There aren’t a lot of apps I use regularly on my Apple Watch. The ones that I do use regularly consist of utilities that make my life easier, or apps that help me track things, like water intake or how many tasks I have left for the day. One of my favorite utilities is MacID, which offers even faster access to my Mac with my Apple Watch (or my iPhone).
Your Mac can do a lot right out of the box, but it can do more. A lot more. Look no further than these four premium apps for expanding the utility of your favorite computing machine. We’ve found big savings on apps for remaining distraction free while working, saving or working with online video, keeping an eye on your home or office via webcam, and more.
Take a look:
This is a guest post by Karthik Suroju, a digital marketer at CloudMagic.
The iOS App Store is a one-stop destination for everything consumers need on the iPhone and iPad. However, that’s not the case with the Mac App Store. At the beginning of January 2016, there were 1,234,267 apps for iPhones, 662,984 for iPads and a mere 27,011 for Macs.
This post is brought to you by SmartDraw Software.
Plenty of jobs nowadays involve creating visual aids for clients, bosses and co-workers, from project flowcharts and building schematics to medical diagrams, you name it. But getting a BA typically doesn’t teach digital draftsmanship, which is why apps that make it easy to create compelling, clear graphics and illustrations have become so popular.
SmartDraw is an intuitive, powerful and fun app that’s become a contender against the big legacy software brands. More than half of the Fortune 500 and over 250,000 public and private enterprises of all sizes use SmartDraw now. But until today, SmartDraw has been available only on Windows machines. That changes with the release of SmartDraw Cloud, which lets Mac users get in on the action.
Macs come out of the box with a ton of apps and functionality, but that’s just the beginning of what you can get it to do for your productivity. From hard drive maintenance to running Windows apps and doing deeper searches than Spotlight allows, this bundle of 11 top-rated apps has something useful for everybody. For a short time, you can get the whole thing for $24.99.
Here’s some of what’s included:
Another week, another grip of great apps. Whether you’re looking to keep your computer running in top shape, fix your spotty wifi, or stay focused and productive, we’ve got apps you’ll love at prices you can’t resist.
Take a look for yourself:
These six apps will protect your Mac and improve your productivity while using it. From cleaning out cookies and anonymizing your computer’s identification number, to hiding private files and gathering email addresses from any text document, there’s something in here to improve anybody’s workflow and sense of security. Right now the whole bundle is just $29.99.
Here’s a look at what’s included:
Project management can get overwhelming quickly, especially if you’re juggling multiple initiatives and deadlines at once. From keeping your team on track to ensuring there is good communication and planning between you and your client, there are tons of project management apps available in the App Store to help you tackle even the most challenging of tasks.
I’ve been using my iPhone and iPad to help me manage teams and keep projects moving for the better part of five years now. While my workflow constantly changes as tools and apps become better and better, here are my favorite project management apps that I just couldn’t do without.
One thing I do on my Mac more than anything else is write. On average I write about 10,000 words a week, and some weeks, I double that. And that isn’t even counting email and other kinds of communication. That’s why a great text editor app is imperative to my every day workflow. Without it, I couldn’t do my job.
With iOS 9, Apple introduced a whole slew of multitasking features including picture-in-picture, so I can watch a video while using another app. Even though this was technically already possible on the Mac, there hasn’t been an easy way to get a video to overlay another window so I can focus on both at the same time. Well the new Fluid Browser solves that problem, quite magnificently I might add.
Fluid is its own web browser, but it’s not meant to replace Safari or Chrome for my main usage. Instead, I open up Fluid and go to a website where I want to play video, like YouTube or Netflix. The video itself will enlarge to fit the width of the browser window. Then magically, if I click somewhere else on my desktop, Fluid will float above the other windows and even has adjustable opacity so I can make the video as prominent on screen as I want.
Ever been annoyed by one Mac app blurting out sound at a volume that’s too low, while the next is too high? Well, shocker! There’s an app for that.
Ever left the house or office only to realize later that you forgot a file on your Mac? We’ve all done it. This is why I always have Screens VNC running on all my devices. With the help of a single app, you can access and control your Mac from iPad or iPhone, and even other Macs. Here’s how:
Podcasting has been experiencing a renaissance lately, and for good reason. Podcasts can be about a wide variety of topics, from Apple to sports, comedy, storytelling and so much more. It’s a great time to get into podcasting because the barrier to entry is so low and you don’t have to break the bank to buy a totally workable setup.
Some of the greatest podcasts in the iTunes Top Charts are regularly recorded using sub-$100 to $300 mics. Whether you want to gain influence in a community or nerd out about the latest iPhone, a podcast is a great place to do it.
When it comes to your Mac apps, there’s reason to fear a so-called man in the middle.
A security engineer is reporting several apps vulnerable to malicious coding through Sparkle, the third-party software framework apps use to receive updates. Some of the apps identified include versions of Camtasia, VLC, uTorrent, Sketch and DuetDisplay.
Nowadays we’re awash in audio and video, but working with either format can be a hassle. This bundle of five apps from Leawo Software makes it easy to capture, transfer, and edit almost any form of audio and video you’re likely to encounter, whether it’s from the web or a DVD. The best part though is that you can get the whole thing for whatever you’re willing to pay, and a portion of each dollar you spend will go to support the important work of Save the Children.
Take a look at some of what’s included:
Need to add that special musical magic to your short film or home video, but know next to nothing about film scoring or playing an instrument?
Filmstro’s got your back with a super easy-to-use Mac app that will let you create powerful, custom soundtracks simply and easily without needing to know how to compose or write music.
Another day, another batch of new ways to trick out your Mac. From fully removing deleted apps and all their digital detritus, to creating timelapses, recording screen activity and more, we’ve found some of the coolest enhancements for your Mac. And all of them are under $25.
Take a look for yourself:
This post is brought to you by Tenorshare, maker of ReiBoot and iPhone Care Pro.
Too many of us know the sense of powerlessness that comes with staring at a red Apple logo on an iPhone screen for minutes on end, or seeing the device stuck in an endless restart loop. When the time comes to restore a corrupted or compromised iPhone, the simplicity of an iOS device can turn into an imposing, tangled mess as you use iTunes to wake it up from its digital coma.
You love your Mac, but you can always make it even more lovely. These eight apps will boost your favorite computer’s safety and your productivity across a wide swath of uses, from data recovery to Android management to unlocking PDFs and beyond. The best part, you can pay whatever you want for the whole thing, and a portion of every dollar you drop will go towards the important work of Save the Children.
Your Mac was born to perform, but for the rest of its life it’s up to you to make sure it stays in shape. This bundle of a dozen — count em — apps are like taking your computer to a full service health spa. Give your Mac’s hard drive a deep clean, enhance its audio performance, keep track of its activity and eliminate distractions, among a bunch of other uber useful enhancements.
The best part though? You can pay whatever you’re willing to pay for the whole shebang, and a portion of every dollar you spend goes toward the critical work of Save the Children.
This post is brought to you by Wondershare, maker of PDFelement.
If you work with a computer (which, since you’re here, is likely), you have to deal with PDFs. And while PDFs are a great and reliable way to send forms, presentations and contracts — basically anything that can be read or written on — they’re not exactly flexible. In order to edit, add to, remove from, or otherwise alter them, you might think your options are limited to pricey software from Adobe.
This post is brought to you by Tenorshare, maker of iPhone Care Pro.
Oh, iTunes. We gave it a good run, but I finally realized I’ve just been using you to take care of my iPhone. And that I can do better.
After finding my iPhone never quite properly synced, waiting through lengthy backups and updates, and putting up with your strange behavior because “that’s just the way you were designed,” it’s time to move on.
If you spend any amount of time at the computer, there are lots of ways you can save time by making easy changes. That can be a change of habit or a solid productivity app, and we’ve found deals on three great ones for you to take advantage of. Whether visualizing your notes and data or keeping distracting websites out of the way, there’s something here to help anybody make better use of their screen time.
Twitter finally resurrected its Mac app with just about everything its users have been asking for over the past several… well, for a really long time. The update at long last looks much like the Twitter you’re familiar with on your smartphone or desktop browser. It’s complete with highly requested features like GIF support and group direct messages with up to 50 people, plus a dark theme for power users and more.
“Don’t call it a comeback!” Twitter wrote in the update description. “Twitter for Mac is getting the update you’ve been asking for.”
This post is brought to you by iMyfone Technology Co., maker of iMyfone Umate.
Sure our iPhones look sharp, but the sleek exterior hides an inner life that resembles the floor of a bachelor pad. Broken bits of uncompressed photos, unused files, app caches, cookies, backup logs and whatnot clog up the works (there’s probably a few empty pizza boxes in there, too).