Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - June 2018

Apps developed for the Mac often don't receive as much attention as apps made for iOS devices, so we've been doing a monthly series here at MacRumors that highlights useful, interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out and investing in.

This month's picks include apps for revamping your dock, finding duplicate files, keeping track of your copy paste history, tweeting quickly from the desktop, and more. Many of our highlighted apps this week were chosen by MacRumors forum members.

  • uBar ($30) - uBar is a dock replacement, app manager, and window organizer that's designed for the Mac. You can configure the uBar as a dock, with apps of your choice, or as a task bar for doing things like quickly accessing Finder options. Apps in the dock will let you know how many windows are open, and you can enable features like window previews. uBar is expandable, re-positionable, resizable, and supports multiple monitors. The app is $30, but a free 14 day trial is available.
  • Gemini 2 ($19.99) - Gemini 2 is an app from MacPaw that's designed to help you find and manage all duplicate and similar files on your machine. It is ideal for cleaning up your music library and your photo library to clear up space on your Mac. A free trial is available.
  • Paste ($14.99) - Paste is a copy paste manager that keeps track of and organizes all of the files, photos, website URLs, and text snippets that you've copied and pasted on your Mac and other devices. Paste is described as a sort of Time Machine for your clipboard, because it saves everything and offers robust search capabilities so you can always find what you're looking for. Pinboards give you access to things you copy and paste often, while custom shortcuts make it easier to copy and paste. Paste is a Mac App Store app, but a free trial is also available on the Paste website.
  • Tweetfast ($1.99) - Tweetfast is a Twitter for Mac client that's gives you a menu bar widget for quickly composing and sharing tweets on the social network without having to switch to a full Twitter client or the Twitter website. It's simple, quick, and has a dark mode so it's macOS Mojave ready.
  • Infinity Dashboard ($14.99) - Infinity Dashboard is a smart little app that's designed to let you track and monitor anything, from your wife's birthday to the weather at your upcoming vacation spot to the current price of Bitcoin. There are 35 built-in modules for tracking weather, travel times, website stacks, stock prices, social network metrics, and more, and you can also write your own custom modules. Some modules, like price trackers, support notifications, and there are several design themes to choose from. A free trial is available.

If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. Many of this month's app picks came directly from recommendations from our forum members, and it's these recommendations that have helped make this series useful.

For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.

Popular Stories

iPhone SE 4 Vertical Camera Feature

iPhone SE 4 Production Will Reportedly Begin Ramping Up in October

Tuesday July 23, 2024 2:00 pm PDT by
Following nearly two years of rumors about a fourth-generation iPhone SE, The Information today reported that Apple suppliers are finally planning to begin ramping up mass production of the device in October of this year. If accurate, that timeframe would mean that the next iPhone SE would not be announced alongside the iPhone 16 series in September, as expected. Instead, the report...
iPhone 17 Plus Feature

iPhone 17 Lineup Specs Detail Display Upgrade and New High-End Model

Monday July 22, 2024 4:33 am PDT by
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Kuo: Ultra-Thin iPhone 17 to Feature A19 Chip, Single Rear Camera, Semi-Titanium Frame, and More

Wednesday July 24, 2024 9:06 am PDT by
Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today shared alleged specifications for a new ultra-thin iPhone 17 model rumored to launch next year. Kuo expects the device to be equipped with a 6.6-inch display with a current-size Dynamic Island, a standard A19 chip rather than an A19 Pro chip, a single rear camera, and an Apple-designed 5G chip. He also expects the device to have a...
iPhone 16 Pro Sizes Feature

iPhone 16 Series Is Less Than Two Months Away: Everything We Know

Thursday July 25, 2024 5:43 am PDT by
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
icloud private relay outage

iCloud Private Relay Experiencing Outage

Thursday July 25, 2024 3:18 pm PDT by
Apple’s iCloud Private Relay service is down for some users, according to Apple’s System Status page. Apple says that the iCloud Private Relay service may be slow or unavailable. The outage started at 2:34 p.m. Eastern Time, but it does not appear to be affecting all iCloud users. Some impacted users are unable to browse the web without turning iCloud Private Relay off, while others are...
iPhone 17 Plus Feature Purple

iPhone 17 Rumored to Feature Mechanical Aperture

Tuesday July 23, 2024 9:32 am PDT by
Apple is planning to release at least one iPhone 17 model next year with mechanical aperture, according to a report published today by The Information. The mechanical system would allow users to adjust the size of the iPhone 17's aperture, which refers to the opening of the camera lens through which light enters. All existing iPhone camera lenses have fixed apertures, but some Android...

Top Rated Comments

Chester Stone Avatar
79 months ago
How about highlighting apps that actually let you create something rather than merely consuming? I really like the idea behind this series, but we really don't need to hear about yet another Twitter client, yet another file manager, yet another pastebot, yet another dock & bar extension...

How about something like...

* Scrivener that helps writers compose books & articles;

* Acorn that helps designers create icons for their apps;
* Aseprite for helping spriters create pixel art;

* Blocs for building websites WYSIWYG;
* Transmit for moving content to remote servers;
* PaintCode 3 for crafting animations and then translating them to code?


Focus on the creators for once, instead of more consumer crap. God forbid the world needing people to tweet faster... The world won't benefit from one more tweet, there is enough noise and chatter without it. >_>
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rrm74001 Avatar
79 months ago
A: "When did you two meet?"

B: "Here! Log into my web dashboard and you can track it in real-time!"

[A backs away slowly]

Also, how can an anniversary be more than 12 months away?
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ignatius345 Avatar
79 months ago
* Infinity Dashboard ('https://fiplab.com/apps/infinity-dashboard-for-mac') ($14.99) - Infinity Dashboard is a smart little app that's designed to let you track and monitor anything, from your wife's birthday to the weather at your upcoming vacation spot to the current price of Bitcoin. There are 35 built-in modules for tracking weather, travel times, website stacks, stock prices, social network metrics, and more, and you can also write your own custom modules. Some modules, like price trackers, support notifications, and there are several design themes to choose from. A free trial ('https://fiplab.com/apps/infinity-dashboard-for-mac') is available.
A: "When did you two meet?"

B: "Here! Log into my web dashboard and you can track it in real-time!"

A: [backs away slowly]



Attachment Image
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolfactor Avatar
79 months ago
UBar appears to be $30 dollars rather than $15. $15 dollars is the upgrade price.
... and there's no way I'm paying even a single dollar to make my Mac look more like Windows with its Task Bar! :p
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
RudySnow Avatar
79 months ago
Do people still use Macs?

Apple/Cook must be disappointed.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swingerofbirch Avatar
79 months ago
I love that there are these great Mac apps, but I don't purchase any because I've had all my needs met for a long time. I wish there were something that appealed to me because I'd like to support them.

I feel like there are a few things going on. The 1980s heralded desktop publishing. Then there was the Web age which came around the same time as the multimedia CD-ROM age. Then there were apps for MP3s (eventually iTunes), and apps for creating media (iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand) along with the apps for organizing/managing your devices (iTunes, iSync, iPhoto). But all those devices are now self-servicing. And all multi-media stuff can easily be consumed on the web, or can be shared/edited from the same mobile devices from which it's captured. Web-page creation is sort of now only for pros or it's done through blogging template sites (oh how I miss GoLive--one of my favorite apps of all time). There's no real big "era" of software right now filling a need on the desktop.

When I have had to send my MBP in for repairs, I've used a Chromebook and been able to play my music from Spotify, watch Netflix, and edit documents in Google Docs. The MBP is certainly nicer for those things, but the Web being so capable has probably made native applications less necessary than they used to be. In some cases even with media, I find the Web superior. For example, scrubbing video in QuickTime is a pain. I can more easily scrub video in YouTube. And selecting clips to trim in QuickTime is also bafflingly difficult (why doesn't the playhead remain in place when you drag the yellow sliders?).

Anyhow, after being so dreary about apps, my favorites are: Chrome (bloated but works well), Spotify (love the UI), EvoCam (simple to use, unfortunately no longer supported), Sleepytime (turns off music/sound in various apps after a certain time when you're going to bed), F.lux for my sensitive pupils, Chroma (for controlling my Philips Hue lights), OneDrive (my current online storage of choice--to be honest, Google Drive, OneDrive, and DropBox seem identical to me--just using this now because I have 1 TB free through my dad's subscription to Office), Microsoft Word (it's still the best for word processing), Pages (the best for page layout--I make pretty elaborate invitations, etc., with this--but it is wretched for word processing), Pixelmator (I generally use this for making titles in iMovie), iMovie (which I actually really don't like anymore--iMovie 6 HD was the last version I really enjoyed, but it's what I still use in spite of it seeming much less user friendly than it used to), DaisyDisk (for finding what is mysteriously taking up disk space), and Tidepool Uploader (an app that interfaces with tidepool.org and lets you upload data from various blood glucose monitors and continuous glucose monitors and has an infinitely better interface than ones included with the products--if you have diabetes you should give it a try).
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)