Mac apps - page 29

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.

Like it or not, we all live in the age of the side gig. None of us does just one thing anymore — pretty much every digital professional must act like an entrepreneur, finding new opportunities and creating some for themselves.

If you’re wearing a bunch of different hats, we’ve got great stuff that can help you out. From educational courses on digital skills like social media marketing to must-have tools like domain hosting and animation software for websites, you’ll want to check out our latest deals for surviving — and thriving — in the gig economy.

Remember the good old days when owning the movies you wanted meant going to the store to buy DVDs? Nowadays, most of us don’t even have a DVD player, and with good reason. Joining a streaming service like Netflix, which lets you pick and choose from a wide variety of great content, is a much more sensible option. It saves you time, effort, space, money and the waste of a misguided purchase (just think of all those DVDs gathering dust).

That’s the beauty of the subscription model, which extends to everything from movies and TV shows to music, coffee and now Mac apps.

This post is presented by MacPaw, the software team behind Setapp and a variety of proven Mac apps.

These days, lots of us indulge in subscription services. From TV, movies and music to nerd paraphernalia and razors, subscribing to what you love is a great model for exploring many options at an affordable price. If you can name it, you can find a curated collection sent straight to your door or inbox — and now the subscription model is coming to disrupt Mac apps.

This post is presented by Feingeist Software.

Ah, Apple Mail. Every Mac users’ de-facto communications hub, it’s a convenient tool — but it’s not exactly feature-rich. It serves as a catch-all for our contacts and email conversations, but when it comes to productivity, Mail has a lot of untapped potential.

The way Mac users get apps is about to become a lot more like Netflix, thanks to a service launching today called Setapp.

Created by the folks at MacPaw, Setapp is a new app subscription service that provides Mac users with an alternative way to try and buy apps instead of going through the Mac App Store.

Its not filled with loads of crap either. Top apps like Ulysses, Blogo, CleanMyMac, iMazing, Pixa, Polarr and Flume are all included. Instead of buying apps individually though, Setapp lets users pay a flat fee for access to hundreds of popular apps.

This post is brought to you by Convertanymusic.com, maker of Apple Music Converter.

When we download music from iTunes, or audiobooks from Audible, the files that get onto our devices are DRM-protected. That means they can’t be played on “unauthorized” devices. This, let’s face it, is pretty inconvenient.

These days, almost anybody can benefit from knowing how to build websites. The sixth and latest release of web design app Flux offers a user-friendly, powerful tool for quickly drafting fully functional sites, whether or not you know any code.

Everything is drag-and-drop, but for those who do know a little bit of HTML and CSS, this Mac app is an especially powerful tool for web design. Right now you can get Flux 6 for just $49.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Our App Business section is brought to you by MacPaw, maker of proven Mac apps.

Getting a bad app review is a definite bummer. When some faceless user trashes your labor of love in the App Store or some other public venue, it can really sting. But if you’re smart about it, you can turn negative reviews into positive opportunities for improving your app and winning committed customers.

Here’s how to spin bad app reviews into developer gold.

2017 is off and running, and there’s already a strong crop of brand new deals that top the Cult of Mac Store. This week we’ve got a comprehensive disk utility, a comprehensive bundle of lessons in iOS development, a single place to charge and organize up to 5 devices, and a coin-sized module for turning your iOS device into a universal remote. Read on for more details:

This post is brought to you by RCS LT, maker of Combo Cleaner.

The vast majority of apps offering antivirus protection run on an open-source engine called Clam AV. It offers a convenient module that app developers can plug into their products for free and get passable antivirus protection.

Unfortunately, you often get what you pay for, which in this case is a subpar detection rate for malware and adware. That’s why a staff-maintained antivirus solution is a better idea.

Our new App Business section is brought to you by MacPaw, maker of proven Mac apps.

For independent Mac developers, one of the big, daunting tasks that the Mac App Store efficiently handles is app licensing. You just submit your app, then the store manages the actual app license through its user accounts. But this unquestionable convenience comes with a few critical downsides.

The flagship Mac App bundle is back, packed with nine top-shelf apps for creativity and productivity, including PDF Expert, TripMode and AfterShot 3.

Right now, you can get the whole bundle for the lowest price ever. But after today, the price will go up by $1 every day until Saturday.

It’s amazing the difference an app can make for the productive potential of your Mac. This power trio of apps from MacX adds a wide set of tools and utilities for for ripping DVDs, converting videos, and managing files on your drive. And right now you can get the whole shebang for $19.95 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Read on for more details:

Curious to try out the MacBook Pro’s new Touch Bar but don’t want to drop two grand on a new computer?

There’s an app for that.

Our new App Business section is brought to you by MacPaw, maker of proven Mac apps.

Sometimes you’ve got to think small to hit it big. For DigiDNA, a Swiss development team that makes popular software for managing iOS devices, that means functioning more like a tight rock ‘n’ roll band than a sprawling orchestra.

Apple’s magical new MacBook Pro hasn’t even shipped yet, but that hasn’t stopped one developer from creating the first Touch Bar fart app.

iOS developer Hung Truong churned out his new app, TouchFart, just hours after Apple released a new build of Xcode needed to make apps that support the new Touch Bar. Even though he hasn’t gotten to test it in a real-world scenario, you can watch TouchFart in action in a simulator.

By now, most of you are probably upgraded to macOS Sierra, which is proving be a massive home run for Apple. However, while the new Mac OS packs some great new features, it’s also got a handful of problems — ranging from strange error messages to Wi-Fi issues.

Check out our video below for three macOS Sierra problems we’ve run into so far — and how we were able to solve them.

This week on The CultCast: Revamped iPads coming this spring; Apple lays the groundwork for the next era of personal technology; how smart homes get hacked; Google’s Pixel phone versus iPhone 7; and we reveal our favorite new iOS and Mac apps!

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to build a website that looks beautiful on any device that visits at Squarespace.com. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10 percent off.

If you work with a lot of digital media, professionally or just for fun, you know the critical importance of a versatile and reliable converter. You’ve also probably well aware of Toast Titanium, the top name in media conversion. The latest version of Toast is also the greatest, slathered with new features for maximizing any digital media workflow. And right now, you can get Toast Titanium 15 for just $49 at Cult of Mac Deals.

How often do you get more than you asked for at a cost that’s less than you expect? When it comes to Mac software, you’re not likely to find a better collection than this bundle of award-winning apps.

From productivity to photography, there’s something here that anyone can use. But the best part of all is that you can name your price for all 13 Mac apps.

Our new App Business section is brought to you by MacPaw, maker of proven Mac apps.

App developers put a lot of time and effort into preventing their apps from being cracked or pirated. But for every coder taking a step toward making an app more secure, there’s someone on the march to crack it. The integrity of any app is subject to an ongoing arms race.

The most popular and useful apps are the most likely to release the cracken (I’m so sorry), so finding out that a bunch of people have downloaded your app illegally can be worn as something of a badge of pride. But that’s cold comfort when you’re losing customers, so let’s take a look at a couple of the most likely app-cracking approaches developers should protect against.

This post is brought to you by Wondershare, maker of Dr.Fone.

Say you’ve deleted your messages before backing up your iPhone. Usually the best iTunes can offer is a shrug. With a convoluted and opaque system of options, it makes a task that should be a simple matter — finding the stuff you need and getting (or returning) it to your device — overly confusing and frustrating. Worse yet, iTunes can often lead to results you’re not looking for.

This post brought to you by Wondershare, maker of PDF Creator for Mac.

Wondershare has cemented itself as a dominant software-development company around the globe, thanks to an array of world-class software tools it has designed and tailored to fit the demands of the market.

This post is brought to you by 4K Stogram.

For many of us, Instagram is the primary place to get our daily fix of fresh images and videos. We’ll spend hours browsing the feeds of friends and family, and our favorite artists, public figures or journalists. But all that addicting content — including what you post yourself — stays on Instagram’s servers, where it’s a bit of a hassle to find and only accessible by logging in.