Mac Apps

CARROT Weather makes its way to the Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 6, 2015

CARROT Weather, the popular app featuring a robot assistant with a personality and attitude, is now available on the Mac. Like its iOS counterpart, sadistic robots in CARROT Weather's Mac app will taunt you when it’s going to rain while offering some hilariously twisted weather forecasts based on Forecast.io's accurate weather data.

In addition to the new Mac app, CARROT Weather for iOS has been updated with a bevy of new features such as notification forwarding from the Mac app to your iPhone or Apple Watch when you're away from your desk, new radar and satellite maps and a Time Machine feature which lets you check out the weather for any location up to 70 years in the past, or ten years in the future.

Read More

Reeder 3 gets a public beta for Mac

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated May 7, 2018

Renowned RSS feed reading app, Reeder, is one of the best feed reading experiences on the Mac. And so I was quite happy when I learned that Reeder 3 was finally entering public beta.

Reeder 3 will be a free update for Reeder 2 for Mac users. It comes with brand new themes and an OS X Yosemite-centric modern UI, among many other additions. Check out the full change log and download link in this post.

Read More

5 new features coming to Photos 1.1 for Mac

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 2, 2017

When OS X El Capitan releases for public consumption in the fall, it will deliver, among other features, an update to the built-in Photos for Mac application.

As a matter of fact, El Capitan marks the first major feature-packed update to Apple's photo-management solution since Photos for Mac debuted as part of April's OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 software update.

As mentioned in the official El Capitan release notes distilled into human-readable form by Jason Snell of Six Colors, Photos 1.1 brings out about half a dozen new features that didn't make it into the initial release, on top of a bunch of bug fixes, security improvements and optimized performance.

Read More

GarageBand for Mac gains Force Touch and Apple Music Connect support, new content and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 30, 2015

Tuesday, Apple issued a substantial update to GarageBand for Mac, its own application that allows users to create music or podcasts. In GarageBand 10.1, users can take advantage of built-in Apple Music Connect support to share directly from GarageBand to Apple Music's Connect feature, basically a repository for artists to share content with music lovers like lyrics, behind-the-scenes videos, photos, concert recordings, studio sessions and more.

In addition, the application now takes advantage of a third dimension provided by pressure-sensing trackpads on the new twelve-inch MacBook and fifteen-inch MacBook Pro while providing several other enhancements.

Read More

How to halve your data usage on Chrome for Mac, iPhone and iPad

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 29, 2015

Google's Chrome browser includes a handy feature designed to decrease bandwidth usage by up to fifty percent for mobile users on very slow networks. Called Data Saver, it works by passing webpages you visit to Google servers that compress graphics and other web content.

You can even tell Data Saver to replace the originally requested image with a small placeholder graphic, if the original image is likely not a crucial element of the page.

Here's how you can reduce the amount of data that Chrome uses on your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad by enabling Data Saver mode to cut your bandwidth usage up to fifty percent, and even more.

Read More

Tweetbot for Mac brings support for Twitter’s new quoting format and longer direct messages

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 22, 2015

Tweetbot for Mac with support for Yosemite's design and a plethora of other improvements hit earlier in the month as a free upgrade for existing users. Monday, its developer Tapbots issued the first maintenance refresh bringing out support for a pair of Twitter's recently introduced handy new features.

Tweetbot 2.0.1 for Mac now lets you quote tweets using Twitter's new embedded quoting feature. In addition, they've laid the groundwork for longer direct messages, a feature Twitter announced almost two weeks ago but hasn't implemented yet.

Read More

How to remove unused language files from your Mac and free up disk space

Lory Gil ∙ Updated August 6, 2019

There are approximately 150 different localized languages coded into OS X. Most people only use one language on their computer, maybe two. That leaves hundreds of megabytes of space being used up by languages you will never access in your operating system.

Monolingual is a utility that allows you to remove many of the more than 150 foreign languages from your Mac, freeing up disk space for more important files. We've got a tutorial that explains how to download and use Monolingual to delete unnecessary language files, plus a couple of very important tips to follow before completing the process.

Read More

Tweetbot 2 for Mac arrives with OS X Yosemite design and other new features

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 4, 2015

Better late than never! Developer Tapbots has at last unleashed a major update to its popular Twitter client for OS X. Tweetbot 2 for Mac is now available as a free update for existing Tweetbot users. For new users, the application is now available at a discounted price of $12.99, down from its regular asking price of $19.99.

Aside from a fresh coat of paint and a dark translucent appearance on Yosemite systems, Tweetbot 2 for Mac sports an improved timeline search feature, optional verified badges, a three-pane layout that brings order to your lists, an iOS-style interface in the tweet detail view, the ability to see a user's recent photos and more.

Read More

Wunderlist gets acquired by Microsoft

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 2, 2015

6Wunderkinder GmbH, the makers of Wunderlist, the popular to-do, list and tasks application for the Mac, iOS, Apple Watch and other platforms, confirmed today it's being acquired by software giant Microsoft.

With more than thirteen million users across platforms and more than one billion to-dos created in Wunderlist, the app should seamlessly fit in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's mobile first, cloud first vision.

But don't fret, mobile Wunderlist apps aren't going anywhere, at least for the time being. “As Wunderlist becomes a part of the Microsoft family, we’ll introduce a host of new features, keep adding partner integrations, and progress further in delivering Wunderlist to billions of people,” Christian Reber, 6Wunderkinder founder and CEO said Tuesday.

Read More

‘Rising Tide’ expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth announced, arriving in fall

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 17, 2019

Developer Aspyr Media, in partnership with 2K and Firaxis Games, today announced that a new expansion to Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth, titled 'Rising Tide', will be arriving on Mac, Windows and Linux later this year.

The expansion pack is currently in development for Mac and Linux operating systems and is scheduled for release in autumn 2015.

Rising Tide will enhance Beyond Earth experience with a variety of new gameplay capabilities, adding more choices and diplomatic options and providing “near limitless” ways to create a new future for humanity on an alien planet.

Read More

Lock or unlock your Mac right from your wrist with MacID for Apple Watch

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 12, 2015

MacID, a cool app by developer Kane Cheshire that lets you lock and unlock your Mac using Touch ID on your iPhone, or your passcode, is now available on the Apple Watch.

If you want to unlock your Mac right from your wrist, and own an Apple Watch, you should grab the new MacID 1.2 for iPhone, a $3.99 download from the App Store. You can even use the Apple Watch app to see what's playing on iTunes or Spotify, and start screensavers on your Mac.

Read More