into the folder where you want it.

Drag the download to move it to your desktop

14. Quick Look Previews in Spotlight

Spotlight received a welcome improvement with the Lion upgrade, now when you hover over an item in the results, a little Quick Look preview automatically pops up. The secret surprise is how well this works. For instance, if there are web pages in the results, you get an actual live web preview. Click on a link and it opens it in your browser. This is great for running a quick search for a site that you recently visited.

Live web previews right in Spotlight

15. Drag from Spotlight

Another slight Spotlight improvement is the ability to drag and drop files right from your search results. Keep in mind that this action will copy a file to a new location, not move it.

16. Noncontiguous Selections in TextEdit

In TextEdit, you can hold down the Option to see the typical selection tool replaced by a crosshair icon. Using this will allow you to make a noncontiguous selection, presumably to make selecting columns easier.

Noncontiguous selections

17. Multiple Selections in TextEdit

While we’re on the topic of cool ways to select text in TextEdit, try holding down the Command key and making a few selections. This allows you to select and copy multiple items at once. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to then replace all of those selections with a single typed string like Sublime Text 2 does.

18. Play an Album From Your Screensaver

In Lion, the built-in Album Artwork Screensaver has some added functionality. You can now move your mouse around without exiting the screensaver. Hovering over an album will enlarge it and give you the option to play it. It’s a really fun way to see and interact with your music.

Click an album to play it

19. Delete Apps in Launchpad

Launchpad introduces a brand new way to delete apps from your Mac. In the Launchpad interface, click and hold an app to launch the iOS-style wiggle mode (or simply hold down Option). This will activate little close icons on the apps that were installed through the Mac App Store. Clicking this won’t only delete the app from launchpad, it’ll throw it in the trash.

Jiggle mode

20. View Recent Files in Expose

There’s a cool new way to view your recent items in several apps such as TextEdit and Preview. Activate the app and hit your dedicated Expose Keyboard Shortcut (varies from older to newer keyboards). Not only will all of the open windows zoom out and organize themselves, along the bottom of the screen a strip of thumbnails will pop up containing recently opened items.

Recent Files in Expose

21. Different Launchpad Backdrops

Here’s one that I’ll bet you’ve never heard about. The default view behind your icons in Launchpad is a blurred out version of your desktop. You can actually change this by hitting ?B. This shortcut will toggle between blurred, normal and grayscale backgrounds.

22. Proportional Window Resize

In Lion you can now resize a window from any edge, not just the corner. It turns out that this works similarly to resizing objects in many graphics applications. For instance, holding the Option key while dragging an edge will also move the opposite edge. Also, holding Shift will move every edge except the one opposite to the selected edge.

23. Double Tap to Define

In Snow Leopard, you could hit ??D while hovering over a word to bring up a little window with its definition. In Lion, you can do the same thing with a three finger double tap.

Double tap with three fingers to define

Revert to the Old Ways

24. Turn off “Natural” Scrolling

This one was instantly the most requested trick when Lion first launched. The powers that be at Apple have decided that the “natural” way for you to scroll is by imagining that you’re actually reaching out and tossing the page like you do on an iOS device. The problem of course is that on a desktop you have years of experience sliding your fingers down to scroll down and up to scroll up. Suddenly being forced to reverse your thinking results in a mental barrier that many people don’t see the benefit in getting over.

I recommend just getting used to it as it seems to be how Apple will do things from here on out, but if you simply can’t accept the change, you can revert back to the old way by unchecking Scroll direction: natural in the Mouse section in System Preferences.

Getting your scroll on the old school

25. Bring Back Scroll Bars

As I mentioned before, the major visual push in Lion was all about stripping out anything unnecessary from the user interface. Some people like these changes, others can’t stand them. As we saw before though, Apple typically gives you control over these changes.

Scroll bars are a very useful feature, their presence immediately lets you know that the page can be scrolled. When they’re hidden, history has taught us to assume that the page doesn’t scroll. However, in Lion the default state of scroll bars is hidden, they don’t show up until you start scrolling. This can be confusing and frustrating if you’re too used to the old way. You can bring them back easily enough though, simply go into the General category in System Preferences and select Show Scroll Bars: Always.

Getting your scroll on the old school

26. Turn Off Restore Windows

While we’re in the General section of System Preferences take note of the Restore windows setting near the bottom. Sometimes this can get really frustrating.

For instance, if you have a buggy Safari extension that crashes on a certain page, having the browser continually try to reload that page aggravates the problem. Also, if you have an older Mac that takes long enough to start up an application, turning off the default action to restore the last session and all of its tabs can save a lot of headaches.

27. Old School Mail Layout

The upgrades to Mail were some of the best that Lion made as far as I’m concerned, but they’re not for everyone. If you miss the old Mail layout, you’re in luck. Open up Mail Preferences and click on the Viewing tab. At the top you’ll see a checkbox labelled Use classic layout, check this and you’re back to Snow Leopard’s Mail layout.

Mission Control

28. Make Your Spaces Stay Put

Being used to the way that Spaces worked in Snow Leopard, I simply couldn’t get used to how Mission Control was always rearranging my spaces (aka desktops, Lion can’t seem to decide what to call them). I like to have everything stay put with a set position for desktop 1, 2, 3 etc.

It all started making much more sense when I went into Mission Control in System Preferences and turned off Automatically rearrange spaces based on most recent use. After you do this, you can once again enjoy the sanity of assigning an app to space 1 and having it stay there!

29. Magnify Windows in Mission Control

Mission Control is probably my favorite new feature in Lion. I use it constantly and definitely find it to be an extremely useful way to sort through the massive amount of windows that I generally have open.

One hidden feature here that you’ve probably never tried is to hit space bar when hovering over one of the small window previews. This will zoom into the window in a Quick-Look-like fashion so you can take a closer look.

Hit space over a Mission Control window

30. Focus on a Single App

This function is very similar to the on in the last tip, only it focuses on all of the windows in a given app, making them larger and dimming the windows from other apps. To accomplish this, hover over a cluster of windows and scroll up.

31. New Desktop with Selection

In Mission Control, if you hover your mouse in the top right, a little “+” tab appears to create a new desktop. If you ever have a window that you want to toss in a new dedicated desktop, simply grab it and drag it to the “+” tab.

New Desktop with selection

32. Drag Files to Mission Control

While you’re dragging a file, launch Mission Control and drop the file on an application to have it opened with that specific app.

Oldies But Goodies

33. Instantly Show an App in Finder

When I’m writing a review of an app, I always need to grab its icon for the post. This means going into the Applications folder and sorting through the million things that I have in there to land on the one I’m looking for, which can be a pain. My old solution was to right-click on the app, go Options and click Show in Finder.

However, there’s a much better way to go about this: simply Command-Click on any app in your dock and a Finder window will pop up with that app selected.

34. Kill and Yank

I’ve mentioned this one before on AppStorm but it’s good enough to repeat. Have you ever had a situation where you needed to cut and paste something, but didn’t want to lose what was already occupying your clipboard? With Kill and Yank, you can!

Select the bit of text just like you always would, but instead of cutting the text, hit ?K to “kill” it. This is essentially like cutting it to an entirely different clipboard that doesn’t affect your default clippings. Once you’re ready to bring it back, “yank” it with ?Y.

35. Option-Click Icon in Dock to Show/Hide App

Option-clicking on an app in your dock has some interesting functionality. If the app isn’t currently showing, the frontmost app will hide and the app that you clicked on will be shown. If the app that you click on is already the active application, then it will hide.

36. Change Volume Without the Pop

When you adjust the volume via the keyboard, you get these little popping noises that help you identify just how loud the volume currently is. If you want to be a little more covert about it, you can adjust the volume without these noises by holding down the Shift key while changing the volume.

It use to be the cast that ??Volume Keys would allow for incremental volume changes on a smaller scale than your typical click. Unfortunately, Apple axed this feature in Lion.

37. Quick Access System Preferences

Along the same lines as the previous tip, try holding down Option while hitting your volume or brightness keys to be taken to their corresponding System Preference panel.

38. Extra Menu Bar Info

Holding down Option while clicking on an OS X system menu bar item will often reveal some hidden information and options. For instance, performing this trick on your MacBook’s battery icon will show you the health of your battery. Also try it on the sound, Airport and Time Machine menu bar items.

Hold option to see more information

39. Move Menu Bar Items

Follow the same steps as the last tip, only this time hold down the Command key instead. This will give you the option to rearrange your menu bar items! Note that this typically does not work with third party menu bar apps.

40. Auto Complete F5

This one is extremely handy for those of us that can never spell words like “bureau” and “rendezvous” right on the first try. As you’re typing in TextEdit or iChat, hit F5 or Option+Escape to bring up an autocomplete menu where you can select from various possible completions to the word you’ve started.

Autocomplete

41. Delete Last Word or Line

When typing in OS X, to quickly delete the last word that you typed, hit Option+Delete. You can also hit Command+Delete to eliminate the entire current line of text.

42. App Switcher Tricks

You probably already use ?Tab to move to the next application in Application Switcher, but did you know that with the switcher still open you can switch to ?` to move your selection backwards? You can also use the arrow keys and even quit/hide applications all right from the switcher.

43. Disable Caps Lock

Do you ever really use Caps Lock? Me neither, but I do accidentally turn it on frequently. To prevent this from happening, you can actually disable the action entirely. Go into System Preferences and click on Keyboard. Then click on the Modifier Keys… button near the bottom of this window and change Caps Lock Key to none.

What Did We Miss?

At this point you’ve either been blown away by a flood of amazing new knowledge regarding how to get the most out of your OS X experience, or you’re patting yourself on the back for already knowing about all forty-three tips. If you’re in the latter category, it’s your turn to try to impress us. Leave a comment below and let us know about all your favorite hidden tricks!

I love iTunes. As Apple’s native music player and iOS powerhouse command station, it is unlikely that anything will ever wholly replace iTunes for me. It’s an integrated hub for surfing the iTunes music store, buying iOS apps, making playlists, the Ping network (even though it’s somewhat barren), managing the media and content on my iPhone and iPad, and more. But in spite of my love for iTunes, I will be the first to admit that with a music library the size of mine, it can be a bit slow, unwieldy, and bloated when all I want to do is play some tunes.

When I began reading up on Sonora, a beta-phase app coded by Indragie Karunaratne and designed by Tyler Murphy, I was impressed with the obvious target niche that Sonora was appealing to. At the risk of sounding “scoff-y”, independently developed music players rarely appeal to me because they so often claim to be an iTunes replacement–which, for the reasons listed in the above paragraph, is unlikely for me. Sonora, on the other hand, markets itself as a companion player, humbly leaving the heavy lifting of music purchases and iOS management to iTunes and providing a lightweight player for the express purpose of playing music. Hit the jump to read more about Sonora.

Prepare Ship for Ludicrous Speed!

Oh god, the speed. It would be unjust of me to begin this review by talking about anything other than Sonora’s lightning fast speed. The biggest problem with using iTunes when all I want to do is play music is the sluggishness (even on my relatively new MacBook Pro), so let it be known that Sonora does not have this problem. Even after importing my entire iTunes library (which it will do on startup, and rather quickly, I might add) opening and closing the app happens almost instantaneously.

To search for music, simply begin typing and this search bar appears out of thin air.

I know this is a bit out of order, and I’ll fix that momentarily, but one final note about speed: searching the app is as snappy as everything else. Simply begin typing anywhere in the app, and a search bar shows up mid-screen with instant search results.

The Anatomy Of Sonora

Okay, we got a bit ahead of ourselves there, didn’t we? Let’s back up, and I’ll explain how Sonora works.

The Sonora interface, in all it's glory.

Sonora works on the premise that “music is flexible” and continually plays tracks from a versatile queue, which can be found across the top of the window. Tracks can be added, removed, or rearranged on this queue, allowing you a custom, and constantly changing, playlist based entirely on your mood. While a track is playing, a subtle progress bar creeps along the gap between the queue bar and your library near the top of the window.

If you feel like creating a mix that you can save and listen to later, tracks can be added to the column on the right side of the window, which can be accessed by clicking the + icon in the bottom right. When you’ve constructed a mix you like, click done and it will be saved to the “Mix” tab on the bottom of the window.

Playlists imported from iTunes also appear here as mixes.

Sonora posits that your music library shouldn’t look like a spreadsheet, and offers an elegant remedy. Each album is displayed beautifully in a grid, pending available artwork. Hovering over an album cover displays a Play button in the corner, which will replace the queue with that album. Additionally, a good old-fashioned double click will reveal the albums track list in a gorgeous pop-out pane, and songs can be added individually to the end of the queue with the + icon, or dragged to a specific spot in the queue for on-the-fly playlist editing.

Double click an album cover to display the tracks on that album.

Finally, your standard player controls are fashionably implemented in the upper corners, including play, next track, and previous track on the left, and clear queue, repeat, and shuffle on the left.

To maintain it’s simplicity, Sonora focuses on only providing what’s absolutely necessary for an enjoyable music experience. Limited metadata, stylish tracklists, and a customizable music queue make Sonora great for listening, even when iTunes might be a bit more powerful for cataloguing purposes.

Flexibility And Integration

Part of what makes Sonora such a great iTunes companion is that it willingly syncs libraries each time it’s opened, so anything you import to iTunes will automatically be added to your Sonora library, and any playlists will show up in “Mixes.”

Growl notifications are also a plus.

According to one of tenets outlined on their webpage, Sonora suggests that music should be social. It certainly follows through with full Last.fm scrobbling integration, without the need to be running the standalone Last.fm app in the background.

Lastly, and probably most excitingly, Sonora has support for the rare and high-quality audio file formats that even iTunes doesn’t. Listen to your lossless .flac files or your .ogg’s in style.

Final Thoughts

Sonora isn’t just a barebones music player. It’s thoughtful, elegant, and minimalistic. The only issues I came across were things like brief hangups or very minor visual glitches–nothing even close to unacceptable in a beta-phase app. Indragie is doing it right with Sonora, and I’m excited to continue following it’s development.

I’m thrilled to put Sonora in it’s rightful place in my dock… next to iTunes, of course.

To celebrate the New Year at iPad.AppStorm, we’re going to be giving one lucky reader a brand new iPad 2! It’s been vastly successful over the past year, and today you have the chance to get your hands on one completely free!

This iPad 2 Needs a Loving Home

We’re going to be giving away a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad 2, usually priced at $499. Black or white – you can choose!

This fantastic upgrade to the original iPad is thinner, lighter, contains two FaceTime cameras, a faster processor, more memory, and the ability to snap on one of Apple’s awesome Smart Covers.

It’s a marvel of technology, and the perfect way to browse AppStorm! Head over to iPad.AppStorm to find out how to enter…

Our featured sponsor this week is Artboard, a truly impressive vector drawing application that’s simple enough for everyone to use.

Artboard has all the features you need in an advanced vector editing app: over 20 tools for drawing and navigation, custom shapes, clip art, boolean operations, layers, advanced style creation and a lot more. And it’s only getting better!

There’s a new Format Bar that simplifies the interface for creating simple styles without needing to open any palettes. Also, advanced “stacked” styles can now be created with the Style Inspector.

If you’re new to vector editing or just need to learn your way around Artboard, the developers include a helpful orientation video to help you get started. There are also some free tutorials available on the Artboard Website.

Go Get It!

Go grab your free trial from the Artboard website. Once you realize that you can’t live without it, the full version can be purchased on the Mac App Store.

In a surprise turn of events, Apple has revealed its list of 156 suppliers along with its annual 2012 Supplier Responsibility report, an annual report compiled from internal audits of all of Apple’s suppliers. Alongside Foxconn, which manufacturers products such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac-range of computers under contract, the list also included well-known companies such as Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba (the full list can be viewed here). The suppliers listed account for around 97 percent of Apple’s external procurement measurements.

For one of the most secretive technology companies in the world, which is known for employing an internal “secret service” (nicknamed the Apple Gestapo) to investigate leaks, the publishing of this list has come as quite a surprise to most people and may be the first step into Apple opening up its doors to the world.

In a turn of events, Apple has openly published its list of suppliers, along with its Supplier Responsibility report.

The Supplier Responsibility report, however, makes for less pleasant reading. Apple conducted 229 audits in 2011, an increase of 80% on the following year, on all its suppliers and found some unpalatable facts, which are listed in the report. Only 38 percent of Apple’s suppliers keep to the agreed maximum working week of 60 hours (i.e. six 10-hour shifts) with one guaranteed day off per week and a third were found to be negligent when it came to handling hazardous substances. In five factories, minors were found to be employed (however this was due to work papers not being checked correctly, according to Apple) and further violations were also discovered, such as poor pay and the breach of environmental regulations.

Aside criticism concerning unethical working conditions and long shifts, some Apple suppliers are also failing to follow basic safety procedures, which can have lethal results. In May 2011, an explosion at a Foxconn-operated factory in Chengdu killed 3 employees and injured a further 15. The explosion, which was most probably caused by the ignition of airborne aluminium dust, occurred on the iPad 2 production line and affected Apple’s global supply chain for a short while afterwards, causing stock to run out in several retailers. Another explosion also rocked a similar factory in Shanghai in December belonging to the Ri-Teng Computer Accessory company, which manufactures parts for Apple’s products, injuring 61 people.

The aftermath of the explosion at a Foxconn-operated factory in Chengdu last May, which killed 3 people

By publishing the report, Apple hopes to confront the criticism made against them, which stepped up a notch after around 20 workers committed suicide in Foxconn’s Shenzen plant in 2010, mainly due to dire working conditions and poor pay (the average Foxconn worker earns around $150 a month, a small amount even by Chinese standards). The company was also the first electronics manufacturer that has joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which strives to achieve better working conditions in factories worldwide. Apple’s new boss, Tim Cook, told the Wall Street Journal that the company wants to be more “transparent” about the standards in its supply chain and that the company was “raising the bar” for the technology industry – a far cry from Jobs, who was a well-known advocator for secrecy and opacity in the entire company.

Foxconn has come under heavy criticism in recent times, mainly due to the treatment of workers

Despite all the criticism levelled against them, Apple is showing their caring side by publishing their internal audit reports and implementing such stringent checks on suppliers. The company already spends millions of dollars training and educating suppliers on local labour laws, workers rights and occupational health and safety and has an absolutely zero tolerance on underage labour, a practice which Apple calls the strictest and toughest in the technology industry. Although there are still a few creases to iron out, it seems like Apple is helping towards creating a fairer and safer working environment for the employees of its suppliers.

Apple’s full Supplier Responsibility report for 2012 can be viewed on their corporate website here.

Ecoute, created by PixiApps, has been a moderately popular alternative to iTunes for over a year now. With version 3, developer Louka Desroziers and interface designer Julien Sagot hope to catapult their audio player’s status from semi-popular indie app to major-league success. So is the latest version of Ecoute ready for the big time?

Listen up!

Ecoute's main window

First things first: Ecoute is not a complete iTunes replacement. Instead, PixiApps have decided to leverage the strong library management already present in iTunes, and simply hook in to the iTunes library already on your Mac. While this does mean that users still have to use iTunes to import, purchase, and organize their media, it does mean that they have a well-organized library to work with. Many may not like having to switch back and forth between iTunes and Ecoute to manage their collection, though, and there currently seems to be no way to import music directly into Ecoute. This is likely a limitation with using the iTunes library, but is still a potential pitfall for many potential users.

Of a larger concern is the fact that as of version 3.0.1, which we tested, Ecoute seems to have some problems with video content purchased from the iTunes store. HD TV episodes didn’t seem to want to play and, because iTunes groups HD and SD versions of the same episode together, Ecoute was not able to select the SD version to play. For a non-beta app claiming to be able to handle all of your iTunes media, this is a fairly major drawback. It is clear at this time that PixiApps main focus has been on the music side of things.

User Experience is Everything

All the above being said, for those users who are primarily looking for an alternative to playing their music through iTunes, Ecoute offers a simple, intuitive user interface with some added extras on top.

The decidedly minimal aesthetic may not appeal to all users, but it fits well with Apple’s own design language (many would argue that it does this better than iTunes itself, which has become somewhat cluttered), and it works well. The three-column view for the track listing can be sorted by artist, album and genre as well as all the other usual suspects. Additional columns only appear when needed which helps the interface to feel clean and simple. Ecoute’s search function works well, results showing in a separate column grouped by the same headings. This search uses fuzzy matching, too, so you don’t need to be able to remember the first word of a song title to be able to find it in your collection.

Ecoute's desktop widget, bottom left, and main player controls, top right

Ecoute is not currently supported by utilities such as Bowtie, so the developers include their own desktop widget with the application, which is fully themeable (the best place to find themes at the moment seems to be iconpaper). Again, this is a feature not all will have any desire for, but its nice to have in there for those that do want it.

Ecoute's "Now Playing" view

Ecoute also features a “now playing” view (which can be switched to automatically after a number of seconds), which offers a simple view of cover art for the song currently playing. Its not particularly useful view (apart from giving the user access to rating stars), but it is pretty.

Sharing is caring

Ecoute offers easy access to social functionality

What will be of more use to many people is Ecoute’s ability to hook directly in to Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter. You can “love” a track on Last.fm right from the player bar, or choose to share what you are listening to on Facebook or Twitter. Last.fm scrobbling is fully supported, too, which is an important extra for many users, as the Last.fm scrobbler does not currently work with Ecoute. The ability to instantly love or share a track with others is a nice touch, and one that I admit I used a number of times during the course of writing this review. There is some basic playlist management, too, with the ability to reorder queued tracks, or add a track to “play next”, but the support is rudimentary at best, with no ability to save or create new custom playlists – Again, this has to be done through iTunes.

The Competition

The obvious major competition to Ecoute is, of course, Apple’s ubiquitous iTunes. Ecoute is in a strange position here in that it both depends upon, and competes with, Apple’s software. Ecoute simply cannot function at the moment without iTunes to manage the library, but at the same time, the creators would obviously rather users chose to purchase Ecoute rather than carry on simply using iTunes on its own. iTunes does have the obvious benefits here of being free and being installed on every single new Mac, and to that end Ecoute is fighting a distinctly uphill battle.

The rest of the competition is a mixed bag: Songbird is a fully-fledged alternative to iTunes, complete with its own library management etc. It is also open source, which to you and me means free. It is to be praised for its massive functionality, and the ability to add functionality via plugins is great, but for me it misses the mark from a user interface point of view. It is just too easy to tell that this is software based on the Mozilla browser, with extra bits added on, although the latest releases do address this in part.

Spotify’s desktop app for Mac also features the ability to play local audio, and has the added benefit of the core streaming service being in the same app for those who are subscribers, and those who don’t mind the streaming limits on the free version. Its interface is relatively universal across platforms, though and this is something of a detriment on Mac, in my opinion.

As for the rest? There are almost too many options to mention here without doing a full roundup of alternative media players for Mac – Vox feels a little like WinAmp for Mac, which some will love, and others will hate. Miro is very good for video, but for me feels a little weak on library management on its own. The list of options goes on, and it’s a very personal choice for those who are not satisfied with Apple’s offering.

So, what’s the verdict?

Ecoute currently costs $10, and is purchasable either directly from PixiApps or from the AppStore. Many will feel that this is a bit much for a piece of software with so many shortcomings, and I almost agree. Video support needs to be greatly improved as a matter of urgency, and better playlist support would be nice, too. There are some bugs around artist/album artwork not always importing correctly from iTunes (particularly when you make a change to an existing album), too, but this is a relatively minor concern.

However, for me a large amount of what makes me choose to use an app comes down to the “feel” of it. Ecoute gets the look and feel right for me, as a user who only wants it for music. iTunes looks rather like a troll when compared to the simple elegance of Ecoute, and that is why I will continue to use it, and hope for updates to patch missing or buggy functionality. Does this make me superficial? Probably, but then I am a Mac user, after all!

Do you use an iTunes replacement or companion? If you do, which one, and why? Let us know in the comments!

One area that hasn’t really been exploited in the app market is that of apps for musicians. And by that, I don’t mean apps for recording and producing, I’m referring to apps for songwriters.

Maybe there’s a reason for that? You could use a simple text editor to write songs, but what if you could also have an app that helped you make the songwriting process more organized, and gave you a few tools to make songwriting easier? That’s what Songwriter’s Pad claims to do. Let’s take a look and see how it fares.

Getting Started

Songwriter's Pad

Songwriter’s Pad is advertised as “the ultimate songwriting Mac app”, and at first it seems to have all the features to claim that title. It says it can help you find words that go well with a mood or with other words, it supports chord notation and it can even record bits and pieces of your songs.

Songwriter’s Pad is a paid app ($29.99), don’t let the free version deceive you. All it is is a demo where you can only create one song and no more. Is it worth the high price tag? Let’s take a look at its features.

The Interface

Interface

The dark Songwriter Pad interface isn’t exactly simple, but it is pretty and it’s not very hard to get around. You have the toolbar on the top, where you can find the controls to create new songs and elements within them, as well as a few configuration settings.

Then there’s the main frame, where you are supposed to write the song; but beside it there are two sidebars that can help you accomplish that. The left one is where you can add stuff that might make it on the song (words, rhymes, phrases), and the right one is where you can find the things that you’ve recorded for the song.

Writing Songs

Writing Songs

The navigation of the app is a little tricky at first, but you can get around it after spending a few minutes with it. To write anything, you first need to add a “Song Block” to your current song. This means you have to add a section, like a verse, intro, chorus, pre-chorus, outro, etc. Once you’ve added one of these, they will appear in your main frame as the type of block that it is. If you double click it, the cursor will appear below it and you can start writing the lyrics for that section.

The main reason behind the blocks is organization. Having your songs broken down into sections can make the whole songwriting process easier. Also, within the app you can rearrange or delete the sections whichever way you’d like them to because of the blocks.

Complementing the Songs

Other Tools

If you run out of creativity, you can use the “Get Ideas” button, which will bring up a small menu where you can find some inspiration. Here you can find rhymes, a dictionary, a thesaurus, phrases, and words. The first three work simply by typing in any word. The last two work by generating the word or phrase from a selectable variety of “moods”, such as love, hate, happy, sad, and a few more. Once you find an idea that you like to explore later in the song, you can select it and add it to the stickies that live in the left sidebar, where you can quickly find them and add them to your song.

You can record from your microphone and add a backing track exported from another app (you can also combine those two features and sing over a backing track, which will then overlap both tracks to create just one). Other cool features include the chord support, which allows you to easily add chord notations inside the lyrics, displaying them as little text boxes.

The Much Discussed, But Never Concluded “Analog vs. Digital” Argument

“Songwriter’s Pad” is a fun experiment and was a fun app to try out, but I don’t think I’ll be using it much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve never really found a “songwriting” app or anything related to it that works in a way that fits my personal process. They all seem to complicate the process rather than simplify it. There are some things where the old way is (at least for now) better, and my personal opinion is that songwriting is one of them. For me, pen and paper are better, at least until someone can truly figure out how to digitize the process of scribbling to put together a song, and without having all these distractions around you.

That’s not to say that this app is useless; some will no doubt find it to be quite useful, it simply doesn’t fit with my personal method of songwriting. I do think because of the chord notation feature that makes it very easy to transcribe songs to the computer, it could work for me as a place to store all of my finished songs as a backup. It could work for you in some other ways, or perhaps you could even adapt your whole songwriting process to the way the app works.

I want to hear from you, what do you think of these sorts of apps? Have you tried any of them, and have you digitized your songwriting process? Even if you aren’t a musician: do you still prefer to do some things “the old way”? Which ones? Discuss in the comment section below!

Since the dawn of portable Apple devices, the personal computer has always been the hub we’ve used to manage and sync our media. We are accustomed to our iPods, iPhones, and iPads being bound to our computers by white cables. But when Steve announced iCloud last summer, he declared, “We’re going to move your hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.” His vision was that the personal computer would no longer be the middle man between your media and your devices.

Of all of the digital media that accumulates on our hard drives, our music collections are often guilty of robbing us of significant hard drive space. This is even more of a problem when it comes to the smaller storage space of our portable devices. Most of us have spent time trying to narrow down our music to fit on these devices, only to be away from home and crave a song or album that missed the cut. This is where iTunes Match comes in. Read on to learn what Match is all about, and find out if it’s right for you.

What Exactly Is It?

After Apple’s acquisition of streaming service Lala in late 2009, many thought that it would provide a streaming service tied to the iTunes Music Store. While streaming services like Spotify are certainly taking off, Apple’s vision with iCloud is to provide something different: the ability to download, not stream, your content to whatever device you need it on. Since the Internet is not yet ubiquitous, with WiFi only available in specific places and 3G bandwidth a costly commodity, this is probably a more practical solution than streaming for the time being.

Currently, Apple provides two ways of getting your music into the cloud. The first way, dubbed “iTunes in the Cloud”, is for music purchased in the iTunes Music Store. Whenever you purchase music from iTunes, Apple gives you the option to have your purchases automatically downloaded to other devices. You can also manually access them from the new “Purchased” tab in the iTunes Store. iTunes in the Cloud is perfect for users who buy all of their music from iTunes.

Go to the Purchased tab to download any songs you've bought through iTunes.

For those of us who have music in our libraries from CDs, other digital stores, friends, or perhaps more questionable locations, Apple makes us pay the fare to get our music into the cloud. For a yearly fee of $24.99, iTunes Match will scan your library, matching any music that is available in the iTunes Music Store, and uploading anything that the Store doesn’t have. From there, you have the ability to download your library from any Mac, iPod, iPhone, or iPad, and stream from an Apple TV.

Getting Started

You can sign up for Match from any computer running the latest version of iTunes. Once you have purchased a yearly subscription, Match scans your library to see what songs it can match, and uploads any unmatched tracks.

This 3-step process takes place every time you match your library.

I have a library of around 15,000 songs, and it was able to match over 11,000. The entire process took several hours to complete, but it is certainly faster than using competing services such as Google’s or Amazon’s, where every single song in your library has to get beamed up to the cloud. Once complete, all of your music, including playlists, will be instantly available for download on your other devices.

If you remove any music from iTunes, you will be given the option to remove the songs from iCloud as well. If you choose to keep them in iCloud, the songs will still show up in your library and you’ll be able to redownload them at will.

Add the “iCloud Status” column so you can see whether a song has been matched, uploaded, or is waiting to be processed.

On a computer, it’s actually possible to stream a song from iCloud by double-clicking it. In order to keep a song permanently, you have to either click the Download button or right-click and select Download. This works differently on an iPad or iPhone, where there is no streaming functionality; tapping a song stored in iCloud will download it automatically.

iTunes Match on the iPad.

Selling Points

Keep Everything In Sync

Match’s main attraction is keeping your library in sync across devices such as your iPhone or iPad, which have more limited hard drive space. But another benefit of using Match is that you are easily able to keep computers’ libraries synced through your iTunes Account. Use Match between home and work, for two home computers, or even to sync with family and friends–if you trust them with your iTunes account name and password (which is linked to your credit card information). I am sure that Apple frowns upon people using Match to share music, but some people will inevitably use it for that.

Match works seamlessly across all of your devices.

DRM-Free Downloads

If you ever decide to stop subscribing to Match, you will of course no longer have access to the files stored in iCloud. But since Apple’s files are DRM-free, any music that you downloaded to your hard drive will remain, so you don’t have to worry about the files disappearing from your devices or turning into duds as soon as your subscription expires.

Improve Your Music Quality

After years of getting digital music files from a variety of sources, many people find themselves with an assortment of file formats and bit rates. Match will let you download your matched files in iTunes-Store quality 256-kbps AAC files, letting you standardize much of your library.

Downsides

No Automatic File Upgrading

Unfortunately, upgrading files to iTunes-Store quality isn’t automatic, and there is no menu or right-click option that says “Upgrade File Quality”. In order to get those improved files, you will actually need to delete the original files from your hard drive and then redownload them from iCloud. If you want to upgrade the quality of as many of your songs as possible, I recommend sorting your library by the “iCloud Status” column so that you can easily see what files have been matched, and then only redownload those.

Stragglers

Shortly after matching my library, I began to come across albums where every song matched except for one or two–even when they came from the same CD rip, and were named identically to songs in the iTunes Music Store. Of course, Match automatically uploads those unmatched stragglers, so it isn’t the end of the world. But you aren’t able to upgrade the quality of these songs, and will have to waste time uploading them, which is annoying when they are clearly legitimate copies.

An example of an album that had one oddly unmatched song.

25,000 Song Limit

Most people don’t have libraries this massive, but if you do, you’re out of luck. iTunes will show you a warning and prevent you from even purchasing Match if your library is over the limit. If you are determined to use Match, check out this post at MacWorld for a possible workaround.

It Can’t Easily Be Fooled

It is clear that Match does not just look at the metadata of your songs to match them; if that were the case, you could just rename a dummy file to whatever song you want, match it, and then download the real thing from Apple.

However, some people have wondered if you could simply download the audio of songs from YouTube and match those. In my tests, Match is pretty picky, especially when it comes to lower quality files. I tested 5 different songs–all ones that I owned and iTunes was able to match based on my CD rips–and downloaded the audio from Youtube. After adding them to my library and giving them correct metadata, iTunes could only match 2 of the 5, which means Match is probably not a solution for people looking to turn their sketchy YouTube audio files into beautiful copies.

Pricing

Match comes in at $24.99 per year, which is reasonable considering the complete integration with Apple’s apps, the speed at which it gets your library into the cloud, upgrading of your music quality, and access of your music from any of your devices.

For comparison, Google Music allows you to upload up to 20,000 songs for free, and Amazon’s Cloud Drive gives you 5GB for free, after which you must pay for an amount of storage space. Amazon is currently offering a deal where you will get unlimited music storage if you purchase the cheapest plan, which is $20 a year, but it is yet to be seen if this offer will remain. Regardless, with either of these services you must upload every single song in your library since Google and Amazon were not able to make deals with record companies as Apple did to match your music. And without integration with Apple’s apps, these services will probably not be viable options for most users.

Conclusion

You may still wonder if iTunes Match is a service that you really need. After all, people have been syncing music to devices for years through cables, and it has not been that painful. Match isn’t a necessity, but I find myself using it quite often, and I believe that I will renew my subscription when the time comes. I enjoy putting very little music on my iPad and being able to download what I am in the mood for on demand. I don’t own an iPhone, but I am sure that if I did I would use Match to download songs while on the road, even though 3G limits could get in the way of doing this too much. And if you have an Apple TV, this could be the best way to stream your music collection.

In the end, Match is a nice convenience in an age where we have an increasing number of devices that require syncing. It is certainly a good step toward a future in which we no longer need white cables or USB sticks for transferring music between devices.

Choosing a media player – a music player, to be precise – for a Mac is a no brainer. iTunes is the crowd favorite and has the chops to entertain both an audiophile and the casual listener. Despite becoming bloated and unduly heavy over the years, iTunes is more or less the default audio player for the Mac ecosystem. Even folks who are die hard Windows users and those who don’t own an iOS device also are fans of iTunes.

But as I just alluded to, iTunes is a tad bulky and lacks the advanced features of a full fledged media player. The choice of full blown music players for Mac are pretty thin when compared to any other vertical. Winamp hardly needs an introduction. For more than a decade, it ruled the roost as the popular media player for Windows.

Winamp for Mac is a free download and promises to offer the same powerful featureset it is known for. Is it awesome enough to replace iTunes? Read on to find out!

Getting Started

Import Options

A splash screen with a soundbite, hailing the lama makes for a dramatic intro. The annoying voiceover plays only on first launch, so you can breathe easy. Still, in an era when even website banner ads have started to mute music in autoplay mode, this is a bit ridiculous. Right off the bat, Winamp offers to import content from your iTunes app or the music library from your hard disk. If you choose either one (or both) of the choices, the app will also dutifully monitor those folders and keep your music collection updated, making changes when new files are added.

User Interface

Import Status

Winamp doesn’t look anything like iTunes. The dark color scheme and minimalistic design are refreshingly cool. Though the app did offer an easy way to import playlists and files at first launch, you can do it later from the Preferences screen. I would have preferred to have the option somewhere easily accessible, either in the menu or the GUI. Apart from these import options you can add albums and tracks by using the Add to Library option.

Ease of Use

User Interface and Song Metadata

Winamp did find tracks real quick and imported them all in a few seconds. A lot of attention is paid to metadata and each one gets its own column too. You can arrange tracks based on any one those. The search box at the top is fairly useful and results show up as soon as you start typing.

A Sample Playlist

Sadly, Winamp is anaemic when it comes to features. The playback was great, but besides being able to shuffle or repeat the tracks, there is hardly anything that you can do. There isn’t even the option to change the preset equalizer modes, let alone an option to create a custom one. You can create, edit and update playlists, but there is nothing ground breaking to report here.

For Android mobile users, Winamp offers a simple way to sync their entire music collection without much of a hassle, over wifi nonetheless. The feature works like a charm, but you will have to have the Winamp for Android version (available for free).

Final Thoughts

Like every other legendary product out there, Winamp has recently started to make itself available for the modern and most happening platforms: Mac and Android. I’ve used Winamp over the years and was enamored by the simple user interface and powerful feature set that could set both a tiny headset and a home theater on fire. Sadly, I started using the Windows Media Player – which has gotten better over the years – to save precious hard disk space.

Personally, I prefer not to replace a stock app that’s bundled with the operating system unless it’s totally useless or a web app version of something similar is available. Without a doubt, Winamp for Mac is nowhere near an iTunes replacement and doesn’t even match the features of its Windows counterpart.

It’s disheartening too see that plugins and skins that are a rage among Windows users are not available yet. And whatever happened to the Shoutcast radio, that lets everyone listen to songs streaming over the Internet for free?

Since this a beta release with a version number of 0.7.2, it’s only reasonable allow them sometime before the features start showing up. So, if you are bored with the iTunes interface or looking for a compelling alternative that doesn’t swamp you with too many features, have a look at Winamp.

On December 8 of last year, TweetDeck, one of the most popular multi-platform Twitter clients was relaunched as part of a redesign by Twitter. The new TweetDeck featured an interface similar to the old version, only with less features and less customization possibilities. The new version certainly hasn’t gone down well with users; as of early this month the app has only managed to snag a 2-star rating in the Mac App Store and judging by the reviews left, many users feel that this “upgrade” was really more of a “downgrade”.

Let’s take a look at the new version of TweetDeck to see whether it really lives up to all those mediocre reviews.

Why Was It Relaunched?

In May 2011, TweetDeck was purchased by Twitter for a rumored $40-50 million after a bidding war with rival UberMedia (the developers of another popular Twitter client, UberSocial). Although there was no immediate change, TweetDeck hinted on September 25 that a new version of TweetDeck was going to be released which would make it “more consistent with Twitter.com and Twitter mobile apps” (such as those on the iOS, Android and Blackberry platforms).

The previous version of TweetDeck running on a desktop computer

The previous version of TweetDeck required the Adobe AIR plugin to run, but with the relaunch, TweetDeck has now become a native application for OS X and Windows as well as add-on application for Google Chrome. Although the old name still stuck, there is now a greater focus on the fact that it is owned by Twitter and has been rebranded TweetDeck by Twitter.

What’s New?

A few things aside, there aren’t many new features in the new version of TweetDeck. When you first start the program up, you are asked to log in using your TweetDeck account, which helps synchronize your accounts across all platforms (useful if, for example, you want to use TweetDeck across a range of devices). If you haven’t yet got a TweetDeck account, then you can create one really easily (and it’s free).

The new log-in screen for TweetDeck

The interface has, however, been given a slight overhaul to bring it in line with Twitter’s redesign a couple of months back.

The main screen for TweetDeck, showing your timeline, mentions and own tweets in separate columns.

Adding columns is now a lot simpler in the new version, with larger buttons and a redesigned notification box which, in my opinion, bears a mighty resemblance to the iOS interface and brings it more inline with the web version of Twitter. This version also supports full-screen viewing in OS X Lion.

Adding new columns in TweetDeck

The new version of TweetDeck still supports URL shortening and scheduling of tweets directly from the application. You can choose either between Twitter or bit.ly URL shortening and the new version does support bit.ly usernames and API keys. You can also choose between Twitter, yFrog and Twitpic for image uploads.

Sending a new tweet in TweetDeck

What’s Missing?

Seeing as TweetDeck is now officially owned by Twitter, support for LinkedIn, Google Buzz, Foursquare and MySpace was dropped from the new release, leaving only Twitter and Facebook supported. Other features that were dropped to bring TweetDeck more in-line with Twitter’s other range of applications include lack of geo-location support (although this is supported in the web version) and lack of deck.ly support, which allowed users to post tweets in excess of 140 characters.

The customisation options in the new version of TweetDeck

Another complaint (which can be seen from the reviews on the Mac App Store) is that the new version only supports 3-column viewing at once – the previous version supported up to 5 columns on one screen. This is not so much of a quibble if you only use TweetDeck with one account – you only really need your timeline and mentions – but if you are managing multiple Twitter accounts (or you use TweetDeck with Facebook as well) then this can be pretty inconvenient.

How Does It Fare?

Not well, unfortunately. I have to agree with a lot of the reviews posted on the App Store (and with my own experience) in saying that TweetDeck has lost a lot of great features and customisation possibilities which made it a fantastic third-party Twitter client. It seems to me that Twitter has now got too much control over the application. Yes, they can bring it in line with their other applications but did they really have to do it in such a dramatic way?

I was a big fan of the old TweetDeck as it gave me so many possibilities and it made using Twitter extremely dynamic. The web version is great for people who are starting out with the social network, but for more advanced users then it can be a little basic. However, with the new version of TweetDeck it seems like we are all back at square one again. Yes, it gives you more features than the web version but you just find yourself longing for “the good old days” with the old version.

Until Twitter realizes how many faithful TweetDeck users it has let down (myself included), I will keep on using another client until an updated TweetDeck with richer features comes along. And it better come along soon because Mac users won’t wait forever before abandoning the product altogether.