Category: Mac

Whether you’re making a flow or org chart for a report, sketching the changes you want done to your front yard landscaping, or drafting an interactive mockup of your next iPhone app, OmniGraffle is the professional tool on the Mac we’ve come to love and trust. It’s powerful — and yet, it was beginning to feel a bit more than dated, along with the Omni Group’s other apps. They’d already promised revamped versions of OmniFocus and OmniOutliner, but before either of those hit the market, we’ve got a new version of OmniGraffle to try out.

OmniGraffle 6 is a sweeping redesign of the app that reimagines how modern Mac apps should work, while making the popular diagramming app work with Photoshop, Retina Displays, and more.

A Classic, Reinvented

The redesigned OmniGraffle 6

Like most Mac apps with tons of features, such as iWork and the Omni Group’s other apps, OmniGraffle 5 relied heavily on floating inspector windows. We all know how quickly those can get frustrating and in the way, especially on the more cramped displays most of us use on MacBooks. Instead of reinventing the toolbar as Microsoft did with the Office Ribbon, the Omni Group tacked their floating windows onto the main window as dynamic sidebars that show exactly the tools you need when you need them. You’ll see your Canvases and layers on the left, and the sidebar that takes the place of the traditional floating inspector window on the right. Both of them are collapsable if you need to save space, but on widescreens — especially using the new Full Screen mode — they likely won’t get in the way except in the largest diagrams.

The powerful new built-in Inspector views

The new inspector is easily the nicest part of OmniGraffle 6, since it dynamically switches to the correct tools depending on what you’re working on. It also packs a number of newly redesigned tools and extra features, such as the new type inspector that includes detailed kerning options. There’s new fill and stroke styles to make your diagrams look just like you want, along with detailed placement options in the Geometry inspector. Then, you can combine shapes, then later uncombine them if you’d like. Add images to your designs, and you can mask or edit them directly on your canvas. Zoom also now works just like you’d expect, letting you zoom up to 6400% — far more than you need to tweak every tiny pixel — and options to work with either pixels or Apple points for retina display-perfect designs.

Share layers across canvases — or with Photoshop

Canvases and layers have some great new features as well. You can share a layer across all of your canvases in one click and rename every object and layer. Combine that with tools to organize your templates right inside the app, and it’s easier than ever to reuse your work across your designs. You can then export your whole design in Photoshop format, with every layer maintained in your export.

Combine that and the other new features with a more subdued UI, one that looks great alongside the latest Mac apps, and you’ve got a very solid upgrade to OmniGraffle 5. It’s not a radical redesign along the lines of iOS 7, but then, we’re not expecting such drastic redesigns just yet. Somehow, it’s rather tough to imagine pro OS X apps ever getting as minimalist a UI treatment as most iOS 7 apps have.

Go Buy It … But Not on the App Store

For the second time this week, though, the Mac App Store comes out looking bad, this time because OmniGraffle 6 is a full new release that will be a full-priced new version on the App Store (that is, when it’s available on the App Store — as of writing, it’s yet to show up there). If you purchased OmniGraffle 5 directly from the Omni Group’s store, you can take advantage of upgrade pricing and get the new version for $49.99, but since they had to shut down their OmniKeyMaster app, there’s no way to get upgrade pricing if you bought from the Mac App Store.

Developer Steve Streza made an interesting argument this week that upgrade pricing is an outdated idea, and that developers should embrace releasing new, full-priced versions or find other ways to gain revenue such as adding new in-app purchases as the iPad app Paper has successfully done. That works on the mobile scene, but for powerful desktop apps that are priced accordingly, I’d happen to hope that discounted upgrade pricing will still be around for some time to come, as a nice incentive for existing users to upgrade. I’d also hope that powerful apps that can’t fit in Apple’s sandbox constraints — such as TextExpander 4 and Marked 2 — will keep being developed. And for both of those, it looks like we must look beyond the App Store, at least for now.

That’s why I now recommend to buy apps directly from developers when they’re offered that way, and from the App Store for everything else. It’s a tad more trouble, but it seems like the best solution — especially for expensive, professional programs.

Conclusion

The Omni Group continues to lead the way with professional apps designed just for the Mac. OmniGraffle 6 is just the beginning of their wave of upgrades for their Mac apps, and they’ve done a fantastic job updating it and making it more powerful while revamping the UI to look more modern — at least within the constraints of today’s standard UI design on the Mac. We’ve still got the promised OmniFocus 2 and OmniOutliner 4 to come, though the former may be delayed after the redesign got rebooted post-iOS 7′s introduction, so it’s exciting to see the first of their new Mac apps coming out.

If you want a powerful graphing tool for the Mac, something that can stand toe-to-toe with Visio, OmniGraffle 6 is the app to grab. It’s a welcome upgrade to a staple Mac app, and with its companion iPad app, you’ll be able to get your diagramming, wireframing, and sketching done from anywhere. It works great, and looks great — what more could you ask?

Oh, and if you pick up a copy of OmniGraffle 6 — or continue using your copy of an earlier version — be sure to check out the free Tuts+ iOS 7 OmniGraffle Stencil set  to help you mockup your new iOS 7 app design ideas!

One of the things that I love about Mac is that there’s no shortage of small tools to make your life better. I have more lightweight apps than I do feature-packed programs. And I’m frequently surprised by the small apps I find that make my life better in ways I’d never thought of.

My most recent discovery on Mac is Intermission, a lightweight app that sits in your menubar and lets you remind, pause, fast forward, and skip back live audio. It’s been described as TiVo for Mac, and I had to give it a shot. Read on to find out how it works.

Pause Your Live Streams

The first thing I thought of when I heard about Intermission was iTunes Radio. I don’t have it in Canada (yet), but I wanted to put this tool through its paces to see if it would work when iTunes Radio did arrive for me.

Intermission lets you skip, pause, and rewind live audio.

There’s a couple traditional radio stations I like. I put on the local radio station’s talk show channel and listened for a few minutes. Before long, I was pausing the stream like a yuppie with his first television remote. I was mostly pausing just to answer text messages, but I also paused to deal with a pertinent email. Nobody likes to seriously think while listening to talk radio, so the pause came in handy.

Finally, I heard a commercial coming about drinking and driving. I skipped it with the click of a button. It was glorious.

How It Works

As you stream audio, Intermission builds an audio cache for up to three hours of rewinding or fast forwarding abilities. I paused my audio for about a minute so the app could build a bit of a commercial cache, but it would have been just as easy to walk away for a couple minutes and rewind when I came back.

This is how it looks in relation to the rest of my screen. It takes up no space.

I tried digging around in my Finder and I couldn’t find where this buffer was stored. I found a couple small files, and I think it’s safe to say that RogueAmoeba’s software isn’t taking up tons of space on your computer. So yes, if your hard drive is nearly full and you’re worried about space, download away without fear.

When you’re ready to rewind or pause live audio, you can do it directly from the menu bar. Intermission’s preferences also include the ability to set hotkeys for the app and turn it on immediately upon start up.

The preferences let you adjust the jump times in second and set hot keys.

You can also set the amount of seconds you want the app to jump forward or back. The stock time is ten seconds, but I find most commercial breaks are a little longer than that, depending on what you’re listening to. If iTunes Radio develops a stock commercial break time of 15 seconds, changing the skip forward time is going to be perfect.

The Demo and the Price

Like all of RogueAmoeba’s products, Intermission is available as a free trial with all features unlocked from the get-go. The demo’s limitations are ten minutes of buffered audio. At that point, unless you’re listening to live audio, the app overlays a loud hiss onto your audio. It’s not something you can ignore, and it’s definitely worth getting the license.

If you think ten minutes isn’t a long enough time to decide whether or not you want to purchase the full version, I’d argue that you’ll know whether or not Intermission is right for you after five minutes.

The full version of Intermission is $15 right now, which RogueAmoeba says is a special introductory price. Some people might find the price is uncomfortably high, but I think it’s fair. RogueAmoeba will likely be supplying free updates for life — and is $15 too much for software you’ll be using every day?

Final Thoughts

The moment iTunes Radio comes to Canada, I’m investing in Intermission. The app works flawlessly and exactly as claimed, with the added and unexpected benefit of total customization. I can see this making iTunes Radio my main destination for discovering new music.

If you’re into audio streams, you’re going to find Intermission an invaluable tool. At $15, I highly recommend it.

Firing up iPhoto just to pull a few pictures off your iPhone is too much trouble. So is emailing a voice recording to yourself. Videos? Well, they’re big enough, you’ll likely have to sync with iPhoto to get them.

There’s a whole market of tools to help people get files off their iOS devices, and Macroplant — the people behind iExplorer — have just made a free Finder for your iPhone: iBrowse. It’s a simple app that lets you get pictures, videos, recordings, and books off any iPhone or iPad just as easily as you could copy a file off a flash drive.

If you’ve ever connected your iOS device to a PC, you’ll know that it shows up in Windows Explorer just like a digital camera, with a DCIM folder of your photos and videos. iBrowse brings essentially the same thing to the Mac, albeit in its own Finder-lookalike app. It’s is simple enough to use, if you’re not scared to wade through some slightly cryptic folders. Just connect your iPhone or iPad to your Mac, and run iBrowse. You’ll be able to see every folder that’s visible to your Mac in a non-jailbroken iOS device, including your Photos and videos in the DCIM folder, audio recordings in the Recordings folder, and ePub books from iBooks in the Books folder.

Most of the other folders will include plist and other system files that you can do precious little with, but this tool will at least give you an easy way to grab your pictures, videos, and recordings. There’s no drag-and-drop, but you can select the files you want to save, right-click, then choose where you want to save them on your Mac. That’s far simpler than importing everything into iPhoto first. Then, oddly enough, you can add files from your Mac to your iOS device, though they likely won’t be viewable on the iOS device. You could use that as a way to turn your iPhone into a USB flash drive to ferry files from home to office, but we wouldn’t really recommend that.

Or, there’s another option. If you want want to pull a picture or 3 off your iPhone without iPhoto but also without installing anything else on your Mac, there’s a built-in tool on your Mac that’ll do it as well: Image Capture. It looks incredibly dated, but it still works just fine. As a side note, you can also use it to pull scans from your printer, remotely even if you’ve got a wireless printer. Easy to forget about handy little OS X utilities like this that stay hidden most of the time.

So there you go: two apps to help you get files of your iOS device with ease for free. Enjoy!

Minimalist writing apps have taken the App Store by storm, from the extreme of iA Writer’s entire lack of settings to full-featured writing environments like Ulysses III. It’s great to write without worrying on your final formatting, focusing instead on your actual words. Eventually, though, you’ll need to export your work to publish it on the web or in print. Your writing app likely includes a number of basic export tools, but for serious writers that want the best export options, Brett Terpstra’s Marked app is the best tool in town.

Today, it gets even better, with the just-released Marked 2. It’ll preview anything from a draft blog post in MarsEdit to a whole folder of Markdown documents, show you your overused phrases that’d be best cut out of your document, and give you the best exports with MultiMarkdown 4.2 support and the option to save in DOCX, paginated PDF, and much more.

Far More than Just Exports

Marked is a great app for previewing your plain-text writing in beautiful CSS themes and then exporting your writing in any format you want, one that’s proved essential for writers ever since its first release. Just drag the document you’re writing onto Marked’s dock icon, and you’ll get a full preview that live-refreshes as you write. That preview support has been vastly improved in Marked 2, with support for Fountain screenwriting, CriticMarkup changes and comments in documents, GitHub-flavored Markdown with code, MarsEdit blog posts, and even text in your clipboard. The new version even lets you add a folder of Plain Text files, and it’ll automatically open a preview of the most recently saved file — an especially great tool if you save your article drafts in a specific folder already. It’s ready for anything you want to throw at it.

Marked’s new proofing tools

So you’ve got your document in Marked, previewed with the style you’d like — styles that, of all things, will live update in Marked now if you’re editing them as well. What more can it offer? First off, you’ll find the new Keyword Highlight drawer that will show words and phrases in your document that you should avoid to make your writing sound better, complete with temporary keywords you can add just for that session. That, combined with the detailed stats and options to visualize word repetition, makes Marked the perfect proofreading companion to help you making your writing the best it can be. And it’s easy to make changes, since edits in your text editor show up in Marked in real-time.

The tools and export options you need, the way you want them.

And then, there’s exports. Once you’re done writing and have polished your work, Marked is ready to help you save your document in every format you want. There’s quick HTML integration that makes it simple to grab any part of your writing in HTML — with or without Marked’s stylesheet — and add it to your site. But then, it’s equally easy to export as a PDF (now with pagination if you want), rich text, or DOCX/OTD document. Or, if you’re still working with paper, you can print your formatted work straight from Marked.

Another Pro Tool Leaves the App Store

Instead of running to the App Store to pick up the latest version of Marked, though, you’re going to need to head to the new Marked2App.com store and pick up a copy there for $11.99. Many of the new features in Marked 2, including monitoring a folder for new files, wouldn’t work with the App Store’s sandboxing, so Brett chose to sell it directly. Interestingly, Marked 2 uses Paddle’s API for its licensing, a new App Store alternate that’s helping fill the ranks of alternates to everything Apple’s offering in their store.

There will possibly be an App Store version of Marked 2 added in the future, but the main version with the most features will always be the directly licensed version. And that makes sense. Just like the Omni Group and other developers, pro tools are increasingly finding themselves needing to move beyond the App Store. I have to wonder if Apple won’t start to take notice and make the App Store work better for everyone as more high-profile apps move back to direct sales.

Conclusion

At any rate, Marked 2 is a brilliant upgrade to the original universal Markdown exporter. The new version takes Marked far beyond basic previewing and exporting, and makes it an even more indispensable tool for serious plain text writers. It’s easily the best way to dig deeper into your text and export your writing in the formats you need, no matter what writing app you prefer. I love the new folder previews, and can’t wait to make Marked 2 even more integrated into my daily writing workflow.

The demise of internet radio at the hands of podcasting has been greatly exaggerated. While it may no longer have the same level of popularity of podcasting, internet radio is still very much a thriving medium. If you’ve ever listened to a commercial radio station using your Mac or iPhone, you’ve listened to an internet radio stream.

While we may be entering the golden age of podcasts, internet radio is just as popular, if not more so, than ever before. Unlike podcasts, internet radio is better suited to a never-ending selection of songs from a track list or listening to live events, concerts and listening to a random selection of music based upon the station’s speciality.

Nicecast, by Rogue Amoeba, is a nifty solution that turns your Mac into a fully-fledge internet radio station, allowing you to stream audio over the internet directly or through the use of a compatible server.

Check, Check

The app works by allowing any form of audio, whether it be from a microphone or app such as iTunes, to be broadcast over the internet using either the app’s built-in internet server or via a compatible relay server. As internet radio stations can have tens of thousands of listeners, these relay servers become useful so that broadcasters can offload all of the bandwidth requirements as well as ensure a reliable connection.

Nicecast isn’t a new app, in fact it was released over ten years ago, though it’s been continually supported by the nice people at Rogue Amoeba consistently over the years with regular, albeit largely spaced out, updates. I’ve previously used the app over six years ago and the interface has barely changed at all. This does make the app look rather aged with its Aqua-style buttons and use of sliding panes, especially when compared to some of Rogue Amoeba’s more recent offerings, such as Piezo.

Nicecast has a simple interface though it’s looking a little old.

Audio Hijacking

If there’s one thing that Rogue Amoeba knows, however, it’s audio. The majority of their apps are all about manipulating and recording audio and Nicecast is able to capture system audio, a specific audio device if you’re using something like an external microphone or even from an individual application using their well-known feature called “hijacking”. By using this, Nicecast will relaunch any open app you select as an audio source so that the audio it outputs can be captured by Nicecast and broadcast. This lets you play music from iTunes or Spotify, or playback audio from almost any source.

A number of presets let you specify the audio quality of the stream based upon the connection speed.

There are a number of panels that let you customise the broadcast with specific information, from the stream’s name to its description. You’re also able to provide music information should you be using a compatible source app, such as iTunes, where Nicecast will also provide listeners with artist and title names. Additionally, you also have full control over the quality of the stream as well as enhancing audio by layering effects. The number of effects are limited to the speed of your Mac as the more effects you add, the more processing power is needed.

One, Two, Stream

Starting an internet stream is as simple as selecting the sound source and then starting the broadcast. Nicecast provides a visual reminder that you’re broadcasting, as well as how long you’ve been on air for. Your stream’s information can be found under the Share tab, which provides both an internet and local network link that you can copy to the clipboard or save as an iTunes-compatible M3U file.

The Nicecast stream is compatible with almost any internet-connected media device and a range of audio apps.

The stream format that Nicecast outputs is compatible on almost any media playback device and no specialised apps are needed. Even on iOS, you can listen to a stream simply within Safari.

For those wanting to use the app with a dedicated broadcast server platform such as Shoutcast, Nicecast supports a number of different server types so you can stream directly to a compatible server and all of your listeners can connect to it rather than swamp your home’s internet connection, offloading all of the bandwidth requirements.

You can configure a range of different servers and specify them prior to broadcast, perfect for anyone working on multiple servers.

Nicecast includes some further features via the menu. For example, if you want to save copies of your internet radio broadcasts for posterity, Nicecast has an excellent Archiving function that will record any broadcast in a number of formats. I’ve no doubt many broadcasters will want to use this feature but it is easily forgotten as it’s not positioned within the app’s main interface, instead it’s buried in the menu.

Wrapping Up

In the age of $2 games and in-app purchases, $59 sounds like a lot of money to spend on an app. The race to the bottom has certainly caused apps such as Nicecast to be overshadowed and ignored due to their price yet $59 for someone serious about internet broadcasting is going to be a worthwhile investment. It’s ease of use and powerful feature set make this more than a great app, it’s a great investment.

If you’ve been interested in the idea of starting your own internet radio station or wanted a way of simplifying your workflow, Nicecast is a fantastic app that makes it very simple to get started, yet has enough features and customisability to keep even the more advanced users happy.

There are a few different camps when it comes to iTunes, and while I don’t mind the music-playing monster, I don’t mind finding a simpler way to get my tunes played, either. If it looks good, that’s even better, right?

I decided to try out Muzzy, because rather than acting as a separate music player, it works with iTunes to deliver my music to me. Its clean interface sets it apart as an early winner, and I’ll see if Muzzy has the features to take home the prize or if it falls short at the finish line.
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Play It Again, Sam

Muzzy works with iTunes, so you’re going to need it open to get Muzzy to do anything. If Muzzy is running but iTunes isn’t, the app can take care of that for you with a click in the menu bar app, but unfortunately you can’t really use Muzzy to start your music playing. To get going, you’ll need to move over into iTunes and start an album or a playlist rolling.

Muzzy displays your album arts and lets you scan forward in a track.

Click on Muzzy’s menu bar icon to view the now playing album’s art. You can see where you are in the track, or trail your cursor over the image to quickly skip ahead or back in the song. Click the upper right corner to see a track listing and switch over to another song.

Unfortunately, moving among songs doesn’t work so well if you’re listening to a playlist. Because iTunes is piping your jingles through the speakers, it’s simple enough to tap back and forth to the next or previous song using your keyboard, but if you want to scan forward ten songs in a playlist, Muzzy up in your menu bar can’t help. You’re going to need to swing over to iTunes to take care of that.

Browse an album’s tracklist.

Track with lyrics or notes attached get a little tray below the album art. Click that to slide it out and view whatever information is hidden away. I’m not the best about making sure all of my music has the correct data attached, so I didn’t get the a lot of benefit from this, but a quick sync with any number of music info services should make the most of this Muzzy feature. This was an unexpected and clever little addition on the developer’s part, and it may even spur me to be more diligent about making sure I get all of my tracks’ details squared away.

Preferences and Settings

Muzzy has some pretty handy features you can enable in its preferences. There’s Last.fm integration, and Muzzy’s really worth it for just that. If all you need is a low profile scrobbler that stays out the way, Muzzy does the job and looks good while it does it. There’s also a handy “plugout” setting that will turn your music off if you unplug your headphones, nice if you’re prone to accidentally pulling your cord free and blasting Rick Astley at your coworkers or if you just want a quick way to shut your music off.

Muzzy can connect to Last.fm and notify you of track changes.

I like track change notifications, but I’m not in love with the big OS X notifications I get each time a song switches over. It makes me think something more important has happened, like I got an email I’ve been waiting for or I accidentally launched a missile from System Preferences. Muzzy has its own notification that is slightly lower profile and specific to the app, but if you decide to go that route, remember to turn off the iTunes notifications.

Final Thoughts

Muzzy is just a beautiful little app. There aren’t a ton of bells and whistles, but I don’t want a lot of extra features that are going to muck up my workspace. With Muzzy I can quickly check my track, the artist, even look at the album artwork, all from the menu bar and without touching iTunes. I can even scan forward and back by dragging across the album cover or select other tracks on the same album.

Muzzy will display lyrics or notes, if available.

The Last.fm scrobbling is a great bonus, too, but it’s entirely optional. Same goes for the notifications. If you prefer Muzzy’s notifications, go for those, but if they’re not doing it for you, stick to what you’ve got native to OS X. All of that extra stuff is just that, extra, which means it’s optional.

I wish Muzzy integrated a little better with playlists. I so rarely just listen to an album on its own and usually throw it in with other tracks by the same or similar artists. The way Muzzy works right now, I can’t move around in a playlist very easily, and I still have to go back to iTunes for all of that. Thankfully, though, Muzzy is still on an early incarnation, and the developer is promising that there are good things in store.

Flash died in 2007, and everyone’s been catching up since then. It’d long since been the worst part of the web, responsible for buzzing fans and auto-playing audio, but it took the advent of modern touch devices to make it outdated for good. That didn’t mean animated websites were gone along with Flash, though — it only meant we’d need more creative solutions.

Into the void came Hype, the Mac app that made it easy to create web-ready animations with just HTML, CSS, and Javascript — but without any coding. It brought drag-and-drop simplicity back to online animations. And now, just over 2 years after it was introduced, Hype 2 is here and is better than ever. It’s the simplest way to make interactive and animated content for the web — indeed, it’s as simple as making a Keynote presentation.

Simplifying Fancy Website Creation

For all the talk of flatter and minimal designs today, animation is still fully in vogue. iOS 7′s homescreen features a snazzy parallax animation with your wallpaper and homescreen icons, Safari’s homescreen icons zoom out when you select them, and every automobile, fashion, and restaurant site seems to be designed to show off as many animations as possible. But then, there’s plenty of practical uses for animation, from slide transitions in Keynote and PowerPoint presentations to interactive web apps that feel as responsive as their native counterparts.

Animation used to be the sole domain of Flash on the web, but with HTML5, CSS3, and some JavaScript wizardry you can make animations today that put their Flash counterparts to shame. Just a quick browse through Safari’s HTML5 Showcase, Chrome’s Experiments, and the numerous code snippets on CodePen and more will leave you amazed at what browsers can do today. But high quality web development is already difficult; add animation to it, and you’ve got something far more than most people can take on.

That is, if you don’t have Hype. Hype is designed to take the complexity out of interactive and animated web design, making it as simple as making an animated Keynote presentation while keeping your code clean, standards compliant, and ready to use on any device with absolutely zero coding on your part. Just take a minute to watch this intro video to see how simple it is to use:

You just add in your elements, choose how you want them to act, and Hype does the rest. You can then host it as a new site, or copy just 3 lines of code and embed the animation as a banner or element in any site. It’s rather magical.

New in Two

But then, simple web animation has been Hype’s domain since it was first released. That’s nothing new. But Hype 2 makes it better than ever. You can make richer animations than ever with Hype 2′s new support for curved motion paths. Just drag out your object’s motion line to the points you want, and it’ll be automatically animated along that line, perfect for building interactive web apps and games. Speaking of objects, it’s now simpler to add rounded shapes to your sites, all in CSS. And when stuff moves around, you likely want audio, which is where Hype 2′s rich support for HTML5 audio comes in. You can have sounds play at specific points throughout the animation, or on user action, giving real-time feedback in your Hype-powered web games and more.

The best web font integration you could ask for

It’s not just about animated objects, fancy pictures, and sound — Hype is still about making great websites filled with content, and this time makes it easier to make that content look and work great. It’s got Google Fonts’ full font library built-in, so you can easily integrate any of the hundreds of Google Fonts directly into your Hype site just as easily as if the font was on your computer. And if you use an alternate web font service, you can just paste in your CSS code and use any other web font directly in your design. Or, just stick to the basics: Hype will show you what fonts are web safe and iOS safe, so you can make the best possible designs for the devices your targeting. It’ll then make sure your text gets discovered, by including SEO-friendly text and tags in your code no matter what kind of site you’re making.

Click, or tap, or swipe — it all works here.

Last but not least, Hype 2 is designed to be mobile first, with direct support for touch events built-into your default interactions. Tie it with the free Hype Reflect iOS app, and you can live preview your web designs on your iPhone or iPad and make sure everything works just as simply as you can test it in your desktop browser. Everything that works in Hype works on mobile, and you can even build interactive web apps with Hype that take advantage of browser cache so your site can be saved and run offline on an iOS device.

Then, you can embed your Hype animations in an iBooks eBook with iBooks Author, making Hype the best way to create interactive diagrams and more in textbooks and storybooks designed for iOS. Mobile absolutely isn’t a second class citizen anymore — if anything, Hype makes the most sense if you’re making content for mobile. And with Hype 2, it’s never been simpler to make great animated sites that work everywhere.

Conclusion

In our original review of Hype 1, we noted that the code produced by Hype isn’t strictly HTML5, instead relying heavily on JavaScript to get your animations online. That complaint could largely still be true — take apart your Hype site’s code, and you’ll notice that most of the magic is from divs with inline CSS tied together with the hype_generated_script.js file. Hype 2 takes advantage of a lot more HTML5 features, from audio and web font support to offline storage that works even on mobile devices, but you sure will still find it rather difficult to take apart the code and tweak it entirely without a copy of Hype.

But then, is that really so bad? You’ve got an app that democratizes the best of today’s website creation, making it as easy as a few clicks, and it gives you code that runs smoothly in any modern web browser. JavaScript powered or not, that’s impressive. It’s something all of us can use to make interactive content for mobile and the web that works great, for just $30.

Hype might power some ugly web ads and overly animated kids sites, but it’s also already found its place in the business world. You’ll find diagrams, infographs, and animations already in use on Reuters, where their team used Hype to show detailed info about Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, and on the LA Times where Hype helped create a rather impressive diagram showing how Cirque du Soleil’s “Iris” production worked. I can’t think of a better tool for these and other similar diagrams that take modern journalism beyond the printed word, and can only hope that most museum sites would revamp their graphics this nicely.

If you’re wanting to make animations for the web or mobile, Hype 2 is easily one of the best tools out there. It’s reasonably priced, incredibly simple to use, and just works. It’s great.

Missing a bill payment is more than just frustrating — it can be a very expensive experience thanks to overdue fees, not to mention the inconvenience if your utilities get cut off. But then, there’s no reason to forget to pay your bills nowadays. You could add calendar reminders or put your bills in your todo list or Reminders.app.

Or, you could use Chronicle, the Mac app for keeping track of your bills. With its brand-new iCloud sync and a fully redesigned companion iOS app that looks great in iOS 7, its the best way to keep track of all your bills and more.

Taking a Bit of the the Pain Out of Bills

When it comes to keeping up with your bills on the Mac, there’s few apps that can beat Chronicle. For $9.99, it’ll help you make sure you never miss a bill payment again, and help you keep track of how much you spend on all of your bills over time. Most finance management apps are complex and confusing, but Chronicle’s simple — if now somewhat dated — interface makes it a breeze. That’s why we gave it a score of 9 in our review last year.

On the surface, not much has changed in Chronicle 5 for Mac since its release. That’s not such a bad thing, per se, since OS X Mavericks looks very similar to older versions of OS X, leaving Chronicle’s corkboard style interface not so out of place. What’s important is the functionality, and that’s as good as ever. You can quickly add your bills, set reminders for the frequency you want, sync your due bills with Calendar.app, and keep track of past payments to see how much you’re spending over time — something that’s especially nice for, say, your electricity bill that varies month-by-month.

But under the hood, Chronicle’s got some great new features. It’s been reworked to make syncing with its iOS companion app a breeze with brand-new iCloud sync integration that’s nicer than most app’s iCloud sync. In most apps, iCloud sync is 100% invisible — it just works, and you never think about it. Chronicle’s iCloud integration is just as simple, but with the added option to see what time your database was last synced from the settings. It also keeps its original Dropbox sync, so you can continue to sync your database over Dropbox if you’d prefer. Either way, syncing should be flawless just as you’d expect.

Best of all, the brand-new Chronicle Touch brings all of Chronicle’s great features to your iPhone and iPad with the simplicity and charm of the best of iOS 7′s redesign. Your bills will stay in sync with your Mac over iCloud automatically — or over Dropbox if you’d still prefer to use it to stay in sync, your choice. Either way, your bills will stay in sync with iOS 7′s new background sync so you’ll always have access to your bill info wherever you are. Put that together, and the Mac and iOS versions of Chronicle are awesome for keeping up with your expenses wherever you are. Be sure to download the updates if you’ve already purchased the apps, or consider picking up a copy of each if you’ve been looking for a great way to keep up with your expenses.

One More Thing…

And, we’ve got something special extra for our readers this week: 5 copies of Chronicle for Mac to giveaway! To enter the giveaway, just share this post on your social networks and leave a comment below with a link to your post. We’ll be closing the giveaway on Tuesday, October 1st.

Envato staff or those who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm are ineligible to enter.

We’re two days into Fall 2013, and Apple’s promised for months now that OS X Mavericks is “Coming this fall”. Mavericks isn’t here yet, but after a blockbuster opening weekend for the iPhone 5c and 5s and the long-anticipated iOS 7 release, Apple’s finally turning its attention back to the Mac. Nope, the anticipated Retina Display MacBook Pro isn’t here, nor is the announced revolutionary Mac Pro.

Instead, first up in Apple’s fall Mac refresh is a new iMac. This year’s refresh brings a welcome but modest spec bump to the existing thin iMac design, with the latest quad-core Intel i5 Haswell processors (at the same speeds as last year’s models), high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Intel’s Iris Pro graphics on the low end. The higher end iMacs now include NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M, 755M, or GTX 775M graphics cards, respectively, for even better graphics performance, but even the base-model iMac’s Iris Pro graphics should perform better than last year’s baseline NVIDIA 600 series graphics. In a somewhat surprising move, though, Apple’s still shipping 5400rpm platter HDDs with the base iMacs, and an SSD or Fusion Drive is still an extra upgrade for all iMacs.

This year’s iMacs likely won’t prove a temptation for anyone with a 2012 iMac, but the spec upgrade at least puts them in a more competitive spot with this year’s chips. There’s still no Retina display, or anything more exotic like a touch screen, so Apple’s got plenty of stuff left to add to the iMac in coming years.

The new iMacs should be just the start of Apple’s fall Mac refresh. We’ve still got OS X Mavericks and the new Mac Pro coming for sure, and during WWDC a new iWork was mentioned as well — something we sure hope comes sooner rather than later seeing as we’re all still using iWork ’09 today. The MacBook Air was already updated this year, but both the Retina Display MacBook Pro and the Mac Mini could at least use a similar spec upgrade as the new iMacs, so hopefully we’ll at least get that this fall as well.

Now, let’s just hope Apple doesn’t wait until the last day of fall — officially December 20th — to get Mavericks onto the App Store!

Everyone likes getting a deal, and Craigslist is a great place to start. I always feel like I’m behind the eight ball, though, because everyone seems to be on top of the great listings before I even get there.

That’s why I tried out GreatApp for Craigslist, with its personalized searches and lots of filters. Its notifications should help me stay out in front of the newest listings. I’m going to see if this app is really a help to searching Craigslist or if I’d be better off sticking to the website.

What Are You Looking For?

Start a new search in GreatApp by hitting the plus sign in the bottom left. You can give your search a name, making it a lot easier to find later, but it’s not necessary. Enter a keyword or lots of keywords into the search field. Just like on the real Craigslist, the more keywords you enter, the fewer results you’ll get back, which could be good or bad.

Do a quick search for just about anything.

You may notice all of these results are nowhere near you unless you live in Long Island, NY, the default search location — in which case, you can just skip this next part. Give the eyeball in the bottom left a poke to get results more relevant to where you’re living. You can change the default location to your city and even plug in several locations, or you can enter a custom location.

I was bummed, though, that the custom locations didn’t carry over to new searches. I’d like to enter the five or so nearest cities, and then be able to cycle through them, but GreatApp forces me to search them all at once in the default location or enter them over and over again with every new search into the custom location.

When you’re ready for new results, tap the refresh icon. If you don’t want to be that hands on with it, though, set your search to automate itself, and GreatApp will pull all of the new results on its own. Flip on notifications, and you’ll get a heads up whenever you’ve got something new to look at in your Craigslist searches.

Just be careful with that automate and notifications combo, though, especially if you’ve committed yourself to receiving results from a lot of different locations, because you can look forward to receiving a bunch of notifications at regular intervals.

Set your locations, so you only get results near you.

Judging by some of the App Store reviews, GreatApp may have fallen down on refining searches in the past, but the app seems to have it in the bag, now. Click on Filters at the bottom, and there’s a ton of stuff you can use to narrow down your searches. I prefer only listings with images, so I always keep that checked, and all of the categories can be found here, too.

It’s a simple thing to search in multiple categories while excluding others, and GreatApp makes it easy to not only include specific keywords, but to exclude problem keywords that seem to be wrecking your searches, too. Add a minimum or maximum price, just to make your search that much easier.

Things to Improve

When I’m on the lookout for something, whether it’s a piece of furniture or a job listing, I camp out on Craigslist and just about wear out CMD+R refreshing whatever search or category I’m watching. GreatApp’s notifications take a bit of that pressure off of me, but it’s not perfect. Switching locations, as mentioned above, is kind of a pain. There should just be a better way to save my most searched places and shift among them.

Create filters for each search, so you only find just what you want.

While GreatApp will display a thumbnail image for the listing, and you can remove any listings that don’t have pictures at all, there’s no way to tell if there are any other images. The listing may be loaded down with really great pictures of whatever’s being sold, but you won’t know unless you open the listing, and you’ll only ever get a tiny preview image out of GreatApp.

Final Thoughts

GreatApp for Craigslist still has some pretty great stuff going for it, though. You can open the listing in your default browser right from the app, but with a double-click, you’ll get all of the information in an expanded search result in GreatApp. If you’re ready to pull the trigger, no need to open the listing at Craigslist, because you can email the poster from GreatApp. Unfortunately, that opens Mail.app, and while great, it’s not everyone’s preferred email client, but the option is there.

The expanded listings in the app are great, but they’re limited.

GreatApp solves a lot of problems for me. I was watching a lot of Craigslist categories via RSS, but it’s not the most efficient way to get things done. GreatApp allows me to create and monitor personalized searches, so much better than those RSS feeds, and I get notifications as soon as something new is posted. It’s a really good solution for a specific problem. While there are some areas that could use improvement, GreatApp is a big step up for anyone who looks to Craigslist often.

At AppStorm we pay very close attention to the App Store. We monitor the introduction of new apps in much the same way that a trader keeps their eyes glued to the markets. We know what’s going up, what’s going down, as well as what’s desperately in need of a bug-fixing update.

As a result, I’m able to inform you that the general trend among vector drawing apps is downsizing. Rather than competing with Adobe’s mighty Illustrator, apps such as iDraw, Artboard and Sketch offer something a little simpler, more compact and more reasonably priced. Happily, from the app buyer’s perspective, the growing number of apps in this niche is creating intense competition, which, in turn, is having a positive effect on quality. In fact, vector artists are spoilt for choice right now.

Yet somehow, still more contenders are finding the room to squeeze into the ring. One such app is Bluetail. It wants to undercut the undercutters, offering a stripped-back, no-nonsense workspace at a rock-bottom price. But does Bluetail fall on the side of value-for-money simplicity, or does it creep into ill-equipped incapability? Time to find out.

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The Feel

Pragmatic minimalism is a beautiful trait. So many apps aim for it, but few totally succeed in achieving it. Whether or not the developer, Iconshots, was aiming for it, their app certainly delivers it.

Bluetail is a picture of simplicity and clarity.

Only three, modestly-sized windows constitute Bluetail‘s basic interface, each of them kitted out in black trim, and all of them floated, ready and waiting to be placed anywhere. The tool palette is clearly modelled on the corresponding layout in Adobe’s creative products, but Bluetail‘s version has a slicker, smoother, more refined look to it. Similarly, Photoshop and Illustrator users will feel a high level of familiarity with Bluetail‘s layers palette, but there’s a certain pleasing clarity here which is missing from Adobe’s UI designs. The canvas itself provides little more inherent visual stimulation than a grid and some measurement rulers. Content, for once, actually is king.

Drawing

It would be unfair to expect an app in this price range to rival the big boys in terms of scope of functionality. Although Bluetail‘s feature set is unspectacular, all the fundamentals are present, and they are delivered with a great deal of competence.

The Tool Palette

The tool palette will hold no surprises for the seasoned vector artist, but let me give you a quick runthrough.

The Tool Palette: neat and respectably stocked.

The Pen tool, used for the creation of Bézier curves, is always my first port of call when testing vector apps. The apparently simple task of drawing a curved line so often causes instability and judder. Not so in Bluetail.

Bézier curves via the Pen tool – all present and correct.

The Line and Pencil drawing tools — used for straight lines and freehand illustration, respectively — offer similar experiences. The irritation caused by Bluetail‘s insistent shifting to the Selection tool after the creation of every mark on the virtual page is an unfortunate blip for what are, otherwise, two more nicely produced tools.

Six shape forms are on offer in Bluetail – circular, rectangular, triangular, pentagonal, star- and diamond-shaped — and each is a separate, independent tool, instantly selectable from the palette.

The other two main functions are the Poly Pen and Easy Pen tools. The former offers the creation of multi-straight-sided custom shapes; the latter simply offers the creation of straight-line paths without the irritating shifts to the selection tool.

The final two icons, which control canvas zoom, may seem insignificant, but they actually indirectly expose Bluetail‘s most prominent weakness – no equivalent keyboard shortcut is on offer for the zoom controls, or any of the other controls. For some users, that might be a killer, which is a shame given that otherwise, the tool palette is a neat little package.

Fill, Stroke and the Rest

Of course, shape drawing isn’t much use without a bit of colour and definition. That’s where the Shape Style menu comes in.

The Fill tool works in the manner you might expect. Shapes can contain a colour, a gradient or an image. Gradients can be linear, radial or angled, and can be saved to the provided favourites gallery for later quick access. The opacity of all fill types can be adjusted, too. Happily, a fill layering system is also included. An apparently infinite number of fill styles can be combined and blended, meaning very complex looks can be achieved.

All the usual Fill options are on offer, along with layering.

The Stroke menu is equally capable. Lines can be filled with a colour or a gradient, and may be any width between 1pt and 32pt. Lines and the joins between them can be bevelled, rounded, or angular, and solid, dashed, or dotted. The only disappointment here is the slight deficiency of line style options. Double solid and double dashed lines will be missed by those who create a wide range of visuals, particularly in the web design sphere.

The remaining features are somewhat miscellaneous. Paths can be turned into pointers via the Arrows menu, the width of shape boundaries can be adjusted under the Polygon and Star Sides section, while the Rounded Rectangle slider performs the task you would expect.

It’s also worth noting that, away from the styling window, shape transformation is available, although it is rather basic – dimension adjustment and shape flipping are the only two options.

Layers

Look at all those lovely blending modes.

Bluetail‘s main Layers palette – quite separate from the multiple fill layers placed in shapes – can, once again, be described as unremarkable. The side-effect benefit of this is visual simplicity, with the only notable controls relating to opacity and blending. Opening the blending drop-down reveals an unusual peak of Bluetail exuberance, with 15 different blend modes on display, ranging from multiply and screen, to hue and saturation.

Options

Given that the recurring theme in Bluetail is ruthless simplicity, I was expecting a rather cut-back array of preferences. I actually found no preferences at all. Instead, a Page Inspector is provided, and this can be opened via the Window item menu.

No preferences here; the Page Inspector provides the only general options.

From here, the grid overlay can be toggled and adjusted, the canvas you’re working on can be resized and re-coloured, and the margin rulers can be toggled too.

Conclusion

The trend for simplistic vector drawing apps, as mentioned in the introduction to this review, is welcome from my point of view. Pro-level apps such as Illustrator can be used, in the right hands, to produce wonderful things. However, few of us have that kind of skill, and fewer still actually need or want to produce such masterpieces.

For vector wizards, Bluetail is a limiting app which will only cause frustration. But for the rest of us, it is a simple, user-friendly way of creating some shapes and styling them as required. And if that sounds like a match for your vector needs, you won’t find a better option, at this price, than Bluetail.

Pagico, considered a ‘brilliant cross-platform project and task management app‘, has developed legions of fans since its launch. Perfect for managing complex projects across multiple platforms (Mac, Windows, Ubuntu and iOS), Pagico’s destop version retails at $50. It is available for both Desktop and iOS.

If you need design or web development work done, for a limited time only you can claim a Pagico desktop license with any purchase of services from Microlancer.

Microlancer is a marketplace for design and code services including logo design, PSD to Website, WordPress customization and many, many more.

How to claim your Pagico desktop license

• Browse Microlancer to purchase the design or code service you need.
• After purchasing the service, fill out this form and include your order ID.
• Once we verify your order details, we’ll connect you with your Pagico license.

This offer applies to Microlancer purchases made from Tuesday, 24 September 2013 to Tuesday, 1 October 2013 AEST.

Introducing Microlancer

Microlancer is the newest product by Envato, the makers of AppStorm. It was created to fulfill a single purpose: to be the best, easiest and most transparent place to get design or coding work done. Every service provider is reviewed by Microlancer staff to ensure they follow best practices and do awesome work. Every service on the site includes plenty of information upfront: visual examples of previous work, how much it costs, how long it will take, and what the service provider will need from you to get started.

More than 1,000 jobs have been purchased through Microlancer since it launched in April. It’s clear that people love using Microlancer to get digital jobs done.

Visit Microlancer

Introducing Pagico

Use Pagico to manage and keep track of everything: tasks, lists, notes, files, projects and contact profiles, etc.

Just throw everything into Pagico and let it help you stay on track.

Pagico acts as both a personal repository and a task planner. You can store all kinds of things in its database, and Pagico will remind you of upcoming (and overdue, of course) tasks. Instead of overwhelming you with lists of todo’s, it shows all your upcoming schedule in a visually appealing chart.

Yes, you can become more productive.

Visit Pagico’s website

Everyone loves bundles, but how about 3 new bundles? That’s what our friends at Paddle have this week. They’ve got two new games bundles — the Pay What You Want Variety Games Bundle and the Fall Pay What You Want Game Bundle — with 5 games each for Mac and PC, as well as a bundle of Mac apps from Little App Factory.

Each of the bundles are a great deal since they’re pay-what-you-want bundles like the popular Humble Bundles, but we’ve got something even better: 5 copies of the bundles for our readers. 5 lucky readers are going to win all 3 of these bundles this week.

That’s a ton of apps and games — and they can all be yours for the low, low price of a comment. Just leave a comment below and let us know which of the apps and games you want most, and you’ll be entered in the giveaway. Then, share the giveaway on your favorite social networks and leave a new comment below with a link to your social post for an extra entry in the contest.

Hurry and get your entries in — we’re closing the giveaway next Monday, September 30th.

Envato staff or those who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm are ineligible to enter.

It’s almost time to upgrade your Mac to OS X Mavericks — and if you’re going to opt for a clean install, that means it’s time to reinstall many of your older apps. There’s also brand-new versions of VMware Fusion and Parallels that came out recently, and special deals from Adobe on Creative Cloud upgrades. That means you need all of your old software keys. But what if you’ve thrown away your disks, deleted old purchase emails, and lost your paper records?

That’s where Mac Product Key Finder comes in. It’ll scan your Mac for over 180 supported programs and recover your keys automatically. You can then copy the key to use wherever you need — to activate software on a new Mac, or to purchase an upgrade at upgrade pricing. Or, you can export a whole list of your product keys for your records, so you won’t have to go searching again next time.

The pro version of Mac Product Key Finder goes even further. In addition to uncovering your old keys on your Mac, it’ll let you scan your external drives, Time Machine backups, and networked Macs for product keys so you can inventory every key you own even if you’re not currently using them. It’ll also let you see the serial number, IMEI, and more info from your iOS devices, and includes a terminal tool to let you generate a CSV or TXT file with all of your license keys.

Go Find Your Lost Keys Today!

There’s no reason to pay full price for an upgrade to your older apps — and no reason to quit using your older apps just because you’re getting a new Mac. Go download a copy of Mac Product Key Finder this week, and rediscover the keys you’ve lost. You can try out the free version if you only need to look for the basic supported apps, or get the pro version with all its features for on sale for 20% off this week with our exclusive coupon code APP20STORM which makes it just $19.96!

OS X Mavericks is bringing a number of features power users have wanted for year: better multiple display support, tabs and tags in Finder, all while using less system resources than before. The menubar itself, however, has mostly gone untouched.

That’s still Bartender’s domain. And with the just-released v1.2, Bartender remains the app anyone with a packed menubar needs in any version of OS X.

The Smartest Menubar Assistant Yet

Bartender has geeky tool of choice for keeping the Mac menubar clean ever since its beta launched last year, since OS X has never shipped with a utility to clean it up. It adds yet another icon to your menubar, but it’ll actually save space by storing the menubar icons you don’t want to see all the time. CMD+drag anything into it, and it’ll stay hidden but just one tap away whenever you need it. It’s especially great for those apps — say, Dropbox or Creative Cloud — that you really never need to use from the menubar.

And now it’s better than ever. First off, it’s been updated for Mavericks, so it’ll be ready to keep your menubar clean as soon as Apple gets the next version of OS X released. Then, Bartender now uses image recognition to figure out when icons have changes so it can show them in the menubar to alert you, while using less system resources at the same time. It also now works with drag-and-drop, so you can hide your Droplr or CloudApp icon and still easily upload images to your favorite file sharing service.

Bartender’s smarter than ever

But the biggest changes is for system icons. Bartender can now hide system icons in your menubar — everything from volume to the Notifications Center icon — and show them only when there’s changes to the icon. That way, you can (say) hide your Time Machine or language icon, but still have it show up whenever the icon changes to notify you. That’s a handy feature I’ve already come to rely on, since I use multiple languages on my Mac but don’t really need a flag in the menubar all the time — but do like to see it when I change the keyboard layout.

Put that all together, and you’ve got a Bartender that feels almost just like it’s a built-in part of OS X. I personally wish the Bartender menu itself used a less noticeable transparent background to blend in with today’s transparent menubar, but that’s not the worst problem. In fact, Bartender’s now smart enough that it’ll do its job without you having to open its menu often while still making sure you’re informed when needed.

If you’ve already got Bartender, v1.2 is a free update that you’ll be sure to enjoy. For everyone else, Bartender is 30% off this week — just $10 — to celebrate the launch of the latest version. It’s a tiny essential tool for Mac power users that you’ll be glad you picked up, especially at that price.