Category: Mac

Since the time when there was only the full-screen print function, the tools for screen-shooting have evolved a lot. Now you can select what you’re snapping, create annotations, easily share with your friends, all in a matter of seconds. Screenshots became popular because they’re a great way to catch information on the spot. Taking screenshots is like taking a picture of a place you visit, only this time, you’re visiting your Mac.

LittleSnapper is the epitome of screen-shooting. It covers most aspects of what you’d want a snapshot application to deal with. It has advanced features to capture, edit, organize and share your images. And this article won’t only work around what LittleSnapper offers, but also how you could use its resources to take screen-shooting to the next level.

Learning the basics

I’ve been using LittleSnapper for a while; every single article I wrote for AppStorm recently had most of their images taken by the application. The sidebar gives quick access to your Library, Folders, Smart Collections or Collections. The default options can be added or removed at LittleSnapper’s Preferences. You can’t place snapshots within Folders, only Collections, the previous are here to nest your Collections or even more folders, in a hierarchy similar to Finder.

LittleSnapper portraits a gorgeous interface to organize your snapshots.

In the main window, you have three kinds of views. Probably the first one you’ll see is the Icon View, which displays your images on superb-looking and resizable thumbnails. Next comes the Edit View, where you can include your annotations, but more on that later. From these two views you may also use the Info panel on the right, which allows you to manipulate the metadata and tags from the image, or upload it to Flickr or a FTP server.

The last view is the Browser. LittleSnapper has a built-in browser for you to grab specific spots from the web pages you’d like to keep images from. The Browser is one of those features that you underestimate, but in the end it changes the way you see the application.

Taking Screenshots

LittleSnapper places a pretty little icon in your menubar and it will definitely be the most used method to take your screenshots. It comes with universal keyboard shortcuts that blend easily to former users of the Mac built-in screenshot application. Yet, the best thing about the status item is that it doesn’t require LittleSnapper open to work, neither will it open every time you take a picture (unless you tell it to on Preferences).

Quickly check all the options or use the global shortcuts without disrupting your workflow.

Among the options given by LittleSnapper you’ll find the possibility to snap full screen, timed full screen, an area or a window. If you have an open website, LittleSnapper will also give you the alternative to capture its web address or open it in its own browser for further control. As you open a URL in LittleSnapper’s browser, it allows you to snap the whole page, as in a web archive or snap only a part of it.

Use LittleSnapper’s built-in browser to snap only the perfect spot of web pages.

When you choose to snap a part of a webpage, LittleSnapper will intuitively highlight its elements. You can edit them later, but it usually gets it right. As you may see from the image above, I’m selecting only the article for the screenshot, giving me a clean image to keep forever. Turns out that you may convert LittleSnapper into your personal web article repository.

Editing your Snapshots

As you take a few screenshots, it might be a good time to edit them. LittleSnapper probably offers everything you’d want to point out something in your images. You can draw vector shapes, arrows, write and even blur, highlight or crop your image or its parts. You can change the size or color of the outlines and create references with your text notes, connecting your indications in a more refined way.

Create beautiful annotations to your colleagues and coworkers.

When you’re done, you may share the image in one of your configured accounts or just use the navigational arrows to move to the next snapshot in Edit View.

Organizing your Library

As you finish editing your screen shot, would be a great idea to organize them for later reference. LittleSnapper offers several tools for making it a breeze to find your images later. In the sidebar, you have a Smart Collection named Unprocessed, which will point out images that still require to be organized. Then you have several Smart Collections to arrange images by its type. Most of the time you’ll take screen or web snaps, but you can change that anytime on the Info panel.

You’re also able to create your own Collections, Smart Collections and stash them inside a Folder.

Then at the Info panel, you may change the URL address for the image, if you did a web snap, there’ll find the site it was taken from. You can modify the type, which influences mostly the Collections’ behavior, include tags of all sorts or add a description to your snapshot. Put all these features together (there’s also a Tag Manager if you want to spend some time working only on tags) and you simply can’t get lost under your shots.

Sharing your Pictures

LittleSnapper integrates with Flickr or with your own FTP server. Is that enough? Maybe. I miss a direct option to send an email with the image as an attachment or perhaps posting directly into Facebook. Still, you can drag snaps out of LittleSnapper and drop them wherever you need them, may that be your desktop, your Droplr icon in the menubar or an upload field on a website.

One-click share to Flickr or your FTP.

But that’s not all. LittleSnapper can also export pictures taken from its web browser as a PDF with selectable text. Or you can export screenshots as a Snap Bundle. But what is that? Every time you take a screenshot with LittleSnapper, it stores everything in layers and that´s what the Snap Bundle is. Pretty nifty, eh?

What is there to improve?

A few things were already listed through the article, like the lack of further sharing tools, like email, Facebook or even Airdrop. The Snap Bundles and the way LittleSnapper splits your images in layers feels underused to me, and it would be nice to have a built-in control of them so you can take a full-screen snap and remove elements like your menubar from it right on the application.

However, those are luxury. The only reason for LittleSnapper not to grab a 10 in this review is the absence of a resize tool. You can easily open your images on Preview or any other editor of your choice, but that’s not the point. Every screen shot you see in this article was taken by LittleSnapper, however, all of them had to go through Preview for resizing. That’s something that shouldn’t be missing in LittleSnapper itself.

Conclusion

If you deal with screen shots of any kind, LittleSnapper is the application to go, no doubt. It is a powerhouse with plenty of features to please both the power and regular users. The further you dig it, the better it gets. And as you use it, it may show you different ways to turn its tools into new directions, like saving your web articles or as an image organizer itself.

At any time you care to look, the App Store’s Photography chart is filled with image editors. Editing, however, is only part of the digital processing workflow – nearly all of us organize, and make minor adjustments to, our images with an all-in-one library app such as Lightroom, Aperture, or Capture One, some time before any image editor gets a look-in. Yet for some reason, the range of apps available to perform this archiving role is very small, and the theme shared by all of them is a premium price-tag.

In spite of this lack of choice and the expense associated with purchasing a library app, the open source community hasn’t felt the need to develop its own alternative. Or at least that was the case until darktable arrived. Put together by a team of photographer-coders, darktable shares many features with its more expensive competitors – multiple image sorting options, tethered shooting and a suite of editing options – but is it in the same league?

Look and Feel

The best way to describe darktable’s interface is… dark. The whole UI is black or very dark grey, and with the exception of a curly decoration below each list of controls, there are no standout features to grab your attention. That’s probably not a bad thing, though, given that you’re meant to be looking at your photos.

The darktable UI

Due to an abundance of controls, and the monotone labelling in darktable, there is a feel of clutter, although this is not uncommon amongst open source products. Having said that, I would put the look and navigability of darktable above many other open source efforts, like GIMP.

The ‘lighttable’

When you load photos into darktable, you do so within the ‘lighttable’ area, which is the organizational hub of the app.

Between the various selection, editing and tagging tools down either side of the interface is the file manager, where the images you’re working on are accessible. A neat function here is the ability to switch to “Light Table View”; doing so allows you to zoom in and out of the rows of photos, as if physically moving towards and away from a table of photographs. It’s a nice feature, and it seems to work well without drawing too much processing power.

The zoomable light table view

In terms of functionality, there are plenty of options for image sorting. You can give your photos star ratings and colour labels, group images together which share a similar exposure or colour, and give them keywords (the main method of organization in darktable). In comparison to Aperture or iPhoto, however, darktable’s controls are not instantly intuitive, or even understandable. There is no list of albums in the sidebar, and learning how to file images properly takes some time. I suspect that, with the help of the documentation, you could get used to darktable’s method of operation, but it is not a filing system which feels very Mac-like.

Organizing files in darktable

The ‘darkroom’

Once you’ve organized your images, you can move into darktable’s very competent editing suite, which is RAW-compatible.

Initially, you are given a group of tabs, each containing a menu of somewhat cryptically named controls. You could be forgiven for feeling daunted when you first see the sheer number of editing options. Crucially, however, the “favourites” function in darktable allows you to get rid of tabs you don’t need regularly, and thus, in doing so, you make your workspace much cleaner.

darktable’s editing suite

If you look carefully at which editing tools are available, though, you’ll be stunned and pleased in equal measure. Along with the usual exposure, saturation and highlights/shadows adjustments, you’ll find high pass filtering, demosaicing, tone curves, hot pixel healing, and many, many more controls.

Happily, this massive range of options isn’t just for show – darktable’s adjustment tools excel in action. The editing controls work smoothly, seemingly without putting any great strain on the Mac’s processor, and edits show up at speed on the image when you make adjustments. Whilst the slider controls are quite small to get hold of with the mouse pointer, these controls are, in all other respects, brilliant to work with, and they produce great results.

Tethered Shooting

Like its premium counterparts, darktable also offers tethered shooting. I found this feature a little difficult to get working, but once set up, it offers a nice direct link between camera and Mac. If your camera has a live view capability, you can also see this view in darktable.

Tethered shooting with live view

Geotagging

Another nice feature included in darktable is mapping, which takes note of any geotags present in your metadata. You can choose your mapping source from a good selection of options, including OpenStreetMap, Google and Maps-For-Free, among others.

You can also place images onto the map manually, which is great for those of us with non-GPS-enabled DSLRs.

Geotagged images are displayed nicely in darktable

Conclusion

It is undoubtedly the case that darktable, in its current form, is rough around the edges. The image filing system is somewhat clunky and initially baffling, and this app isn’t going to be winning any beauty contests in its current form.

Given its no-cost pricing, however, darktable is very much a solid product, and I have no doubt that most photographers, with continued use, would find that darktable fulfilled all of their needs. With some UI polish, and continued development, I think darktable could be come a genuine rival to even the most expensive of library apps on the market.

With the announcement that Google Reader will be discontinued as of July 1, 2013, a lot people are scrambling for another feed reader service. If you’re one of them, you may be looking for more than just a web app to replace Google Reader and want a desktop app for your Mac to create a better reading experience. The problem is that so many Mac feed readers depend on Google Reader and won’t work without it.

We’ve gathered some alternatives you can start using right now ahead of the big shutdown. Some of the best feed readers out there are on the list, and we’ve got a good range of full-featured and minimalist, paid and free. Hopefully you’ll find something that can fill the Google Reader-sized hole in your heart.

The Apps

IFTTT to Evernote

If you haven’t tried IFTTT, yet, short for “if this, then that,” you’re missing out. IFTTT is a web service that allows you to create recipes that trigger your other apps or services to perform actions. In this case, you’d create a recipe that looks for a new feed item. When IFTTT sees something you’ve told it you’re interested in, it will append it to a note in Evernote.

There are a few different ways to get this done, and you can create a new notebook for each feed or have all your feeds file into the same place. I’ve created and shared an IFTTT recipe to get you started, but by all means create the recipe that meets your needs. Slapping everything you read into Evernote may not seem like an obvious solution to the loss of Google Reader, but it’s a great way to hang onto articles you really like and annotate anything you want to keep.

Price: Free
Requires: OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: IFTTT/Evernote

Reeder

Reeder has been my feed reader of choice for a while. I could subscribe and unsubscribe to feeds, just as if I were in the Google Reader web app. I could even move subscriptions around and organize them into folders. It’s just that Reeder looked way nicer than Google Reader.

If you’re a Reeder fan like me, you’ll know that the app has to sync with Google Reader; it doesn’t work without a Google account. With the announcement that Google Reader will be leaving us all very shortly, you may have been worried your precious app would be gone soon, too. Not to worry, the developers have announced via Twitter that Reeder will live on after Google. While they haven’t revealed any details, we shouldn’t count Reeder out yet.

Price: $4.99
Requires: OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Silvio Rizzi

Cream

Cream doesn’t require a Google Reader account, and you can already add feeds directly to the app. Better still, you can import your list of subscribed feeds using Google Takeout. If you’re looking to make a move now, well ahead of the Google Reader shutdown, Cream is ready to go.

It’s not as easy to browse your individual feeds with Cream, but you can see all of your feed articles in a massive list sorted by feed. You can also sort by date, but that’s not the point of Cream. When you click on a story, Cream creates a picture of the sort of things you like and sorts those to the top; the cream always rises!

Price: $3.99
Requires: OS X 10.8 or later, 64-bit processor
Developer: The Mental Faculty

Pulp

Pulp tries to give you an experience that resembles a real newspaper. You’ll be automatically subscribed to some pretty great blogs and news sites, and they’ll be sorted into newspaper sections, like lifestyle and technology.

You can’t import your Google Reader subscriptions, but you can sync your Pulp account across multiple Macs or iOS devices. Each feed URL has to be added individually, which isn’t fun to do, but you can search for a keyword, too, and create your own Pulp newspaper pages.

Price: $9.99
Requires: OS X 10.7 or later
Developer: Acrylic Software

Vienna RSS

I’ll be honest with you, Vienna isn’t the best looking app you can find, but you don’t need to login with Google Reader to make it work. Vienna does have some pretty great features, though, including the ability to import your Google subscriptions using Google Takeout. You’ll already be subscribed to a bunch of cool Apple blogs, too.

What I really like about Vienna is how it loads individual articles. If the entire article doesn’t load or you just want to see what the original looked like, you can load it right there in Vienna. It’s got a sort of built in browser so you won’t have to be constantly loading what you’re reading into another app.

Price: Free
Requires: OS X 10.6
Developer: The Vienna RSS Project

Fresh Feed Pro

Fresh Feed Pro is a neat little menu bar app, very simple with a small footprint. You won’t be able to import your Google Reader feeds into Fresh Feed Pro, but you can still log in and sync everything before it all shuts down. Fresh Feed Pro also lets you add your feed URLs individually, but you’ll have to do it one at a time.

Less of an actual reader, Fresh Feed Pro aggregates all of your feeds to a single list in your menu bar. You’ll only get the headlines, and everything opens in your default browser. Fresh Feed Pro doesn’t let you sort by site, but if you’re just interested in the newest stories, it’s got you covered.

Price: $1.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Bloop S.R.L.

Monotony

Monotony is about as low-key as you’re going to get. Subscribe to your feeds, and Monotony sits up in your menu bar waiting for them to be updated. When anything new comes in, you’ll get a notification. If you’re using Notification Center, the most recent articles will hang out there until you’ve clicked them.

This is a great app if you want an aggregator that you can’t even see. There’s no Dock icon, and you can turn off the menu bar icon, too, leaving Monotony to run entirely in the background until there’s something new to see.

Price: Free
Requires: OS X 10.7.4 or later, 64-bit processor
Developer: Tim Schroeder

RSS Bot

RSS Bot combines all the best features of menu bar feed aggregators into a single app. This may be my favorite of the bunch, if I’m being honest. It supports OMPL import, meaning you can get all of your Google Reader subscriptions in there using Google Takeout. If you ever want to edit your subscriptions, it’s super easy to add or remove feeds.

If you’re a fan of Readability, you’re in luck, because RSS Bot opens all articles there by default, though that can be changed. It’s easy to pause RSS Bot if you ever need to or mark everything as read. All of your articles will automatically sort themselves out by site, keeping it all a lot more manageable when you have a ton of subscriptions, a big plus for me.

Price: Free
Requires: OS X 10.8 or later, 64-bit processor
Developer: FIPLAB Ltd.

Final Thoughts

Whether you want to read in the app or your browser, want instant notifications or an app that waits for you in the background, hopefully you found something that fits the bill in this list. There’s a good mix of full feed readers and minimal menubar apps, so whether you want a self-contained reading experience or little more than a desktop notification, I hope you found something to help you soothe the pain of losing Google Reader.

Spotlight is one of your Mac’s best built-in tools, letting you find apps, files, emails, and more in seconds. Once you try to dig deeper, though, you’ll quickly find Spotlight’s interface to be limiting. That’s where Disklens, our sponsor this week, comes in. Disklens builds on Spotlight’s powerful search engine, adding a convenient user interface on top that’s aimed at maximum efficiency in the daily routine of locating information on your Mac.

At first glance, Disklens looks and feels very similar to Spotlight. Disklens performs a much more extensive search, however, delivering several thousand search results in a matter of seconds. You can dig through them all by selecting search categories, if you’re looking for items of a specific kind. Then, mouse-over an item to get more info about it, including file size, creation date, and a link to it in Finder, or tap space to see a Quick Look preview of the file. Then, you can drag-and-drop search results anywhere so you can use what you find.

Disklens includes all of the Spotlight features you love, but makes them even better. If you’ve looked for a search alternate but didn’t want anything too different, then this is the app for you. You’ll feel at home, this time, though, with more power at your fingertips. Disklens doesn’t try to get too fancy feature-wise. It just focuses on providing a simple, convenient, and streamlined approach to locating information on your Mac.

Go Get It!

Ready to get more out of searching on your Mac? Disklens is a great way to do it without spending much at all. You can download a free trial of Disklens to make sure it does everything you need, then get your own copy for just $3.99 from their online store. If it’ll make you even a bit more productive, that’s a small price to pay for the time you’ll save!

Note taking application are probably second only to task management apps in the App Store now. I’ve used many of them, but keep coming back to the same few programs that best meet my needs. I would probably would count Evernote as my favorite cross platform version, but in truth my favorite note taking application isn’t on the Mac. It’s OneNote for Widnows. While most Office programs come in a Mac version, OneNote is a notable, and frustrating, exception.

While OneNote compatible programs aren’t unknown, there are few and most have fallen far short of replacing OneNote. Microsoft’s SkyDrive includes a web based version that functions for many basic editing tasks, but loses some of the powerful features that make OneNote so useful. Many Mac users find themselves resorting to keeping OneNote installed on a virtual machine to keep access to the program.

Outline is a new program in the Mac App Store that promises to bring OneNote to the Mac. Has OneNote finally arrived for the Mac? Let’s find out.

Introducing Outline

Outline for the Mac is a new application from Gorillized Corporation that compliments their existing app for the iPad to bring the power of OneNote to the Apple platform. It is available in the Mac App Store for $19.99. While more expensive than many apps on the App Store, it would easily be worth it if it fulfills the promise of bringing your notes to the Mac without resorting to Virtual Machines or other less convent solutions.

When first run Outline asks you to select a OneNote notebook to view.

Outline has a comfortable Mac look and feel while also doing a very good job of rendering OneNote notebooks that match the the PC version. When first run, the blank screen invites you to open a OneNote notebook. You must have the notebook located somewhere you can access from your Mac. This will most commonly be through a synchronization service such as DropBox or Google Drive. Any system that places a local copy of files on the computer while syncing between computers seems to be the idea method for this app right now. Notably you unfortunately cannot use the current version of Outline to open notebooks being synced using Skydrive directly. You can download the synced notebook from your Skydrive account and then open it within Outline, but this would need to be repeated every time the source notebook changes or you would soon be viewing outdated data.

Outline Showing a Notebook. Compare to the Original in OneNote 2010 on a PC below.

The same note as above in OneNote 2010 on Windows.

Once you open the notebook, Outline shines. Moving between and around notes feels fast and responsive. Notes render quickly and I noticed no lags or other delays while viewing and browsing through notes. I also found the rendering of notes extremely accurate compared to the original version. In fact the accuracy of the rendering of notes seems amazing. I opened a few complex notebooks and the rendering was pretty close to identical to what it looked like when fewer within OneNote 2010. It renders tabs, nested tabs, and sections very well. Images viewed well including hand drawn figures and diagrams included in some of my notes. Tables and formatting also came across well. As a viewer, Outline did a very good job of rendering all my notebooks. While my notebooks probably are not the most complex ones possible, I do think I would have seen any major problems.

Searching Notebooks works quickly and accurately.

Search marks another impressive and well done part of Outline. Searching works fast and accurately providing what appears to be the same results I saw in OneNote 2010. As you type in a term, Outline quickly filters to the notebooks containing the term in a dropdown list near the search box. Click one of the matched items and you’re instantly taken to the appropriate location.

Not Quite OneNote

All is not perfect though. Most notably Outline only allows you to view your notebooks right now. It cannot edit OneNote notebooks though edit support is promised to be coming as a free upgrade. That’s still a huge limitation and really reduces Outline’s ability to function as a OneNote replacement for the Mac. The only time frame given I could find was in a tweet from the company noting editing ability would arrive this year.

Adding to this limitation is the inability to directly open a notebook stored in SkyDrive. This would at least give you the ability to edit a notebook through the web app from a Mac. Since I imagine most users access notebooks from multiple computers moved to SkyDrive Sync, having to redo a workflow to only gain viewing access to notebooks feels like a lot of effort for minimal gain. Again the Mac App Store descritpion promises that support for SkyDrive Sync is coming very soon.

I also found some other limitations and bugs. Notes that have been protected with a password are currently not supported. The program will tell you the note is protected and cannot be accessed, but that still limits the ability if you like to keep protection on confidential or private information stored in your notebooks. I’ve read a few reports that sometimes the app will crash when you attempt to view a protected note, but for me this didn’t happen. The next update promises support for these protected notebooks.

I did notice a few other odd issues. You can open packaged notebooks and individual note files through the program through Finder, but cannot do so through the File -> Open menu which only allows selecting full notebooks. I had a few handwriting notes that looked a bit odd and the description on the Mac App Store acknowledges this.

Conclusion

I really want to recommend Outline, but I can’t do so without a few reservations today. While there are a few minor bugs, overall the program does a very good job of fulfilling its promise. Outline’s ability to accurately render my OneNote notebooks on my Mac impressed me, not being able to edit really prevents this from being the OneNote for the Mac I’d hoped for. The lack of SkyDrive Sync especially hurts here since I’d find the ability to view in Outline and go to the web to edit still inconvenient, but an improvement on my current workflow. As it is, I cannot quite get rid of my virtual machine running OneNote quite yet.

The price is very reasonable for an app to access OneNote notebooks from your Mac. If the promised SkyDrive Sync and editing ability arrives quickly, I’d recommend the application without reservation. The company already makes an existing application for the iPad that does allow editing so I’d hope those features will arrive soon.

As it stands though I think the app is not quite meeting the needs of most users searching for OneNote on the Mac. If you’re comfortable adapting your workflow to — or already — use DropBox or a similar syncing solution and can live without editing, Outline is a good choice. I think it’s worth the cost just for the ability to occasionally reference a notebook on my Mac without having to open up a virtual machine and don’t regret the purchase. If you’re looking for a full OneNote for the Mac, then it’s not here yet, but with a few updates Outline looks like it might just get here.

Note taking application are probably second only to task management apps in the App Store now. I’ve used many of them, but keep coming back to the same few programs that best meet my needs. I would probably would count Evernote as my favorite cross platform version, but in truth my favorite note taking application isn’t on the Mac. It’s OneNote for Widnows. While most Office programs come in a Mac version, OneNote is a notable, and frustrating, exception.

While OneNote compatible programs aren’t unknown, there are few and most have fallen far short of replacing OneNote. Microsoft’s SkyDrive includes a web based version that functions for many basic editing tasks, but loses some of the powerful features that make OneNote so useful. Many Mac users find themselves resorting to keeping OneNote installed on a virtual machine to keep access to the program.

Outline is a new program in the Mac App Store that promises to bring OneNote to the Mac. Has OneNote finally arrived for the Mac? Let’s find out.

Introducing Outline

Outline for the Mac is a new application from Gorillized Corporation that compliments their existing app for the iPad to bring the power of OneNote to the Apple platform. It is available in the Mac App Store for $19.99. While more expensive than many apps on the App Store, it would easily be worth it if it fulfills the promise of bringing your notes to the Mac without resorting to Virtual Machines or other less convent solutions.

When first run Outline asks you to select a OneNote notebook to view.

Outline has a comfortable Mac look and feel while also doing a very good job of rendering OneNote notebooks that match the the PC version. When first run, the blank screen invites you to open a OneNote notebook. You must have the notebook located somewhere you can access from your Mac. This will most commonly be through a synchronization service such as DropBox or Google Drive. Any system that places a local copy of files on the computer while syncing between computers seems to be the idea method for this app right now. Notably you unfortunately cannot use the current version of Outline to open notebooks being synced using Skydrive directly. You can download the synced notebook from your Skydrive account and then open it within Outline, but this would need to be repeated every time the source notebook changes or you would soon be viewing outdated data.

Outline Showing a Notebook. Compare to the Original in OneNote 2010 on a PC below.

The same note as above in OneNote 2010 on Windows.

Once you open the notebook, Outline shines. Moving between and around notes feels fast and responsive. Notes render quickly and I noticed no lags or other delays while viewing and browsing through notes. I also found the rendering of notes extremely accurate compared to the original version. In fact the accuracy of the rendering of notes seems amazing. I opened a few complex notebooks and the rendering was pretty close to identical to what it looked like when fewer within OneNote 2010. It renders tabs, nested tabs, and sections very well. Images viewed well including hand drawn figures and diagrams included in some of my notes. Tables and formatting also came across well. As a viewer, Outline did a very good job of rendering all my notebooks. While my notebooks probably are not the most complex ones possible, I do think I would have seen any major problems.

Searching Notebooks works quickly and accurately.

Search marks another impressive and well done part of Outline. Searching works fast and accurately providing what appears to be the same results I saw in OneNote 2010. As you type in a term, Outline quickly filters to the notebooks containing the term in a dropdown list near the search box. Click one of the matched items and you’re instantly taken to the appropriate location.

Not Quite OneNote

All is not perfect though. Most notably Outline only allows you to view your notebooks right now. It cannot edit OneNote notebooks though edit support is promised to be coming as a free upgrade. That’s still a huge limitation and really reduces Outline’s ability to function as a OneNote replacement for the Mac. The only time frame given I could find was in a tweet from the company noting editing ability would arrive this year.

Adding to this limitation is the inability to directly open a notebook stored in SkyDrive. This would at least give you the ability to edit a notebook through the web app from a Mac. Since I imagine most users access notebooks from multiple computers moved to SkyDrive Sync, having to redo a workflow to only gain viewing access to notebooks feels like a lot of effort for minimal gain. Again the Mac App Store descritpion promises that support for SkyDrive Sync is coming very soon.

I also found some other limitations and bugs. Notes that have been protected with a password are currently not supported. The program will tell you the note is protected and cannot be accessed, but that still limits the ability if you like to keep protection on confidential or private information stored in your notebooks. I’ve read a few reports that sometimes the app will crash when you attempt to view a protected note, but for me this didn’t happen. The next update promises support for these protected notebooks.

I did notice a few other odd issues. You can open packaged notebooks and individual note files through the program through Finder, but cannot do so through the File -> Open menu which only allows selecting full notebooks. I had a few handwriting notes that looked a bit odd and the description on the Mac App Store acknowledges this.

Conclusion

I really want to recommend Outline, but I can’t do so without a few reservations today. While there are a few minor bugs, overall the program does a very good job of fulfilling its promise. Outline’s ability to accurately render my OneNote notebooks on my Mac impressed me, not being able to edit really prevents this from being the OneNote for the Mac I’d hoped for. The lack of SkyDrive Sync especially hurts here since I’d find the ability to view in Outline and go to the web to edit still inconvenient, but an improvement on my current workflow. As it is, I cannot quite get rid of my virtual machine running OneNote quite yet.

The price is very reasonable for an app to access OneNote notebooks from your Mac. If the promised SkyDrive Sync and editing ability arrives quickly, I’d recommend the application without reservation. The company already makes an existing application for the iPad that does allow editing so I’d hope those features will arrive soon.

As it stands though I think the app is not quite meeting the needs of most users searching for OneNote on the Mac. If you’re comfortable adapting your workflow to — or already — use DropBox or a similar syncing solution and can live without editing, Outline is a good choice. I think it’s worth the cost just for the ability to occasionally reference a notebook on my Mac without having to open up a virtual machine and don’t regret the purchase. If you’re looking for a full OneNote for the Mac, then it’s not here yet, but with a few updates Outline looks like it might just get here.

Ever need to work with Microsoft Office files, but don’t want to pay for a full copy of Office? Or do you use iWork by default, but want to make sure your converted documents will look fine on your boss’ Windows computer?

Microsoft has just the thing for you: the Office Web Apps. We’ve just tried out the latest Office Web Apps over at Web.AppStorm, and it turns out, they work quite good.

So what’s the catch? Nothing, really. You get stripped-down versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote that run in your browser, and you can sync the real files back to your Mac using the SkyDrive for Mac app. And you could then continue using those files on your Mac, say in iWork, just fine.

Sound like just what you need for a basic Office solution? Then head over to Web.AppStorm for the full scoop on the Office Web Apps.

Continue reading at Web.AppStorm.net…

Ever need to work with Microsoft Office files, but don’t want to pay for a full copy of Office? Or do you use iWork by default, but want to make sure your converted documents will look fine on your boss’ Windows computer?

Microsoft has just the thing for you: the Office Web Apps. We’ve just tried out the latest Office Web Apps over at Web.AppStorm, and it turns out, they work quite good.

So what’s the catch? Nothing, really. You get stripped-down versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote that run in your browser, and you can sync the real files back to your Mac using the SkyDrive for Mac app. And you could then continue using those files on your Mac, say in iWork, just fine.

Sound like just what you need for a basic Office solution? Then head over to Web.AppStorm for the full scoop on the Office Web Apps.

Continue reading at Web.AppStorm.net…

Cloak is a fantastic little VPN that protects your privacy and allows you to browse the Internet safely on your Mac. Unfortunately, you must pay a price for quality.

Or must you? The team at Spotflux doesn’t think you should pay for privacy, so they have developed a great little VPN that works on Mac, Windows, iOS, and soon Android. As with anything that’s free, there must be a downside, right? Let’s find out.

Bare Bones VPN

Spotflux is enabled upon launch.

Spotflux has two main features: security and privacy. In other words, if you’re on a WiFi network that has no encryption, it’s the perfect way to ensure your sensitive information isn’t easy to access wirelessly. Any ill-doer could intercept your information if it’s being transferred over a public network. For the sake of your security, it’s worth using a VPN at the local coffee shop or library.

As with most companies these days, Spotflux says it’s using “the cloud” to protect your data. Since that’s now the generalized term for all computing on a remote server, this is indeed so, but it’s mainly a marketing technique. You can also run things through a proxy and then through Spotflux if you like using that additional server. However, the actual service is quite good on it’s own. You can choose between using it as just a VPN or with added functionality using filters.

Filters Block Ads, Malware, and Tracking Code

Spotflux has one very unique feature: filters. Instead of using an ad blocker like I do, you can just switch on the VPN and it will remove them from the pages for you. I didn’t find it as effective as some of the browser plugins out there, but it’s definitely useful when browsing the Net.

Use filters or keep them disabled.

There are other filters, too. The service tries its best to stop malware from downloading to your computer. With a Mac, this isn’t as much of a problem, but it is nice to have that extra layer between the virus’ server and your computer. Lastly, the app blocks tracking code, or “cookies” as they’re more commonly known. I personally don’t need any of these “filters” — most people don’t, and they might even break some web apps — but they do act as an extra layer of security and not a whole lot of resources are used to have them running.

Regarding Reliability

For a free service, you can’t expect perpetual uptime. It’s good to want consistency, but never complete reliability. Spotflux, thankfully, is one of those services that maintains consistency. I did experience some random disconnects, but overall daily usage has been very smooth. My only complaint is that when I’m downloading a file, it stops and I’m unable to start it at that point. Since it takes a good 45 seconds for Spotflux to switch back on after a disconnect, things can sometimes become inconvenient.

What About This Whole “Free” Concept?

Lately, a lot of services have started out by being unconditionally free. From the perspective of a user, this is a great trait to see in an app or company. And it’s evident that, when the consuming party gets what it wants, all is well in the eyes of everyone else. Sadly, when you take time to look at the core, things are falling apart.

Apple’s banner on an App Store promotion.

As Michael Jurewitz explained in an editorial related to the matter, the free mindset that developers have can be harmful to the company, and even sometimes end user. The problem is that, while beginning well, the process of a free business model goes downhill due to one flaw: most companies don’t want to be non-profit. That’s why Twitter took the sponsorship approach, Facebook went crazy with advertisements, and App.net was born. It is possible to offer a service for free, but the price is one that users must pay.

Spotflux has it’s money on mobile.

With Spotflux, I found it very hard to understand what the company would do for revenue. To help things along, I spoke with Chris Naegelin, co-founder of the service. Naegelin said that Spotflux is currently only free on the desktop; if you’re using a mobile device, the service is paid. “We also monetize during the install process if a user opts-in to one of our bundle partners such as Dashlane,” he noted.

Thankfully, the co-founder said that the company “[plans] to always have an unlimited free tier”. There will be a “premium” version available on the desktop later this year, but currently the free option is all that’s offered as a sort of starting point.

I asked Naegelin what the company’s plans for the future are and, while he said that most of them are confidential, he made it a point for users to know that there will be much more focus on safe and private browsing.

Simple and Functional

Spotflux is a great app. You won’t easily find another truly free VPN out there that’s the quality of this one. There’s not a lot in the app to go on about because it’s really quite simple. It’s not like the average user needs more in a VPN than what this one offers. The privacy features and malware protection are really nice and the servers have always been speedy enough for my needs. As for the moments of downtime, they’re not that bad — it just takes longer to enable the service.

Cloak is a fantastic little VPN that protects your privacy and allows you to browse the Internet safely on your Mac. Unfortunately, you must pay a price for quality.

Or must you? The team at Spotflux doesn’t think you should pay for privacy, so they have developed a great little VPN that works on Mac, Windows, iOS, and soon Android. As with anything that’s free, there must be a downside, right? Let’s find out.

Bare Bones VPN

Spotflux is enabled upon launch.

Spotflux has two main features: security and privacy. In other words, if you’re on a WiFi network that has no encryption, it’s the perfect way to ensure your sensitive information isn’t easy to access wirelessly. Any ill-doer could intercept your information if it’s being transferred over a public network. For the sake of your security, it’s worth using a VPN at the local coffee shop or library.

As with most companies these days, Spotflux says it’s using “the cloud” to protect your data. Since that’s now the generalized term for all computing on a remote server, this is indeed so, but it’s mainly a marketing technique. You can also run things through a proxy and then through Spotflux if you like using that additional server. However, the actual service is quite good on it’s own. You can choose between using it as just a VPN or with added functionality using filters.

Filters Block Ads, Malware, and Tracking Code

Spotflux has one very unique feature: filters. Instead of using an ad blocker like I do, you can just switch on the VPN and it will remove them from the pages for you. I didn’t find it as effective as some of the browser plugins out there, but it’s definitely useful when browsing the Net.

Use filters or keep them disabled.

There are other filters, too. The service tries its best to stop malware from downloading to your computer. With a Mac, this isn’t as much of a problem, but it is nice to have that extra layer between the virus’ server and your computer. Lastly, the app blocks tracking code, or “cookies” as they’re more commonly known. I personally don’t need any of these “filters” — most people don’t, and they might even break some web apps — but they do act as an extra layer of security and not a whole lot of resources are used to have them running.

Regarding Reliability

For a free service, you can’t expect perpetual uptime. It’s good to want consistency, but never complete reliability. Spotflux, thankfully, is one of those services that maintains consistency. I did experience some random disconnects, but overall daily usage has been very smooth. My only complaint is that when I’m downloading a file, it stops and I’m unable to start it at that point. Since it takes a good 45 seconds for Spotflux to switch back on after a disconnect, things can sometimes become inconvenient.

What About This Whole “Free” Concept?

Lately, a lot of services have started out by being unconditionally free. From the perspective of a user, this is a great trait to see in an app or company. And it’s evident that, when the consuming party gets what it wants, all is well in the eyes of everyone else. Sadly, when you take time to look at the core, things are falling apart.

Apple’s banner on an App Store promotion.

As Michael Jurewitz explained in an editorial related to the matter, the free mindset that developers have can be harmful to the company, and even sometimes end user. The problem is that, while beginning well, the process of a free business model goes downhill due to one flaw: most companies don’t want to be non-profit. That’s why Twitter took the sponsorship approach, Facebook went crazy with advertisements, and App.net was born. It is possible to offer a service for free, but the price is one that users must pay.

Spotflux has it’s money on mobile.

With Spotflux, I found it very hard to understand what the company would do for revenue. To help things along, I spoke with Chris Naegelin, co-founder of the service. Naegelin said that Spotflux is currently only free on the desktop; if you’re using a mobile device, the service is paid. “We also monetize during the install process if a user opts-in to one of our bundle partners such as Dashlane,” he noted.

Thankfully, the co-founder said that the company “[plans] to always have an unlimited free tier”. There will be a “premium” version available on the desktop later this year, but currently the free option is all that’s offered as a sort of starting point.

I asked Naegelin what the company’s plans for the future are and, while he said that most of them are confidential, he made it a point for users to know that there will be much more focus on safe and private browsing.

Simple and Functional

Spotflux is a great app. You won’t easily find another truly free VPN out there that’s the quality of this one. There’s not a lot in the app to go on about because it’s really quite simple. It’s not like the average user needs more in a VPN than what this one offers. The privacy features and malware protection are really nice and the servers have always been speedy enough for my needs. As for the moments of downtime, they’re not that bad — it just takes longer to enable the service.

Say what you want about the heralded eventual doom of email, I don’t think it’s going anywhere fast. And since it seems to be hanging around, developers are trying to rejuvenate it: adding to its features, bending and tweaking and overall making it a more enjoyable, convenient experience.

Mail Call contributes to this vein by putting the mail right in the menubar. But how easy is it? Let’s find out.

Coveted Real Estate

In the last few years, it seems that every app I download for my Mac has a menubar component. For some apps, it makes completely logical sense as they may serve their basic functionality from that part of the screen area or the app’s main goal is always-at-your-fingertips convenience. Either way, my menubar is flush with icons and Mail Call adds to that. Luckily, though, it deserves its place.

Can you spot Mail Call’s icon?

You’ve Got Mail

Apple’s default Mail app seems nice enough, but I could never be troubled to set it up. I’ve been on GMail as long as I can remember, but using a web-based email client has its ups and downs. On the upside, it’s available everywhere there is Internet, but on the downside you have to open a browser to access it.

You can preview a message in the list, or double-click it to open up a message pane.

I’ve tried to get used to having a dedicated mail application, but eventually I found myself just leaving GMail open in a tab of Google Chrome, thereby negating the point of having a dedicated app running. There are no notifications when a new message arrives when you go this route, though. I’ve been getting by on GMail Notifr, a free menubar app that uses Growl notifications to alert users to a new message, but aside from alerting, it really just serves as a link to open the message in the browser.

Difference Maker

Mail Call is the next evolution of the menubar alert: you can read, reply, forward and sort your mail without your browser and without a dedicated app. Mail Call glows to life (you pick the color!) when you have a new message. When you click the icon, a menu opens displaying any unread messages. You can double-click the a message to have it open in a separate pane with more options like flagging or printing. The choice to reply or compose a message is available from the drop-down as well, if you want to save a click.

If you don’t want your unread email to have you seeing red, you can choose a different icon color for the menu bar.

Using Mail Call is unobtrusive. The message panes where mail is opened are petite, even on my tiny-by-comparison 11.6″ screen. While some apps may have more features, Mail Call is designed to provide the basics, but does so well, letting you quickly dismiss or reply to emails while barely losing concentration. And it serves the dual feature of motivating you to keep your inbox clean so as to avoid the menubar glow of pending unread emails.

The message view has most basic mail features: reply, forward, flag, print, and attach.

Do you have multiple email accounts? Mail Call will merge the unread messages into a unified list, thereby removing the extra steps of switching accounts just to respond to a particular message.

You can set your mail to be checked from every minute to every 2 hours. The unified inbox merges unread email from multiple accounts into one drop-down preview area.

What’s it Worth?

Mail Call is a $9.99 app in the App Store. That’s on par with some other mail apps like Sparrow and Postbox, but those apps have fancy features like Dropbox integration, calendar additions, and Facebook contacts. Mail Call brings a pure and simple convenience, but the price is still daunting. I would wholeheartedly recommend it in the $2.99 – $4.99 range, but $9.99 is a bit tough to swallow. If you are looking for a menubar mail wonder, though, Mail Call is good and has a lot of potential to grow into something amazing.

Say what you want about the heralded eventual doom of email, I don’t think it’s going anywhere fast. And since it seems to be hanging around, developers are trying to rejuvenate it: adding to its features, bending and tweaking and overall making it a more enjoyable, convenient experience.

Mail Call contributes to this vein by putting the mail right in the menubar. But how easy is it? Let’s find out.

Coveted Real Estate

In the last few years, it seems that every app I download for my Mac has a menubar component. For some apps, it makes completely logical sense as they may serve their basic functionality from that part of the screen area or the app’s main goal is always-at-your-fingertips convenience. Either way, my menubar is flush with icons and Mail Call adds to that. Luckily, though, it deserves its place.

Can you spot Mail Call’s icon?

You’ve Got Mail

Apple’s default Mail app seems nice enough, but I could never be troubled to set it up. I’ve been on GMail as long as I can remember, but using a web-based email client has its ups and downs. On the upside, it’s available everywhere there is Internet, but on the downside you have to open a browser to access it.

You can preview a message in the list, or double-click it to open up a message pane.

I’ve tried to get used to having a dedicated mail application, but eventually I found myself just leaving GMail open in a tab of Google Chrome, thereby negating the point of having a dedicated app running. There are no notifications when a new message arrives when you go this route, though. I’ve been getting by on GMail Notifr, a free menubar app that uses Growl notifications to alert users to a new message, but aside from alerting, it really just serves as a link to open the message in the browser.

Difference Maker

Mail Call is the next evolution of the menubar alert: you can read, reply, forward and sort your mail without your browser and without a dedicated app. Mail Call glows to life (you pick the color!) when you have a new message. When you click the icon, a menu opens displaying any unread messages. You can double-click the a message to have it open in a separate pane with more options like flagging or printing. The choice to reply or compose a message is available from the drop-down as well, if you want to save a click.

If you don’t want your unread email to have you seeing red, you can choose a different icon color for the menu bar.

Using Mail Call is unobtrusive. The message panes where mail is opened are petite, even on my tiny-by-comparison 11.6″ screen. While some apps may have more features, Mail Call is designed to provide the basics, but does so well, letting you quickly dismiss or reply to emails while barely losing concentration. And it serves the dual feature of motivating you to keep your inbox clean so as to avoid the menubar glow of pending unread emails.

The message view has most basic mail features: reply, forward, flag, print, and attach.

Do you have multiple email accounts? Mail Call will merge the unread messages into a unified list, thereby removing the extra steps of switching accounts just to respond to a particular message.

You can set your mail to be checked from every minute to every 2 hours. The unified inbox merges unread email from multiple accounts into one drop-down preview area.

What’s it Worth?

Mail Call is a $9.99 app in the App Store. That’s on par with some other mail apps like Sparrow and Postbox, but those apps have fancy features like Dropbox integration, calendar additions, and Facebook contacts. Mail Call brings a pure and simple convenience, but the price is still daunting. I would wholeheartedly recommend it in the $2.99 – $4.99 range, but $9.99 is a bit tough to swallow. If you are looking for a menubar mail wonder, though, Mail Call is good and has a lot of potential to grow into something amazing.

Hello again!

It is time for another fresh update on the world of the Mac. This week we brought to up to date on everything from Apple hiring the former Adobe CTO, to the new version of PDFpen and Photoshop Elements hitting the Mac App Store, a bunch of great deals to save your pennies, and links to the most interesting articles that showed up this past week. It’s enough to keep you informed and entertained for the weekend.

Hope you enjoy the ride!

News from the World of Apps

Apple hires former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch

Lynch’s hiring has caused some controversy around the Mac media because of his past push for the inclusion of Flash into the iPhone during his role at Adobe. It’s not too surprising that he’d rally behind his then-employer’s products, but still, he took it further than you’d have expected for someone that, a few years later, Apple decided to hire. We’ll have to wait and see what he brings to the table at Apple. If you really want to know more about the controversy, Apple Insider has a englightening article about it. Also, this video (including, yes, Kevin Lynch) is a must-see.

Smile Software releases PDFpen 6

PDFpen and PDFpen Pro, the popular PDF editors, gained a new version with Microsoft Word export, new design, support for auto-saves and versions, Retina optimization and many other features. If you need more than Preview offers, but don’t want to shell out for Adobe Acrobat, this is the app you should look at.

PDFPen 6 and PDFPen Pro 6 bring several great features to the PDF editor.

SimCity Update: Straight Answers from Lucy

This stroke me like a lightning bolt. SimCity is an online experience only, following the trend from Blizzard’s last releases. This may be old news, but the reasoning behind it, given by general manager Lucy Bradshaw, puts the bricks back in their places. There’s technically no reason SimCity couldn’t run offline, but the EA team decided they’d rather have it run only online to let the connected cities work.

Aspyr Media and 2K Games Announce BioShock® Infinite Coming to Mac

The third game from the franchise is about to come out, as BioShock Infinite will be released for PC and console next week. There’s no actual release date for the Mac version, however, there’s a Mac version coming, so let’s just cross our fingers and hope they don’t keep us hanging until Christmas.

The next game from the award-winning franchise BioShock is coming to the Mac soon.

NimbleBit’s Nimble Quest coming to iOS and Mac March 28

The developers behind the addictive Pocket Planes and Tiny Tower have scheduled the release of their next venture, Nimble Quest, an arcade-style RPG. It’ll be released on March 28th for both OSX and iOS, and we can’t wait to look at it.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 Editor is now in the App Store

Photoshop Element 11 hits the Mac App Store offering a large range of resources to edit your photos. It’s a solid counterpart to Photoshop if you don’t fancy spending over $600 for the full-featured suite, since it still contains most of Photoshop’s basic features. It is followed by Premiere Elements 11 Editor and it’s lighter companion, Premiere Elements 11 Quick Editor, for all sorts of video-editing. The Premiere Quick Editor is a new addition to the Adobe Elements lineup, giving you the basics of Premiere Elements for just $29.

Photoshop Elements 11 Editor comes to the Mac App Store.

Second version of Bubble Browser is announced

We recently reviewed Bubble Browser as an alternative way to visualize your Evernote’s notebooks. The first version blazed the path, but felt a bit unfinished and the upcoming version, to be released today, promises to change that.

Highland ships

Screenwriters just gained a new toy to play with, as the highly anticipated (at least within the film community) Fountain editor and PDF melter praised by John August. Don’t forget to read our just-published review of Highland if you haven’t already.

The Best App Deals for Your Mac

TuneUp – $39.99 > $30

xScan – $19.99 > $10

Highland (NEW) – $19.99 > $9.99

Concealer – $19.99 > $9.99

TunesCleaner – $29.99 > $5.99

Calendar Plus – $9.99 > 4.99

Calendar Plus brings complete functionality to your menubar.

MailPop PRO for Gmail – $2.99 > $0.99

Words App – $5.99 > $4.99

Rails – $4.99 > $1.99

Outline (NEW) – $19.99

Words App’s new release made it into a go-to option to read articles later.

2013 Macbundler Spring Bundle – $42 (contains Default Folder X, Cinch, Circus Ponies’ Notebook and 6 other apps)

$100 iTunes Gift Card for $80 at BestBuy – $100 > $80

Bastion – Pay what you want, starting at $1, with the new Humble Bundle Weekly Deals

Interesting Links

High Priest of App Design, at Home in Philly

VIDEO: Photoshop reaches 5 millions’ Facebook fans

In the wake of Google Reader, Feedly wants to surf the big waves

A Month with Mailbox

Apple is Losing The War – Of Words

The Macalope Weekly: Mythperceptions

Ceding the Crown

Free Works

Did We Miss Anything?

That’s all of the news, deals, and interesting links for this week, but if there’s anything you think we missed, be sure to let us know in the comments below. Otherwise, check back next Thursday for more Mac news, deals, and more!

Hello again!

It is time for another fresh update on the world of the Mac. This week we brought to up to date on everything from Apple hiring the former Adobe CTO, to the new version of PDFpen and Photoshop Elements hitting the Mac App Store, a bunch of great deals to save your pennies, and links to the most interesting articles that showed up this past week. It’s enough to keep you informed and entertained for the weekend.

Hope you enjoy the ride!

News from the World of Apps

Apple hires former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch

Lynch’s hiring has caused some controversy around the Mac media because of his past push for the inclusion of Flash into the iPhone during his role at Adobe. It’s not too surprising that he’d rally behind his then-employer’s products, but still, he took it further than you’d have expected for someone that, a few years later, Apple decided to hire. We’ll have to wait and see what he brings to the table at Apple. If you really want to know more about the controversy, Apple Insider has a englightening article about it. Also, this video (including, yes, Kevin Lynch) is a must-see.

Smile Software releases PDFpen 6

PDFpen and PDFpen Pro, the popular PDF editors, gained a new version with Microsoft Word export, new design, support for auto-saves and versions, Retina optimization and many other features. If you need more than Preview offers, but don’t want to shell out for Adobe Acrobat, this is the app you should look at.

PDFPen 6 and PDFPen Pro 6 bring several great features to the PDF editor.

SimCity Update: Straight Answers from Lucy

This stroke me like a lightning bolt. SimCity is an online experience only, following the trend from Blizzard’s last releases. This may be old news, but the reasoning behind it, given by general manager Lucy Bradshaw, puts the bricks back in their places. There’s technically no reason SimCity couldn’t run offline, but the EA team decided they’d rather have it run only online to let the connected cities work.

Aspyr Media and 2K Games Announce BioShock® Infinite Coming to Mac

The third game from the franchise is about to come out, as BioShock Infinite will be released for PC and console next week. There’s no actual release date for the Mac version, however, there’s a Mac version coming, so let’s just cross our fingers and hope they don’t keep us hanging until Christmas.

The next game from the award-winning franchise BioShock is coming to the Mac soon.

NimbleBit’s Nimble Quest coming to iOS and Mac March 28

The developers behind the addictive Pocket Planes and Tiny Tower have scheduled the release of their next venture, Nimble Quest, an arcade-style RPG. It’ll be released on March 28th for both OSX and iOS, and we can’t wait to look at it.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 Editor is now in the App Store

Photoshop Element 11 hits the Mac App Store offering a large range of resources to edit your photos. It’s a solid counterpart to Photoshop if you don’t fancy spending over $600 for the full-featured suite, since it still contains most of Photoshop’s basic features. It is followed by Premiere Elements 11 Editor and it’s lighter companion, Premiere Elements 11 Quick Editor, for all sorts of video-editing. The Premiere Quick Editor is a new addition to the Adobe Elements lineup, giving you the basics of Premiere Elements for just $29.

Photoshop Elements 11 Editor comes to the Mac App Store.

Second version of Bubble Browser is announced

We recently reviewed Bubble Browser as an alternative way to visualize your Evernote’s notebooks. The first version blazed the path, but felt a bit unfinished and the upcoming version, to be released today, promises to change that.

Highland ships

Screenwriters just gained a new toy to play with, as the highly anticipated (at least within the film community) Fountain editor and PDF melter praised by John August. Don’t forget to read our just-published review of Highland if you haven’t already.

The Best App Deals for Your Mac

TuneUp – $39.99 > $30

xScan – $19.99 > $10

Highland (NEW) – $19.99 > $9.99

Concealer – $19.99 > $9.99

TunesCleaner – $29.99 > $5.99

Calendar Plus – $9.99 > 4.99

Calendar Plus brings complete functionality to your menubar.

MailPop PRO for Gmail – $2.99 > $0.99

Words App – $5.99 > $4.99

Rails – $4.99 > $1.99

Outline (NEW) – $19.99

Words App’s new release made it into a go-to option to read articles later.

2013 Macbundler Spring Bundle – $42 (contains Default Folder X, Cinch, Circus Ponies’ Notebook and 6 other apps)

$100 iTunes Gift Card for $80 at BestBuy – $100 > $80

Bastion – Pay what you want, starting at $1, with the new Humble Bundle Weekly Deals

Interesting Links

High Priest of App Design, at Home in Philly

VIDEO: Photoshop reaches 5 millions’ Facebook fans

In the wake of Google Reader, Feedly wants to surf the big waves

A Month with Mailbox

Apple is Losing The War – Of Words

The Macalope Weekly: Mythperceptions

Ceding the Crown

Free Works

Did We Miss Anything?

That’s all of the news, deals, and interesting links for this week, but if there’s anything you think we missed, be sure to let us know in the comments below. Otherwise, check back next Thursday for more Mac news, deals, and more!

Twitter has hit something of a boom recently. From a small tech startup in San Francisco a mere seven years ago, it has blossomed to one of the largest social networks globally and the tenth most visited site on the Net. The influence of Twitter can be seen everywhere — from TV shows with hashtags in the corner to big companies promoting their brands and products with @names and hashtags — and the words “retweet” and “follower” have entered the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary as proper English words.

The Mac certainly isn’t left out here and you’ll be glad to know that there’s plenty of choice when it comes to Twitter clients. In this roundup, I take a look at eight of the best and weigh up the pros and cons of each one. If you’re unsure about which Twitter client to use, or simply fancy switching to another one, then read on for my recommendations.

1. Twitter (official)

Despite the fact it received its last update a year and a half ago (back in June 2011), the official Twitter app for OS X is still going strong. Those who used Tweetie will recognise the interface (Twitter snaffled up the company back in April 2010) and it’s good for first-time Twitter users due to its ease-of-use and simplistic interface.

The official Twitter app for OS X

The problem with the official app, though, is that it’s lacking many of the features seen in other Twitter clients, such as support for more image services and support for notifications in Mountain Lion. The lack of updates has meant that the app also hasn’t kept pace with the redesign of Twitter and its new Connect and Discover tabs, which is a real shame.

Advantages: Simple, easy-to-use design.
Disadvantages: The app is now starting to show its age. Lack of advanced features.

Price: Free
Requires: OS X 10.6 and above

2. Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a more powerful and customisable offering than the official client and has retained the old column view from the previous version (which was acquired by Twitter in May 2011). There are plenty of features to keep even the busiest Twitter user happy, including scheduling of tweets, streaming and notifications.

Tweetdeck on OS X

Although the reviews on the App Store still lament the app’s change from the original version, there’s still plenty to like about Tweetdeck. I personally find the interface a little too “busy”, especially with the streaming feature however the fact it is owned by Twitter (and benefits from more active development) means that new features are being introduced all the time.

Advantages: Columned view with plenty of powerful features.
Disadvantages: You’ll need a Tweetdeck account in addition to your Twitter account to sign in. The interface can overwhelm at times.

Price: Free
Requires: OS X 10.6 and above

3. Tweetbot for Mac

Ever since Tweetbot was released it has become one of the popular alternative Twitter clients for Mac. Tweetbot boasts a wealth of features, including iCloud timeline sync with the iPhone and iPad versions, support for a wide range of third-party image and video services (including Cloudapp and Droplr) and full integration with Mountain Lion.

Tweetbot for Mac.

Anyone who has used the iPad version of Tweetbot will be familiar with the app’s interface, with easy access to your mentions, direct messages, lists and so on on the left hand side and even the gestures are the same – swipe left to view your conversation and right to view a tweet in a bit more detail. The app has received favourable reviews however the high price may be a slight cause for concern for some customers.

Advantages: Outstanding integration with the iOS version and a wide range of features.
Disadvantages: Interface may not please some. High price and no free trial.

Price: $19.99
Requires: OS X 10.7.4 and above and a 64-bit processor

4. Twitterrific

Twitterrific is a lightweight yet powerful Twitter client for OS X with a nice range of features that will please most Twitter users. The interface is really easy to use and has a nice coloured interface, with different ones for mentions, direct messages and so on. You can also switch between a dark and light theme, depending on your tastes.

Twitterrific on OS X.

It’s a pity that the Mac version of Twitterrific didn’t receive the same treatment to its interface like the iOS version did a couple of months back, but there’s still hope that this will be refreshed in the near future. And at $9.99, it offers almost precisely the same features as Tweetbot at half the price. There’s also a free (but ad-supported version) if you want to try before you buy.

Advantages: Good range of features in a neat interface.
Disadvantages: Needs more harmonisation with the iOS versions.

Price: $9.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 and above

5. Osfoora

Osfoora (don’t ask me where the name comes from!) is a relatively simple Twitter client that is great for people who don’t want to be overwhelmed by fancy interfaces and tonnes of unnecessary features. There’s support for muting particular Twitter users, read later services (including Instapaper and Pocket) and multiple accounts.

Osfoora on OS X.

There are a few limitations to Osfoora, such as no pull-to-refresh but overall it presents itself as a well-rounded Twitter client. My only worry is, though, that at $5.49 there are more powerful Twitter clients out there for OS X and customers may feel inclined either to go for a cheaper option or splash out and get a Twitter client with more features.

Advantages: Decent range of features for such a small app.
Disadvantages: A little too expensive for what it’s offering.

Price: $5.49
Requires: OS X 10.6 and above

6. Socialite

Socialite works with both Twitter and Facebook and also syncs with Google Reader to aggregate your RSS feeds and your Flickr account. Aside the standard features that you would expect from a Twitter account, the app also allows you to organise all your social networks into folders, which is extremely useful if you manage a number of different accounts.

Socialite is a very customisable application and you can play around with many different aspects of it – especially the user interface. It also provides full support for notifications in Mountain Lion and integration with third-party services such as Instapaper. For $9.99, it’s great for managing multiple accounts and you could dispense with all other Twitter clients – if you don’t mind the slightly cumbersome Timeline view.

Advantages: Fantastic handling of multiple social networking accounts. A great “all-in-one” application.
Disadvantages: Can be quite awkward to use, especially in the Timeline view. No support for Tweet Marker.

Price: $9.95
Requires: OS X 10.6 and above

Which One To Download?

I hope this roundup has helped you sift through all of the Twitter clients for OS X out there! Of course, I haven’t included all of them – rather my six favourite apps – and there’s still, at least, the Twitter web app that’ll work on almost any Mac, as well as Mountain Lion’s native Twitter integration. And really, each app has its own advantages and disadvantages, so you’ll need to pick the best one for you. If there’s another app that I’ve forgotten, then please include it in the comments below!