MacUpdate’s Latest Bundle Is A Just Totally Psychotic Deal… And We Love It

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It’s gotten to the point that most Mac bundles are pretty blase affairs, but you can always trust MacUpdate to slide one past the gates of our cynicism. The latest MacUpdate bundle is a gobsmacker of a deal.

How good is it? They’re selling Roxio’s Toast Titanium optical disc authoring suite for half its retail price… then basically throwing in ten other equally excellent apps for free, including CoM favorite iStats Menu. Boom.

For the bundle price of just $49.99, here’s what you’ll get.

1. Toast 11 Titanium* ($99.95) – The newest version of the venerable multimedia suite is the best way to burn CDs and DVDs, prepare your media files for playback on iOS devices or the Web, digitize your old records and tapes to audio CDs or MP3s, capture audio from any application, stream TV programming from your TiVo, create disc labels, and more.

With the optional Toast 11 High-Def/Blu-ray Disc Plug-in (normally $19.99, but available to bundle buyers for $9.99), Mac users can finally burn data and movies to Blu-ray discs, as well as HD video to standard DVDs.

2. Data Rescue 3 ($99.00) – The #1 utility for recovering data from a crashed drive or accidentally deleted files, with more top ratings and reviews than any other. Included in our bundle are both the stand-alone app and a bootable DVD image, so you’ll be able to use Data Rescue’s full capabilities, even on your startup volume.

3. FX Photo Studio Pro 2* ($39.99) – An attractive new app that makes it easy to apply more than 190 effects and editing tools to your photos. Perfect for professionals or hobbyists alike, FX Photo Studio Pro is one of the highest rated and most popular apps in its category on the Mac App Store.

4. Fantastical* ($19.99) – One of the most-talked about apps of the year and a surefire way to boost your productivity, Fantastical not only puts all your calendars just a click away in the menu bar, but lets you create new events in natural language. Just type “Dinner with Susan Thursday at 7pm” and Fantastical smartly adds it to your calendar without having to change apps or click a number of options. Fantastical works with iCal, BusyCal, Entourage, Outlook, and more.

5. iStat Menus 3* ($16) – The most advanced system monitor available for Mac OS X, iStat menus is a power user’s dream, putting real-time stats of your Mac’s CPU, memory, network, disk usage, disk activity and sensors in your menu bar. A beautiful, customizable user interface only makes this more a must-have than all the 5-out-of-5 ratings its received.

6. PhoneView ($19.95) – Quite simply the best way to get any data on or off of your iOS device. Use your iPhone like an external drive and copy any files to it, automatically backup and archive voice mails and text messages for later reference, copy music and videos from your device to iTunes (not just the other way around). PhoneView is a natural companion for all iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users.

7. Concealer* ($19.95) – Protect your private data from prying eyes by letting Concealer encrypt your passwords and sensitive notes, plus any files or folders on your Mac. Suddenly, everything sensitive is secure, with this simple to use utility.

8. EarthDesk 5* ($24.95) – When you’re tired of your static desktop picture, replace it with EarthDesk and you’ll be looking at a dynamically rendered image of Earth showing correct sun, moon and city illumination. Optionally, you can display real-time global cloud cover, allowing you to track hurricanes and typhoons, or simply admire our beautiful planet.

9. Mellel ($29) – The best word processor that you may never have heard of, Mellel has been the gold standard for those working with long documents, like a thesis or dissertation. It’s also great for technical writing, and offers unmatched flexibility, customization, and multilingual support.

10. Bookends 11* ($99) – Since you shouldn’t tackle any serious writing without a serious reference management tool, we packed the best one into this bundle. Bookends lets you import references directly from Internet sources like PubMed, Google Scholar, and Amazon. It can also scan entire electronic documents, making it the perfect app for university students, writers, and researchers.

That’s about a 90% off value, made even more absurd by the fact that the asking price of the whole bundle is significantly less than a few of these apps by themselves.

What are you waiting for? Get cracking.

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