Category: Mac

We recently went over the best apps of 2011 and it’s safe to say that last year was an amazing time to be a Mac user. Not only did our favorite apps see major updates, there was a nice influx of brand new apps that were simply too good to pass up.

Today we want to reverse things and start looking forward instead of reviewing what has already come. We’ll introduce you to ten apps that are going to make big waves in 2012. Interestingly enough, most of them happen to be geared towards designers and web developers so if you fit that description, you’ll definitely want to take a look! We’ll also look at an awesome new Google Reader app, what’s in store for Spotify and even get a glimpse of the gem that 6Wunderkinder has been keeping up its sleeve.

Apps to Watch

Caffeinated

Reeder made such a splash in 2011 that most other entrants into the RSS reader market were viewed as second rate clones. However, we’re finally starting to see some worthy rivals step forward and Caffeinated is at the top of that list. Developer Curtis Hard has been toiling away on this app since before the launch of Reeder for Mac and is almost ready to unleash his creation on the masses.

The Caffeinated interface is super slick and it’s got plenty of awesome features to boot. My favorite thing about this app is its extensibility. Curtis has extension and theming systems in place that will make it super easy for users to really make the app their own through varying the interfaces and adding on third party functionality.

Developer: Curtis Hard
Beta Download: Geeky Goodness

Caffeinated

Mou

2011 brought more Markdown editors than you can shake a stick at. They’re all fullscreen and they all convert your Markdown to HTML, making it difficult to decide which truly has any sort of definable competitive advantage.

I tried them all and never really connected with anything until I happened upon Mou, a Markdown text editor aimed at web developers. Mou had exactly what I was looking for: a split screen view that showed your markdown text on the left and a live auto-updating preview on the right. Other bonuses include swappable themes, autocompletion, and custom CSS for the output (opening up some truly amazing possibilities). Mou is currently in an open beta and moving along quickly. Hopefully we’ll see version 1.0 soon.

Developer: Chen Luo
Beta: Download the free beta on the Mou site.

Mou

Chocolat

Chocolat is an up and coming text editor that I first looked at back in December. It’s a really well done piece of software that I thoroughly enjoy using. It feels smaller and more lightweight than apps like Coda and Espresso and yet is far beyond a simple text editor.

Great features include split screen editing, live previews, auto-completion, and a project drawer to quickly get an overview and switch between your files. It also supports syntax highlighting for a ton of different languages, from HTML and PHP to AppleScript. You can preorder the app for the awesome price of $34 (Coda is $99) and/or try out the free alpha.

Developers: Alex Gordon and Jean-Nicolas Jolivet
Alpha: Free download available on the Chocolat website

Chocolat

Gradient

Coding CSS gradients by hand is a pain. There are a few free online solutions that help you out, but none have the grace and finesse of Gradient for Mac. The UI is super slick and it makes creating CSS gradients a breeze, one might even call it fun.

The major limitation here, as just about every developer who tries the app points out, is that you can currently only create two color gradients. Given that designers’ tastes are so often much more complex, this really hurts the app’s usefulness to cost ratio. Fortunately, the developers are hard at work implementing multi step gradients so you can expect this app to get really awesome really fast later this year. CSS preprocessor fans will be happy to know that Sass support is coming soon as well.

Price: $5.99
Developer: Jumpzero

Gradient

Sublime Text 2

Sublime Text is a rarity in that it’s a Windows app that’s actually good enough to catch our attention (though the icon is still far from the quality we’re used to on OS X). This web text editor has some really innovative features like multiple selections and a mini map that allows you to quickly jump to any part of the page. It’s a great app and more than a few Mac users have longed to see it cross platforms.

Fortunately, the developer has come to his senses and Sublime Text 2 will be available for OS X, Linux and Windows. It’s packed with plenty of new features including an awesome fullscreen distraction free mode. No word yet on an official release date but you can hop on the beta free.

Developer: Jon Skinner
Beta: Sublime Text Blog

Sublime Text 1

Spotify

2011 was a big year for Spotify and its revolutionary radio format (listen to anything you want). It finally hit the U.S., a transition which has created a huge influx of new free users paid subscribers. Spotify is rocking the radio industry and we just can’t get enough.

Keep a close eye on Spotify though, the innovation is only just beginning. 2012 will be the year of Spotify apps, a new initiative that brings all kinds of added functionality to the Spotify player such as lyrics, Billboard charts and tighter Last.fm integration. These have only just taken off the ground so you can expect to see a lot of developments in this area this year.

Developer: Spotify
Spotify Apps Info: On the Spotify app website

Spotify Apps

Wunderkit

Wunderlist took the world by storm in 2011. The award winning todo list application taught us that task management could be beautiful, functional, collaborative and synced across multiple platforms for the magical price of free. So how in the world can the people at 6Wunderkinder justify the investment?

The answer lies in their next product, a premium project management tool called Wunderkit (coming sometime in 2012). All the features you’ve wanted to see brought to Wunderlist are here: subtasks, reoccurring tasks, workspaces (multiple projects), and full team collaboration with the ability to “follow” workspaces and leave status updates. Be sure to check out the screenshots, they’re gorgeous.

Developer: 6Wunderkinder
Sneak Peek: 6Wunderkinder blog

Wunderkit

Which Apps Will You Be Watching in 2012?

There you have it, this list represents the best of what we know is coming for Mac users in 2012. Whether you’re looking for a new text editor or a better way to manage your projects, it’s going to be an exciting year full of great developments.

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think of the apps above. Also be sure to tell us about any other apps that you expect to have major updates this year. Are you currently using any alpha or beta releases? We want to know!

Everyone loves getting a new Mac, but not everyone loves dishing out the requisite dough. Whether you’re looking at a $599 Mac Mini or a $2,499 Mac Pro, the expense can be burdensome. With new Macs, shopping around doesn’t typically help too much as prices tend to be fairly uniform.

However, if you’re willing to venture into the land of refurbished Macs, price tags can become much more friendly. For instance, on the Apple.com Refurbished Mac page you can typically find savings of up to almost 30%.

Today we want to hear your thoughts on refurbished Macs. Cast your vote in the poll to let us know if you’ve ever purchased a refurb, whether through Apple or someone else. After that, leave a comment below and tell us about your experience. Were you happy with your refurbished Mac? Would you recommend this route to someone else?

Our featured sponsor this week is PhotoStyler, a fantastic and unbelievably easy way to edit photos on your Mac. With dozens of gorgeous presets, you’re never more than a click away from beautiful photos. You can also venture off on your own and leverage a powerful but simple toolset to customize the result.

With PhotoStyler, you can achieve amazing vintage effects: lomo, cross-process, tilt-shift, borders and frames; all this and more can easily be applied by anyone with no photo editing experience. Then finish off with easy sharing options for Facebook and Flickr. I really love this application and am confident that you will too!

Go Get It!

Go grab your free trial of PhotoStyler from the Neatberry website. Once you realize that you can’t live without it, the full version can be purchased for $29.99.

A journal is a great tool for keeping track of daily happenings and the start of a new year is a great time to begin your new journal. Whether you are tracking progress toward achieving those resolutions you’ve just made, chronicling the important milestones in your life, or simply creating a dialog with yourself, a good journaling application will be your constant companion throughout the year.That’s why it is important to select the best option for your needs.

There are a lot of choices in this growing category. Today we are going to take a look at one of the venerable Mac-based journaling programs, MacJournal from Mariner Software. Version 6.0 was released recently, and I’ll be pointing out the significant new features as we go along. Let’s get started.

MacJournal's Interface

You can purchase MacJournal at the App Store or directly from Mariner Software. The price either way is $39.95. (Actually, at this writing it is $.04 more at the App Store.) Mariner also puts it on sale from time to time, and you might find it part of a low-cost bundle. Go to Mariner’s site and you can download a trial version. You need OS 10.6.8 or higher. Manual installation is standard, and there is a video tutorial at the Mariner site for those who’d like more guidance.

The Basics

In MacJournal you first create a Document, the main file for your information. Each document contains Journals, which in turn contain Entries. You can create as many entries as you want in your journals and your documents can contain any number of journals. You can also create Smart Journals, which are saved searches that gather specific entries from all the journals in your document. Journals can also be nested in other journals. You are probably safe thinking of journals the same way you would think of folders in many other information managers.

Entries can hold a wide variety of media. Text, of course, but images, video, PDFs and sound files can all be handled by MacJournal.

When you create a new document, you will be presented with an open entry with that day’s date and one new journal, as in the screenshot below:

A new journal with an unedited, open entry.

This is a pretty standard Mac interface. I’ll demonstrate the ways you can adjust this view as we go along. First, let’s add some information to our new journal.

The default topic title is the date, but you can give the entry whatever topic title you’d like.

A new entry with text and a new topic title.

As you would expect, MacJournal is very date-centric. Want to create an entry for any day, just click on that date in the little calendar window at the bottom left. Dates are adjustable, and you can create entries with future dates.

Just click on any date to create a new entry.

A Real World Example

Let’s put MacJournal to some practical use now. I’m going to start a journal to keep track of the movies I watch. I begin with “Beginners,” which I watched just last night.

The first entry in my movie journal.

MacJournal 6.0 has several new pieces of meta data that I can associate with an entry using the Inspector. Another nice new feature of version 6.0 is the easy access to the Inspector panel. A small Inspector button resides in the list in the Entries Pane, and there is another to the right of the topic name in the Info Bar. Click that and the Inspector panel appears, so that I can add tags, adjust the date, select a rating for the movie, and much more.

Click the "i" buttons to reveal the Inspector.

After I’ve made several entries, my movie journal begins to take shape. MacJournal helps me visually keep track of my entries by allowing me to select which pieces of meta data display in the entries pane and in the Info Bar at the top of the entry content. Clicking the little down arrow to the far right of the column headers in the entries pane opens up the list of meta data, which I can check off to display.

You can determine which meta data appears in the entries pane.

The Info Bar in the above screenshot merely has the topic for that entry, “Henry’s Crime.” But you can customize the Info Bar to show other pieces of meta data, as I’ve done in the screenshot below:

You can choose which data to display in the Info Bar.

In each of the screenshots I’ve shown so far, MacJournal’s navigation mode is set to “Journal.” That is, it shows us entries by journal. New in version 6 is the ability to change this, so you can choose to view your entries by Tag, Rating, Due Date, Priority, Status, Mood, or Label. The navigation mode selector is the little icon below the calendar and farthest to the right.

You can select alternate ways to navigate your entries.

Entries in this document by type of movie, based on the tags applied to each entry.

New Ways to View Your Entries

Version 6.0 of MacJournal introduces two new views, which are accessible from toolbar buttons. With Timeline view you can see your entries paraded across a re-scalable diagram.

New to version 6 of MacJournal is the Timeline View.

The Calendar view opens a large calendar on which the topic names of your entries are displayed based upon their dates.

Also new to MacJournal in version 6 is the Calendar View.

I’m not sure how vital either of these views is for everyday journaling, but I think they may well help extend the usefulness of MacJournal into other areas. For instance, an attorney might find the timeline view a valuable aid in laying out a case, while the calendar view makes MacJournal useful for future planning, especially when combined with the due dates and priorities meta data.

Data In, Data Out

An important feature of any application like MacJournal is how easy is it to get your information in and back out again. It begins with the editor, which is pretty standard Mac-fare, quite adequate for the job, but not as powerful as a full-blown word processor. You can export your entries in an impressive number of formats from plain text to ePub, the open e-book standard.

MacJournal sports a wide range of export options.

You can also select and export multiple entries at the same time. And another nice feature is that you can view multiple entries in the editor window simultaneously, although this would be a more powerful feature if the size of each entry would adjust based on the amount of text. Instead it is a set size, so that there is a lot of white space when the entry is small, and when it is long, the text is truncated in this view.

Select multiple entries to display them together in the editor, or export them as one file.

If you want to share your journaling with the world, MacJournal supports the most popular blogs, including WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal and Tumblr. You can set up a specific journal with your blog server, so it is easy to keep your private thoughts from your public ones.

Other Choices

There are many journaling options available for Mac users. Search “journal” here at AppStorm and you’ll find excellent reviews of many of them. If you are looking for a minimalist approach, try viJournal. If you want an application that best mimics a paper journal, give Per Se a look. And Day One makes a science of creating a new entry, quickly and easily.

A Genuine Journal Application

A “journal” can be anything from a personal diary to an official record. With its full-range of powerful features, MacJournal handles any kind of journaling you might throw its way. In fact, it is even a viable option for all kinds of writing. While it lacks many of the features of a writing application like Scrivener, MacJournal does serve me quite well for one-off articles, correspondence and many other writing projects.

MacJournal is not flashy, but it does what it does very well, so I give it a rating of 9 out of 10.

I remember from when I used a Windows machine how annoying the anti-virus apps used to be. It was kind of a “can’t live with them, or without them” relationship. If you ran a Windows machine, you had to have an anti-virus app if you wanted it to remain functional. But it was kind of like trading one thing for another, as most of the anti-virus apps were always annoying and slowed down my computer a lot (it almost felt like installing a virus that would keep away even worse viruses away from my computer).

When I made the switch to Mac, one of the big factors that influenced my decision were all the people telling me that Mac OS is safe out of the box, and that I didn’t need an anti-virus. This is kind of a difficult topic, though, and still many people don’t feel safe running their Mac without an anti-virus installed. Today we are reviewing a free alternative to the popular paid anti-virus Mac apps. It’s called ClamXav, let’s take a look!

Getting Started

Alert!

The installation of ClamXav is actually quite scary and a little bit annoying if you download it off the website. First off, you will get a warning that tells you that bad stuff might happen to your computer if you use the app, and in that case that the bad things actually happen, ClamXav can not be held responsible.

Then, you will be asked to install the engine that the anti-virus runs on. ClamXav runs on the popular and prestigious ClamAV antivirus engine. The installation will close ClamXav and open a step-by-step installation of the engine that does all the updating and scanning within the app. After this, you’ll be able to finally use the app. Well, sort of. You also need to update the latest virus definitions before you can start scanning your computer.

I assume if you get the app from the Mac App Store, you might be able to skip the engine installation, and instead you just have to update the virus definitions.

Using ClamXav

Selecting Folders

The interface for ClamXav is as simple and functional as they come, which is a very nice change of pace from the usual anti-virus apps. You have a few buttons that can help you start or stop a scan, update the virus definitions, show the scan and update log, and access the preferences. The scanning lets you select which folders you want the app to search for viruses in, and you can even keep these folders as “favorites” in the left sidebar.

Scheduling

Under the preferences you’ll find options to set a default folder for the quarantined files, exclude certain extensions of files from the search, and even set periodical automatic updates for scanning or/and updating the virus definitions. Overall, it’s a pretty complete app, especially for being completely free.

Detecting and Dealing with Threats

Results

After a scan is finished, a recount of all the stats related to the scan will appear below the main frame. In there, you’ll see the total number of infections known by the app, the number of files and directories scanned, and most importantly: the number of infections found. The infected files will be displayed with more details in the main frame, where you see the name of the file, name of the infection, and the status of the virus.

When I first ran the app, I told it to scan my home folder. It took a couple hours to finish scanning, but it didn’t find anything. Which brings up the next question…

Do You Really Need An Antivirus?

A while back AppStorm editor Joshua Johnson wrote a roundup on anti-virus apps for Mac, and in it he made it pretty clear that while an anti-virus might not be as necessary as it is on Windows machines, it might help you feel and stay more secure. If you take the necessary precautions, such as installing all of the software updates on time, and you don’t go around navigating shady sites or opening mysterious emails, then you should be fine without one. But then again, you can never be too cautious.

Even if you still don’t feel safe using your Mac without an antivirus, I would advise against buying any of the paid apps like Norton or McAfee and instead suggest one of the free open-source alternatives like ClamXav. Let’s face it, you won’t really be using it much anyway. But if you don’t trust using an open-source app with the safety of your machine, by all means buy whichever one makes you feel safe.

Conclusion

We can’t really advise you against using anti-virus apps, and even if we could, we wouldn’t. The truth is, you can’t ever be 100% secure. Personally, I prefer to stay away from these type of apps, but I make sure to take other precautions with what I download and where I browse. I also try to backup my computer periodically in case something bad happens (not having something like Time Machine makes it hard, but it’s still manageable).

Like I said, if you are going to use one of these apps, I don’t think you can go wrong with a free one, especially ClamXav. It’s simple, clean, and most importantly, it feels trustworthy. It also helps that it is powered by one of the most popular anti-virus engines like ClamAV is.

What is your take on Mac anti-virus apps? Do you use any, and have you payed for it? Which one? Let us know in the comments!

Do you remember the last time you searched frantically for your camera to capture a moment, a landscape or something else that took your breath away? And do you remember the disappointment when you later at home saw that something – a lamp post, a person, a trash bin… – completely ruined the photo?

Now you can easily fix this problem without having to take intermediate lessons in Photoshop. With Snapheal, it’s as easy as painting over the parts of the image you don’t want and make them disappear. We’ll take a closer look at the app after the break…

Like Magic

The bottom of line of Snapheal is easy enough to summarize: remove unwanted objects from your photos and enhance them at the same time (and in the same app).

The promo video on their website looks astonishing, but of course I wouldn’t believe it until I tried the app myself. Being someone who uses Photoshop professionally on a daily basis I was skeptical, to say the least.

The app interface itself is straight forward, beginning with getting a photo in there. You can simply drag and drop them in there or use an importer, which offers quick access to your iPhoto library and pictures folder.

If you’re using Lion, you can use the full screen mode of Snapheal, which is really awesome as it allows you to see your image large as possible without being distracted by anything else on your screen.

Welcome to Snapheal. Just drop a photo in to get started.

The first interface screen is the most important one, as it allows you to select the parts of the image you want to get rid of. All you have to do is paint over the unwanted areas, which will result in a red overlay.

Paint over the areas you wish to remove.

There are some options to take notice of in the right sidebar: for one, you can adjust the diameter of your brush. I found that I get the best results if I chose a brush that isn’t too tiny. You shouldn’t overpaint too much, but if you are too selective, the app won’t be able to erase the unwanted objects as nicely.

Furthermore, you can select in the lower part which method of replacement should be used. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish – wipe out the Eiffel tower or a speck of dust – these separate modes yield different results.

If you’re trying to remove objects against a very complex background like with the forest in my image, for example, the Twister mode gives the best results.

Once you’re ready, hit “Erase” and then sit back and wait because the calculations really take a while. After all, the app has to analyze the background and surrounding areas of the unwanted objects. Be prepared to have to idle for a minute or longer; my 27″ iMac (2.66Ghz i5 with 4GB RAM) needed for the corrections marked above about 2 minutes. I couldn’t do much else except write some text at the same time; Snapheal consumes a lot of resources.

Snapheal doing magic and educating/entertaining you in the meantime.

The good thing, however, is that Snapheal seems to be aware of that and tries to shorten the waiting period by providing you with fun and interesting facts during the calculations. For instance, did you know it’s illegal to grow a dandelion within the city limits of Colorado?.

No matter how long it takes, the results are astonishing, to say the least. It took me a couple of attempts to figure out the perfect diameter for the brush and the erase method, but I think the result speaks for itself.

Left the original; right is the image with the removed objects.

For those who do not like to search for differences: I completely removed the overhead cables of the train, the metal box on the upper left border of the image, the rod sticking out horizontally to the right from the roof of the train station. Oh, and all the buoys from the river.

Going Further

You should be properly impressed by now. But there’s even more to Snapheal, even if the other options are not quite as breathtaking.

The tabs within Snapheal will lead you next to the Clone & Stamp tool, which allows you to duplicate parts of the image or clean up areas which may appear smeared after the erasing step.

Next up are the “usual suspects” of Retouch Tools, including contrast, saturation etc. If you know your way around masking, you can even use that.

By the way, if you have no idea what those functions are and how to use them, no worries: Snapheal ships with tutorial videos for every single step.

The next tab allows for Adjustments. Via sliders you can set the brightness, contrast, exposure and color temperature to a level of your liking. It goes on with hue, saturation, sharpening and many other features. Last up are the options to crop and rotate the image.

Some touching up later…

As you can see, touching up the saturation and lighting up the darker parts of the image can work wonders.

Verdict

Snapheal is an app full of surprises. The first surprise is the quality of its main function: the removal of unwanted objects. Knowing just how much time it takes me to do that properly and manually in Photoshop, I expected to see obvious removal marks and sloppy rendering.

While Snapheal isn’t perfect and careless use of the marker brush (which leaves the red overlay) will produce some smearing, the overall effect is really, really good. For someone who didn’t know the difference, the manipulated area will be hard to spot.

Also, this app isn’t aimed at professionals who can afford Photoshop and know their way around it. It’s aimed at you, your parents or friends who would much rather have nice print out of their photo instead of spending a day or two tweaking it. For that target audience, Snapheal exceeds expectations.

The second pleasant surprise is that the app doesn’t stop there. It offers a plethora of adjustment tools which allow for really nice image tweaking without having to re-import the image into iPhoto. And the results are at least as good if not even better.

For its price, Snapheal is a worth a look for all photographers who need an easy and fast solution to their demands. For those who don’t want to dive in the complexity of Pixelmator and for those who can’t afford Photoshop. In short: Snapheal is the image editor for the rest of us.

Whether it’s at Starbucks, the mall or Motel 6, free WiFi hotspots are popping up everywhere. While you’re using those hotspots, you might unknowingly be giving away some seriously personal information to an opportunistic hacker or two, including your social network, email, and even your online banking account login credentials.

With personal information like that at risk, you might be tempted to stop using those free hotspots altogether, but an app called Cloak by Bourgeois Bits hopes to alleviate those risks by providing Mac users with a corporate grade VPN service built into a consumer level app. Read on to see if Cloak really is the perfect companion to public WiFi.

Using Cloak

The designers of Cloak wanted to make it really easy to use, and they succeeded. The app itself sits unassumingly in the menu bar, waiting to be activated. When you click on the icon you are presented with your connection status, the option to connect or disconnect as well as options to “Spread the Word” and quit; that’s it. There is really nothing to configure, just click connect and get going. The preferences are similarly bare, you have to option to set a hotkey to activate Cloak as well the ability to set up Growl notifications. In addition you’ll also find your account options, which we’ll touch on later in the review.

Using Cloak to browse the web.

Cloak works independent of browsers or other apps meaning that whether you’re using Safari, Chrome, or any other browser, you’re protected, which gives it a leg-up over similar browser dependent extensions and add-ons.

That also means that Cloak isn’t limited to just browsers, it protects all web traffic on your Mac including individual programs. I found the app’s minimal interface is refreshing, you don’t have to worry about servers, encryption, or anything else technical, it just works. In fact, this review is being written at my local Panera using their free WiFi and Cloak. It’s fast, simple, and secure. If iCloud (nee MobileMe) is Exchange for the rest of us, then Cloak is VPN for the rest of us.

How it Works

Cloak’s interface is deceptively simple, beneath the hood there’s quite a bit going on. It works essentially like any corporate VPN, by using public Internet to access a secure, private network. They power their backend with the venerable OpenVPN which is an open-source SSL/TLS VPN implementation. That’s geek-speak for very secure.

Since Bourgeois Bits is a relatively new company I was glad to see that they do not host their own VPN servers, rather, they piggyback on AWS, Rackspace, Linode, Zerigo, and Gandi.net, which means that you should almost never experience any downtime. In addition, Cloak has technology which allows it to choose the server nearest to you, which should prevent your connection from becoming slower based on the location of servers.

While you probably shouldn’t use Cloak for watching videos, it can be done. Just remember the speed of Cloak is dependent on the speed of your WiFi connection. Long story short, Cloak is technically on par with many large IT networks. Bourgeois Bits has a much more in-depth look at how Cloak works on their website, which you should check out if you need to know the nitty-gritty details.

Where it Falls Short

Cloak goes far beyond a traditional proxy and I can easily recommend it for anyone who uses public WiFi frequently. That being said it’s not perfect. Thanks to HTTPS, Cloak might be overkill for most people and you’ll have to decide if it’s worth the monthly fee based on your situation. In addition, connecting to the Cloak VPN takes a while and when you are up and running the connection drops more than I’d like it too.

Connecting takes a while.

Finally, when you are connected to their VPN, Cloak only offers time tracking in lieu of a full usage meter, this is a bit perplexing as only the free plan restricts your usage time, the paid plans all charge you based on data usage.  While there are plenty of apps for the Mac which can monitor your bandwidth, it would be nice to see it built into Cloak.

Pricing

Since you are redirecting all your traffic through their servers Bourgeois Bits charges a monthly fee for using Cloak for more than two hours or up to one GB of data, whichever comes first. The plans offer 20 GB and 50GB of traffic a month for $8 and $15 respectively, which should be more than enough for email, social networks, and even some music or video streaming on a fairly regular basis.

Bourgeois Bits also makes free apps for the iPad and iPhone which share your Cloak account, you won’t have to pay twice, but the usage is shared.

The only real way to know which plan to choose is to monitor your usage of free WiFi, frequent travelers or regulars at coffee shops should obviously consider a more expensive plan.

Wrap-Up

Public WiFi isn’t safe and Cloak fulfills its promise to protect you, but at a cost. Only you can decide if paying the monthly fee is worth it. With new protocols such as HTTPS, the need for an app like Cloak might be less urgent, and many people will be willing to settle for a combination of HTTPS and the free TOR browser to protect them.

That being said, if you can live with the occasion service hiccup or slow connection, Cloak is the simplest and most comprehensive way to protect yourself when on an open WiFi network.

We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in February. Whether you’re interested in Mac, iPhone, Web, or Android apps, there’s bound to be something you didn’t spot over the course of the month. Now would be a good time to explore a part of the AppStorm Network you’ve never seen before!

Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month!

Best of Android.AppStorm

Best of iPad.AppStorm

Best of Windows.AppStorm

Best of iPhone.AppStorm

Best of Web.AppStorm

Best of Mac.AppStorm

Share Your Ideas

Is there something in particular you’d like to see on the site next month? We’d absolutely love to hear your suggestions for articles, topics and giveaways. Just let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading AppStorm!

Managing your various accounts, passwords, IDs and other sensitive data is a tricky situation. You want it to be both accessible and secure, two goals that are by nature at odds with each other.

Today we’re going to give you a sneak peek at Dashlane, an app that promises to simplify this process and help you manage and use your information while keeping it safe from prying eyes. It’s a tall order so let’s see if this app can make good on its promise.

Exclusive Offer: Try Dashlane Today!

Dashlane is currently in a private beta period, but the good folks behind this awesome software have offered to set up Mac.AppStorm readers with some exclusive invites. Simply follow the link below to try it for yourself!

Click here to try Dashlane free.

Getting Started

After you download Dashlane, there’s a multi-step setup process. It’s fairly quick and it’s all basic stuff: setting up browser extensions, choosing an email and password, etc. However, right off the bat, I spotted one thing that I wasn’t too crazy about:

No Safari Support

At this point, Dashlane doesn’t support Safari. Hopefully this is just a beta thing and not something indicative of a long-term strategy. Whether you’re a Safari user or not, you have to admit that many Mac users are going to want to use the browser that comes built into their system.

The next thing that caught my interest was the following window, which informs you that there is absolutely no way to recover your password if it is lost:

No Password Recovery

This seems harsh at first, but upon reflection it makes perfect sense. The app is built to keep your information completely safe so it doesn’t make too much sense to have an easy back door that thieves can exploit to get around the security.

I did some checking and other popular apps in this category like 1Password have the exact same policy, so any objections should be raised against this market in general and not necessarily Dashlane itself.

Managing Your Information

Once you’re done with the setup, you can dive in and start entering your information. The interface uses a very bright, mostly white theme with some subtle gradients added for a little texture. It’s not as customized as 1Password so if you’re not a fan of skeuomorphism then you might dig the simplicity here.

The window layout is exactly what you’d expect with your information being split up into various categories on the left and the selected category’s contents in the center.

The Dashlane Interface

There are five different categories for your information: Contact, IDs, Payment, Logins and Passwords, and Purchases. Security Dashboard is something else that we’ll look at later.

The Sidebar

Entering Information

Entering your information using Dashlane is super quick and easy. Under each category, you’ll see a few little round “+” buttons. Just hit the button and a form pops out for you to fill in and save. The workflow here makes setting up lots of information a very quick process.

Entering Information

For Contacts, IDs and Payment, you can enter information in manually. For everything else, it’s simply collected automatically as you log into sites in your browser. I like that this information is automatically collected, but disabling manual input is an odd touch. I feel like I should have the choice to go either route for things like passwords.

Dashlane automatically helps you speed through purchases and even saves the information about that purchase (total spent, retailer name, etc.) back in the app.

Security Dashboard

The Security Dashboard is a really helpful feature that takes a look at all of the passwords that you’ve saved with Dashlane and gives you a basic analysis of their strength. It shows you a little bar that rates your password on a scale of 1-100% and then provides a simple written interpretation of the score such as “Safe” or “Very Unsafe.”

Security Dashboard

Once you’ve got some information entered it’s time to go to your browser and either put that information to good use or start collecting more by logging into your favorite sites.

Dashlane in the Browser

Once you have the Dashlane browser extensions installed, the little Dashlane mascot will start showing up in text and password fields.

Password fields have Dashlane icons

Then when you click on a field, Dashlane pops up options to fill it right in place. This is a really nice implementation of password management that’s much more direct than other options like LastPass or 1Password. Having the options right there at the field makes for a much more seamless experience.

Login options show up right where you need them

In cases where you’re filling out a long form full of personal information, you simply choose your preset identity and all the forms on the page are then filled out based on that information.

If you don’t have login information for a particular site yet, simply enter it manually and Dashlane will ask if you want to save it.

Syncing

Dashlane is a local Mac app but you have the option to sync your information to the Dashlane servers so that you can quickly access it on other devices.

Dashlane’s Sync Preferences

The developers handled this part with a lot of tact. Syncing is completely optional and even when you choose to sync you can specifically select what does and doesn’t get transferred. Plus to be as safe as possible, your financial information is never synced.

My Thoughts on Dashlane

Overall, Dashlane is a solid product with a lot of potential. Strictly speaking, it’s not a completely unique app as there are plenty of other apps out there that perform similar functions. However, Dashlane has some nice tricks up its sleeve that you don’t find elsewhere.

As a 1Password user myself, I missed the eye candy but appreciated the added functionality. As I mentioned above, the in-place pop up menus are very convenient, but where Dashlane really shines is with purchases. The ability to record purchases is a really nice touch that gives this app the unique buying proposition that it needs.

That being said, there are definitely some places where 1Password outperforms Dashlane as well. For instance, in 1Password I can create multiple identities, which is great if you share a computer with a spouse.

One Last Gripe: The Menu Bar App

My biggest complaint about this app is a little nerdy, but it’s a huge deal to me. Along with the app that sits in your dock, Dashlane comes with a menu bar helper that automatically appears when you open the app. Unfortunately, this has a major flaw:

No Quit Option?

From what I can tell, you can’t quit the thing. Here I’ve closed and logged out of the app, and yet the menu bar item remains. To shut it down, I actually had to go into Activity Monitor. I like to have full control over what is and isn’t running on my machine so I can’t handle a menu bar app with no option to quit.

Conclusion

Dashlane is one of those apps that solves a practical problem faced by just about everyone who uses a computer. If you don’t have some sort of password manager, I highly recommend that you get one. Dashlane has set itself up to be a major player in this area with a clear advantage in the area of online shopping.

The app is still in beta but in my experience it’s perfectly stable and void of any noticeable bugs. The major area that needs work before a release is Safari support. Like many other Safari users, I’m not willing to switch to Firefox just so I can use this app.

Safari support aside, Dashlane is off to a very strong start and I definitely recommend checking it out once you get the chance. It’s extremely easy to use and integrates flawlessly with your current web workflow.

Ever since the release of the Mac App Store, I’ve been waiting for one specific category to take off: News apps. More specifically, innovative and free news apps.

This expectation isn’t some fanciful dream but something that arose out of a clear precedent: the iOS App Store. Today we’ll briefly discuss what the iOS App Store has in this area that the Mac App Store is desperately lacking and whether or not we can expect this void to continue in the future.

The iPad: The Rebirth of News

I love my iPad for a lot of reasons, it’s great for browsing the web, checking on my favorite social networks, sketching, even playing games. But there’s one thing that keeps me picking up my iPad daily even though I’m already on a Mac for eight to twelve hours every day: news.

The iPad is hands down the best way to experience daily news feeds. The reason for this is twofold. First is of course hardware. Apple has built an amazing device that simply gets every detail right. From the size of the screen to the smooth as butter touchscreen gestures, the iPad is a dream for reading.

Pushing this hardware to greatness however is a dedicated and extremely talented group of developers that seem to be continually redefining the way we experience our favorite news feeds. And by “news feeds” I don’t just mean streams from major producers like The New York Times, I mean RSS feeds from sites like this one, social feeds from Facebook and Twitter and every other type of content you can imagine. Consumable daily content has become a completely customized market where every single person can continually get a fresh crop of personalized information with almost no effort or cost.

Amazing Free iPad News Apps

Major news sources often have their own dedicated apps, but those aren’t usually of much interest to me. I’m much more interested in the category that I was just discussing: custom content.

One of the first notable entrants into this market was of course Flipboard. Love it or hate it, Flipboard launched a whole genre of innovative news apps that iPad owners simply can’t stop downloading.

Fliboard for iPad

It used to be the case that we thought of RSS readers as fairly basic apps that were quite unremarkable in their design, often taking on the visual metaphor of an email app. Flipboard showed us that they could be so much more. Suddenly, the news was not something to be read but experienced.

Flipboard released with the magical price point of free, setting the precedent for this genre. Today iPad owners can download a ton of great free news readers, each with their own unique spin. Notable players include Zite, Pulse, Flud, and Editions by AOL. Even Google has decided to throw its hat into this ring with Google Currents.

The Zite Way

My favorite of these is easily Zite. The reason for this is that Zite is an intelligent news app. It takes a look at the type of stuff that I’ve subscribed to in Google Reader and automatically splits the content into various categories. More importantly, it then auto populates those categories with content beyond the feeds that I’ve manually subscribed to. Zite is smart enough to learn what I like and then serve me up similar content from sources that I haven’t discovered yet.

Zite for iPad

This is the future of content consumption. Applications that extend our personal efforts with automated content filtration that knows exactly the type of articles to search for and deliver based on our preferences.

This is an important point because it’s a key area that can be carried over to any device. The Mac can’t currently replicate the incredibly enjoyable hands-on news experience that the iPad can, but it is just as or even more capable of delivering a customized stream of content in the same vein as Zite.

The Mac App Store

With this goal in mind, let’s have a look at the App Store. Following the same procedure we would use to find Flipboard, Zite and their brethren in the iOS App Store, we open up the Mac App Store and head to the top downloaded free news apps. This is what we find:

Mac App Store top downloaded free news apps

Note that this is everything that shows up. Twelve apps, almost none of which are even close to the type of content that we’re looking for. Several are run of the mill RSS readers, others are aimed at novel ideas like putting a news feed ticker on your desktop.

The closest we come is Mixtab, which started as a sloppy direct port of an iOS app but has since come a long way towards being a respectable Mac news reader. Though it falls far short of the charm and features of apps like Zite and Flipboard, it does at least serve as the only free app in the Mac App Store currently approaching this market.

Mixtab

Even if we hop over to the paid section, there’s not much compared to the iPad offering. Reeder and Pulp stand out as the clear leaders. However, Reeder is still your basic RSS reader (cue angry defensive comments), it simply looks way better than the NetNewsWire clones that we’re used to. Pulp, with its newspaper like theme and highly customizable interface, is much more like a Mac version of Flipboard, though it still doesn’t approach the idea of going beyond your subscribed content and serving up similar articles.

Pulp

Will 2012 Be Any Better?

I’m honestly not sure why there aren’t fifty developers working on bringing iPad-like free news apps to the Mac. Admittedly, as Mixtab has proved, it’s a tough nut to crack and you can’t simply port the experience unchanged. However, the market is undoubtedly a large one so the payoff could be a huge user base for the first movers in this market.

I firmly believe that this market will in fact materialize sooner or later, the timeline however is uncertain. Like the iPad, it likely needs one or two solid entrants to cause the avalanche of “me too” developers.

Recently, most of the iPad-only players in this market made the jump to iPhone. Flipboard, Zite, Pulse, Flud and Google Currents can all be accessed on any iOS device. This shows that these developers are anxious to expand into new territories, and the jump to the desktop is the next logical step. Unfortunately, it may be further away than we’d like it to be.

According to TUAW, the developers behind Flipboard were quoted as saying, “We definitely believe the desktop is part of our future, but it’s still on the whiteboard and not something we are launching soon.”

The arrival of Flipboard on the Mac would definitely make some huge waves in this ocean and you’d no doubt see Zite and others right behind it. Fortunately, the reason for Flipboard’s delay is that they really want to take the time to get it right. The Mac is a completely different beast than the iPad and I’d rather see them take forever to release something great than to rush to put something that’s unusable and really doesn’t add any innovation to the Mac news reader story

Zite and Pulse Are Looking Into Desktop Apps as Well

If we take a look at Quora, we can find similar statements from other developers. Mark Johnson of Zite says, “Zite’s goal is to deliver you personalized content wherever you are, so we’re certainly looking at Zite in your web browser or even potentially an application on the Mac” (source).

Along the same lines, Pulse co-founder Akshay Kothari says this in response to a query about whether or not a Mac app is coming: “One day, hopefully. Our hunch is that the interaction will have to change, to accomodate for keyboard/mouse input as opposed to touch. So, once we nail down the interaction, we’ll open it to the world!” (source).

Do You Want a New Mac News Reader?

In all honesty, if all of these apps and more suddenly made their way to the Mac App Store, I’d likely still find myself using my iPad as my go-to source for daily feeds. However, the force driving the cloud revolution is ubiquity and it would be great to have access to my Zite account (and others) from any platform.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this. Have you tried any of the iPad apps above? Do you think they offer something that you’re not getting from news apps on the Mac App Store? Which parts of that experience can be successfully transferred to the Mac, if any?

As we bid farewell to 2011 and greet 2012, we always like to take a look back and see which apps really stood out over the last year. There’s never a shortage of amazing apps to discuss, the hardest part of this post is simply narrowing down the options to something manageable! We put out a call to all our contributors and Twitter followers and asked for your favorite apps from the past year. The votes are in and the results were loud and clear.

Before we begin, let’s go over the rules. The idea here is to take a look at apps for which 2011 was significant. Perhaps they were released in 2011 or had a totally overhauled new version that blew us away. For instance, in last year’s post, Transmit 4 was a clear and easy choice. However, this year Transmit 4 won’t be on the list. It’s still an amazing app, but 2011 wasn’t really that significant in the Transmit story. Now that you get the idea, let’s jump in and take a look at some awesome apps that made big waves in 2011.

What Were Your Favorites?

That concludes our list of the twenty best Mac apps in 2011. We had plenty of brand new apps that were instant classics and even saw some old faces that continue to push out great updates and impress us year after year.

Leave a comment below and tell us about your favorite apps this year. Did we miss anything that deserved to be on the list? How did 2011 make your life better as a Mac user? We want to know!

We’re at the beginning of a brand new year, which means there’s no better time to look ahead and start planning your upcoming hardware purchases. If you’re like me, you’ve got a few pieces of aging hardware that you’ve been putting off updating and it’s just about time to give in and make a trip to the Apple Store.

In today’s poll, we want to know which Apple product is at the top of your list. Is it time to finally give in and pick up the MacBook Air that you’ve been drooling over or are you tired of working on a tiny screen and ready to switch to a 27″ iMac?

After you leave your vote, tell us about your purchase timeline in the comment area below. For instance, if you’re going to pick up a new iPad, will you wait for the iPad 3 or grab an iPad 2 sometime in the next few months?

Let me put you in a situation: you are browsing around, perhaps a music site, and you hear an amazing review of this new up and coming artist that just makes you want to hear it now. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a smart app that could help you find that album on the iTunes Store, right from your menu bar, and without having to go into iTunes and accessing the Store?

Well, the app that we are reviewing today is called Tunesque, and it works just like that. I like to refer to it as “Spotlight for the iTunes Store.” Let’s take a look and see how it can simplify music search.

Getting Started

Tunesque

When you run the app for the first time you’ll be greeted with a small window which will tell you how the app works. Tunesque will always be available in your menu bar, as any other menu bar app would. When you activate it, it will activate a search bar that can help you find pretty much anything on the iTunes Store: be it movies, songs, apps, podcasts, books, or whatever it is that you want from there.

How It Works

Tunesque In Action

When activated, Tunesque will display a search bar very similar to that of the Spotlight (that magnifying glass on your upper right corner). It also behaves much like it, once you start typing, results will start being displayed and classified by the type of media (songs, movies, artists, etc.).

Along with the categories and items of each result, Tunesque also displays each item’s price on the iTunes Store. To the side of each category there will also be a keyboard shortcut that will put emphasis on that category while all the others fade out. You can also view more information of each item by hovering over it, which will activate a small window on the side with the corresponding image and information of each item.

Once you select a search result, iTunes will be brought up and the iTunes Store will open with the resulting search displayed.

Other Features

Settings

This app has a bunch of cool details that I appreciate a lot. For example, you can customize a keyboard shortcut, much like the default CMD+Space shortcut that brings up Spotlight. Also, you can select which kinds of media you would like displayed on your search results. For example, if you only want to be shown songs on your results, you can deselect all the other options.

The default color scheme for the app is a dark theme that doesn’t look very good on the interface of a Mac. Fortunately, you can also change the color to a more amicable (and Spotlight-like) interface under the settings.

Shortcomings

Unfortunately, Tunesque does not work with media that is already in your library, it will only work with stuff from the iTunes Store. This makes it exclusively an app to purchase media, and not to search it and play it quickly.

I know many people don’t use iTunes as their go-to media player, I’ve even talked about how to substitute it before. Personally, while I still use iTunes to buy and store my favorite music and keep it in sync with my iOS devices, I also use Spotify on a regular basis to listen to new music while I’m working on my computer. Instead of just pointing me to where to buy a song, I would prefer if an app like this allowed me to play a song from Spotify.

I know it isn’t easy to develop an app that works in conjunction with more than one media player app, especially when there are so many of them; but I still can’t fall in love with this app because of that. It’s just that for me, it’s not very useful.

Conclusion

The idea for the app is great, and the execution is also nice. I was honestly expecting to find a bunch of bugs before getting into it, but fortunately that was not the case at all. The pricing is right, if not cheaper than it should be (I would expect an app like this to cost at least a dollar). The interface is also good, I like how they take something familiar like the Spotlight look and adapt it to their app to make it seem more familiar.

It’s just that, like I mentioned before, the way I use my media player apps does not completely fit into the idea of this app. I would really like an app like this that worked exclusively with my iTunes library. Spotlight does it, but it also brings up a bunch of other results that aren’t what I’m looking for most of the time. What about you?

Our featured sponsor this week is Chronicle Mini, the best free way to keep up on your bills from your menu bar.

Chronicle Mini is an amazing little app that sits in your menu bar and helps you stay on top of your reoccurring bills. In just a few clicks you can set up a new bill (say a mortgage payment or a cell phone bill), create a reminder in iCal and set the bill to repeat on the first of every month. When it comes time to pay the bill, Chronicle Mini can take you right to the appropriate website and upon payment will change the status of the bill to completed.

This app is incredibly helpful and is so simple that anyone can use it. Given that it’s completely free, there’s absolutely no reason not to download it. You can use Chronicle Mini perfectly as a standalone app, or if you really want to master your bills, it will work in conjunction with the full version of Chronicle.

Go Get It!

Go grab your free copy of Chronicle Mini from the Mac App Store today and never forget another bill payment again!

Recently, I looked at Checkout, a straightforward, easy-to-use POS software for small businesses. However, Checkout can have its limitations and if you are a large retail business with several different stores operating, Checkout may not help you entirely. This is where Lightspeed comes in. It is aimed towards much larger businesses who are already well established in the retail sector.

I downloaded the trial (more information below) and had a look at it for myself. Here are my thoughts…

First Thoughts

Before you commit to buying Lightspeed, you can download a 30-day free trial from their website, which is good for up to 5 users. Bear in mind, though, that you also have to install Lightspeed Server (included in the installation file) and, if you are using Lightspeed on more than one Mac, you will have to define a computer as the server.

Once you’ve got everything up and installed, click on the Lightspeed icon in the Finder and log in with the default-provided user name and password (if all your Macs are on the same network then there is often no need to set up your server). You will be prompted to register your copy of Lightspeed (or the demo, if you have signed up for this instead) and then afterwards you are greeted with the Browser, which is reminiscent of iTunes and its Cover Flow feature.

The browser and home screen of Lightspeed

From the browser you can access your customers, products, suppliers, purchase orders and so on from the side menu. A toolbar also pops up (you can hide this by pressing ?T) which gives you quick and easy access to the features of Lightspeed that you will probably use most often, such as your quotes, suppliers and the POS system.

Lightspeed's built-in toolbar

Pricing

Lightspeed is priced towards the higher end of the market and may be too much of an expense for a small businesses. A single user licence costs around $1,098 for the cheapest package (savings are available if you buy more than one license). Lightspeed packages come in three different forms: Good (which includes technical support from the Lightspeed team), Better (which includes the hardware needed for Lightspeed) and Best (which includes technical support, Lightspeed hardware and an eCommerce store).

The various pricing plans available for Lightspeed

There are many different add-ons available for Lightspeed (such as integration with an iPhone or iPad) so to make sure you’re getting the best detail for your retail business, get in contact with Lightspeed directly and discuss your needs with them.

Features

There are plenty of features nestled within Lightspeed that make it a POS system well worth considering. Let’s take a look at a few in a bit more detail.

Products

Lightspeed has borrowed a lot of inspiration for its interface from Cover Flow in iTunes and OS X’s Finder, which makes it considerably easier to navigate through the products you offer in your store. With the Products view, a list of your stocked products appears along with a little indicator indicating the product’s current stock count. Clicking on the product gives you a bit more detail about it, including how many are reserved for other customers, how many are on order and the item’s inventory history (when it was last purchased/ordered).

More detailed information about a particular product stocked in Lightspeed

You can easily change any existing information about the product in question by simply clicking on it (for example, if the item is currently on sale) and Lightspeed can also reorder the product automatically when stock gets low (the reorder quantity is defined by the administrator). If products are sold by size (for example, shoes) then you can define a master product (known as a Matrix Master Product in Lightspeed) and tailor your products from that (meaning you don’t have to create a new product for every single size you stock!).

POS Mode

One of the best features about Lightspeed is its fullscreen POS mode, which allows you to carry out transactions without any distractions or awkward clicking around. The POS mode is available in two formats, the Scan mode (if you’ve got a barcode scanner connected) or the Button mode, which allows you to click on the products sold. Seeing as I haven’t got a barcode scanner, I will demonstrate the Button mode for this review.

Lightspeed in POS mode, with a transaction in progress

In the POS mode you can choose from your range of products (which are arranged by category) or by searching for them either by their item code (which is defined by you) or their name. You can also enter basic information about the customer (such as their name, phone number and zip/postal code) or, if they are an existing one, select their name from your database.

Settling a transaction (this time with cash)

When it comes to settling a transaction, you can do it either via cash, check, credit or debit card, a loan or a lease. Lightspeed is not (yet, anyway) compatible with card readers so you’ll have to enter the authorization amount from the card manually into the system. In the POS view you can also put transactions on hold and enter more detailed information about the transaction, such as the sales assistant who helped (if your assistants work on a commission basis), any discount to be granted and the tax rate.

Orders and Invoices

If you are primarily a mail order business, then you can use Lightspeed not only to manage your in-store retail but also your mail-order business. The program will manage any orders you’ve taken and whether or not they have been shipped and invoiced. To create a new order, you simply head over to the Orders section of the program, click on New and enter the customer information and the product information.

A list of all orders in Lightspeed

Thanks to the built-in inventory feature of Lightspeed, it automatically recognises if an order can be shipped or not. Any order with the status Partially Received means that the customer is still waiting for an item of the order to be shipped (if, for example, you do not have it in stock just yet).

Creating an invoice in Lightspeed

Once a customer has received the products then it’s time to invoice! From an order, you can click on the button Invoice which will transfer all information from the order (such as the products ordered, quantities, prices and customer information) onto the invoice, meaning all you have to do tweak a few final details (such as the payment terms and payment method). You can email or print off invoices and once it has been created, it pops up in the invoice list so that it can be tracked.

Purchase Orders

Lightspeed can also handle the purchasing side of your company by managing your suppliers, products and purchase orders. What is clever about Lightspeed is that it tracks your inventory and, depending on the settings you have defined in the product’s options, will alert you to reorder that particular product.

Purchasing Actions in Lightspeed, showing which products need to be reordered

You can automatically create a purchase order from one of these requests and all the necessary information concerning the product is carried over. Once the PO has been carried out then Lightspeed tracks its status (i.e. whether it has been received, processed or invoiced) and automatically books the products into stock on arrival. It can also keep a track on the invoices your suppliers have sent you thereby avoiding any nasty reminder letters!

Final Thoughts

Lightspeed is a fantastic example of a well-thought through POS and retail management program and it has been designed with one thing at heart: simplicity. The whole program is extremely easy to navigate and doesn’t take long to get used to and you’ll soon find that it can really work wonders for your retail business.

However the hefty price tag may put a lot of people off it at first start and seeing as there are cheaper solutions out there on the market, it certainly isn’t a possibility for smaller businesses. If, though, you’ve got a well-established retail business with the need to manage orders, in-store transactions and purchasing, then Lightspeed is the perfect solution for you and can really help your business in the long run.

To see what a mean, head over to their website and try it out before committing to buy. I’m sure you’ll be impressed by the results!