Apple has increased the security of its fourth OS X Mountain Lion developer preview by introducing a number of new security features that will presumably become part of the software’s public release next month.
I don’t know about you, but the downloads folder on my Mac is one that I just cannot keep organized. Every so often I’ll trawl through it and delete all the stuff I don’t want, while filing the stuff I do want into other folders. But most of the time it just includes a heap of documents and images that I’ve picked up over a course of many months.
But Downloads for Mac is a simple app that can change this. It displays each and every item in your downloads folder — whether its at top level or buried deep within other folders — and makes it easier to see what you have going on in there. For those of you with downloads folders like mine, this should make the cleanup process much quicker, and much easier.
TextExpander from Smile Software is a wonderful tool that turns text strings and images into tiny little shortcuts, saving you time and effort every time you type. It’s a little like the Shortcuts feature Apple built into iOS 5, but a million times better. You can currently find it in the Mac App Store, but we’d advise you not to buy it there.
Why? Because the Mac App Store version is the older version 3.4.2 release, and Smile Software has chosen to depart Apple’s marketplace for version 4.0. It turns out that the Cupertino company’s strict sandboxing rules, which went into effect on June 1, don’t allow some of TextExpander’s core features.
Apple confirmed at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month that its next major update to Mac OS X, dubbed Mountain Lion, would be released to the public sometime during July. The Cupertino company is yet to make that release date more specific, but according to one report, we can expect Mountain Lion to pop up in the Mac App Store on July 19.
I’ve never really like the way in which the App Store handles security. Sure, I like the fact that if my iPhone is stolen, thieves can’t run up a huge iTunes bill. But I don’t understand why I have to enter my password each and every time I need to download updates or previous purchases. These have already been paid for; why is this necessary?
Thankfully, in iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion, it isn’t.
Color Splash Studio, a terrific photo manipulation tool for Mac OS X, has made the leap from Mac App Store to iPhone today. Priced at just $0.99 — with 60% to celebrate its launch — the app allows you to convert your images to black and white, and then inject color back into specific areas.
“You have tools and powers no similar app offers,” its description promises.
Macs equipped with Retina displays are high on everyone’s wish-list right now, but despite many rumors claiming we’ll see them announced at WWDC, we’ve still had our doubts they’ll arrive this year. However, we’ve been handed a glimmer of hope this morning after Retina-ready Mac applications began appearing in the Mac App Store.
It’s June 1st, and that means Apple’s deadline for when Mac developers need to have their apps sandboxed has come to pass. After months and months of extending the deadline to iron out technical details, all apps submitted to the Mac App Store must now obey Apple’s sandboxing requirements. All existing Mac App Store apps cannot be updated until they meet the guidelines.
While sandboxing will mean safer and simpler Mac apps, there are some negative effects developers have to consider.
A great app called Dropzone had a killer sale yesterday. The Mac app normally sells for $14 in the Mac App Store, but the developer decided to participate in Two Dollar Tuesday and drop the price of Dropzone to only $2.
After taking the gamble, Dropzone made an astounding $8,000 in one day. The dev says the money is “beyond my wildest dreams,” and this reinforces how profitable price cuts in the Mac App Store can be.
MacPaw, makers of CleanMyMac, released a new menubar Mac app today called CleanMyDrive. As a simplified version of CleanMyMac, CleanMyDrive lets you monitor and clean up external hard drives connected to your Mac. The app is super simplistic, and it’s free in the Mac App Store.
If you’re the kind of web monkey who finds himself spitting up or slurping down loads of files over good old FTP, this is a fantastic deal: Forklift by Binary Nights — widely hailed as one of the best and most elegant FTP/SFTP clients and file management programs available for the Mac — is usually on sale for $29.99, and depending on how much FTPing you do, a pretty good deal at that. But right now? You can grab it for less than a buck, no strings attached.
BackUp Gmail does what you’d expect: it backs up your Gmail account to your desktop computer. It’s a simple Menu Bar app that works in the background. It’s only $2 in the Mac App Store, but does have a few problems.
One of the features that I love most about iOS 5 is Automatic Downloads, which allows me to purchase an app, book, or song on my iPhone and have it installed on my iPad at almost exactly the same time. It’s great for users with multiple iOS devices, and it’s also coming to the Mac.
One developer has discovered the ability to turn on Automatic Downloads for Mac App Store purchases under the latest OS X Mountain Lion release.
TUAW reported earlier on Thursday that Apple was planning to start rejecting apps from the Mac App Store that used universal hotkeys to trigger functions and access features. The ban was supposedly set to go into effect on June 1st alongside Apple’s app sandboxing deadline. A new report from Macworld debunks TUAW’s claim by saying that Apple is not planning to start rejecting apps like Alfred that rely on universal keyboard shortcuts.
As OS X continues to become more of a consumer-oriented platform and less of a power user-friendly environment, Apple is reportedly set to begin enforcing new guidelines in the Mac App Store that will ban apps that use “hotkey” functionality.
Apps like Alfred are able to give the user a universal system hotkey that can be used to access the app anywhere in OS X. Starting on June 1st, Apple will be prohibiting these kinds of system-wide features from making their way into the Mac App Store.
One of the standout features of Apple’s iWork suite is how easy it is to make really standout documents and presentations. Compared to the basic and often drab files that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint produce, iWork-created files look bright, polished, and offer a sense of personality and style. While Office for Mac comes with a set of templates and design functions, they seem bland next to iWork and they aren’t anywhere near as easy to use.
Only Microsoft has the ability to make its tools less clunky and more intuitive, but other companies can spice things up with additional themes and templates. This week Theme Inn took up that challenge and succeeded rather spectacularly.
Just a day after releasing Sparrow 1.2 for iPhone, the Sparrow team has issued an update to Sparrow for Mac. This release brings a number of new features, improves Sparrow startup times, and quashes bugs.
The Mac has had a vibrant, growing community of developers for many years, and Apple has continued to encourage third-party developer participation with the Mac App Store. Launched in January of 2011, the Mac App Store already boasts 10,000 apps. It’s easier then ever for developers to get their apps in front of millions of OS X users. But what if you don’t want to play by Apple’s rules? Or what you if you want your app to be seen by as many eyes as possible? Then you start to look outside the Mac App Store.
While Apple’s is great in its own ways, other storefronts are offering different —and in many ways better — experiences for app distribution and discovery. In fact, there’s a certain Mac app out there that’s been doing it well for a long time.
Maybe you’re a world traveler, looking to keep track of the time in the many places you visit around the globe. Or, you might be an office manager, only your offices are spread acloss several different timezones in as many countries. Heck, maybe you just write for a bunch of different websites and your editors need you to keep track of what time it is in their hometown before you call them about a hot story lead. Whatever the reason, today’s tip is an app that will help you with the need for many clocks.
Boom, a terrific utility for Mac OS X that boosts system volume well above Apple’s default limit, is set to receive a new update that promises to deliver all of the features and improvements that Boom users have been asking for. That includes scroll gestures for those running Snow Leopard and Lion, the ability to access functions from the status bar icon, and more.
Inpaint4 is an image editor for OS X, available for $10 from the Mac App Store. It’s designed for a specific task – removing unwanted visual elements from photos. That tourist who walked through the background of your snapshot, that hanging camera strap that spoiled an otherwise good image, or that weird bit of junk you just want to take out of shot. Unfortunately it is let down too often by unreliable results.
An iTunes customer who was billed twice for the same song has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple after the Cupertino company refused to refund his money. Robert Herskowitz $2.58 for Adam Lambert’s pain-inducing pop song “Whataya Want From Me,” but he should have paid just $1.29.
He’s now taking Apple to court in an effort to make refunds easier for iTunes customers.
Instant is a five-dollar retro photo filter app for OS X, replicating the look and feel of a Polaroid camera, and it does the job with style.
Alfred, an incredible productivity tool for Mac OS X that was voted the best Mac application of 2011 by Cult of Mac readers, has just received a “huge” update that introduces two new color themes and large type support, plus a whole host of improvements.
Apple launched the Mac App Store with over 1,000 apps back in January of 2011, and the digital storefront has been rapidly growing ever since. Thanks to warm reception from the developer community and the exclusive distribution of software like Final Cut Pro X and OS X Lion, Apple controls the largest and most vibrant PC software storefront in the world.
15 months in and the Mac App Store is home to more than 10,000 apps. While not as big a number as the iOS App Store’s 500,000+ titles, the success of the Mac App Store heralds the future of software distribution.