Welcome to November, the month of Thanksgiving (and the presidential election) for Americans, the gunpowder plot to kill the king of England, and last, but not least, Sadie Hawkins Day. Now, if you’re done listening to Relient K’s classic song, we should get on with this week’s deals for the Mac. The picks for this week include Colorstrokes, File Organizer, Instalyrics, and Starscape. Keep reading for the full loot.
Ringer — Ringtone Maker
iTunes can only do so many things, and making ringtones for your iPhone isn’t one of them. For this, users resort to third-party solutions, from Web apps like Audiko to native Mac apps like Ringer. The former doesn’t cost, but it’s very limited in what it can do and uploading a track each time you want to make a ringtone isn’t preferred. Ringer takes things further with iTunes library access, 30 included ringtones, fade-in and fade-out support, zooming in and out on the track to find the portion you want to use for your ringtone, and more. It’s on sale for $1.99 for a limited time, so go grab it.
Price: $3.99 » $1.99
Requires: OS X 10.6.6 or later
Developer: Pixel Research Labs
Instalyrics
What are the words to that song you’re listening to? You can always look them up with Google, but that’s a few keystrokes too many. Instead, consider Instalyrics, a menu bar app that automatically finds the lyrics for you. All you have to do is start a song on iTunes, Rdio, Spotify, or even Grooveshark or YouTube, and click the Instalyrics icon in the menu bar. It’ll quickly search the Web and open up Safari with the lyrics. There’s also an iOS app that tells you what’s playing on your Mac wirelessly — at an extra cost. The Mac app is on sale for $1.99.
Price: $6.99 » $1.99
Requires: OS X 10.7 or later with a 64-bit processor
Developer: Tal Shrestha
Colorstrokes
Black and white is a fun effect to use on photographs, but it can get old. There’s also a limitation to what you can do with just that effect, but MacPhun’s Colorstrokes gives you much more control. You can choose what you’d like to be colored and add other special effects to your photos. It’s a great way to spice things up without all the hassle of manually doing it in Photoshop. The app is on sale for 99 cents, down from $2.99. It’s also Retina-optimized.
Price: $2.99 » $.99
Requires: OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: MacPhun, LLC
Markdown Pro
It seems like every week there’s a new Markdown editor in the app deals. Last week it was WriteRoom, a good app, but this week’s is a bit more advanced. RADSense Software’s Markdown Pro aims to be a power user’s tool for Markdown editing. Instead of taking the distraction-free approach like most apps, this one has such features as live preview and templates, yet retains the simple characteristic of John Gruber’s Markdown. It’s like Mou, but costs $5.99, on sale from $9.99, and isn’t in beta.
Price: $9.99 » $5.99
Requires: OS X 10.7 or later with a 64-bit processor
Developer: RADSense Software Inc.
Starscape
The constellations are a wonder to many people and good pictures of stars are always appreciated. Apple really likes them as well, including its own iteration of the galaxy with OS X. There’s definitely something iconic about stars on a Macintosh. Starscape is the perfect app to enjoy a new render of stars every time look. It’s always moving to create something new and beautiful. The app also supports screen savers if you prefer to use it for that instead of a live wallpaper. Sadly, there’s no Retina display support, but you can still enjoy the app at 99 cents.
Price: $1.99 » $.99
Requires: OS X 10.7 or later with a 64-bit processor
Developer: Coffee Break Studios
Is Anything Missing?
That’s all for this early-November edition of Mac.AppStorm’s weekly deals. If you’ve been adventuring around the Internet and have found another interesting app that’d fit in our weekly deals, do let us know in the comments. Also, if there’s some feedback you’d like to give on one of the apps mentioned in this post, feel free to do so below. See you next week!