utilities

Useful utilities, an excellent batch photo editor and a great game [Awesome Apps of the Week]

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Awesome Apps of the Week
With billions of apps in the app store, it’s always a delight when more awesome apps turn up.
Photo: Ian Fuchs & Rahul Chakraborty (via Unsplash)

Every time I think I can’t possibly discover other awesome, useful or fun new apps, I find a game or utility that makes something in my life just a little better or easier.

This week, a couple of great utilities, a way to simplify your photo editing process, and a ridiculously addictive game all managed to impress me. But surely these are the last good ones out there, right? (Want to tell me about another awesome app? Send me an email or find me on Twitter at @IanFuchs.)

One Switch gives you a single toggle to control everything useful on your Mac

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One Switch: One switch for your Mac's menu bar.
One Switch: One switch for your Mac's menu bar.
Image: Fireball

One Switch isn’t a new app, but it does look like one of the handiest Mac apps for anyone who follows our Cult of Mac how-tos. The app puts a drop-down list in your Mac’s menu bar, offering instant access to all kinds of great hacks and tweaks, from toggling Dark Mode to connecting AirPods.

Bunch launches groups of apps from the Mac’s Dock

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I couldn’t find any photos of grapes, so here’s a bunch of strawberries instead.
I couldn’t find any photos of grapes, so here’s a bunch of strawberries instead.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Bunch is a new Mac utility from Brett ‘I Just Made This’ Terpstra, the developer of the nvAlt Mac notes app. Bunch sits in your Mac’s Dock, and lets you launch groups, or bunches, of app with one click. You could, for instance, have a Work bunch, which launches your writing app, your mail app, your calendar app, and more. You get the idea.

But there’s more to it than that. Bunch can also quit apps, open web pages, run Applescripts, and even attempt to make your chosen app the frontmost app when it launches. It’s very handy indeed.

Developers lose interest in iMessage apps

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Messages iOS 10
iMessage got some huge upgrades in iOS 10.
Photo: Apple

The popularity of iMessage apps is already starting to diminish, less than a year after their debut.

iMessage apps have been the hottest new feature on iPhones since iOS 10 introduced them last year. But new data from analytics firm Sensor Tower shows that excitement for the new apps is already starting to fade among developers.

The Mac App Store is rubbish! Rent apps instead with Setapp [Reviews]

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The Setapp folder full of applications
Setapp currently offers more than 60 apps, with plans to expand.
Image: Setapp

Apple’s Mac App Store is broken. For developers and Mac users alike, the online store just isn’t working.

It’s too hard for buyers to find good software. And, thanks to Apple’s picky restrictions, the Mac App Store can make life difficult for developers.

Setapp, a Netflix-style subscription service for Mac apps, offers an innovative alternative. Instead of buying apps individually, you rent a bunch of them for $9.99 a month.

While it might sound unnerving to anyone accustomed to the idea of buying Mac apps outright, after using the service for two months, I found it liberating. Setup is dead-easy. And the selection is fantastic. Setapp serves up more than 60 Mac apps, all handpicked by MacPaw, the Mac development company that dreamed up the service.

Free app Tweak and Tuneup boosts performance of your Mac

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Tweak and Tuneup will get your Mac up to speed. Photo: Systweak Software
Tweak and Tuneup will get your Mac up to speed. Photo: Systweak Software
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This post is brought to you by Systweak Software, creator of free performance-boosting Mac app Tweak and Tuneup.

To get the most out of your Mac, you should occasionally purge all the unwanted files that can negatively affect your system’s speed and efficiency. It’s crucial maintenance, but manually deleting all the unnecessary files can be a drag — especially if you waste a lot of time searching for instructions or reading out-of-date tips.

Forget that. Free Mac app Tweak and Tuneup is a suite of speedy tools that scan your Apple computer, quickly locating and deleting junk files to free up loads of disk space and restore your machine’s full speed and power.

Add The Final Touch to Your Designs With Over 900 Hand-Drawn Icons [Deals]

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This Cult of Mac Deals offer features a must-have set of icons for all your designing needs. With three different sets of icons available, you have the necessities to make any webpage unique and give that hand-drawn personal touch. The icons are available in 8 file formats, including vector source files, raster images in four sizes, icon font files and vector files for custom font rendering.

All the hand-drawn goodies are creatively doodled, which cannot be substituted by any filters or effects. Its a must have for every designer who wants to create a hand-drawn website, application, presentation or print media. And right now you can get this bundle for just $39!

How To Repair & Verify Your Hard Drive From The Command Line [OS X Tips]

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verify volume

OS X offers a very nice graphical user interface to verify and repair your hard drive, located in the Utilities folder. It’s called Disk Utility, and you can use it as the first line of defense when weird disk-related things happen to your Mac’s hard drive.

If, however, you want to dig in a bit deeper, or you’re already running Terminal a lot and don’t want to launch a separate app, you can use the following commands to both verify (check for problems) and repair any problems that you might find when verifying.

Add To Your Design Arsenal With The Premium Vector Icon Bundle [Deals]

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CoM - webbicon_mainframe_630x473

It’s the little details that often matter more than you think, and that holds true when it comes to design. So when you’re creating a new work, why wouldn’t you want to have as many tools at your disposal to help you make those little details shine? That’s where this Cult of Mac Deals offer comes in.

You’ll get over 1200 vector icons for the low price of just $19.99 – but it’s an offer that will only be around for a limited time.

2 Ways To Avoid Losing Your iOS Data [Deals]

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CoM - ios_recovery_mainframe_630x473

Since we’re so reliant on our iPhones and iPads – especially as iOS becomes more prevalent – that we need to give thought on things beyond security on these devices. We need to think about what to do in order to keep our data safe from accidental deletion — including looking at software solutions beyond what’s included with our Mac.

With that in mind, here are 2 things you can do to make sure the chances of losing your iOS data is as slim as possible:

Barry For iOS Save Screenshots Of Entire Web Pages

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barry.jpg

Ever wanted to save a picture of an entire webpage? I have. Last time I made a style guide for our Cult of Mac reviews, I wanted to take a picture and scrawl notes on it. Could I find an app to help? Could I hell. In the end I resorted to printing PDF on my Mac and…. I can’t really remember. It was so convoluted that my brain has repressed the traumatic memory.

If only I’d had Barry to help me.

Max Out Your Designer Toolkit With The Ultimate Icon Bundle [Deals]

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CoM - Fonts

When you’re a designer, you can never have enough icons. This Cult of Mac Deals offer delivers icons galore!

Simply put, this massive bundle of 2500 professional-quality icons is a must-have for any designer. With The Ultimate Icon Bundle, you’ll have all the icons you could ever need for all your design endeavors – and you’ll have them right at the tip of your fingers for only $39.

Jeff Cannata On His Old Show, His New Show, And The Apps He Loves On The CultCast

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We mix it up on this week’s CultCast! Join us for a very special hour with guest Jeff Cannata, former co-host of The Totally Rad Show (TRS) on Revision3 and current co-host of CNET’s Always On.

For all of you who used to watch and love TRS, we remember the show and relive how its cutting-edge virtual set — all made with just one camera and a Mac Pro — made it one of the most popular and beloved podcasts on the internet. Plus, what’s it feel like Kickstarting over $100,000 for a new show? Jeff knows, and shares his amazing experience.

All that and Mr. Cannata reveals his favorite iPad apps and gadgets! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes to download our newest episode, or just hit play in the player below to listen right in your browser.

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Show notes up next!

How To Reset A Lost User Password In Lion Or Mountain Lion [OS X Tips]

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OS X Utilities

I ran across an issue yesterday in trying to support a Macbook Pro at work. We wanted to reformat the Macbook to a clean system install, but we had no system disk for the computer (it was lost in the move to our new offices), and we didn’t know the admin password for the Mac. I thought we were out of luck, until I ran across a solution in Apple’s discussion forums that showed me how to reset the admin password without a system disk. I figured I’d share this process here, hoping it helps some of you out.

$5 Friday: DesktopShelves [Ends today!]

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Me, I like a tidy Desktop. Sure I save things to the Desktop (like the images I use for these posts), but once a week or so I clean house, deleting almost everything from my Desktop. Now my buddies AJ and Shane, well they have Desktops that make my eyes bleed. Files and folders everywhere. I’m seriously thinking I should buy them each a copy of DesktopShelves. It’s not going to be a big deal either because, it’s our first $5 Friday!

DesktopShelves does one simple thing. You create “shelves” (they look like shelves you have on your wall) to hold files and folders on your Desktop. It’s a virtual thing, really, everything is still in a folder in the Finder, but it looks better. Check out the movie after the jump.

Voice Dictation Works Well On Older iPhones [Review]

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Record, transcribe, send text on your older iPhone
Record, transcribe, send text on your older iPhone

Voice Dication, or Voice Dictation – Voice To SMS, Email, Facebook, Twitter And Other Apps to give it its full name, is a voice control app from Europe, designed to offer something vaguely Siri-like to those of us still stuck in the Dark Ages on our pre-4S iPhones.

Does it work? Well yes, actually it does. Better than expected.

Find and Use Hidden Files More Easily with InvisibliX [OS X Tips]

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InvisiblixScreenCap

Mac OS X hides files in many ways. One way, a holdover from its Unix legacy, is with dot-files. In other words, if a file is named with a period before the file name (.Hiddenfile), that file will not show up in the Finder. One way to show these files is with a Terminal command like this:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

This works all well and fine, but requires a second trip to the Terminal to reverse it (by changing the YES to NO, natch). Today, we’re going to tip you off to an app that does something similar, yet without the need to hop into Terminal.