Category: Mac

One of the reasons Twitter is popular is for its simplistic take on social networks. Instead of encouraging users to post as much content as they can, Twitter limits the amount of information a user can put out by limiting the characters in each tweet to 140 characters.

You probably knew this already, but I’m telling you this because the app that we are reviewing today intends to bring the simplicity of the original idea of Twitter, to the Mac. It’s called Itsy, want to check it out?

Getting Started

The installation of Itsy is unfortunately not as simple as the app is. In order to get it up and running, you need to complete several steps, like giving permission to the app on Twitter and using a special PIN for security reasons. After you complete these steps, you’ll be able to access your Twitter feed through Itsy.

Unlike Twitter for Mac or other popular Twitter clients, Itsy is very compact, simple, and it doesn’t have many features (at least on the surface). It it is what it is: just a simple way for you to read and interact with your Twitter feed.

Interface

Much of Itsy’s appeal relies on its minimalistic looks. Everything is tiny, clean, and there are no elements inside the main app’s window other than what is necessary. Icons play a big part on interacting with the app, like they do on any other Twitter client. All the actions are also handled inside the main window of the app, you’ll never see a secondary window popup, not even for writing new tweets.

You have a small toolbar on top with the usual “Feed”, “Mentions”, “Messages” and “Search” buttons, all represented by an icon. Next to them, on the corner, is a “New Tweet” button, and below this toolbar is your feed, which we’ll get to next.

Feed

When it comes to reading your feed, Itsy isn’t much different from the competition, or even Twitter’s web interface. Your feed is shown in a long list where the newest ones are found on top and the older ones are buried below. Each tweet is shown with its corresponding information, like the user’s name, icon and the time it was sent. Retweets are handled just like they are in Twitter’s web interface, with the original user’s info being used for the tweet and a legend below that reads “Retweeted by ___”.

One thing where Itsy differentiates itself from the competition is that it doesn’t ask for you to open anything in other windows. In fact, like I mentioned before, Itsy doesn’t even have the ability to open things through different panels or windows. For example, images are automatically shown inside the feed, without the need for you to open them elsewhere, and if you want to check out a user’s other tweets, you’ll be taken to their profile inside your browser.

Interacting

If you hover over any tweet in your feed, the usual interaction buttons will show up below the tweet. There, you can reply, retweet and favorite any item in your feed. If you select the “Reply” or the “New Tweet” buttons, the feed will be pushed downwards a little bit to make room for a text box above it, where you can write your replies or new tweets.

Tweets where you are mentioned will have a discrete blue background instead of the normal white/grey one. Your “Mentions” feed is much like you’d expect it to be, but the “Direct Messages” section is where it gets a bit confusing. Unlike other clients, here all of your messages are shown in one window, by date of when you sent them or received them. This makes it a bit hard to keep track of conversations with one specific user, but also makes it easy to see an overview of all your messages in one window.

Another disadvantage of this app is that it doesn’t have a way to show you the current trending topics, or anything similar. Usually these features are hidden inside the “Search” option in other clients, but in this one the “Search” section only works for what its name says.

Itsy vs. Twitter for Mac

Twitter for Mac, being the official client for the web service, is the most popular Twitter client for Mac available out there. For the most part, I think it does a great job and I’m a big fan of it, but I’ve heard people who complain a lot about it. Twitter for Mac is a pretty simple app too, but Itsy goes further in removing features from the app in order to make it less complicated.

However, while Itsy lacks some stuff in comparison to the competition, it also brings a few advantages to the table, that most other clients don’t have. For one, it has the advantage of a clean distraction-free experience. But there are other smaller details, like the inline image feature, Growl notifications for your entire feed, and customizable themes.

Conclusion

Overall, I like Itsy and I like some of what it brings to the market of Twitter clients. There are some elements that I love about this app, the inline images for one. However, I think for me, it lacks a few key features that Twitter for Mac has, like multiple account support and the ability to watch another user’s profile inside the app (along with their replies and other user information).

Which Twitter client do you use? Do you prefer the simple ones, or the overly complicated ones? What do you think about Itsy, or for that matter, about Twitter for Mac?

This post is the answer to the first question that any new Mac user will ask: which apps are the best? The next time someone asks you this question, don’t think twice, just send them here.

We’ve spent hours and hours browsing the web, combing the Mac App Store and wandering through our own archives for the absolute best Mac apps around and we’ve found a whopping one hundred of them that we think you’ll love. Whether you’re looking for a screenshot utility, a todo list or even a great game to play, we’ve got you covered. We’re not merely offering a mindless list of links either, we took the time to tell you what each app does and why we love it so you can make an informed decision. Happy downloading!

Table of Contents

System Utilities

Default Folder X

Default Folder X is a seriously useful app that you appreciate as soon as it’s installed. It augments file open and save dialogs with tons of great features and add ons. Hit a shortcut to quickly go to the most recent folder used by any app, access a list of recent folders, or even click on a Finder window in the background to bring it up in the dialog.

Price: $34.95 – AppStorm Review

Growl

Growl is a system-wide notification system for your Mac. It’s an essential piece of software that’s so simple and amazing that it should probably be built into OS X by now. Growl is theme-able and integrates with a ton of other apps to subtly inform you of everything that’s going on with your Mac.

Price: $1.99

GeekTool

Isn’t it annoying that you can’t put Dashboard Widgets on your desktop? They’re always hidden and out of the way so I tend to completely forget they exist. With GeekTool, your desktop becomes anything you want it to be. It’s definitely a little on the geeky side (hence the name) so if you don’t know what a shell script is, this might not be the app for you. If you know what you’re doing though, you can use GeekTool to display a calendar, the weather, the current time, an RSS feed and tons of other stuff on your desktop. Here’s how to get it up and running.

Price: Free – AppStorm How-To

ClipMenu

ClipMenu is one of those old apps that doesn’t really seem to be actively developed, but it’s so good that you don’t even mind. Say what you will about clipboard managers with fancy interfaces, ClipMenu is the one for me. It keeps an extensive history of text and image clips, lets you store and receive prebuilt snippets, and can perform really complex custom actions on clipped text. ClipMenu pops up right where you mouse is when you hit your assigned shortcut and the minimal interface makes it truly feel like something that’s simply built into OS X. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free?

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

iStat Menus

iStat Menus isn’t a single tool but a plethora of menu bar utilities for monitoring your system. Keep and eye on your memory, CPU, fan speeds, battery health, network information and a lot more. You can even use it to override the default time stamp with something much more versatile. If you like to stay informed, this app should be at the top of your list.

Price: $16.00 – AppStorm Review

Caffeine

Caffeine has the same effect on your Mac as it does you: it helps it stay awake. Granted, you have energy saving controls in System Preferences but sometimes you just want a single click that will turn off screensavers, screen dimming and sleeping. Caffeine does exactly that and works like a dream.

Price: Free

Mactracker

Mactracker is probably my favorite obscure and under appreciated app. It’s like a virtual encyclopedia of Mac hardware. Pretty much everything you wanted to know about anything with an Apple logo is nestled inside of this cozy little app. I reference it all the time for upgrades and replacement parts.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Boom

Let’s face it, your MacBook’s volume isn’t the best. This problem is worse in some places than others. For instance, in iTunes I’m usually fine but some Hulu shows are just so dang quiet I can barely hear. With Boost, you can push past the default volume limits on your Mac and crank that volume to where you need it. You can also use it to boost the volume settings on individual files.

Price: $6.99 – AppStorm Review

TextExpander

As a writer, this is one app that I simply can’t live without. If you’ve never used a text expansion app before, you’re missing out. Basically, these apps allow you to type a little and get a lot. You set up prebuilt snippets that automatically expand when you type a certain key combination. For instance, you could write “thankss” and have it expand into an entire thank you email, saving you several minutes of typing.

There are a few contenders in the text expansion arena, but TextExpander is by far my favorite. The interface is simple and easy to use and the feature set is super powerful, allowing for all kinds of intelligent macros that insert the date, clipboard contents, etc.

Price: $34.95

TotalFinder

TotalFinder is a bit on the hacky side so I always hesitate to recommend it. However, I can’t get around the fact that I simply love this app. The main draw here is that it puts Chrome-style tabs on your Finder windows. No more cluttering up your desktop with fifty-seven open windows, tabbed file browsing saves the day. There’s also a cool dual mode that splits your Finder window in two similar to what you’d see in Transmit and other FTP apps.

Price: $18.00 – AppStorm Review

Screens

Screens is one of the best VNC apps around if you’re looking to access your home computer on the go. Most apps like this are a real pain to set up but Screens does the work for you and makes the whole thing a breeze. It’s especially nice for accessing your home Mac from your iOS device.

Price: $29.99

VLC

I love Quicktime, most of the time it gets the job done perfectly. However, for those times when it won’t play some random video format, I keep VLC on hand, which supports just about everything you can throw at it.

Price: Free

Take Control of Your Mac

Keyboard Maestro

While TextExpander is specifically for writing more with less effort, Keyboard Maestro is all about taking complete control of your Mac via your keyboard. In just a few keystrokes you can “control applications, windows, or menus; insert text; open documents, applications or URLs; execute scripts; control the system, iTunes or QuickTime Player; and more.” It’s a crazy powerful app and keyboard control freaks will absolutely love it.

Price: $35.99 – AppStorm Review

Cockpit

Cockpit is menu app that controls iTunes. Oh, and it also burns discs, handles bulk file tasks, controls Safari, integrates with iCal and has an extension system for interfacing with various third party apps. In short, it is capable of controlling a ton of stuff and is amazingly customizable. It also has a pretty slick design.

Price: $3.99 – AppStorm Review

MacPilot

Mac power users know that there are a ton of hidden and secret functions inside of OS X that can largely be accessed purely through the use of Terminal or some other command line tool. Unfortunately, many or even most Mac users are scared to death of Terminal.

MacPilot gives every user the kind of control over their system that Terminal pros have. Without a single line of code, you can disable the translucent menubar in Leopard, disable menu items for security, disable icon caches, set history limits, erase recently used files, prevent your dock from being modified, turn off all system animations, increase the speed at which windows resize, change which format screenshots are taken in, set a default name and location for screenshots, disable a secondary processor, disable the startup chime, and a lot more. There are also some routine maintenance scripts built in to keep your Mac running smoothly.

Price: $19.95 – AppStorm Review

Quicksilver

Quicksilver, the grandaddy of app launchers is back with a recently updated version for Lion. The project is now open source and the team works hard to keep the wheels turning. If you’ve never used Quicksilver before, you’re missing out. It has many of the same features that you find in the Alfred Powerpack, only free. The downside is that the learning curve is somewhat steep. Anyone can use it as a launcher, but you really have to dig in to figure out how the rich plugin system works.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Alfred

You know what Alfred does. We write about it almost every week on AppStorm. We simply can’t help it, it’s that good. It’s also constantly receiving great updates that add to its functionality. On the surface, it’s a simple app launcher, but there’s so much more under the surface: perform calculations, define words, search your HD and the web, set up global hotkeys for anything and install awesome extensions that take the app even further.

Price: Free/£15 – AppStorm Review

BetterTouchTool

Apple did an interesting thing with the both the Magic Mouse and the newer generation trackpads. They provided a ton of built in possibilities and functionality, then failed to implement most of it in a useful way or at least give you flexible control over how it all works. With BetterTouchTool, you have full access to all of the clicks, taps and gestures that you could possibly imagine. Set them up to perform any number of actions like auto-implementing keyboard shortcuts or launching Mission Control.

There’s more to this tool than just gestures and taps. The developer has piled in features such as Apple Remote customization and even click/drag window resizing. It’s an amazing in-depth app that makes you nostalgic for the old days when Apple didn’t care that you were tinkering with the device they sold you.

Price: Free

Window Management

Cinch

Cinch is a great way to break into the concept of better window management. It doesn’t allow for the level of custom control that others do, but it does provide an extremely fast and easy way to maximize screen real estate. Basically, you just drag a window to the appropriate edge of the screen and it will automatically fill that half of the screen (a fullscreen option is also available).

Price: $6.99 – AppStorm Review

Divvy

When Divvy first launched, I found it to be the most innovative approach to window management that I had seen. A preset keyboard shortcut brings up a grid of rectangles that represent the available screen space. You simply drag a selection to size the frontmost window to the proper dimensions. This makes it incredibly quick to perfectly size windows any way you want them, no matter how complex the arrangement.

Price: $14.00 – AppStorm Review

Moom

Moom borrows the grid sizing approach from Divvy but takes it one step further by making it available right from the default window controls in the upper left (just hover over the green button to bring up the controls). Window resizing apps tend to get forgotten about (out of sight out of mind) but this approach constantly brings the functionality to your attention and therefore is likely to get used more often in the long run.

Price: $4.99 – AppStorm Review

Disk Tools

DaisyDisk

There are several apps available that help you analyze how your disk space is being used, but none of them match the style and grace of DaisyDisk. Not only is it powerful and incredibly useful, it’s also gorgeous. The interface is colorful, unique and overflowing with smooth animations that will make any UI designer drool.

It’s not all eye candy mind you, there are plenty of really great ideas thrown in as well such as a countdown that pops up when you choose to delete a file. This not only feels cool and dramatic, but gives you a chance to back out if you performed the action by accident.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Carbon Copy Cloner

Carbon Copy Cloner is the first and only app that I turn to when I want to make a clone of a drive (perfect for seamlessly upgrading to a faster HD). It’s been around for over a decade and was one of the first utilities of its kind. CCC makes it truly effortless to perfectly copy the contents of one drive onto another. It’s also completely free. Hats off to Bombich Software for more than ten awesome years of cloning without requiring a cent in return.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Maintenance

Cocktail

Cocktail is a powerful system maintenance utility with five categories of tools: Disks, System, Files, Network and Interface. With it you can perform an amazing variety of system tweaks and improvements. If you’re unsure of this whole system maintenance process, check out the Pilot Mode, which allows for optimization with a single click.

Price: $19.00 – AppStorm Review

CleanMyMac

CleanMyMac is one of the best Mac maintenance applications on the market. It’s developed by the absolutely phenomenal team at MacPaw and has over fifty features to clean the unnecessary crap off of your Mac and make sure it stays tidy. You can use it to automatically empty the trash at set intervals, uninstall apps the right way, strip apps of non-vital binaries and a lot more.

Price: $14.95 – AppStorm Review

MacKeeper

MacKeeper is the leading alternative to CleanMyMac. I’ve used both apps extensively and can honestly say that they’re both absolutely worth every penny. Regardless of which you choose, you won’t be sorry. MacKeeper seems a little bit more geared towards the security side with features such as theft protection, browser security plugins, top-notch encryption and more.

Price: $38.95 – AppStorm Review

AppCleaner

Sometimes you want a quick way to delete an app without anything as major as the apps we just mentioned. You could simply throw it in the trash, but that leaves a of system clutter that you don’t see. A better way to do it is to use the amazing and free AppCleaner app, which hunts down any stranded files and helps ensure that you’re deleting all traces of an app.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Hazel

Let’s face it, we can all be a bit messy at times. Unlike iOS, which takes care of file organization for you, OS X still allows you to be a complete slob. Hazel keeps this tendency in check by allowing you to set up custom actions that automatically places files where they belong based on a given set of criteria. It sounds complex, but it’s just as easy as saving a custom search in Finder and infinitely more useful.

Price: $25.00 – AppStorm Review

Security

1Password

I’m a huge fan of 1Password and can honestly say that it’s one of those apps that I use every single day, whether I’m working or just browsing the web for fun. With 1Password, I can securely store and manage all of my various online accounts, email address information, financial data, and more.

Both the app and the browser plugin are password protected so no one can simply walk up to my Mac and login to anything without my consent. It’s far safer than having sites automatically log you in or remember passwords and only adds a second or two to your login time. There are also iOS versions available.

Price: $49.99 – AppStorm Review

Wallet

Wallet and 1Password are pretty dang close as far as features go. Both allow you to enter and protect several different types of information, both integrate with your favorite web browser and both have accompanying mobile apps. The upside of Wallet is that it only costs $19.99 while 1Password will run you $49.99.

Price: $19.99 – AppStorm Review

Hands Off!

Hands Off! is an extremely helpful app that allows you to monitor the connections that your computer is making behind the scenes to servers across the web. Sometimes apps send out information that you’re not even aware they’re collecting and Hands Off! will help you spot and stop it.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Productivity

Fantastical

Fantastical lives up to its name by being a truly fantastic menu bar calendar that integrates closely with iCal. In fact, it’s so good that I can’t remember the last time I actually opened iCal despite adding appointments and reminders daily.

Fantastical allows you to quickly add events with natural language. So instead of working through complex controls, simply type “meet Jon at 6pm on Tue” and an event will automatically be created in addition to several reminders to ensure you don’t miss your appointment.

Price: $19.99 – AppStorm Review

BusyCal

BusyCal starts with iCal’s old interface and functionality as a base, then adds on a ton of new functionality. BusyCal has more views than iCal, better sharing options, improved todo functionality and a lot more.

Price: $49.99 – AppStorm Review

Wunderlist & Wunderkit

Once upon a time, a $50+ todo list would’ve been on this roundup, but no more. These days gorgeous, collaborative cloud-synced task management is absolutely free and absolutely amazing. Before you spent a dime on a todo list app, be sure to download Wunderlist for Mac and iOS and experience the wonder of award-winning cost-free productivity.

If you’re looking for even more power and versatility, check out the Wunderkit beta. Wunderkit builds on the success and model of Wunderlist and adds a ton of great collaboration and project management functionality.

Price: Free (paid plans available for Wunderkit) – Wunderlist Review & Wunderkit Review

Producteev

Though perhaps not quite as hyped, Producteev actually beat Wunderlist to the punch with free synced task management. Producteev is an incredible product with great apps for Mac, iOS and the web. It’s actually a bit more robust than Wunderlist and is more of a project management tool than a simple task list. The collaboration here is more like what you’d find in Wunderkit. You can use Producteev completely free, but to add an entire team to a project you’ll need a premium account.

Price: Free (paid plans available) – AppStorm Review

iProcrastinate

iProcrastinate has been around for a while now and has seen lots of steady improvements and evolutions. It’s a powerful task manager with support for great features like tags and starring and there’s even a nice calendar view to check out your upcoming due dates. If you don’t want to sign up for yet another web service, this might be the todo app for you as it performs its sync to iOS via Dropbox.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Evernote

I don’t even need to tell you what Evernote is because you no doubt already know. This unbelievable app/web service set the stage for the cloud computing boom that we’re now experiencing. Long before the trend caught on, Evernote was providing a stellar way to create, store and edit all that random digital clutter that life throws at you from any computer. If you’ve never used Evernote, stop everything and go sign up. It’s that good.

Price: Free

NotifyMe

NotifyMe is a bit like Fantastical, only it serves more as a standalone, cross-platform solution for reminders. Hit a keyboard shortcut, type in a plain English reminder (“work out at 5pm”) and NotifyMe will set up a reminder that automatically syncs to the accompanying iPhone and iPad app. You can even create reoccurring reminders for those events that happen regularly.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Alarms Express

Alarms Express completely rethinks the concept of a menu bar calendar. Clicking the menu item drops down not only the traditional calendar but also a unique timeline feature that allows you to quickly add reminders and view your upcoming events. You can even drag and drop items right on the timeline, try dragging emails, contacts, files and more. It’s a really slick system and if you’re in the market for something different, I highly recommend that you check it out.

Price: $7.99 – AppStorm Review

Education

CourseNotes

All throughout college I wanted a better way to organize all of my class notes. My system was nothing more than a series of Pages/Word documents inside of folders. This was the solution I looked for but never found.

CourseNotes is a really slick app that allows you to keep all of your lecture notes in one beautiful and organized place. You can create different subjects and separate notes into different meetings so you always know what happened when. There’s even modest todo functionality to keep on top of various assignments.

Price: $7.99 – AppStorm Review

iStudiez Pro

While CourseNotes is the ultimate way to stay on top of what you learn in class, iStudiez Pro is the best way to actually get yourself to class. It’s a stellar student planner that helps you keep track of your course schedule and important assignments.

There are lots of great features here such as the ability to add in professors and note their office hours. If you own a Mac and you’re in college or even high school, you should definitely check out this app.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Writing & Markdown

Day One

Day One is hands down the best Mac journaling solution around. It’s both super attractive and highly functional. There’s a menu bar item for quick entries, a dedicated app to browse past posts, a calendar view, and it all syncs to the accompanying iOS app via iCloud or Dropbox.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Writeroom

Writeroom was one of the first to market with a truly impressive “minimal” writing app, a genre that’s now overflowing with entrants. Some people hate this market, others love it. I’m personally a big fan of no nonsense writing apps and Writeroom is where I turn when I need to block out the world and be productive. It has a ton of customization options that you won’t find in any of the competitor’s apps.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

iA Writer

iA Writer has probably become the most popular app in the minimal writing category. Unlike Writeroom, this app intentionally has almost no settings to speak of. You just write and it comes out simple and elegant. The bonus here is the automatic Markdown support, which is really slick.

Price: $8.99 – AppStorm Review

Marked

Interestingly enough, Marked isn’t really a writing app. Instead it watches the file Markdown file that you’re currently editing in your favorite text editor and automatically dishes out an auto-updating HTML preview. If you like your current writing app but wish it had Markdown support, this is your solution.

Price: $3.99 – AppStorm Review

Mou

The other Markdown apps above are great, but if I’m writing in Markdown, I’m doing it in Mou. This app has a fantastic split screen view that shows your markdown on the left and an instantly updating HTML preview on the right. You can customize the appearance of the editor to your liking and export an HTML file when you’re finished.

Price: Free During Beta – AppStorm Review

nvAlt

While Evernote is my go to app for general rich content clutter, I more often reach for nvAlt for simple text notes. A popular fork of Notational Velocity, nvAlt adds a ton of great features and options.

It integrates with SimpleNote so your notes are always available online and through various mobile apps, has Markdown support with live preview, does Task Paper style todos, and a lot more. I used to use a menu bar notes app but as soon as I tried nvAlt I was hooked.

Price: Free

Scrivener

Are you sick of seeing all of these minimal writing apps get all the attention? Do you miss the days when features were a good thing? Scrivener is for you.

If you’re a professional writer, you should have Scrivener. It’s particularly suited for large projects and packed with an absolutely untouchable feature set: an impressive template library, fullscreen mode, research collection, a name generator for novelists, autosave, an incredibly flexible workflow that allows you to restructure projects on the fly, and a ton more.

Price: $44.99 – AppStorm Review

Games

Angry Birds Seasons

It’s Angry Birds, on the Mac, need I say more? Though not quite as charming as its touchscreen brethren, Angry Birds for Mac is still at the forefront of completely addictive yet casual gaming.

Price: $4.99

LIMBO

LIMBO is an altogether unique experience that blew us away in our recent review. It’s both terrifying and entrancing at the same time and has a puzzle-driven mystery filled gameplay that won’t let go of you until you’ve played all the way through.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Trine 2

Trine 2 is even more captivating than the first installment of the series. One look at the screenshots for this game and you’ll be dying to jump in and experience it for yourself. Make your way through the breathtaking fairy tale land by solving physics-based puzzles. There’s even an online co-op so you can team up with a friend.

Price: $14.99

Asphalt 6

I asked around for the best racing game on the Mac and everyone said the same thing: Asphalt 6. 42 vehicles, expansive level design, gorgeous graphics and blood pumping gameplay. What’s not to love?

Price: $6.99 – AppStorm Review

Civilization V

Civilization is a legendary series of games that features incredibly addictive strategic gameplay. In it, you attempt to become the ruler of the world as you guide your civilization from the dawn of time through a utopian future. It’s simply too expansive to explain here, check out the site for more details.

Price: $39.99

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

You’re probably familiar with this game already, it’s regarded by some as one of the best Star Wars games ever made. The Jedi are at war with the Sith, you choose your path and either become a force for good or succumb to the dark side.

Price: $19.99

Braid

Featured by Apple as one of the best games of 2011, Braid is a crazy platformer that’s a lot like Super Mario Bros. meets Back to The Future. It’s a fascinating concept that has you manipulating time to collect items and advance further into the levels. If you want old school gameplay with a fresh addictive twist, this is the game for you.

Price: $7.99 – AppStorm Review

Music

djay

If you’re looking into DJing on your Mac, look no further than djay. It’s a fantastic app that’s incredibly easy to use and features seamless iTunes integration, automatic tempo matching, key lock, and even iCloud integration.

Price: $19.99

TuneUp

iTunes has been around for a long time and if you’ve been using it consistently for the last decade then you no doubt have accumulated plenty of clutter, I know I have. TuneUp is an must have utility that I think should be built into iTunes. Basically, it takes a look at your library, then jumps in and fixes problems such as missing album art, mislabeled tracks and duplicates.

Price: $39.99 – AppStorm Review

Snowtape

Snowtape is an Internet radio application that goes way beyond listening to thousands of stations across the country. You can actually record what you hear and export it to iTunes or stream it to your Apple TV.

Price: $33.00 – AppStorm Review

Capo

When you’re trying to master a guitar solo, it can be extremely beneficial to slow down a track and pick out individual notes, Capo does exactly that. It also features chord detection, pitch adjustment, looping and tab support.

Price: $49.99 – AppStorm Review

Radium

Radium is a delightfully simple Internet radio player. There’s no big clunky interface with tons of features that you won’t use, just a basic menu bar item that lets you search for and play your favorite stations. Notable features include custom keyboard shortcuts, AirPlay and social media integration.

Price: $24.99 – AppStorm Review

Bowtie

Bowtie is the best desktop iTunes controller around. It’s a gorgeous little app that’s completely theme-able and integrates with both Spotify and Last.fm.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Design & Graphics

Pixelmator

Pixelmator is the single best app to ever stand up as a worthy affordable alternative to Photoshop. Obviously, nothing can touch Photoshop’s seemingly infinite feature set, but Pixelmator is still a fantastic image editor that truly makes an effort to stand apart from the competition both visually and functionally. From beautiful filters to all the core tools you’re familiar with, this app and it’s amazingly small price tag ($29.99) is good enough to make anyone question their loyalty to Adobe.

Price: $29.99 – AppStorm Review

xScope

xScope is an excellent tool for web and UI designers to analyze the items on their screen. Recently released in its third iteration, xScope has a whole host of great features: grab the dimensions of anything on your screen, use a flexible set of on-screen rulers, magnify anything with the loupe, drag out screen guides, preview screen sizes for various devices, send the contents of a window to your iOS device and more.

Price: $29.99 – AppStorm Review

iDraw

If Pixelmator is the best affordable alternative to Photoshop, iDraw is the best affordable alternative to Illustrator. It’s all here: boolean operations, an easy to use pen tool, great brushes and pencils for drawing, layers; everything you need to create great vector artwork.

Price: $24.99 – AppStorm Review

LittleSnapper

LittleSnapper is a screenshot app for power users. With it you can not only capture anything on your screen, you can also grab the full contents of web pages. Even better, all of your screenshots are automatically imported into an iPhoto-like gallery where you can edit, tag, name and sort them to your heart’s content. If you ask me which tools I can’t do my job without, this one is near the top of the list.

Price: $39.99 – AppStorm Review

Analog

Realmac is one of the best developers in the Mac app game today and this list contains several of their apps. I simply couldn’t pass up Analog, which is one of the best apps that I’ve used for achieving Instagram-like retro photo effects on the Mac. Analog has 24 built-in filters and over a dozen stylish borders.

Price: $6.99 – AppStorm Review

Carousel

If you’re an avid Instagram user, you’ll no doubt find yourself wishing that you could view and interact with your photo feed on your Apple desktop or laptop. Carousel is the best way I’ve seen to achieve this goal. The interface is very flexible and only takes up as much room as you want it to, but still very attractive. Carousel doesn’t just look pretty, it allows you to search, save, like and comment photos right from your Mac.

Price: $1.99 – AppStorm Review

Paparazzi

If you never need to take websites screenshots, you’ll find this app to be useless. However, if you find yourself taking lots and lots of website screenshots as I do, this is a tool that you simply can’t live without. With it you can easily set up a list of URLs and completely automate the screenshot process for full length web pages.

Price: Free

Screeny

There are a lot of screenshot and screencast utilities on the Mac. Some are free, others cost as much as $100. Screeny is the app that has won us over though as it’s the perfect balance between ease of use, powerful features and an attractive interface. Screeny features CloudApp integration as well so sharing is super easy.

Price: $14.99 – AppStorm Review

Skitch

If paying for a screenshot app seems silly to you but you would still like a little more functionality than OS X offers, check out Skitch. It’s free and allows you to both markup and share screenshots with ease. It’s owned by Evernote now so you can bet that we’ll see some greg improvements soon.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

SketchBook Pro

If you love to sketch, the you should have this app both on your Mac and iPad. The range of tools, brushes and pencils here is outstanding and the ease with which you can create sketches that look hand-drawn is very impressive.

Price: $59.99

Social Media

Twitter

The official Twitter for Mac client carries on and improves the legacy of Tweetie from Atebits. It’s not only a stellar Twitter client with tons of great features, it’s such an amazing example of UI design that it has gone on to define a new standard pattern for Mac apps that’s being picked up in every category on the App Store.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

MenuTab Pro for Facebook

It’s long been accepted that there simply isn’t a good Facebook client on the Mac, MenuTab Pro proves this statement wrong. Menu bar social apps are a dime a dozen, but this one goes well beyond the features and charm of the competition and is by far the best way to view and interact with every aspect of Facebook right from your Mac’s menu bar.

Price: $1.99

Twitterrific

In the past several years, countless Twitter clients have risen and fallen while one remained constant: Twitterrific. It’s seen more growth and consistent updates than any other Twitter client that I can name, has a beautiful design and is one of the few apps in this category that you can bet is in it for the long haul.

Price: $4.99 (limited time offer) – AppStorm Review

Courier

Courier is a simple and beautiful way to upload images and movies to all of your favorite online services: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I think it’s overpriced for such a simple app, but it really is a joy to use.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Flickery

Imagine if someone took Flickr and wrapped it in iPhoto, that’s what Flickery is. View, share, download, browse, comment and manage photos on Flickr all from the comfort of a familiar desktop application interface.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Internet & Sharing

Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the best things that’s ever happened to the Mac since drag and drop. It’s so good that Steve Jobs himself made a personal plea to the founder of Dropbox for allowing Apple to buy them out and integrate it as a part of OS X. The idea is simple: You have a folder on your Mac that looks and works just like all your others, except that its contents is automatically synced to everywhere that you have Dropbox installed. You can access your files from other Macs, Windows machines, iOS devices, and the web. It’s one of those Mac apps that “just works” and makes you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Price: Free

CloudApp

CloudApp allows you to instantly share pretty much anything with pretty much anyone. Simply drag something to your menu bar and it will be uploaded while a sharing link is placed in your clipboard. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Transmit

Transmit is hands down my favorite FTP client. Never mind the fact that it has a legacy dating back well over a decade, even if you’ve not been a faithful user for years you’ll be hooked after a few minutes with Transmit four. The interface is extremely slick and the app is super fast. It’s easy enough that the casual user can pick it up quickly and powerful enough that the pros have all the features that they need.

Price: $34.00 – AppStorm Review

Espresso

Espresso is my personal IDE of choice. It’s simply a fantastic coding environment and is quite extendable. The live, auto-updating preview is something that you get so used to that you can’t bare to use anything without it.

Price: $79.00 – AppStorm Review

Coda

If for some reason you’re not an Espresso fan, check out Coda. It’s a very similar app from the developers behind Transmit. Code is starting to age a bit but it’s still a great app and a brand new version is right around the corner.

Price: $99.99 – AppStorm Review

Codekit

In the past couple of years, coding with the aid of preprocessors has become a huge trend. Haml and Jade for HTML; LESS, Sass, and Stylus for CSS; and CoffeScript for JavaScript are all examples of preprocessors that make life easier on coders.

The problem with all this fancy technology is that the modified languages need to be compiled into the plain ones that the server understands: vanilla HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Codekit is one of the best ways to handle this task without the hassle of the Terminal. Just point it at a folder and your files will automatically be compiled as they’re changed.

Price: Free during beta – AppStorm Review

RapidWeaver

iWeb brought us the promise of putting the joy of building websites into the hands of everyone. Unfortunately, it really didn’t deliver and was put to death after a few years. RapidWeaver actually delivers on that promise.

It’s always interesting to see a developer that pulls off the “Apple way” better than Apple does and that’s clearly the case here. RapidWeaver is a pleasure to use and makes building websites an accessible venture for just about everyone, whether you’re into coding or don’t want to write a single line of HTML.

Price: $79.99 – AppStorm Review

Flux

I think WYSIWYGs are fine for the general public, but as far as I’m concerned, developers should code by hand. At least that’s what I thought until I used Flux.

Flux is the first WYSIWYG that I’ve seen made for coders that’s not a train wreck. The entire process and workflow is built around how real developers create websites. You have complete freedom to build from scratch and customize your code at will. The WYSIWYG tools are there when you want them and gone when you don’t. Flux is by far the most under appreciated project in the world of web development.

Price: £69.99 – AppStorm Review

Cyberduck

Cyberduck has been to go-to free FTP client for Mac users for ages. Though the App Store version now sells at a premium, you can still get the free version from the Cyberduck website (it’s the same, just with an occasional plea for money).

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Transmission

I’m sure there are some legitimate uses for torrent apps, I just can’t think of any. If you are the type of user who can (or doesn’t care about legitimacy), Transmission is the best free Mac torrent client. No ads, no messy UI, just drag in a torrent, download it and get back to what you were doing.

Price: Free

Forklift

Forklift is not only a stellar FTP client, it actually serves as a pretty awesome file manager as well if you’re looking for an alternative to Finder. Be sure to check it out if Terminal isn’t your thing.

Price: $29.95 – AppStorm Review

RSS & News

Reeder

Reeder for Mac has been a real game changer in the RSS category. The attractively minimal three column interface looks fantastic on a wide screen and truly makes browsing through your feeds an enjoyable experience. It has a great feature set as well: Readability integration, gestures, shortcuts, and plenty of support for various services like Instapaper.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Caffeinated

Caffeinated has been in the works since before Reeder made its debut and has finally exited its private beta to make a debut on the Mac App Store. It’s a really slick app that feels extremely fast and has a lot of powerful features. If you’re willing to put down Reeder for long enough to try something else, this is the app that you’ll want to check out.

Price: $8.99 – AppStorm Review

Pulp

Pulp is one of the most popular news readers on the Mac that truly breaks out of the UI mold and goes its own way. It features a newspaper-like interface that allows for complete user control over where feeds are placed. If you’ve never taken a look at Pulp, you should.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Mixtab

The iPad has tons of news apps that take what you like and automatically present other content along the same vein. With hardly any setup, you have several feeds custom-tailored to your specific tastes. I’m amazed that more developers aren’t exploring this territory on the Mac. For now, Mixtab is one of the only options out there if you’re looking for this type of experience. There’s a lot about this app that I’m not crazy about but they get serious kudos points for being the only one even trying to nail this market.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Email

Sparrow

As I mentioned before, Tweetie/Twitter changed the way we think about Mac app interfaces. Sparrow is a prime example of how the metaphor proved appropriate for multiple genres. This app started life as a tiny, humble Gmail reader and has grown to a truly powerful, impressive and of course visually awesome email client.

Price: $9.99 – AppStorm Review

Postbox

While Sparrow seeks to simplify and beautify your email experience, Postbox takes the opposite route and pushes it to new heights of functionality. The amazingly well formatted conversations view is enough to catch my attention, but impressive search functionality, Dropbox integration and social media support pushes it to the top of my list for Mail.app alternatives for power users.

Price: $29.95 – AppStorm Review

Browsers You’ve Never Tried

I know you’ve already seen Safari, Chrome, Firefox and all of the other standard stuff so I won’t bore you by listing those. Here are a few that you’ve probably never tried but should.

Raven

Raven is the newest player in the Mac browser market and I’ve been raving about it since day one. It really rethinks the entire browsing experience from an app-based standpoint. The result is something truly enjoyable.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Fake

Imagine if Automator merged with Safari, that pretty much sums up Fake. Web developers, programmers and other professional nerds will love being able to automate web-based tasks.

Price: $29.95 – AppStorm Review

Sleipnir

I recently had the pleasure of writing up a full review of Sleipnir, an innovative browser that you simply have to try. The tab group functionality is better than anything I’ve seen on any other browser, period.

Price: Free – AppStorm Review

Home & Business

Billings

If you want professional level time tracking and invoicing on the Mac, Billings is your answer. It’s beautiful and has more features than you even know that you need. Once you’ve used Billings, it’s hard to look back. Check out the Pro version for some awesome cross-platform goodness.

Price: $39.99 – AppStorm Review

Money

I’m constantly being asked which Mac app is the best for personal money management. I always recommend the same thing: Jumsoft’s Money. It’s simple, but in a good way. You don’t want something that you need a manual to use, you want simple transaction and investment tracking with beautiful reporting and that’s what Money provides.

Price: $38.99 – AppStorm Review

Chronicle

It’s time to get organized. Use Billings to track your time, Money to track your Money and Chronicle to track your bills. Chronicle will make sure you never miss a payment again and even help you get out from under that pile of debt. Awesome features here include Dropbox sync, trends, reporting and more.

Price: $14.99 – AppStorm Review

Delicious Library 2

Delicious Library is sort of like iPhoto for your physical goods. It’s an inventory management system specifically built to help you keep track of the things in your home. Entering products in is as easy as scanning a barcode. Keep track of everything you own: books, movies, gadgets, even clothing!

Price: $34.99 – AppStorm Review

Which Apps Are Your Favorite?

There you have it, 100 amazing apps to fill up your hard drive and perform every imaginable task. Leave a comment below and let us know which of the above apps make your list of favorites. Also be sure to point out any that we missed!

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

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

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

Adobe has released the fourth incarnation of its popular photo editing software, Lightroom, with a wealth of new features, including improved support for video and a price tag that has been slashed in half compared to previous versions. The new version, Photoshop Lightroom 4, costs just $149 for the stand-alone version (an upgrade from Lightroom 3 costs $79, instead of $99 previously) and Adobe hopes that this lower price will coax amateur photographers who may want to start using a professional software package into buying it. Previous versions of the software were priced at $299, a steep sum for most people. The new pricing strategy may also be an attempt to compete with Apple’s Aperture, another favourite among photographers, which can be had off the Mac App Store for $79.99.

Lightroom 4 has also brought with it a host of new features, including enhanced support for video, better shadow and highlight processing (allowing you to bring out more detail from shadows and highlights), the option to create photo books from your images (which are then printed externally and mailed to you), additional editing brushes and better integration of social networks within the app. The interface hasn’t seen any dramatic changes, with the same layout from previous versions, so existing users of Lightroom won’t have any difficulties in adapting to the new version.

Lightroom has constantly been a favourite among many amateur (and, indeed, professional) photographers – in 2009, a survey carried out by the research company InfoTrends showed that out of 1,045 professional photographers based in the United States, 37% used Lightroom, compared to 6% who used Aperture (the remaining 57% used the Photoshop Camera Raw plugin). The trends with similar when it came to those who used Macs – 44% used Lightroom compared to 13% who used Aperture.

This new version of Lightroom is surely going to prove popular with the masses, and as a photographer myself I am certainly going to try it out. The lower price tag and improved features will make it a definite photo-editing solution worth considering for both amateur and professional photographers alike.

You can download a free trial of Lightroom (Mac and Windows) from Adobe’s website by clicking here.

Are you wanting to get in shape, shed weight, feel better or gain that competitive edge? An important part of setting and maintaining fitness goals is using the right tools to help keep you on track. Whether you’re a gym rat, an outdoor adventurer or you prefer the quiet of a yoga mat, are you making the most of your routine and developing healthy habits? Is the food that you eat fueling your engine properly? Could you train less, but more efficiently? Perhaps it’s simply time to get off the couch and take that first step. Today we’ll take a look at 10 apps that support your good health and may even put a little zest back in your workout.

Conclusion

Today’s roundup reflects the growing connection between technology and our lifestyle choices. Computers can be powerful tools in supporting our health and fitness goals. Ironically, they have also given rise to a more sedentary way of life for some of us. Sometimes turning off the computer is actually the first step towards engaging the impulse to be active. “Go outside and play” as Mom used to say.

What apps do you use for supporting your fitness goals? How do you balance time spent in front of a computer and participation in your favorite activities?

Screencast recording and screenshot capture is an interesting space in the application world. There are a lot of selections that accomplish a variety of different things and many of the same things. You have the super robust, every feature you can think of type of application all the way down to the native OS X tools which are very basic.

Screeny is an application that finds itself somewhere in the middle. I think this is the area where many of us would place ourselves so a solid option in that area is definitely welcomed. We’ve checked out Screeny before and after the recent major version release we thought it was worth another look.

Re-Introducing Screeny

Screeny isn’t going to provide you with every feature imaginable with a screenshot capture and screencast recording application. What has been attempted is the pulling of the most used, important functionality of applications in this category and packaging them in a beautiful, Mac-like application.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time with a handful of other applications in the space. I’ve actually reviewed a free option, Jing as well as Apple’s own QuickTime. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time with Skitch as well as LitteSnapper. I’ve even done some work with the Windows versions of Camtasia and SnagIt.

I have a problem of liking certain features from certain applications and I end up bouncing around and back and forth. There are definitely situations that call for specific applications for their specific functionality, but I’m looking for that app to turn to for basic screenshots and great screencasts. It’s looking like Screeny might be just that application.

Screenshots

Screenshots are a basic function in OS X, but because of the fact that it is basic there are a couple features missing with the native functionality.

Two main buttons control the core functions of the application. A slightly smaller button with a camera icon is what will snap the screenshot (this can also be done via a keyboard shortcut). With the Screeny controls open you’ll see a semi-transparent window on your screen. Preset sizes can be chosen from the drop down. This is a quick way to get some standard sized screenshots. As with the original version you’re able to adjust the size using fill handles as well as manually entering in your exact custom height and width.

An addition to screenshot functionality is the ability to select an entire application window. The button between the custom dimension fields can be toggled on and off. When it is active Screeny will highlight whatever window you hover over as well as provide you with a camera record or screenshot snap option right on that window. This is a pretty cool feature and I can’t say I’ve seen it executed quite so elegantly before.

A couple other additions that I’ll talk about more with screen video recording deal with activating your Mac’s camera. A switch at the bottom will toggle from screen view to camera view. Here you can snap a screenshot of whatever your camera is seeing if you’d like. There’s also a small toggle button next to the sizes drop down that will add in a picture in picture view so you can snap a screenshot of your screen with your head in the corner if you’d like. Probably more useful on the video recording side for most, but it is possible with screenshots as well.

Screencast Recording

This is where Screeny really shines. It works well snapping screenshots, but screencast recording is the real reason to purchase this app.

The same controls are used for both snapping screenshots as well as recording screencasts. The major difference is that you’ll be using the giant record button to initiate the recording.

All of the same capture window functionality is available here as we talked about when taking screenshots so you have an almost infinite amount of customization. The added features in this version make setting up your screencast recording area even faster and easier.

Recording can also be started and stopped with a preset keyboard shortcut adding to the speed of use even more after you get used to the application.

When recording you’ll see the menubar icon for Screeny has changed to a red color and also includes a running clock for the recording. Screenshot functionality is also maintained while recording so you can snap some screenshots along the way if you want to be even more efficient.

It’s possible to activate and deactivate (with a keyboard shortcut) a mouse highlight while you’re recording option. I’m sure you’ve seen this in a screencast before. A red ripple will appear wherever you click. This is a new feature in this version of Screeny. There are some external applications that can add this functionality, but having it wrapped right inside the same application is great. It’s a handy feature for producing easier to follow screencasts.

Screeny can now be used to record video from your Mac’s camera and it does so in a fashion where the image isn’t mirrored. So your “Matt Rocks” t-shirt won’t read “skcoR ttaM” on your recording (what, you don’t have one of those?).

It’s also possible to utilize the picture in picture functionality that I mentioned earlier. This is a really cool feature and allows you to produce those fancy tutorials with the teacher in the video window and their computer screen in the main window. It can’t be turned on and off while recording, but can simply be dragged in and out of the recording window as you see fit. In an ideal situation a keyboard shortcut would toggle this on and off, but even without that this is still a pretty killer feature.

Produce and Share

More than likely you’re not making screencasts and shooting screenshots all for yourself. You will like to share them with others from time to time. Screeny has some new built in functionality and we’ll talk through another method of sharing as well.

CloudApp Integration

Arguably the biggest new feature with Screeny is the addition of CloudApp integration. Once you connect your CloudApp account you’ll be able to upload screencasts and screenshots in an either automatic or ad hoc manner.

A setting can be turned on to allow for automatic uploading and it can also be activated and deactivated on the fly using a keyboard shortcut.

This is a feature I found really handy with Jing. The application connects to a Screencast.com account and you’re able to upload to it right away. You’re ready to share really quickly. With Jing being free there are some frustrating limitations, but I use it often still largely because of this feature.

I should mention that CloudApp is free with some limitations as well. You’re restricted to 10 uploads per day with a max size of 25mb per upload. The paid versions scale up quickly to accommodate about any situation. For my usage the free CloudApp account is still sufficient. It works perfectly for that quick one-off screencast to show that less tech savvy buddy how how to change the font type in Pages. Record the screencast, upload to CloudApp, paste the link in an email. Simple.

Other Sharing

Screeny doesn’t have any other "share-to" type integration but there is a little trick to speed up this process. QuickTime does a pretty solid job of sharing to YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook as well as iTunes, Mail, and iMovie. A Screeny preference can be turned on to open the recording immediately in QuickTime upon completion. This allows you to take advantage of QuickTime’s compression and sharing services. Why not just do the whole thing in QuickTime? Screeny records at a lossless quality which is higher than is possible with QuickTime. That on top of it just being easier to use are reasons enough to use Screeny and QuickTime in this situation.

Storage

Screeny will store all screenshots and screencasts in automatically created ‘Screeny’ directories in your Pictures and Movies directories. This wasn’t completely obvious to me having not used the previous version so I thought it was worth mentioning. The default store areas cannot be changed. This used to be possible in previous versions, but as I understand it changes with Lion throw a hitch in that functionality so it was removed for simplification purposes.

I don’t really have a problem with it. I think those to locations make about as much sense as any and this version of Screeny does add a little icon on the control window to open up the Screeny folder in the Movies directory for quick viewing. I haven’t had any problem with storage locations.

Conclusion

I had aspirations when beginning my review of Screeny that it would be that perfect screenshot and screencast recording application for me. While I’m not sure it hits that spot exactly for me just yet, I can say that it comes as close as any application I’ve tried so far (and I’ve tried many).

It lacks some features and functionality of the more robust and more expensive applications (that is actually a plus in my book) and it adds in just the right additional functionality lacking in more basic applications. There may still be situations when I’d love some additional Camtasia-like features, but with the additions made in this version I think they’ll be few and far between. And even with the additions Screeny is still dead simple and super fast to use.

As a bonus the app still maintains it’s price of $14.99. That seemed like a valid price with version one and it is definitely a valid price for version two. I haven’t found a better application in this space that has just the right amount of functionality while still being the prototypical, beautiful, easy to use Mac application at this price point. It’s definitely worth a try.

Nothing gets the week started off right like a good old fashioned Microsoft vs. Apple debate. Once upon a time these were a staple in the Mac user’s daily life but these days we focus much more on Google and Android as a major threat than crazy Ballmer and the gang in Redmond.

For a moment, let’s look back at Microsoft and ask a question that’s essential for every new Mac user: Office or iWork? If someone is faced with the choice of purchasing only one of these suites, which should it be and why?

Only a few years ago iWork was a new competitor in this game but it’s had more than enough time to rise to the challenge of taking on the formerly undisputed champion of documents. The question is, has it? On the other side, while iWork has been increasing in popularity, Microsoft has been hard at work making Office seem more at home on the Mac. Office now closely resembles Apple’s software in both functionality and appearance.

So which is better? You decide! Cast your vote in the poll and then leave a comment below defending your opinion.

eScan, a popular security software solution for Windows PCs, will release a Mac Edition of its security software at the 36th Annual Conference of MACAL (Michigan Association for Computer Users In Learning), which is due to be held at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids, MI on March 8 and March 9, 2012. eScan for Mac will feature real-time protection against malware and other threats and will provide extensive reporting and automatic database updates to ensure a complete safeguard against all the threats on the web.

The upcoming application will also report any suspicious activity detected in running applications and it can be configured to block any USB storage devices being connected to the computer, thereby ensuring both protection for sensitive data as well as reducing the risk of your Mac becoming infected from software and files carried around on USB sticks.

Mac users have traditionally seen themselves as immune to most threats out there on the Net, seeing as most malware is embedded in Windows programs and viruses are often designed to infect Windows-based systems and are therefore incompatible with OS X. However, given the rise in Macs in 2011 (Mac sales grew by 20.9% during the last quarter of 2011 and this is estimated to grow in 2012), it seems like hackers are turning to Apple’s platform to unleash their destructive creations.

eScan certainly isn’t the first to release a Mac version of its security program. Both Norton and McAfee have released versions of their internet security and virus programs for OS X and there are other offerings, such as Intego’s Internet Security Barrier X6, which is designed exclusively with Mac users in mind.

It may be a hard fact to swallow but it does seem that even OS X isn’t safe from the threats out there on the Internet. However with OS X’s built-in security features, the upcoming Gatekeeper for Mountain Lion and a little bit of common sense, most Mac users will probably find that keeping their Mac healthy and spyware-free isn’t really a difficult task.

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MacPaw, the developers that brought you CleanMyMac, have released yet another fantastically useful and well designed Mac utility. Gemini helps you free up tons of disk space by cutting the clutter that results from having multiple copies of the same files scattered around your machine.

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The folks at MacPaw were awesome enough to temporarily cut the price of Gemini in half so be sure to grab your copy now before the sale ends!

While it is true that note-taking apps are a common sight these days, there are only a handful that are specifically made to stay on the menu bar such as Soho Notes, Rapid Note, and Scribblet 2. These menu bar note-taking apps are normally built with minimal features, an easy-to-navigate interface, and run silently in the background.

For today’s review, I’ll be taking a look at a relatively new menu bar notes app called NotesTab by FLIPLAB Ltd., the makers of popular menu bar apps MailTab and MenuTab for Facebook. With the latest update to version 1.2, let’s see if this new member of the family stands and delivers just as well.

The Menu Bar Notepad

NotesTab’s basic function is to save and organize your information as soon as it comes to you. Whether they are phone numbers, names, lecture notes, quick to-dos, or usernames and passwords, you can easily type, copy and paste them all into NotesTab.

With that said, you can easily take down notes without opening a new app on your Mac as it rests silently on the menu bar. By clicking on its menu bar icon, NotesTab opens up the notepad where you can access the entire notes list and open, edit, and/or delete individual notes.

The notepad is pretty easy to navigate through. You have the notes list organized according to favorites, date of creation, or when it was last edited. On the top portion, you have buttons for the app’s settings, the anchor icon to pin NotesTab on top, in-app upgrades, and the “plus” sign to create a new note. The search bar brings up results quickly, but the blinking cursor is black and isn’t visible immediately. Fortunately once you start typing, the words are white, clear, and visible.

At the bottom, you have a single-line text ad to compensate for the app being free to download. For some this is fine, but I find it distracting and that it throws off the app’s elegant design. If you’d like to remove the ads, you can click on the in-app upgrades button and pay $0.99 to remove it. The good news is that this is a one-time upgrade, so it will remain ad-free regardless of the number of Macs you plan to install NotesTab on.

Press the gear icon and it will take you to where you can change NotesTab’s default settings. As a menu bar notes app, you’d want it to be as accessible as possible in case an idea or a reminder comes to mind, so ticking off the Start NotesTab at Login box is highly recommended.

Other settings include hotkeys, window visibility, and auto-correction. Here, you can create unique hotkeys to quickly activate NotesTab and enable auto-correct mode when typing and editing your notes. These features are great, especially for those who multitask, who need to quickly open and create a note, and who want their notes free of spelling errors.

Lastly, you can provide feedback, rate the app on the Mac App Store, sign up for the FLIPLAB newsletter, and quit the app. To go back to the main dashboard, click on the light orange right-arrow button at the top right.

The Individual Note

Taking down notes on NotesTab is simple and straightforward. You have the title of the note, the back button at the top left that takes you back to the mother list, the blank page to type information down, and a star to favorite the note.

As you can see, the note is stripped of formatting options to keep note-taking focused and straight to the point. While I agree with this, I’m not always comfortable with how light the font color is, considering that the background is already light to begin with. So maybe the developers could either make the font color darker or provide a basic option to change the font and the font colors with a minimal selection to choose from.

What I do love about NotesTab is that it removes all existing formatting when you paste text taken from say, a website. Once you copy and paste from NotesTab, the outcome is clean plain text. I’d normally open TextEdit to do this, but now I can do the exact same thing using NotesTab and won’t have to open another app anymore. That’s convenience right there.

At the bottom are two buttons: Share Note and Trash. Clicking on the Share Note button will launch your default mail client and create a new email that contains the contents of the note you wish to share. This is pretty neat and could expand even more to sharing notes on social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

To trash a note, simply click on the trash bin icon. A pop-up window will drop down and confirm your decision to trash the note permanently. This function could be improved by integrating the window to the overall interface of the app and making it possible to retrieve deleted notes in case you need to grab deleted information back.

Conclusion

Overall, NotesTab proves to be a handy menu bar notes app thanks to the simplicity and elegance of its current functionality and design. Yet while it claims that with NotesTab, notes on the Mac are finally “done right,” it still has a long way to go if we’re to pit it against other note-taking applications. In other words, there is still room for more improvement and better features.

But despite this, I have high hopes for NotesTab as a convenient, free, and accessible note-taking app for the Mac. I look forward to an active development cycle, more interesting updates, and great results in terms of productivity. I’m particularly interested in iCloud integration to safely back up my notes in case I’m away or if anything happens to my Mac.

What do you think? Would you download and use NotesTab or stick to your current note-taking app for your Mac? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

The news from the Apple-sphere this week has undeniably been dominated with the announcement of the long-awaited iPad 3 release, which is due to be unveiled next Wednesday at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco along with a possible 8GB iPad 2 designed to compete with cheaper tablets in the market. Most Apple fans are certainly very excited for this launch as that dream of an iPad with a crystal-clear retina display may finally become a reality!

With the speculations of the iPad 3′s features aside, here is Mac AppStorm’s weekly roundup of the goings-on in the world of Mac software.

App Store reaches magical 25 billion downloads

Sometime during Friday evening/Saturday morning (depending on where you live around the globe), the App Store quietly reached the mesmerising 25 billion download mark, with the winner of the $10,000 iTunes gift voucher still to be announced. The news that the 25 billion barrier had been broken was announced on the App Store’s Twitter feed and via a banner on Apple’s home page.

Preliminary calculations have shown that the 50 billion app mark will be broken in less than 2 years if the download rate remains stable, however with iOS devices and Macs becoming ever more popular, it may not take that long for this record to be broken.

Along with the announcement, Apple also released the top iOS for iPhone and iPad apps of all time – no guesses as to which app is number 1! For the full list, head over here (link opens in iTunes)

ReadNow renamed and is now completely free

ReadNow, a popular Instapaper and Read It Later client for OS X has been renamed ReadLater as well as being made completely free on the App Store. Although not as feature-rich as similar apps (such as Reeder), ReadLater still features some crafty little tricks such as the ability to send articles to Evernote and sharing via Twitter, Facebook, Pinboard or Delicious.

You’ll need either a Read It Later account (which is free) or a paid Instapaper account to use ReadLater. The update to version 2.0.2 also provides a few bug fixes and other improvements.

Link: ReadLater on the Mac App Store

Path receives an (unofficial) OS X app, Journey

Path, the great little daily digest tool, has received an (unofficial) Mac OS X app called Journey, which is available for free download from their website

Path, which already has official apps for both iOS and Android, helps you to create your own personal life journal and allows you to post a tonne of different content, including photos, videos, where you are, who you are with, what you are thinking and so on. You can even let people know what song you are listening to and when you go to bed. The built-in location services also learn about where you are and can display local information which is relevant to you.

Journey is a little limited in its functionality at the moment – essentially it’s just a feed aggregator for your Path activity however every app must essentially start somewhere and more features are sure to be added soon. The fact that the app is open-source may help towards this as well.

To help out with the Journey project, head over to their page on GitHub to see what needs doing. In the meantime, you can download the app directly using the source link below (note that the app is still in beta so there may be some bugs and stability issues)

Link: Journey 0.1 (download)

Unveiled alongside that Superbowl Commercial all the way back in 1984, the Macintosh was to become Apple’s main focus and through the years saw host to such iconic designs as the MacBook, iMac and, more recently, the MacBook Air. However, while the Mac is undoubtedly close to all our hearts here at Mac.AppStorm, there’s been a perception as of late that Apple are letting things slide with regard to their computers, in large part due to the phenomenal success of iOS. As the argument goes, in a huge profit driven company like Apple it’s the bottom line that counts and last year saw more iOS devices sold in one year than the entire lifetime of the Mac.

Don’t be too quick to write off the future prospects of the Mac just yet though, while portable devices such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod are all very important to Infinite Loop, Mac sales are strong and increasing market share significantly. Indeed, Apple are finding that there’s more demand than ever for their computers and I’d like to make the argument that the Mac’s strongest years are quite possibly ahead of it, with Apple set to increase their efforts and ensure that the Mac becomes yet more popular still.

Watershed Moment

Admittedly, in the years following the success of the iPhone, it has often been iOS which garnered much of the hype and excitement. But, if Apple did take their foot off the gas at all then Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion see a return to prominence for the Macintosh and with this in mind perhaps we’re on the cusp of yet another watershed moment, much like the one which heralded the move from OS 9 to OS X.

To argue that Cook and the gang don’t care about their Mac users would be to completely miss the point of OS X Lion and its soon to be released successor, Mountain Lion. Even if you’re indifferent to iCloud, ignore Launchpad and don’t much care for the new system of saving, one would be hard-pressed to argue that Apple aren’t putting a lot of thought into making Mac and OS X the best they can possibly be. After all, completely changing several long-lasting computing conventions in one fell swoop isn’t the work of a company who doesn’t care about their product and in the release of OS X Lion we’ve seen many key elements of computing turned on their head.

To have produced a successor to Snow Leopard that made things a little prettier, a little faster and a little more integrated with iOS would have been the easiest possible move for Apple, but as usual they’ve decided to take the other road, to ‘Think Different‘ as the saying goes. Love it or loathe it, Lion represents a commitment from Apple to their computing line and Mountain Lion seems set to increase that commitment yet further.

An OS X A Year, Every Year

Computer technology has always moved fast but is now hurtling forward at such a speed as to render once innovative ideas quickly obsolete. Thus it makes good sense to speed up the release schedule of OS X and, according to John Gruber, Mountain Lion will see Apple’s computer OS fall into the same release pattern as iOS, with major releases scheduled yearly. Says Gruber:

Mac OS X — sorry, OS X — is going on an iOS-esque one-major-update-per-year development schedule.

Gruber then goes on to opine that Apple is keenly aware of concerns from Mac users that Apple’s interest of the platform is on the wane and one can assume that this increased release schedule is geared toward dispelling those concerns. A release of OS X a year makes great sense as, besides ensuring that a feeling of constant momentum and change is kept to the format, Mac users will know what to expect, when to bother upgrading and when to look forward to new features.

How Many Macs Left Behind?

There is of course, a flip side to all this innovation:

Many Mac users are concerned that their machine will be left behind in a whirlwind of obsolescence, but while it’s entirely possible that older Macs will not be able to run Mountain Lion, the oft-cited and widely reported specifications for the Developer Preview are not Apple’s final word on which Macs can run Mountain Lion – a point which is given further weight by the reports that some enterprising Mac users have managed to get Mountain Lion running very well indeed on older, unsupported Macs already.

A yearly release schedule does pose another interesting question though; will Apple continue to charge for their OS or will OS X soon become free to Mac users, just as iOS is free to iPhone and iPad owners? There’s no real evidence to allow us to form any firm conclusions but I’m going to stick my neck out and predict that Mountain Lion, or at the very least its successor, may well herald an era of completely free Mac OS X. I believe that this makes sense and will bring OS X even more into line with iOS, simplifying the release schedule and encouraging customers to delve right into each new release.

What Do You Think?

I’ve made a few rather bold claims in this article, but except for the wild speculation on Mountain Lion compatibility and price, I believe that Apple’s actions provide enough evidence to point toward Mac regaining a more significant focus in the Cupertino company. Further to this, if the rumours of ‘Retina-like’ displays and 15″ MacBook Airs hold any truth to them, then 2012 could really be the year that Apple goes ‘back to the Mac’ in a very big way.

That said, I would love to hear the opinions of the Mac.AppStorm faithful on whether you agree that the Mac is due for an increased level of attention from Apple, or whether the company’s computers will eventually become maligned as a result of iOS profits.

From his first appearance in comic books in 1939 to Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic reboot, the Batman franchise has seen countless reinterpretations in print, TV, and film. Batman: Arkham Asylum isn’t the first time that Bruce Wayne’s crime-fighting alter ego has shown up in a video game, but it is the first one in several years to be come to the Mac.

Originally released in 2009, Feral Interactive developed the game for OS X last year. The game received almost universal praise when it was reviewed for the major consoles and for Windows, but does the Mac version successfully replicate the original’s success?

Story

Throughout the decades, the Batman universe have given us different interpretations of the characters. Each Batman has had a unique personality, from Adam West’s cartoonish fights to Christian Bale’s growling and sometimes-indecipherable threats to bad guys.

Fortunately, the designers decided not to use any predefined version of Batman or his enemies, and instead created their own. The story manages to spin its own version of the characters and create an original story, but fit it into the pre-existing Batman universe.

The game starts with Batman racing through Gotham with the franchise’s most famous nemesis, The Joker. He’s just been caught, and Batman is delivering him to Arkham Asylum, Gotham City’s high-security psychiatric hospital. The warden is happy to have him back, but Batman is uneasy about the situation; Catching The Joker was too easy, almost as if he wanted to get caught.

You spend a few minutes watching the opening credits roll as you accompany The Joker and his escort of guards as they progress deeper and deeper into the facility. The credits end and what do you know? Batman was right – The Joker escapes the guards’ custody and you’re immediately thrown into the fight. The Joker has taken control of the facility as part of an intricate plan, and threatens to blow up bombs that he planted around the city if anyone enters the prison.

The rest of story mode has you delving deeper into the asylum, which the designers did an incredible job adding detail to. The whole world in which you are immersed feels just as eerie as you would expect from an insane asylum with dangerous criminals on the loose that are trying to kill you.

I’ll admit that I’ve never been a devoted comic book reader, but even the casual Batman fan will enjoy all of the characters that the game includes. Arkham Asylum features antagonists from many of the last few Batman movies, including Poison Ivy and Bane.

There are also a few well-placed nods to some enemies that aren’t in the game. These include collectables from The Riddler, the Body of Ra’s al Ghul, and a glance at a cell for Mr. Freeze, (though as far as I can tell, you never get to see him – I may just have missed something). There are many other characters that I had never seen before, but avid Batman fans will recognize immediately and undoubtedly enjoy meeting.

While you work alone, (no Robin here), you do communicate frequently with an assistant back in the Batcave. This assistant is Commissioner Gordon’s daughter, known as Oracle. As I mentioned, most of my knowledge of the Batman universe is from the films rather than the comic books, so I was unaware that such a character existed. Fortunately for people like me, as you meet new people the game offers you access to character files in your menu. These files cover enemies and allies, and give you a brief bio, some interesting stats, and sometimes important clues to help you.

Ultimately, the story is wildly engaging and the environment is expansive, despite being limited to a single island. Most of the story takes place within the building, but you do get to venture outside towards the end of the main story. While the story takes a few turns along the way and you are pitted against different bosses, you’re ultimately just pursuing The Joker through the asylum. While that may sound simple, the story mode doesn’t feel too short at all, and the environment that the developers created is intriguing enough to make you want to take your time to fully explore every cell in the complex.

Gameplay

Arkham Asylum eases you into the gameplay, letting you handle a couple of goons right after The Joker escapes custody. On the computer, the controls are split between the keyboard for movement plus a few actions such as combos (more on that later), and the mouse for shifting your view, attacking, and throwing. I spent about half of the game using this default setup before getting frustrated with it and pairing a PS3 controller to my laptop. This game was originally designed for consoles, and having a controller to play it made it much more enjoyable. I wouldn’t say that the frustration of using the mouse and keyboard were enough to ruin the game for me, but if you have a PS3 controller, I would highly recommend using it.

Arkham Asylum is billed as an Action-Adventure game, so it isn’t designed for you to run around firing guns indiscriminately at bad guys – after all, Batman doesn’t use guns. In the early stages of the game, you can certainly just run into rooms and start using all that martial arts ability to incapacitate your enemies, but as the game progresses, you’ll find that this isn’t a feasible option.

This doesn’t mean that combat is avoided, though. As part of the upgrade system, you’ll learn new attack combos that make you better at taking on several enemies at once. As you hit one guy, he generally will get stunned back, allowing you to knock around the next one. As you perform combos, your attacks hurt more, and the game will even alter the speed of the action to show your hits in detailed slow-mo.

Combat is fun, but Batman relies on stealth, and that’s just what you’ll need to do. The story develops new tasks for you to accomplish, and how to complete them isn’t immediately clear. You’ll need to explore your setting, find clues, talk to guards, and solve complex problems.

Much of the exploration and stealthy movement in the game is focused around the use of that famous Batman grappling hook. In many areas you can look up, find a gargoyle, (of which there seems to be an inordinate amount for an indoor setting), and zip up. Once you are in the shadows, you can either zip around to another perch, or you can jump and glide using your cape. This adds a fun dimension to combat, as you quickly learn to swoop in to pick off your enemies one at a time. You can also chuck your “Batarang” around to attack, as well as use it to trip switches from afar.

The game makes use of a level-up system that’s based, like many games, on an XP bar that is filled up as you fight. You’ll earn “WayneTech” upgrades to improve your suit and learn new fighting skills. I found the upgrade system to be a bit simplistic, but that is just because of my general disappointment with the combat system.

I enjoyed the problem solving in the game more than the combat. At times, it felt a bit like I was five years old again, just mashing buttons without really understanding what I was doing. The combo system is extensive and many gamers will surely enjoy the depth it adds to combat, but I found it to be something that I never fully learned how to use effectively.

What complicated things for me further was the visual perspective. Rather than use a first person view, you are looking over Batman’s shoulder, which obstructs a lot of your view. If you are playing the game on an iMac, that might not matter, but on my 15″ MBP it made the view feel a bit cramped.

This game isn’t just about progressing through the building knocking out your enemies, (remember, Batman doesn’t kill anyone). You will be presented various tasks whose solutions are not immediately obvious. For example, you might need to free a hostage from an inmate, but first you’ll have to figure out how to sneak up to him. You might need to find how to get into a chamber that is locked. There are countless examples of these types of problems, and you’ll definitely need to think about them like a complex puzzle.

While I preferred the problem solving, it was not without its own issues. You can switch from your standard view to a special detective view. The typically low-lit setting in the building makes it tough to see some clues you are looking for, so detective view lights up everything and gives Batman a heads-up-display (HUD).

With this view, items are highlighted so you can spot them more easily. While this made finding things easier, it sort of made it too easy. In fact, just getting around in the building is easier in this detective view, and I sometimes found myself just running around using it, even when I wasn’t looking for anything.

Saving is done automatically at pre-defined checkpoints. It is great not having to worry about getting far in an area and dying without having remembered to save.

Graphics and Performance

I ran the game on my early 2011 15″ MacBook Pro running Lion with a 2GHz i7 and 4 GB of memory. The game takes up more than 9 GB of space on your drive, so if you are planning on playing this on an Air or anything with a smaller SSD drive, that is worth being aware of.

Overall, the performance was great. I did have the game freeze up on me once, but considering how many hours I played it, the one freeze was not terrible. The game gives you plenty of power to adjust settings if you find that things get too choppy, but I found the default settings to work just fine. The fans certainly did get spinning to a noticeable speed, but it was not any worse than ripping a DVD in HandBrake.

The nature of Arkham Asylum’s dark setting deserves some mention here. The environment is beautifully dark and creepy, but this can cause problems on Macs that have glossy screens. I found that I had to turn up the brightness on the screen and close the shades if I wanted to see all the detail that was necessary.

As I’ve mentioned, the environments are extremely well-designed, and the characters all have an incredible amount of detail. The characters’ mouths don’t come close to syncing with their voices, but I didn’t find that to be overly distracting. The actors do a decent job with the voices, but the script often borders on being painfully cheesy.

Other Game Modes

Story mode will likely fill up most of your time with Arkham Asylum, but it also offers a few additional game modes. These are unlocked as you progress and find the Riddler’s collectables. The challenges throw you into a situation and force you to fight inmates. Combat-wise, these situations require you to use much of the fighting technique that you have honed in story mode. This means adapting to the situation’s environment and deciding whether to use stealth or just run in swinging your fists.

Like many games today, part of the appeal of these extras is the fun of collecting trophies. Beyond the personal satisfaction of filling up your screen with new trophies, they don’t actually help you in the story mode.

Conclusion

I simply had a blast playing Arkham Asylum. I spent weeks playing it with the lights off and the volume up, soaking in the well-designed environment as I explored the island. The flow of the game stays consistently exciting, and the designers manage to stuff the game with tons of great characters.

The game was challenging enough for me that I died several times, but not so hard that I got frustrated. You can always adjust the difficulty if you feel overwhelmed or if the game is too easy, but I found the default setting was perfect for me. I did have to consult an online walkthrough at one point when I got stuck, but found out that what I was missing was in front of me all along but I just couldn’t see if because of some glare.

My only complaint was something that many people will disagree with me about: the combat system. Arkham Asylum’s form of attacks felt a bit too unsophisticated at times, as I simply ended up clicking around at a crowd of enemies until they all had keeled over. As the enemies become more challenging, (such as when they begin wielding firearms), I began to use stealth more effectively and immediately started enjoying the challenge more.

This post is part of a series that revisits some of our readers’ favorite articles from the past that still contain awesome and relevant information that you might find useful. This post was originally published on March 16th, 2011.

We all love our phones, and often try to express ourselves through them. While it’s fairly easy to do so via individual backgrounds, creating ringtones isn’t quite that simple. Of course, there’s GarageBand which can be used for this purpose, but isn’t there an easier way?

Indeed there is. Today we will introduce 4 different apps available on the Mac App Store which enable you to quickly and easily create ringtones for your iPhone. Meet Ringtones, Ringer, i Am Ringer and iRingtones!

A Little Background…

While all of those apps are somewhat similar in what they offer, there is one caveat none of them can overcome: they cannot use protected songs. If you’ve been buying from the iTunes Store for a while, you know that now songs are simply “Purchased”, but originally they were a “Protected Purchase”.

Natively, no application can use that music and you’d have to buy a ringtone via iTunes. Of course, you could also simply burn your purchased and protected track on a CD and then re-import it, which would remove the restrictions.

Two words of caution: if you can’t see Ringtones in your iTunes Library, make sure the option is selected in the General preferences.

In order for your Ringtones to be transferred to your iPhone, you also need to check the appropriate box when your iPhone is connected.

Just thought I’d let you know this at the outset, since those are the things which drive most users crazy the first time they try to sync ringtones to their device.

Ringtones

The interface of this application is so straight forward, there aren’t even any preferences for you to tweak. In the left pane you can see all your playlists, as you would in iTunes itself, to the right your songs are shown. The instructions are clear at the bottom.

Once you select a song, details become available in the lower part of the window. The frizzly lines show you the progression of the track. The wider the line is, the louder your music. The more frizzled it is, the more change there is. Naturally, a progression for a quiet piano piece would not be as ragged as something for a rock song.

Think about what you want your ringtone for. A wakeup sound probably shouldn’t cause you a heart attack in the morning, while a ringtone should be fairly energetic and loud doe you to hear it at all. The rest is up to your personal taste.

Ringtones allows for a maximum duration of 38.5 seconds for a ringtone. Just find the area of the song you want to start with, click on the progression in the lower part of the window and drag. The highlighting stops automatically after 38.5 seconds, but you are free to keep it shorter.

If you didn’t hit the right spot, just grab the bright blue area and drag it to either side. This way, you can easily select different parts of your song.

In order to listen to your selection, just hit the space bar on your keyboard or click the preview button.

Depending on your own preferences, you can have the clip fade in and/or fade out. That means that it starts quietly and becomes louder and also gets quieter at the end – it fades out. I myself like that for wake up tones. I don’t want to scare myself in the wee hours of the morning!

A disadvantage is that you can’t force the app to play from a specific position: if you just want to change the ending of your clip, you can’t make it play just the last five seconds, you’ll have to listen to the entire 38.5 seconds (worst case scenario). It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but do that 5 times in a row and you’ll understand what I mean.

Once you got it down to what you want, just hit “Send to iTunes” and within 2-3 seconds, your clip is available in the Ringtones section.

Ringer unfortunately only enters the name of the song and doesn’t include the album or artist information. Those you will have to enter manually if you want them.

From there, just sync to your iPhone and you’re ready to play some seriously awesome and individual music next time someone calls you!

Price: $1.99 | Link to the App Store | Trial Version

Ringer – Ringtone Maker

Ringer takes a somewhat different approach when it comes to the user interface. As you can see, you have multiple choices, though it escapes me what you need Movies or TV Shows for in this particular case. It might be handy if you want to extract some audio for a different purpose, but for ringtones, I guess most of us will stick to music.

If your music library is rather large, you can use the “Filter” option on the bottom left to search for a specific song. I do recommend anyway to pick out the song in iTunes because it’s easier there than in most of these apps (given that you have the artwork and album views to guide you easily).

Once you’ve chosen your song, it will load in the right part of the window. You’ll see the familiar ragged curve again and here it’s also a light blue area that indicates the ringtone selection. It can be up to 39.5 seconds in length.

While you have timestamps that allow you to navigate the song, it would be nice if you could zoom out to display more of the entire song in the window. You can zoom in via a keyboard shortcut, but if you don’t have a rather large monitor, you can’t see much of the entire song at once.

Below the music progression you have controls similar to iRingtones, with additional options to enlighten your Facebook friends or Twitter timeline about your new ringtone.

Be polite and use it with care, not everyone will be delighted about mass postings when you create a dozen new ringtones!

While both Ringer and iRingtones allow you to drag the highlight area while previewing a song (and the replay will start automatically at the the new beginning), only Ringer offers you the option to start playing at a point of your choosing within the selection. Simply double click the spot and the replay will start there.

Once you’re happy, hit create and almost instantly your ringtone will start playing in the iTunes library. Here also only the name of the song will be included in the meta data – no artist or album.

Price: $0.99 | Link to the App Store | Trial Version

iAm Ringer

This app with the self-assured name adds some spice to the mix. The interface reminds me strongly of iTunes, which makes it very easy and comfortable to pick out songs. While that is laudable, I wish the developer would have included the option of making the application window larger. Yep, forget about making the most of that 27″ display.

Once you load your song into iAm Ringer, though, there are some touches that I missed from the previous two apps. Of course, you have your ragged music line again and for some reason the part that can be picked for the song is highlighted in blue as well (did the developers come to an agreement on that?), but the real magic happens in the controls below the song.

You have a dedicated preview button (the arrow with the brackets around it) and then you have the bracket buttons themselves. The left one moves your current selection to the point where your yellow indicator is.

Why is that cool? Imagine listening for your ringtone, waiting for that tenth-of-a-second where it should start. You hit the pause button, punch the left bracket button and you’re there.

The right button though expands or shortens your song, depending on whether or not your indicator is within the blue highlighted selection or outside of it. It’s a very clever and handy way to trim your song.

Additionally, you have the options to define a fade in and out and set the start and stop time of your ringtone manually, if you prefer this. But what iAm Ringer really excels with (and that no other of these apps offer) is a real zoom option!

The slider between the magnifying glasses lets you zoom in or out of your song, enabling you to either quickly jump around or go into very fine detail. That allows you to see the music in-depth and decide even more accurately where to set the markers.

When finished, you just hit the big blue button which will create a ringtone for you (only name, no album or artist), though I wish the button would have a more useful icon.

The circular arrow is somewhat confusing. But don’t let that discourage you. iAm Ringer is a very fine application and is very easy to handle.

Price: $0.99 | Link to the App Store | Trial Version

iRingtones

iRingtones welcomes you with the plainest user interface, asking you simply to drop a music file there. No problem, just fire up iTunes and drag and drop a song right from within it to iRingtones.

While at first the app didn’t look like much, it gives you some very fine grained control. You can define the length of the fade in and fade out (up to 5 seconds each), the time stamps on top of the music progress indicator are incredibly detailed, and in the right upper area you can always see exactly where you are in your song and how long your clip is.

What I missed in the other two applications is included here: for once, you have buttons on the lower left that allow you to preview only the last or first 5 seconds of the ringtone. Very useful if you’ve adjusted the fade in or fade out setting and only want to hear that result.

Also, you can drag the red position indicator to anywhere while previewing your ringtone, so there’s no need anymore to wait to get to a certain spot. Quite a time saver.

While you can drag the selection area – again, blue – to any length you want, a popup will alarm you if you exceed 40 seconds. Quite a nice touch.

The only downside seems to be that while the playback always starts at the beginning when you move the selected area around, the indicator doesn’t always start there immediately – so it’s some kind of graphical quirk, but the functionality of the app is not affected.

iRingtones is also the only app with preferences worth mentioning. You can specify where ringtones will be saved, how iTunes will behave once they are added, and you have a number of keyboard shortcuts that allow you to adjust your clip in a way you won’t be able to with a mouse.

Once you’re done, hit create and with the other apps, the ringtone will be imported into your iTunes library.

Contrary to both other apps, all meta information – title, artist and album – are included. For people who like their music library all neat, a nice feature.

Price: $0.99 | Link to the App Store | Trial Version

Wait, Can’t I Do That All via iTunes Too?

Indeed, there is the option to create ringtones from your purchased – but not protected – songs within iTunes. In order to create a ringtone from your music, select the song and then, via right click, chose “Get Info”. On the options tab, you can set a start and stop time for your song.

Once you’ve done so, right click your song again and chose “Create AAC Version”. The bit you just specified will be turned into an aac version. It’s still a music piece though, not a ringtone.

Once more, right click the new file and choose “Show in Finder”. Change the ending of the file to “.m4r”, which is the file ending for ringtones. Double click it and it will automatically be added to your ringtones library. The original created aac piece can be deleted from your iTunes library afterwards.

Verdict

All four apps perform well. They are all very easy to use and do not require any specific knowledge about cutting or editing music. It’s simple drag and drop, select and then pushing a “create” button. Everyone can do it.

In terms of usability, iRingtones would be my favorite, but since all of the developers offer trial versions of their apps, just download them for yourself and see which one fits you best.

Why not use the iTunes-only method? Well, of course that is the cheapest option. But then, you wouldn’t have the opportunity to easily change the beginning and end of your ringtone by just dragging a selected area. You can’t work visually, you have to manually type in all the information. Also, you can’t specify a fade in or fade out or quickly preview your ringtone.

What is your take on creating ringtones? Do you use a method not mentioned here? Let us know in the comments!

We all know how saturated the market for Twitter apps is, with each striving to provide the best experience for the service. This ever-growing market can make it difficult for users to pick their go-to Twitter app, especially when they only differ from one another in subtle ways.

Enter Osfoora, the popular Twitter app for iOS that has recently made its way to the Mac. With over 80,000 Twitter followers and 1,700 ratings in the iOS App Store, the popularity of the brand alone might have been reason enough for the developer to release a version for the Mac. But does Osfoora stand out from the multitude of existing Twitter clients? To see if Osfoora will be a serious competitor on the Mac, read on.

Overview

Osfoora’s basic interface is similar to that of the official Twitter app or Twitterrific. The timeline displays tweets as full cells, as opposed to apps like Hibari and Itsy that display them more like speech bubbles. The lefthand sidebar has text labels next to the icons, but you can also collapse it down to just icons.

The charcoal-colored titlebar helps the app stand out a bit from the crowd, but I don’t know if it fits perfectly with the otherwise light interface.

Function-wise, Osfoora offers most of the features that serious Twitter users are going to be looking for. For those of you that navigate your stream by keyboard, Osfoora provides many of the same keyboard navigation shortcuts as the official Twitter app, though some are slightly different. It also has multiple account support, automatic name completion, and a pop-out image viewer.

Pros

Tweet Marker

Tweet Marker allows you to pick up where you left off in your Twitter stream. You will first have to enable Tweet Marker support in the Osfoora preferences. Then, just open up any other Twitter client that supports Tweet Marker, such as Osfoora or TweetBot for iOS, and you will be able to transition seamlessly without having to find your place in your stream.

Inline Image Preview

Inline images bring some richness to your stream. The previews are small, but they might help you decide whether or not it is really worth opening up that photo someone is tweeting about.

Mute Users

There are some users that I generally enjoy following, but sometimes I get overloaded by their tweets. If you follow people like this, Osfoora’s muting feature could help. Hiding a particular user’s tweets is as easy right clicking one of their tweets and selecting “Mute Author”. Getting the tweets to reappear, however, is not so easy. The only way to bring a muted user’s tweets back is by going into preferences and removing them from the Muted Usernames list. Even then, I found that a user’s tweets did not reappear instantly after I unmuted them, or after refreshing. It requires a quick restart to get the tweets back, so this might not be a great temporary solution to over-tweeters.

Conversation Button

Instead of having to double-click a tweet to find out if it’s part of a conversation, Osfoora makes it easy by putting a speech bubble icon in the corner of any tweets that are replies. You can click the icon to see the conversation.

Unfortunately, Osfoora only shows this button on replies, not on tweets that get replied to. I would like to be able to click this button on tweets that get replied to, and see the conversation that resulted from a particular tweet.

Open Links in Background

This feature, accessible through the app’s preferences, allows you to click on links in tweets without your browser popping up in front of Osfoora. I find it efficient to go through my timeline, open up a few links at a time in the background, and look at them all once I’m done going through my tweets.

Your Tweets Stand Out

Osfoora shows your tweets highlighted, so that you can easily distinguish them from others in your timeline. This helps you orient yourself when scrolling through the masses, and makes it easy to seek your tweets out or ignore them as you browse.

Cons

No Livestream API

At the moment, Osfoora updates your stream at set intervals, which you can set in the preferences. The lack of Livestream may be a problem for many potential users, but fortunately, the developer recently tweeted that he is hoping to include this in a future update.

No Drag to Refresh

Drag to refresh has become a common, convenient way to manually update content in apps. I have gotten so conditioned to performing this action in apps like Twitter and Sparrow, that I instinctually go to do it in Osfoora and am disappointed by its absence. In order to manually refresh the list, you have to press the button in the titlebar, which I find a little less convenient.

No Gap Detection

Some apps offer a feature called gap detection, which is really a solution to a limitation of the Twitter API. The Twitter API only allows apps do load up to 200 tweets at once, and if you have been away from your Twitter client for a while and have missed more than 200 tweets, you can run into gaps in your timeline. Gap detection shows you where there is a gap in your timeline, and allows you to click the gap to load as many of those missing tweets as it can.

Not The Best Multiple Accounts Support

I appreciate the support for multiple accounts, but I feel that it is not implemented as well as in the official Twitter app. Whereas it only takes one click to switch between accounts in the official Twitter app, it takes two to switch using the drop down in Osfoora. This drop down solution also has no indications when other accounts have new activity, as the blue indicator lights of the official Twitter app do, a feature that I greatly miss.

No Drag and Drop Support

I often drag and drop images from my desktop directly into the Compose Tweet dialogue with the official Twitter app. In Osfoora, you have to click a button and select a file from a dialog box in order to add it to your tweet.

No Spell Check

Even when dealing with less than 140 characters of text, I find myself making typos from time to time, which can be frustrating since there is no way to edit a tweet after its posted. Spell check is a simple feature that can make a world of difference, and I hope it finds its way to Osfoora soon.

Conclusion

Osfoora has already made its mark on iOS, and the new Mac app brings some unique features to the table that users will appreciate. I believe it is already one of the most promising third-party Twitter apps available, my favorite features being TweetMarker support and inline image previews. However, it is hard to live without certain features that I am used to from the official Twitter client, such as live stream updates, pull to refresh, and activity indications on multiple accounts.

In the end, Osfoora has only very recently been released for Mac, and I am sure there is more to come. This is definitely an app to keep an eye on, so let’s hope Osfoora will really take some chances in the near future and try to innovate beyond what already exists out there. The official Twitter app is free and still one of my favorite clients on the Mac, so the decision to spend $5 and give Osfoora a try as your go-to Twitter client will depend on how much its unique offerings appeal to you.