Apple is separating the new smartphones into its usual low-cost versus high-cost categories, with big differences between the two models coming down to the camera, display, and battery life.
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Five Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - July 2019
Apps designed for the Mac often don't receive as much attention as apps made for iOS devices, so we have a series here at MacRumors that's designed to highlight useful and interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out and potentially investing in.
This month's picks include apps for making your Touch Bar more functional, adding quick switches to the Menu bar, creating to-do lists, replacing the dashboard that's now defunct in macOS Catalina, and easily accessing Spotify and iTunes controls.
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- Pock (Free) - Pock is a simple little Mac app that's designed to make your Touch Bar more useful by adding your dock to your Touch Bar so you can quickly access your apps and even files within folders. The Pock options are customizable, so you can choose what you need most, adding options like a now playing widget for controlling music, a status widget for getting info like WiFi connection of battery level, and more.
- One Switch ($4.99) - One Switch is a nifty Mac menu bar app that adds various switches to the Mac's menu bar. You can add toggles that will do things like hide desktop options, activate dark mode, keep the Mac awake, connect to headphones, toggle on Do Not Disturb, activate Night Shift, bring up the Screen Saver, and more. Options are customizable so you can make your One Switch menu do just want you need.
- Microsoft To-Do (Free) - Microsoft earlier this month brought its popular Microsoft To-Do app to the Mac, making it more functional than ever because it's now available across all of your devices. Mac users no longer have to rely on the web app, and can access features like task syncing between devices, file attachments, list sharing, color coding, and reminders for due dates, among other options.
- Flotato (Free) - Flotato is designed to create web apps from your favorite website, so you can get quick access to the web services that you use most often. Flotato web apps can be dragged right into the dock, so you can set up quick access for things like Google Docs, Facebook Messenger, Netflix on the web, favorite news sites, and more.
- Spotmenu (Free) - Spotmenu is another Mac app that's super simple but super useful, especially for Spotify and iTunes users. Spotmenu lets you access Spotify and iTunes content from your menu bar, allowing you to see what song is playing, pause music, play music, and skip tracks.
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. For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.
This month's picks include apps for making your Touch Bar more functional, adding quick switches to the Menu bar, creating to-do lists, replacing the dashboard that's now defunct in macOS Catalina, and easily accessing Spotify and iTunes controls.
- Pock (Free) - Pock is a simple little Mac app that's designed to make your Touch Bar more useful by adding your dock to your Touch Bar so you can quickly access your apps and even files within folders. The Pock options are customizable, so you can choose what you need most, adding options like a now playing widget for controlling music, a status widget for getting info like WiFi connection of battery level, and more.
- One Switch ($4.99) - One Switch is a nifty Mac menu bar app that adds various switches to the Mac's menu bar. You can add toggles that will do things like hide desktop options, activate dark mode, keep the Mac awake, connect to headphones, toggle on Do Not Disturb, activate Night Shift, bring up the Screen Saver, and more. Options are customizable so you can make your One Switch menu do just want you need.
- Microsoft To-Do (Free) - Microsoft earlier this month brought its popular Microsoft To-Do app to the Mac, making it more functional than ever because it's now available across all of your devices. Mac users no longer have to rely on the web app, and can access features like task syncing between devices, file attachments, list sharing, color coding, and reminders for due dates, among other options.
- Flotato (Free) - Flotato is designed to create web apps from your favorite website, so you can get quick access to the web services that you use most often. Flotato web apps can be dragged right into the dock, so you can set up quick access for things like Google Docs, Facebook Messenger, Netflix on the web, favorite news sites, and more.
- Spotmenu (Free) - Spotmenu is another Mac app that's super simple but super useful, especially for Spotify and iTunes users. Spotmenu lets you access Spotify and iTunes content from your menu bar, allowing you to see what song is playing, pause music, play music, and skip tracks.
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. For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.
Tag: Essential Mac Apps
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12 weeks ago
“Make your Touch Bar more useful”
Classic. Someone at Macrumors had a great sense of humor.
Separately, I love these types of articles. Let’s see more attention brought to software developers. Too much hardware fetish in the Apple world, and it’s thw software that makes or breaks the platform.
Classic. Someone at Macrumors had a great sense of humor.
Separately, I love these types of articles. Let’s see more attention brought to software developers. Too much hardware fetish in the Apple world, and it’s thw software that makes or breaks the platform.
12 weeks ago
I love these articles. Though none of these apps interest me, please keep them coming. Always good to learn about useful Mac apps.
11 weeks ago
Better touch tool !
This app makes multi touch on the Mac track pad soooo much more useful! You can set almost any gesture you like to do almost anything.. Either app specific, or across the entire system. I LOVE IT!
This app makes multi touch on the Mac track pad soooo much more useful! You can set almost any gesture you like to do almost anything.. Either app specific, or across the entire system. I LOVE IT!
12 weeks ago
But seriously, where can we find that coffee mug in the still of the video?
12 weeks ago
BetterTouchTool, in addition to mapping additional touchpad gestures (and keystrokes, Magic Mouse, etc) can now put the Dock on the Touch Bar too; it has for some time now been able to do other things with the Touch Bar, while coexisting with system or application specific uses thereof.
Formerly free, still quite cheap.
[doublepost=1562114369][/doublepost]
I use CARROT for that; choose the "boring" rather than "snarky" personality setting if you wish. :) I think its data is mostly from Dark Sky, which is about the best for local weather. Here in Maryland, if you don't like the weather, wait an hour or drive a few miles, and it'll change; so good location awareness counts for a lot.
Formerly free, still quite cheap.
[doublepost=1562114369][/doublepost]
I wish someone would revive Temps, the menu bar weather app.
I use CARROT for that; choose the "boring" rather than "snarky" personality setting if you wish. :) I think its data is mostly from Dark Sky, which is about the best for local weather. Here in Maryland, if you don't like the weather, wait an hour or drive a few miles, and it'll change; so good location awareness counts for a lot.
11 weeks ago
(1) MacUpdater by CoreCode: all apps always up-to-date
(2) BetterTouchTool: and suddenly the TouchBar is the best thing since sliced bread
(3) BBEdit: tried a lot of text editors, have always come back to this one
(4) Nimble Commander: hate Finder, needed this
(5) Carbon Copy Cloner: backup > peace of mind
+1 MacUpdater - such a better app than that other app from a similar named website (take off the "r) ;)
11 weeks ago
https://ember.com
I think that is the Ember mug.
Unfortunately I couldn't find one for sale online, anywhere. :(
11 weeks ago
I'm using MacUpdater from http://www.corecode.io/macupdater/index.html
A great app for keeping everything up to date for an affordable price. Does not have ties with macupdate.com so does not try you sell you a subscription.
A great app for keeping everything up to date for an affordable price. Does not have ties with macupdate.com so does not try you sell you a subscription.
11 weeks ago
“Make your Touch Bar more useful”
Classic. Someone at Macrumors had a great sense of humor.
I think I'm the one person on the planet that likes the TouchBar.
Note I didn't say that I find it useful or an increase of productivity, but that I like it. Makes my laptop feel more alive.
As a result of this article I tried Pock and I've got to say, with some tweaks in its preferences, I think it's great.
Depending on how many apps you have running (thanks to a VM I have quite a few), you might want to set it to Show only running apps, Hide Persistent Items, and set Item spacing to 0 or even negative.
Then the touchbar works as a replacement for your dock. It can't provide the right click functionality, but otherwise very useful if you don't have a second screen handy, hate the pop in/out dock, and want to save that screen real-estate.
So yeah, aint for everyone, probably only for 5% of people if that, but, well, I'm happy :D
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