MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.27

February 24, 2016, 6:20 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.29

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of SongKong 4.8

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CloudMagic Email is a beautiful hybrid application: at its core, it’s a full-fledged email application in the vein of Airmail, Mailbox, and many other 3rd party apps, but it comes in a package that is reminiscent of minimalist word processing apps like iA Writer, Byword, or Ulysses. Most mail applications focus on organization, labeling, and other general mailbox maintenance pursuits, while leaving the email composition step as a seeming afterthought, peripheral to the application. CloudMagic Email flips the script by putting serious thought into the way the application looks and feels when you’re actually composing an email. It does so to the extent that the application could legitimately stand in as a word processor for many users — no minor claim, given the wealth of word processing options available these days. But that’s not to say that CloudMagic Email skimps on mailbox management. A wealth of intuitive gestures and neat tricks make it as worthy an option as any of its direct competitors, meaning you’re not sacrificing quality for an attractive feature. Because it began as an iOS application, CloudMagic Email delivers a forward-thinking interface that is at once informed by the simplicity expected of an iOS app, and the greater range of freedom that is afforded by the Mac environment. This developmental decision-making comes through beautifully, as the iOS app is geared towards quick, simple replies while the Mac app is designed for longer form, thoughtful responses, and their respective interfaces and feature sets are geared towards these causes. It’s a new Mac app being robustly developed, so there’s much more to come, but as an initial offering, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better email client.

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MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.29

February 24, 2016, 6:20 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Astropad 2.2.3

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.27

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0

CloudMagic Email is a beautiful hybrid application: at its core, it’s a full-fledged email application in the vein of Airmail, Mailbox, and many other 3rd party apps, but it comes in a package that is reminiscent of minimalist word processing apps like iA Writer, Byword, or Ulysses. Most mail applications focus on organization, labeling, and other general mailbox maintenance pursuits, while leaving the email composition step as a seeming afterthought, peripheral to the application. CloudMagic Email flips the script by putting serious thought into the way the application looks and feels when you’re actually composing an email. It does so to the extent that the application could legitimately stand in as a word processor for many users — no minor claim, given the wealth of word processing options available these days. But that’s not to say that CloudMagic Email skimps on mailbox management. A wealth of intuitive gestures and neat tricks make it as worthy an option as any of its direct competitors, meaning you’re not sacrificing quality for an attractive feature. Because it began as an iOS application, CloudMagic Email delivers a forward-thinking interface that is at once informed by the simplicity expected of an iOS app, and the greater range of freedom that is afforded by the Mac environment. This developmental decision-making comes through beautifully, as the iOS app is geared towards quick, simple replies while the Mac app is designed for longer form, thoughtful responses, and their respective interfaces and feature sets are geared towards these causes. It’s a new Mac app being robustly developed, so there’s much more to come, but as an initial offering, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better email client.

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MacUpdate Review of Astropad 2.2.3

April 29, 2015, 9:21 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.7

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.29

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Astropad turns your iPad into a graphics tablet. When the iPad was introduced many were intrigued by the device, but measured its worth by comparing it to the desktop experience. Luckily, innovative app developers used the iPad's increased processing power and larger input surface area to take mobile app development to dazzling heights, excising it from the entrenched role of desktop app development's little brother. The iPad became truly its own thing, and no one but Microsoft thinks tablets should replace laptops anymore. And it's precisely at this point in the iPad’s evolution that the developers of Astropad have returned boldly to the question of how best to pair an iPad with a Mac. Astropad is not ahead of its time, or behind its time – it is exactly on time. First, it offers easily the most hassle-free iOS-to-Mac bridge setup I've ever experienced, as though all the setup mistakes of prior devs were analyzed and corrected in Astropad. It mercifully skips additional setup for the app you're controlling. Instead, Astropad displays a cropped virtualization of your Mac's screen – just fit it to your design app's canvas – that responds to input from the iPad's touch display. The app refresh rate is high enough to eliminate any input lag; there are, however, brief artifacts surrounding the area you are manipulating. They will not affect your work, but it does serve as a reminder that we are in 2015, not 3015. Using the iPad app itself is an immediately comfortable experience. There is no interface learning curve: the interface fits whatever shortcuts work for your app, seeking to stay as out of the way as possible. Between the ability to customize keyboard interactions, smoothly manipulate the iPad UI, pair with some of the latest pressure-sensitive iPad styluses, and have the desktop app leave a minimal interface footprint, Astropad is one of the most thoroughly thought-through initial stable offerings I've encountered. If you already have an iPad, the price of the iPad app is a negligible investment when you consider what other immersive graphics tablets cost. If you don't, this might be the app that gets you investing in one. A Retina MacBook Pro and an iPad Air 2, the complete design hardware powerhouse. Who knew? Everyone all along, after all.

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MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.7

May 8, 2015, 9:40 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of KeyCue 8.4

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Astropad 2.2.3

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Airmail is an endlessly customizable improvement over the conventional Mail.app. My identity can be tied back to my inbox. Reach me at one address and you'll get a different version of me than you might on another. We all maintain multiple selves; shifting seamlessly between them is a hallmark of professionalism and grace. Many of today's highest profile email clients try to reshape the way email infiltrates our lives, but Airmail instead returns to this fundamental idea of us being ourselves in different ways and allows this to blossom. Airmail, above anything, is aesthetically customizable. The obvious points on these grounds can be made: you can change the way Airmail looks and feels so easily that the application immediately becomes an extension of yourself after a couple minutes in the preferences. Beyond the superficial dressing up of the app is a slew of tweakable features that let even the tiniest interactions with Airmail feel exactly how you want, from customizable keyboard shortcuts, to unique message behaviors, to robust support for labels, aliases, and folders. And Airmail has seemingly limitless email account support, presenting your multiple inboxes in a comfortable, intuitive way rather than in an impenetrable list. Airmail users are guided towards a conventional approach to email rather than a complete redefinition of the nature of email, and this feels like a deliberate choice rather than a lack of ingenuity. By offering this amount of control over your email, the developers of Airmail put you in a position to make email exactly what you think it should be, rather than having you buy into a new ideology. Yet even this traditional approach is more than it appears: you can turn messages into to-dos that integrate with the Today widget in Notification Center, make them into memos, or just star them for later reference. Google "email thinkpieces" and it may seem like the greatest threat on our productivity, communication or even sanity is email, but Airmail doesn't buy that. It just wants to help you be yourself – whatever that means to you, at the moment.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of KeyCue 8.4

October 29, 2015, 2:00 pm

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.15

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.7

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So few tasks on a Mac require actual point-and-click cursor behaviors, but for the uninitiated, navigating apps and OS X using only the keyboard is like learning a new language. Keyboard shortcuts can feel like secret codes, available only to true power users with enough time and knowhow to dance around their Mac without a mouse. KeyCue lifts the curtain on these shortcuts to reveal a world of efficiency and productivity that is literally right at your fingertips at all times. Trigger KeyCue from the menu bar or by holding the Command (⌘) key and a list of all available keyboard shortcuts is displayed; from this window, simply click the action or use the revealed keystrokes to have it performed. KeyCue’s list of shortcuts fades away as quickly as it appeared and you’re back to work in no time at all. KeyCue truly is an app that justifies its place on your Mac instantly. Within minutes of installing KeyCue, I was blown away by some of the things I had no idea I could do in apps that I thought I knew so well. By displaying both system-wide shortcuts *and* shortcuts that are specific to the app you are currently in side-by-side, KeyCue allows you to discover new shortcuts in oft-used apps and can introduce you to the functionality of a new app. Using KeyCue feels like a built-in guide for getting the most out of your Mac. And this is why KeyCue is such an essential utility: it’s perfect for new Mac users as it eases them into a world of productivity, but it’s even better for Mac veterans because it adds even more tools to their repertoire, revealing the easiest ways of using new apps, removing all guesswork.

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MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.15

November 18, 2015, 8:11 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.8

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of KeyCue 8.4

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BeaTunes is approachable as a general music playback app while remaining a robust and novel DJ library management utility that is initially unassuming for the novice but still expansive and delightful for the veteran. Its interface has a distinctly Apple vibe with its familiar 3-pane setup making it easy to navigate, but it’s dotted tastefully with with helpful, colorful information throughout. The hallmark feature of beaTunes is its ability to analyze your music and display BPM, musical key, and ‘color’, which is analogous to the mood of the song. Songs of the same or similar color sound great together; very different colors will be more jarring when played back to back. These are the most basic bits of analysis that you can have performed on your music, but for the true audiophile that wants to emphasize the particulars, there is a world of granularity lying just under the surface. Your first launch of beaTunes will be the most time-intensive one as it scans your library and analyzes each track with an ear for a series of information. beaTunes is an all-in-one master of your library, able to edit and update metadata as easily as it offers a semantic breakdown of a song’s structure. For the perfectionist DJ, volume levels are at hand to avoid any jarring volume transitions, song key is at hand to ensure a harmonious set, and color is made obvious to keep the mood going in the right direction. And for a user just trying to make an action or event specific playlist, beaTunes is the perfect option as it takes all the guesswork out of playlist creation, offering up great suggestions and crucial information to give you variety that works beautifully and seamlessly. Whether you need an iTunes library helper or a full-featured DJ library utility, beaTunes is poised to help just about anyone.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.8

May 8, 2015, 9:40 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.9

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.15

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Airmail is an endlessly customizable improvement over the conventional Mail.app. My identity can be tied back to my inbox. Reach me at one address and you'll get a different version of me than you might on another. We all maintain multiple selves; shifting seamlessly between them is a hallmark of professionalism and grace. Many of today's highest profile email clients try to reshape the way email infiltrates our lives, but Airmail instead returns to this fundamental idea of us being ourselves in different ways and allows this to blossom. Airmail, above anything, is aesthetically customizable. The obvious points on these grounds can be made: you can change the way Airmail looks and feels so easily that the application immediately becomes an extension of yourself after a couple minutes in the preferences. Beyond the superficial dressing up of the app is a slew of tweakable features that let even the tiniest interactions with Airmail feel exactly how you want, from customizable keyboard shortcuts, to unique message behaviors, to robust support for labels, aliases, and folders. And Airmail has seemingly limitless email account support, presenting your multiple inboxes in a comfortable, intuitive way rather than in an impenetrable list. Airmail users are guided towards a conventional approach to email rather than a complete redefinition of the nature of email, and this feels like a deliberate choice rather than a lack of ingenuity. By offering this amount of control over your email, the developers of Airmail put you in a position to make email exactly what you think it should be, rather than having you buy into a new ideology. Yet even this traditional approach is more than it appears: you can turn messages into to-dos that integrate with the Today widget in Notification Center, make them into memos, or just star them for later reference. Google "email thinkpieces" and it may seem like the greatest threat on our productivity, communication or even sanity is email, but Airmail doesn't buy that. It just wants to help you be yourself – whatever that means to you, at the moment.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.9

May 8, 2015, 9:40 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of EditReady 2.0.2

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.8

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0

Airmail is an endlessly customizable improvement over the conventional Mail.app. My identity can be tied back to my inbox. Reach me at one address and you'll get a different version of me than you might on another. We all maintain multiple selves; shifting seamlessly between them is a hallmark of professionalism and grace. Many of today's highest profile email clients try to reshape the way email infiltrates our lives, but Airmail instead returns to this fundamental idea of us being ourselves in different ways and allows this to blossom. Airmail, above anything, is aesthetically customizable. The obvious points on these grounds can be made: you can change the way Airmail looks and feels so easily that the application immediately becomes an extension of yourself after a couple minutes in the preferences. Beyond the superficial dressing up of the app is a slew of tweakable features that let even the tiniest interactions with Airmail feel exactly how you want, from customizable keyboard shortcuts, to unique message behaviors, to robust support for labels, aliases, and folders. And Airmail has seemingly limitless email account support, presenting your multiple inboxes in a comfortable, intuitive way rather than in an impenetrable list. Airmail users are guided towards a conventional approach to email rather than a complete redefinition of the nature of email, and this feels like a deliberate choice rather than a lack of ingenuity. By offering this amount of control over your email, the developers of Airmail put you in a position to make email exactly what you think it should be, rather than having you buy into a new ideology. Yet even this traditional approach is more than it appears: you can turn messages into to-dos that integrate with the Today widget in Notification Center, make them into memos, or just star them for later reference. Google "email thinkpieces" and it may seem like the greatest threat on our productivity, communication or even sanity is email, but Airmail doesn't buy that. It just wants to help you be yourself – whatever that means to you, at the moment.

Read more]]>

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MacUpdate Review of EditReady 2.0.2

January 8, 2015, 2:29 pm

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of HoudahGeo 5.1.9

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.2.9

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EditReady is a professional-grade video transcoder that launches you from Production to Post Production as fast as possible. Literally. The proliferation of cameras shooting QuickTime movies means that more footage is being shot with greater ease, but it's not footage that feeds directly into the editing process, so it takes some prep work. This is where EditReady comes in. Its goal is to get your footage ready for the rest of the editing process as quickly as modern technology allows, and it has surprisingly met this goal. EditReady's interface is a wonderful case study in form closely following function. There is no dancing around the point: drop in your media, transcode, move on. This limits EditReady's place in your arsenal of video processing and editing tools – it likely won't have you dumping any of your current utilities altogether – but the fact that it does its job so effectively means that you will never have any reason *not* to use EditReady in your workflow. And with some additional useful features that allow users to screen footage, apply LUTs, edit metadata, and more, it'll fit in with your video toolset with incredible ease. EditReady was built with unprecedented attention to modern (i.e. 2011 Intel or later) Mac hardware, and the results are impossible to ignore. Fire up pretty much any media transcoder and give it a shot versus EditReady; the speed with which it transcodes (high) and the strain it places on your Mac (low) outclasses any other utility. Again, it's almost an unfair fight because EditReady was designed so carefully to address the specific use case of going from raw footage to edit-ready footage as soon as possible, but in the world of video production where time literally is money, you'll want EditReady fighting for you. There's a fascinating blog post on Divergent Media's website that details why its utility is so much faster than others' (they're all about that QuickSync): https://www.divergentmedia.com/blog/editreadyperformance/ Have a look for yourself! Does EditReady seem like an investment worth making for those in the video production field? Any other one-trick tools worth adding to your video editing arsenal?

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of HoudahGeo 5.1.9

October 23, 2015, 9:10 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.3.2

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of EditReady 2.0.2

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HoudahGeo brings travel photos taken with non-GPS cameras together with GPS location data in order to swiftly and easily make these photos easier to track, organize, and share. With a large single-window interface, HoudahGeo hides none of its features. It occupies a very specific space in the world of photo software, so even with its entire feature set on display, the user experience remains streamlined and unambiguous. Users that are active in the Flickr community or like sharing their photos on Google Earth will find in HoudahGeo the fastest way to geotag photos and upload them onto one of those platforms thanks to native support within the app. Some apps dazzle with their novelty. But there’s something equally impressive about an app that simply states and then solves a problem with no fuss. HoudahGeo impresses as one of the latter. The wide array of location matching options makes it virtually impossible to close the app without achieving your goal of tagging your photos. No option is off the table, from the obvious – ability to choose locations on a map; to the professional – extensive support for GPS location data and devices; to the creative – ability to use an iPhone’s geotagged photo as a GPS reference point. The simple workflow guides you from loading photos, to processing them, to the final output stage with minimal friction, as accessible to complete novices as it is malleable to the savvy user. Go somewhere and take lots of photos!

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MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.3.2

May 8, 2015, 9:40 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.16

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of HoudahGeo 5.1.9

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Airmail is an endlessly customizable improvement over the conventional Mail.app. My identity can be tied back to my inbox. Reach me at one address and you'll get a different version of me than you might on another. We all maintain multiple selves; shifting seamlessly between them is a hallmark of professionalism and grace. Many of today's highest profile email clients try to reshape the way email infiltrates our lives, but Airmail instead returns to this fundamental idea of us being ourselves in different ways and allows this to blossom. Airmail, above anything, is aesthetically customizable. The obvious points on these grounds can be made: you can change the way Airmail looks and feels so easily that the application immediately becomes an extension of yourself after a couple minutes in the preferences. Beyond the superficial dressing up of the app is a slew of tweakable features that let even the tiniest interactions with Airmail feel exactly how you want, from customizable keyboard shortcuts, to unique message behaviors, to robust support for labels, aliases, and folders. And Airmail has seemingly limitless email account support, presenting your multiple inboxes in a comfortable, intuitive way rather than in an impenetrable list. Airmail users are guided towards a conventional approach to email rather than a complete redefinition of the nature of email, and this feels like a deliberate choice rather than a lack of ingenuity. By offering this amount of control over your email, the developers of Airmail put you in a position to make email exactly what you think it should be, rather than having you buy into a new ideology. Yet even this traditional approach is more than it appears: you can turn messages into to-dos that integrate with the Today widget in Notification Center, make them into memos, or just star them for later reference. Google "email thinkpieces" and it may seem like the greatest threat on our productivity, communication or even sanity is email, but Airmail doesn't buy that. It just wants to help you be yourself – whatever that means to you, at the moment.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.16

November 18, 2015, 8:11 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.38

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Airmail 3.3.2

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BeaTunes is approachable as a general music playback app while remaining a robust and novel DJ library management utility that is initially unassuming for the novice but still expansive and delightful for the veteran. Its interface has a distinctly Apple vibe with its familiar 3-pane setup making it easy to navigate, but it’s dotted tastefully with with helpful, colorful information throughout. The hallmark feature of beaTunes is its ability to analyze your music and display BPM, musical key, and ‘color’, which is analogous to the mood of the song. Songs of the same or similar color sound great together; very different colors will be more jarring when played back to back. These are the most basic bits of analysis that you can have performed on your music, but for the true audiophile that wants to emphasize the particulars, there is a world of granularity lying just under the surface. Your first launch of beaTunes will be the most time-intensive one as it scans your library and analyzes each track with an ear for a series of information. beaTunes is an all-in-one master of your library, able to edit and update metadata as easily as it offers a semantic breakdown of a song’s structure. For the perfectionist DJ, volume levels are at hand to avoid any jarring volume transitions, song key is at hand to ensure a harmonious set, and color is made obvious to keep the mood going in the right direction. And for a user just trying to make an action or event specific playlist, beaTunes is the perfect option as it takes all the guesswork out of playlist creation, offering up great suggestions and crucial information to give you variety that works beautifully and seamlessly. Whether you need an iTunes library helper or a full-featured DJ library utility, beaTunes is poised to help just about anyone.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.38

February 24, 2016, 6:20 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of iShowU Instant 1.1.7

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.16

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CloudMagic Email is a beautiful hybrid application: at its core, it’s a full-fledged email application in the vein of Airmail, Mailbox, and many other 3rd party apps, but it comes in a package that is reminiscent of minimalist word processing apps like iA Writer, Byword, or Ulysses. Most mail applications focus on organization, labeling, and other general mailbox maintenance pursuits, while leaving the email composition step as a seeming afterthought, peripheral to the application. CloudMagic Email flips the script by putting serious thought into the way the application looks and feels when you’re actually composing an email. It does so to the extent that the application could legitimately stand in as a word processor for many users — no minor claim, given the wealth of word processing options available these days. But that’s not to say that CloudMagic Email skimps on mailbox management. A wealth of intuitive gestures and neat tricks make it as worthy an option as any of its direct competitors, meaning you’re not sacrificing quality for an attractive feature. Because it began as an iOS application, CloudMagic Email delivers a forward-thinking interface that is at once informed by the simplicity expected of an iOS app, and the greater range of freedom that is afforded by the Mac environment. This developmental decision-making comes through beautifully, as the iOS app is geared towards quick, simple replies while the Mac app is designed for longer form, thoughtful responses, and their respective interfaces and feature sets are geared towards these causes. It’s a new Mac app being robustly developed, so there’s much more to come, but as an initial offering, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better email client.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of iShowU Instant 1.1.7

April 6, 2016, 5:39 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.17

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.7.38

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iShowU Instant is a remarkably capable application that gets you from on-screen action on your Mac or iOS device to full-fledged screen recording production in just a few quick steps. With a handful of unexpectedly useful features, iShowU Instant delivers an experience that far surpasses what you might expect from an app in its price range. Particularly useful is iShowU Instant's audio processing capabilities, which allow you to boost or fill out recorded audio whether it's coming from your Mac or from your microphone. You wouldn't think to focus on audio when producing a screen recording, but you end up with a strikingly professional polished product. Area selection is deceptively feature-packed as well, letting you select entire application windows and accommodating pixel perfect nudges when hand selecting a portion of your screen. And once the recording is complete, iShowU Instant's built-in editing features are as intuitive as iMovie with simple, straightforward options to round out your project with precision. Basic and Advanced recording modes give you varying degrees of control over your final product, including how your screen is captured and how the recording is shared. The app's trial mode leaves nothing to the imagination, so go ahead and give it a shot!

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MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.17

November 18, 2015, 8:11 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 5.0.0

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of iShowU Instant 1.1.7

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0

0

BeaTunes is approachable as a general music playback app while remaining a robust and novel DJ library management utility that is initially unassuming for the novice but still expansive and delightful for the veteran. Its interface has a distinctly Apple vibe with its familiar 3-pane setup making it easy to navigate, but it’s dotted tastefully with with helpful, colorful information throughout. The hallmark feature of beaTunes is its ability to analyze your music and display BPM, musical key, and ‘color’, which is analogous to the mood of the song. Songs of the same or similar color sound great together; very different colors will be more jarring when played back to back. These are the most basic bits of analysis that you can have performed on your music, but for the true audiophile that wants to emphasize the particulars, there is a world of granularity lying just under the surface. Your first launch of beaTunes will be the most time-intensive one as it scans your library and analyzes each track with an ear for a series of information. beaTunes is an all-in-one master of your library, able to edit and update metadata as easily as it offers a semantic breakdown of a song’s structure. For the perfectionist DJ, volume levels are at hand to avoid any jarring volume transitions, song key is at hand to ensure a harmonious set, and color is made obvious to keep the mood going in the right direction. And for a user just trying to make an action or event specific playlist, beaTunes is the perfect option as it takes all the guesswork out of playlist creation, offering up great suggestions and crucial information to give you variety that works beautifully and seamlessly. Whether you need an iTunes library helper or a full-featured DJ library utility, beaTunes is poised to help just about anyone.

Read more]]>

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MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 5.0.0

November 18, 2015, 8:11 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.8.8

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 4.6.17

$

0

0

BeaTunes is approachable as a general music playback app while remaining a robust and novel DJ library management utility that is initially unassuming for the novice but still expansive and delightful for the veteran. Its interface has a distinctly Apple vibe with its familiar 3-pane setup making it easy to navigate, but it’s dotted tastefully with with helpful, colorful information throughout. The hallmark feature of beaTunes is its ability to analyze your music and display BPM, musical key, and ‘color’, which is analogous to the mood of the song. Songs of the same or similar color sound great together; very different colors will be more jarring when played back to back. These are the most basic bits of analysis that you can have performed on your music, but for the true audiophile that wants to emphasize the particulars, there is a world of granularity lying just under the surface. Your first launch of beaTunes will be the most time-intensive one as it scans your library and analyzes each track with an ear for a series of information. beaTunes is an all-in-one master of your library, able to edit and update metadata as easily as it offers a semantic breakdown of a song’s structure. For the perfectionist DJ, volume levels are at hand to avoid any jarring volume transitions, song key is at hand to ensure a harmonious set, and color is made obvious to keep the mood going in the right direction. And for a user just trying to make an action or event specific playlist, beaTunes is the perfect option as it takes all the guesswork out of playlist creation, offering up great suggestions and crucial information to give you variety that works beautifully and seamlessly. Whether you need an iTunes library helper or a full-featured DJ library utility, beaTunes is poised to help just about anyone.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.8.8

February 24, 2016, 6:20 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of SongKong 4.9

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of beaTunes 5.0.0

$

0

0

CloudMagic Email is a beautiful hybrid application: at its core, it’s a full-fledged email application in the vein of Airmail, Mailbox, and many other 3rd party apps, but it comes in a package that is reminiscent of minimalist word processing apps like iA Writer, Byword, or Ulysses. Most mail applications focus on organization, labeling, and other general mailbox maintenance pursuits, while leaving the email composition step as a seeming afterthought, peripheral to the application. CloudMagic Email flips the script by putting serious thought into the way the application looks and feels when you’re actually composing an email. It does so to the extent that the application could legitimately stand in as a word processor for many users — no minor claim, given the wealth of word processing options available these days. But that’s not to say that CloudMagic Email skimps on mailbox management. A wealth of intuitive gestures and neat tricks make it as worthy an option as any of its direct competitors, meaning you’re not sacrificing quality for an attractive feature. Because it began as an iOS application, CloudMagic Email delivers a forward-thinking interface that is at once informed by the simplicity expected of an iOS app, and the greater range of freedom that is afforded by the Mac environment. This developmental decision-making comes through beautifully, as the iOS app is geared towards quick, simple replies while the Mac app is designed for longer form, thoughtful responses, and their respective interfaces and feature sets are geared towards these causes. It’s a new Mac app being robustly developed, so there’s much more to come, but as an initial offering, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better email client.

Read more]]>

MacUpdate Review of SongKong 4.9

November 10, 2015, 9:59 am

≫ Next: MacUpdate Review of iShowU Instant 1.1.8

≪ Previous: MacUpdate Review of Newton 9.8.8

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SongKong is an automated tagger for your music collection. As music listeners gain access to what increasingly feels like every song ever, the notion of a collection of music begins to feel remote. When listening to music means logging into a streaming service and wandering around a limitless selection of music, the sentimental connection between the listener and the song is minimized. So while SongKong is just a music tagger and organizer – and a very powerful one, at that – it does more than just bring order to some files; it cares for things that really mean something on your Mac. And luckily, SongKong is up to the task of maintaining your music. Simply point the app at your music folder and go step-by-step through SongKong’s clear workflow to get your music cleaned up. Each section of SongKong’s workflow couldn’t be clearer; all of its tweaks are out on the table, and the user gets to treat their music collection exactly as they’d like. SongKong fills in the gaps that bubble up when music is imported from a multitude of sources. Users with vinyl collections will love SongKong for ripping their records to their Mac because SongKong can fill in the missing metadata in a snap. And by setting it up to continuously monitor particular folders, you can grow your collection without heaping cleanup work on yourself. Keep your music collection in pristine condition with SongKong.

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MacUpdate Review of iShowU Instant 1.1.8

April 6, 2016, 5:39 am

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iShowU Instant is a remarkably capable application that gets you from on-screen action on your Mac or iOS device to full-fledged screen recording production in just a few quick steps. With a handful of unexpectedly useful features, iShowU Instant delivers an experience that far surpasses what you might expect from an app in its price range. Particularly useful is iShowU Instant's audio processing capabilities, which allow you to boost or fill out recorded audio whether it's coming from your Mac or from your microphone. You wouldn't think to focus on audio when producing a screen recording, but you end up with a strikingly professional polished product. Area selection is deceptively feature-packed as well, letting you select entire application windows and accommodating pixel perfect nudges when hand selecting a portion of your screen. And once the recording is complete, iShowU Instant's built-in editing features are as intuitive as iMovie with simple, straightforward options to round out your project with precision. Basic and Advanced recording modes give you varying degrees of control over your final product, including how your screen is captured and how the recording is shared. The app's trial mode leaves nothing to the imagination, so go ahead and give it a shot!

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MacUpdate Review of Vitamin-R 2.48

January 13, 2016, 1:11 pm

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Vitamin-R is an all-in-one task management powerhouse. At first glance, it’s a simple time keeper, affording the user the ability to quickly and easily time their work session. You can extend your time block if the task isn’t over or enter a break period – easy and straightforward. The fuss-free time keeping interface is reason enough to give Vitamin-R a shot, but it’s what the app offers after the “time slice” is complete that makes it shine. The Now & Later board is the perfect space for capturing transient thoughts, and it’ll propel you through your task rather than bog you down with bells and whistles. Ingenious templates give you a place to comment on your in-progress task, linking one session to the next, encouraging reflection and improvement as you proceed through your time slices. The ‘Tools’ section of the app is a revelation, as it gives you an enhanced perspective of your ability to focus through a statistics view, as well as a running history of completed tasks in a log; these two sections of the app are tucked away just enough to sit out of sight of users that are trying to get work done with minimal friction, but at hand enough for the true power user to get great insight on their self and their work. And the noise machine is a delightful, unexpected addition, creating a soft bed of noise to drown out distractions and keep you on task. If given the opportunity, Vitamin-R will surprise you over and over again, making you increasingly productive with diminishing amounts of effort.

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