http://www.cultofmac.com Breaking news for Apple fans Tue, 21 May 2013 09:29:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.cultofmac.com/195510/apples-using-a-lot-of-excess-cardboard-to-ship-their-lighting-to-30-pin-adapter/ http://www.cultofmac.com/195510/apples-using-a-lot-of-excess-cardboard-to-ship-their-lighting-to-30-pin-adapter/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:02:01 +0000 John Brownlee http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=195510 The new Lighting To Thirty Pin Adapter is a tiny thing, just a little dongle that routes signals from your old iPhone dock or connector to the appropriate pins in the new Lightning adapter. It’s smaller than the size of a matchbook. Despite this, however, reader Doug P. emailed us with an image of how [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/195510/apples-using-a-lot-of-excess-cardboard-to-ship-their-lighting-to-30-pin-adapter/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/174530/an-ipad-optimized-ad-campaigns-delivers-an-amazing-return-on-investment/ http://www.cultofmac.com/174530/an-ipad-optimized-ad-campaigns-delivers-an-amazing-return-on-investment/#comments Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:40:29 +0000 Ryan Faas http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=174530 Mobile advertising as an industry has been slow to evolve since the introduction of the iPad. A study that we reported earlier this year found that many advertising companies fail to take advantage of the mobile ad capabilities offered the iPad even though iPad users are significantly more likely to interact with ad content. A more recent study shows [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/174530/an-ipad-optimized-ad-campaigns-delivers-an-amazing-return-on-investment/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/149502/tinkertool-is-a-useful-pocket-knife-for-tweaking-your-macs-hidden-controls-50-mac-essentials-50/ http://www.cultofmac.com/149502/tinkertool-is-a-useful-pocket-knife-for-tweaking-your-macs-hidden-controls-50-mac-essentials-50/#comments Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:42:30 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=149502 TinkerTool is the Swiss Army knife you need for your Mac. With its blades you can activate – or deactivate – all sorts of features that are normally hidden from view. What sort of features? Here are a few of them: Speed up the animation of save sheets Make the icons of hidden applications turn [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/149502/tinkertool-is-a-useful-pocket-knife-for-tweaking-your-macs-hidden-controls-50-mac-essentials-50/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/148879/spamsieve-keeps-your-inbox-free-of-spam-50-mac-essentials-49/ http://www.cultofmac.com/148879/spamsieve-keeps-your-inbox-free-of-spam-50-mac-essentials-49/#comments Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:16:04 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=148879 SpamSieve is a top-quality spam-killer for your email account, protecting you from phishing, from lures tempting you to download God-knows-what from dodgy file sharing servers, and from non-existent Nigerian princes offering untold wealth in exchange for, well, a few cash payments up front. To cover expenses, you understand. Yes, if you have an email account, [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/148879/spamsieve-keeps-your-inbox-free-of-spam-50-mac-essentials-49/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/148156/better-touch-tool-puts-you-in-control-of-gestures-on-your-mac-50-mac-essentials-48/ http://www.cultofmac.com/148156/better-touch-tool-puts-you-in-control-of-gestures-on-your-mac-50-mac-essentials-48/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:56:01 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=148156 Once you’ve downloaded Better Touch Tool and started to explore what it has to offer, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. It’s an app that lives up to its name. It greatly enhances your experience of using a Mac by letting you add your own custom gestures. But despite the name, it works [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/148156/better-touch-tool-puts-you-in-control-of-gestures-on-your-mac-50-mac-essentials-48/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/148013/popclip-puts-text-menus-right-where-you-need-them-50-mac-essentials-47/ http://www.cultofmac.com/148013/popclip-puts-text-menus-right-where-you-need-them-50-mac-essentials-47/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:02:54 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=148013 PopClip brings cute iOS-style select-and-click text tools to your Mac. It’s great. Just select some text – just select, no clicking required – and familiar cut, copy and paste commands appear in little boxes above the text, just like they do on your iOS device. Not just those commands, either, but others too: search the [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/148013/popclip-puts-text-menus-right-where-you-need-them-50-mac-essentials-47/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/147639/acorn-is-a-fine-image-editor-for-everyone-50-mac-essentials-46/ http://www.cultofmac.com/147639/acorn-is-a-fine-image-editor-for-everyone-50-mac-essentials-46/#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:43:57 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=147639 Acorn describes itself as “an image editor for humans”, and that sums it up in a nutshell. What you get inside Acorn are pretty much all the image editing features you’re ever going to need, for a fraction of the price of some of the competing apps. If you’re into creating bitmap and vector graphics, [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/147639/acorn-is-a-fine-image-editor-for-everyone-50-mac-essentials-46/feed/ 0 http://www.cultofmac.com/116284/vlc-plays-just-about-any-video-file-you-can-find-50-mac-essentials-45/ http://www.cultofmac.com/116284/vlc-plays-just-about-any-video-file-you-can-find-50-mac-essentials-45/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:15:01 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=116284 Your Mac comes with QuickTime Player, which does a great job of playing a lot of video content. Lovely. But if you spend a lot of time doing stuff with video, you’ll know there are times when QuickTime lets you down. There are formats it just won’t play, even if you have Perian installed (which [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/116284/vlc-plays-just-about-any-video-file-you-can-find-50-mac-essentials-45/feed/ 13 http://www.cultofmac.com/115789/omnioutliner-an-excellent-all-rounder-for-writing-research-more-50-mac-essentials-44/ http://www.cultofmac.com/115789/omnioutliner-an-excellent-all-rounder-for-writing-research-more-50-mac-essentials-44/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:30:01 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=115789 Some people can write prose with no apparent effort, seamlessly gliding from one paragraph to the next with nary a skip of a beat. For the rest of us, an outliner can be an extremely useful tool for gathering, sorting and refining our thoughts: and OmniOutliner is one of the best outliners you can find. [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/115789/omnioutliner-an-excellent-all-rounder-for-writing-research-more-50-mac-essentials-44/feed/ 1 http://www.cultofmac.com/115126/save-and-search-text-notes-at-blazing-speed-with-notational-velocity-50-mac-essentials-43/ http://www.cultofmac.com/115126/save-and-search-text-notes-at-blazing-speed-with-notational-velocity-50-mac-essentials-43/#comments Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:56:07 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=115126 I’ve been using Notational Velocity for years and years, and I can’t imagine using a Mac without it. It’s an extremely simple application, but that’s a large part of its appeal. It stores text notes, and searches through them at blazing speed. In its early days, NV was a niche product with a small adoring [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/115126/save-and-search-text-notes-at-blazing-speed-with-notational-velocity-50-mac-essentials-43/feed/ 5 http://www.cultofmac.com/114603/bootable-backups-are-easier-with-superduper-50-mac-essentials-42/ http://www.cultofmac.com/114603/bootable-backups-are-easier-with-superduper-50-mac-essentials-42/#comments Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:57:26 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=114603 Every Mac sold since the launch of OS X 10.5 (Leopard) has had a copy of Apple’s backup software, Time Machine, included. And thank goodness for that, because backups were the elephant in the computer industry’s room. Everyone knew it was essential to keep backups, and everyone knew that most people just didn’t bother. Time [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/114603/bootable-backups-are-easier-with-superduper-50-mac-essentials-42/feed/ 10 http://www.cultofmac.com/113975/how-to-ban-yourself-from-the-internet-when-you-need-to-focus-50-mac-essentials-41/ http://www.cultofmac.com/113975/how-to-ban-yourself-from-the-internet-when-you-need-to-focus-50-mac-essentials-41/#comments Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:21:05 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=113975 Self Control is a tiny little app for people who just don’t have any. Self control, that is. The internet, as we all know, offers endless distractions to tempt us away from our work. But switching off internet access completely is perhaps a little too harsh. Not to mention counter-productive. After all, it’s very likely [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/113975/how-to-ban-yourself-from-the-internet-when-you-need-to-focus-50-mac-essentials-41/feed/ 8 http://www.cultofmac.com/113626/send-any-audio-anywhere-in-your-home-using-airfoil-50-mac-essentials-40/ http://www.cultofmac.com/113626/send-any-audio-anywhere-in-your-home-using-airfoil-50-mac-essentials-40/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:13:30 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=113626 Airfoil is just one of a list of fantastic audio apps from indie developers Rogue Amoeba. Apple’s own AirPlay technology lets you fling audio from iTunes to other devices on the same network, but it’s limited to iTunes. What about audio playing inside other apps? That’s what Airfoil is for. So if your musical listening [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/113626/send-any-audio-anywhere-in-your-home-using-airfoil-50-mac-essentials-40/feed/ 10 http://www.cultofmac.com/113242/keep-your-desktop-clean-with-erm-clean-50-mac-essentials-39/ http://www.cultofmac.com/113242/keep-your-desktop-clean-with-erm-clean-50-mac-essentials-39/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:57:46 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=113242 Does your Mac’s desktop look like this? Or like this? If so, you need help. More to the point, you need Clean. Clean’s a clever little utility that keeps your desktop clean for you. The best bit is that it doesn’t make you change your behavior – you can still keep dragging stuff on to [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/113242/keep-your-desktop-clean-with-erm-clean-50-mac-essentials-39/feed/ 7 http://www.cultofmac.com/112340/bean-the-word-processor-for-those-who-need-something-between-textedit-and-word-50-mac-essentials-38/ http://www.cultofmac.com/112340/bean-the-word-processor-for-those-who-need-something-between-textedit-and-word-50-mac-essentials-38/#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2011 13:22:41 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=112340 Bean is one of OS X’s little treasures. It’s a lightweight rich text editor that’s nimble, fast and offers just a teeny tiny bit more than Apple’s own TextEdit. And does all this for free. Bean’s maker, James Hoover, stresses that his application isn’t intended as a replacement for Microsoft Word. If you love Word, [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/112340/bean-the-word-processor-for-those-who-need-something-between-textedit-and-word-50-mac-essentials-38/feed/ 1 http://www.cultofmac.com/104256/create-folder-structures-in-seconds-with-this-free-mac-app-50-mac-essentials-37/ http://www.cultofmac.com/104256/create-folder-structures-in-seconds-with-this-free-mac-app-50-mac-essentials-37/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:04:25 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=104256 Structurer is a clever free tool for rapidly creating file and folder trees without any messing about in Finder. Like a lot of the smartest and most useful Mac utilities, Structurer lets you type what you want, and interprets your typed commands, turning them into something that would normally require lots of typing and lots [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/104256/create-folder-structures-in-seconds-with-this-free-mac-app-50-mac-essentials-37/feed/ 4 http://www.cultofmac.com/94340/onyx-keeps-your-system-clean-and-tidy-50-mac-essentials-36/ http://www.cultofmac.com/94340/onyx-keeps-your-system-clean-and-tidy-50-mac-essentials-36/#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 14:58:19 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=94340 Onyx is a free system maintenance tool for Mac OS X. One of the nice things about Onyx is that it covers everything you can think of. It’s packed with tools that you might want to use often, plus some you might use only once in a blue moon. But they’re all there, in one [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/94340/onyx-keeps-your-system-clean-and-tidy-50-mac-essentials-36/feed/ 5 http://www.cultofmac.com/93419/fluid-hits-1-0-turns-websites-into-apps-50-mac-essentials-35/ http://www.cultofmac.com/93419/fluid-hits-1-0-turns-websites-into-apps-50-mac-essentials-35/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 09:15:10 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=93419 If you spend a lot of time using a lot of webapps, Fluid should be high on your list of software must-haves. It’s been hovering in unofficial beta status for years now, but just this week got bumped to 1.0, and now comes in two flavors: free and paid. Either of them is well worth [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/93419/fluid-hits-1-0-turns-websites-into-apps-50-mac-essentials-35/feed/ 3 http://www.cultofmac.com/87845/marsedit-makes-blogging-super-simple-50-mac-essentials-34/ http://www.cultofmac.com/87845/marsedit-makes-blogging-super-simple-50-mac-essentials-34/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:54:17 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=87845 MarsEdit is the best blogging tool for OS X, bar none. If you do blogging for money or just for the love of it, MarsEdit is a dream come true for you. It will save you lots of hassle and hours of time. To start with, MarsEdit frees you from the tyranny of the browser [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/87845/marsedit-makes-blogging-super-simple-50-mac-essentials-34/feed/ 11 http://www.cultofmac.com/86334/archive-button-gives-mail-some-of-that-gmail-magic-50-mac-essentials-33/ http://www.cultofmac.com/86334/archive-button-gives-mail-some-of-that-gmail-magic-50-mac-essentials-33/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:22:49 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=86334 If you’ve ever used and loved the “Archive” function in Gmail or MobileMe, then found yourself missing it while using Apple’s own Mail application, this simple free plugin is a dream come true. It’s an Archive button for Mail, and you can guess what it does. Instead of having to mess around with filing messages [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/86334/archive-button-gives-mail-some-of-that-gmail-magic-50-mac-essentials-33/feed/ 3 http://www.cultofmac.com/85734/applejack-helps-out-with-computer-emergencies-50-mac-essentials-32/ http://www.cultofmac.com/85734/applejack-helps-out-with-computer-emergencies-50-mac-essentials-32/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:58:40 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=85734 Applejack is a command-line application for rescuing your computer when disaster strikes, or threatens to strike. Don’t let the “command-line” bit frighten you off. Applejack is probably the easiest-to-use command-line application I’ve ever seen. It was built for ordinary people to use, and won’t bamboozle you with geekspeak. First, you need to have it installed. [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/85734/applejack-helps-out-with-computer-emergencies-50-mac-essentials-32/feed/ 9 http://www.cultofmac.com/84137/50-mac-essentials-31-yorufukurou/ http://www.cultofmac.com/84137/50-mac-essentials-31-yorufukurou/#comments Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:03:48 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=84137 YoruFukurou (“Night Owl”) is a high quality, totally free Twitter client that will appeal to a wide cross-section of people. There are some who keep Twitter open all day long, every day, and absolutely need to know what’s going on there at any given moment. For these people, YoruFukurou has enough power, enough keyboard shortcuts [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/84137/50-mac-essentials-31-yorufukurou/feed/ 4 http://www.cultofmac.com/82303/50-mac-essentials-30-notify/ http://www.cultofmac.com/82303/50-mac-essentials-30-notify/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:23:54 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=82303 If you use Gmail, MobileMe, or a standard IMAP email account, you might enjoy the seductive unobtrusive behavior of Notify, which does quite a lot more than simply notify you of new messages. That’s its most basic function, and in that it does the same job that many of its rivals do for free. But [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/82303/50-mac-essentials-30-notify/feed/ 3 http://www.cultofmac.com/81064/50-mac-essentials-29-anxiety/ http://www.cultofmac.com/81064/50-mac-essentials-29-anxiety/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:16:56 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=81064 All Macs come with a built-in todo list, which you can find inside the iCal application, although personally speaking I don’t get on with it there, and find it unwieldy to use. It’s also possible to access your todos via Mail, the Mac’s built-in email software, where things are slightly less unwieldy. Todo items will [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/81064/50-mac-essentials-29-anxiety/feed/ 7 http://www.cultofmac.com/80811/50-mac-essentials-28-picasa/ http://www.cultofmac.com/80811/50-mac-essentials-28-picasa/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:57:02 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=80811 If iPhoto leaves you cold, or perhaps doesn’t run so well on your older Mac, there aren’t many options for a similar application that combines photo editing and photo library management. Not many, except for Picasa. Google’s free photo app is a great alternative to iPhoto, generously packed with features and a good choice for [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/80811/50-mac-essentials-28-picasa/feed/ 3 http://www.cultofmac.com/79137/50-mac-essentials-27-on-the-job/ http://www.cultofmac.com/79137/50-mac-essentials-27-on-the-job/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:29:10 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=79137 On The Job is an excellent tool for small business owners, freelancers, contractors, and anyone else who needs to charge clients for work. The app does several different jobs. The work timer will keep track of how long you spend on a project. It will even notice if your computer is left idle – perhaps [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/79137/50-mac-essentials-27-on-the-job/feed/ 4 http://www.cultofmac.com/78083/50-mac-essentials-26-alfred/ http://www.cultofmac.com/78083/50-mac-essentials-26-alfred/#comments Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:01:01 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=78083 Before I sing the praises of Alfred, allow me a moment to pay homage to its ancestors: LaunchBar and Quicksilver. These were the applications that pioneered super-fast keyboard launchers. LaunchBar came first, a respected and very stable paid-for product. Quicksilver followed, with its own very different approach, stringing commands together to create “sentences” – get [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/78083/50-mac-essentials-26-alfred/feed/ 9 http://www.cultofmac.com/77421/50-mac-essentials-25-skype/ http://www.cultofmac.com/77421/50-mac-essentials-25-skype/#comments Mon, 17 Jan 2011 22:41:57 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=77421 I need hardly explain this one. Love it or loathe it, Skype is found pretty much everywhere else, and millions of people are happy users of it on a wide range of computer platforms and mobile devices. Even if you don’t particularly like using it, it’s a good bet that some of your loved ones [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/77421/50-mac-essentials-25-skype/feed/ 5 http://www.cultofmac.com/76547/50-mac-essentials-24-appcleaner/ http://www.cultofmac.com/76547/50-mac-essentials-24-appcleaner/#comments Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:29:30 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=76547 AppCleaner is a freeware utility for deleting software from your Mac. “Uh?” you say. “I thought deleting software was easy. Just drag applications to the Trash, and they’re gone.” Well, yeah. Sort of. Doing this does delete the application, but it often leaves behind sundry little files that the app itself created while you were [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/76547/50-mac-essentials-24-appcleaner/feed/ 16 http://www.cultofmac.com/73351/50-mac-essentials-23-hazel/ http://www.cultofmac.com/73351/50-mac-essentials-23-hazel/#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:21:36 +0000 Giles Turnbull http://www.cultofmac.com/?p=73351 Hazel is software genius. It’s one of those tools that looks so simple to start with, but after a while, you realise just how powerful and flexible it could be. In short, it’s an automation assistant. It watches folders – you tell it which ones – and performs actions based on what it finds. The [...]]]> http://www.cultofmac.com/73351/50-mac-essentials-23-hazel/feed/ 5