Last Friday we started the voting period for our search for the best iPhone, iPad and Mac Apps and Games of 2011. As part of that we also announced that we were conducting the biggest giveaway we have ever run on MacStories. Today we are giving everyone more details on what apps we are giving away and when. But first, a quick reminder that you can enter the giveaway by doing one (or all three) of the following:

1. Vote (when you vote we first ask for your email address, just enter a valid email address and you go into the running to win some free apps).
2. Tweet about the poll (use the text quoted below).
3. Let your friends or family know about the poll and have them enter your email or Twitter handle in the referral box that is on the voting page.

MacStories Best Apps of 2011: vote now and enter our huge iOS & Mac app giveaway! http://mcstr.net/rVDwy8

Every day this week (from today till Friday) we will be giving out a number of (single) licence codes to apps in addition to 3 bundle packs which include codes for three apps – details can be seen below the break. In total, this represents of 250 codes that will be given away!

Vote Early

We’ll be randomly drawing entries for the giveaways once a day – but we won’t be limiting the selection to just those who voted on that day. Every vote will have a chance of winning every day. This means that if you enter before the end of today (Monday) you will have five chances at some codes – but if you enter on Friday you will only have one chance at winning.

Remember that you can also increase your chances by tweeting about this poll and by telling your friends and family about the poll (and getting them to put your email address in the referral box).

Sorry, voting is now closed. Winners will be announced on Saturday, 24th.

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iOS and Mac apps are the cornerstone of what we cover on MacStories, we love trying new apps, sharing news about them and then reviewing them for you all. The past 12 months have been a spectacular year for new apps and big app updates that have seen both the diversity and calibre of iOS and Mac apps increase significantly. It is with this in mind that we want to recognise the very best apps that were released or received major updates in 2011.

The whole team at MacStories has worked together to come up with a short list of iPhone, iPad and Mac apps as well as a short list of games that we believe were the best to come out in 2011. Now we need your help to decide which of these apps are the best from each category. To do so, we are running a poll that we want you to take, and we want you to cast your vote for what you think was the best app of 2011.

The Biggest MacStories Giveaway Ever!

However, this event isn’t just about rewarding the very best iOS and Mac developers, we want to reward you for being readers of MacStories this year and for taking the time to help us choose the best apps of 2011. This giveaway, as the header states, is the biggest we have ever run – and by quite a stretch. We’re going to be giving away over two-hundred license codes for apps that have made it into our short lists – and there may still be more to come! Some of the apps we will be giving away include:

• Alfred
• Fantastical
• iA Writer
• Instacast
• Mr. Reader
• Tweetbot
• and many, many more…

How To Enter The Giveaway

There are three ways to be in the running for some of these licenses:

1. Vote (when you vote we first ask for your email address, just enter a valid email address and you go into the running to win some free apps).
2. Tweet about this contest (just make sure you have this article’s URL in the tweet, or just use the example tweet below).
3. Let your friends or family know about the poll and have them enter your email or Twitter handle in the referral box that is on the voting page.

MacStories Best Apps of 2011: vote now and enter our huge iOS & Mac app giveaway! http://mcstr.net/rVDwy8

Rules & More Information

• You can only vote once, this is why we require an email address when you vote. If you enter an invalid email address or vote multiple times your vote(s) will not count.
• Please don’t spam your Twitter followers, friends or family, asking them to vote and add you to the referral box. It’s not nice and we don’t want to come across as being the source of this spam – if we see such spam we will ensure you don’t receive any licenses.
• Some licences will be given out during the voting process, whilst the rest will be given after voting closes.
• Once voting closes, no more entries for the giveaway will be accepted.
• Because of the limited number of licences we have per app, you might not get the app you really wanted if you are a winner – but we will try to be as flexible as possible!

Sorry, voting is now closed. Winners will be announced Saturday, 24th.

The winning apps will be announced on Saturday, December 24th (Christmas Eve).

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Here’s a unique offer for all you bundleheads — ZeroNinetyNine is offering “The First Mac App Store Bundle” today only. Since the Mac App Store doesn’t allow apps to be bundled and sold together, ZeroNinetyNine has found a unique way to do so by designing a holding page with all the applications in their “bundle”. Several independent developers have simultaneously dropped the price of their apps for one day sale on Mac App Store for just 99¢ per app.

One could find these price discounts by searching the Mac App Store and our own MacStoriesDeals posts, but what fun is that? Well, actually our MacStoriesDeals is great if I say so myself! ZeroNinetyNine has done the hard work for you and presented it in a well-designed page.

The apps that are included in this one-day 99¢ sale are MacPaw‘s Ensoul and Hider, Coppertino‘s Focus, and Apparent Software‘s Blast Utility. Other apps included are Alarm Pro, Inpaint, Compartments, iResizer, Virus Barrier Plus, Washing Machine and Intego Backup Express.

ZeroNinetyNine has done a great job coordinating this independent “bundle,” there are many great apps at a great price — 99¢ a piece. This is not a one time affair either, ZeroNinetyNine will be doing these types of bundles once a month.

Back in September we showed you a beta preview of Gradient by JUMPZERO. As I said before, it’s a simple yet powerful Mac app that lets you easily create CSS gradients with a beautiful user interface. Gradient was officially released yesterday and the JUMPZERO team has a little surprise for MacStories’ readers.

Gradient 1.0 is well polished for a 1.0 release — their time and effort really shows. Since the beta stage, JUMPZERO has improved some of the UI elements and improved the overall user experience. It will be a great tool for web designers looking for a simple yet intuitive way to create CSS gradients. Gradient is now in the Mac App Store for an intro price of just $4.99, get it here.

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Fantastical takes what we know about calendar apps and makes it quicker and easier to create and edit events without having to open iCal, Entourage or Outlook. Fantastical is intelligent and innovative by using natural language for entering events. It is easy and fun to use, resides in your menubar, uses a system-wide hot key, and has CalDAV sync support. The UI is one of the best for OS X, it has a natural look and feel to it and it really is fun to use. From our coverage of Fantastical 1.1, released on the Mac App Store last week:

Fantastical was already a great app, and now that it’s gained editing, deleting and notes it really can be used as a calendar replacement, which thanks to natural language input will also act as your personal calendar assistant.

What more is there to love about Fantastical? How about a giveaway?

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It’s time for a new MacStories giveaway and this time we’re featuring MacPaw. We’re giving away 5 copies of MacPaw’s great Mac software, Ensoul and Hider. Ensoul lets you make bigger, better and more beautiful contact photos, make custom iPhone wallpapers from your iPhoto library, Photo Booth, Apeture or any folder on your Mac. It’s non-destructive, easy, and editing takes seconds to do. Hider is the cutting edge solution for hiding your private data on your Mac. If you’re concerned about privacy, Hider provides a user-friendly application that password-protects and hides all your personal files and folders; Hider can also organize them to keep your desktop uncluttered. It’s plugged into your Mac’s Finder and allows you to quickly hides files simply by using a contextual menu.

Be sure to check out the full feature lists of Ensoul and Hider on the MacPaw site. Ensoul ($9.99) and Hider ($9.99) can both be purchased from the Mac App Store. However if you are interested in winning one of the 5 copies of MacPaw’s popular apps that we are giving away, be sure to jump the break for all the details. (more…)

We’re currently running a giveaway of Saver (for iPhone) and Foliozo (for iPad) – now its time for a third giveaway this week, a Mac app! We’re giving away 5 copies of Instaview, which at its core is a unique Instagram viewer for your Mac desktop. With Instaview you can create multiple ‘windows’ that each contain an Instagram stream, each window can also be customised with different frames and borders.

The streams available include everything from the Popular and your following feeds to location and tag-based streams and more. Just like the Instagram iPhone app you can comment and like images as well as follow (or unfollow) people. All in all, Instaview is a very customisable Instagram app for the Mac that also adds a nice touch of decoration to your Mac’s desktop.

Be sure to check out the full feature list of Instaview, which you can purchase from the Mac App Store for $7.99. However if you are interested in winning one of the 5 copies of Instaview that we are giving away, be sure to jump the break for all the details.

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Last Friday we reviewed Foliozo, a new digital portfolio app that had hit the iPad App Store earlier in the week. This week we’ve been given ten promotional codes for Foliozo from the app developers and we’re running a giveaway. In our review we noted how Foliozo kept things simple unlike many of their competitors – something we thought was an advantage for a digital portfolio app.

You can read our full review of Foliozo but if you really like the sound of Foliozo don’t be afraid to help the developers and purchase the app which is available on the iPad App Store for $4.99. Jump the break for all the Foliozo giveaway details but don’t forget about our Saver giveaway which we started yesterday and look out for yet another giveaway this week!

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After a big bug-squashing and feature-adding update last week to Saver, the developers have decided to run another giveaway of their excellent expense-tracking app. I reviewed Saver for iPhone about two months ago where I raved about its excellent and loving design which made the usually dull task of expense tracking a more exciting and vibrant experience. The genius of Saver though is that unlike many other apps on the market, its design keeps things simple whilst still being powerful enough for what most users will need out of an expense-tracker.

The developers are running their own giveaway of Saver where they are giving away 3 copies of the app everyday from today till next Monday, but MacStories readers have another chance to win the app because they have been kind enough to give us 10 copies to give away! Make sure to read our full review of Saver, but jump the break for all the details on how to enter our giveaway of 10 copies of Saver.

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If you watch a lot of TV, live on the Internet, and can’t remember when House airs, then you’re probably already using TV Show Tracker right? We’ve been covering the big updates all along, and I gotta say that there’s lots of new goodies to chew on. Take the Watch List for example. Everything you missed watching will be stored in one convenient place so you can check it off once you get down mowing down the bag of half baked doritos in front of the TiVo. Those unwatched episodes will also show up as application badges (because it’s pretty critical if you miss out on the first episode of The Office). Tapping on a show in your favorites list now takes you directly to their show page, and in the preferences you have the app open into the schedule so you don’t miss a thing. Combine that with a new icon, and the latest update to TV Show Tracker just makes finding dramas on the boob tube pretty easy.

So how much does it cost? It’s on sale for $0.99 until Saturday evening — it’s super useful to see when your favorite two political comedians are coming back from vacation as well.

But we’re giving away five copies to you delightful, handsome (beautiful for the lady-girls out there) MacStorians, so you’ll want click past the break for the full rundown.

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Back in October 2010 I reviewed Noteshelf, a handwriting app for the iPad I said “I could actually use” because of its clever feature set that included things like smooth virtual ink, wrist protection and templates which made using a stylus on the iPad almost a real pleasure. The app went through a series of updates, first bringing support for Evernote and Dropbox in November, finer ink and new notebooks, then AirPrint integration, photo albums and multitasking by the end of 2010. Of all the handwriting apps I’ve tried, Noteshelf is without a doubt one of the most powerful ones — it goes right up with Penultimate when it comes to selecting the best note-taking apps for the iPad with handwriting recognition and notebook template options.

Since December 2010, Noteshelf has gone through other major changes, with version 4.0 released late last month quickly climbing the charts of the App Store thanks to new functionalities introduced by the developers, such as vastly improved zoom mode, single-page paper styles, new icon and updated interface, and even smoother writing. Two weeks ago, FluidTouch released Noteshelf 4.1, further refining the interface design and adding more options like the possibility of grouping notebooks into folders, a full-screen finder, passcode protection, highlighters and VGA support. Noteshelf has gained a lot more features since I first reviewed it, but it’s still the same intuitive and fun-to-use app I installed on my device ten months ago. There’s a lot to play with in the new Noteshelf, including an in-app store to purchase and download new paper and notebook themes, or support for cut/copy/paste to get information out of a specific notebook and onto a new one. The app has been overhauled since version 1.0 — and no doubt the learning curve has slightly increased with all these new options — but functionalities like adjustable wrist protection and zoom mode on handwritten notes still make Noteshelf one of my favorite picks for the iPad.

Noteshelf is available at $4.99 on the App Store with a sweet new icon, and I highly recommend you give this app a try if you’ve been looking for a solid handwriting solution on your iPad. However, we also have 10 promo codes to give away, so jump after the break to check out the rules and find out how you can enter to win a copy of Noteshelf. (more…)

You’re already familiar with QuickShot as the photo app that integrates with your Dropbox, and now it does video too. That’s right: shoot video,  have it appear in your Dropbox via upload video from your photo library (WiFi only is an option for 3G users), and navigate more quickly through the app thanks to some shortcuts utilizing the the settings button (just tap and hold to quickly access your photo library). The Photo Library itself has a hot new update for the iPad, which makes navigation even more finger friendly. For those who like to leave their orientation lock on but would prefer that their camera remain free, QuickShot is now independent of the device so you can still browse email in portrait but take pictures in landscape. QuickShot also has some new abilities under the hood for sharing your media with friends — you can upload photos, email, and copy them from the library (to paste in OmniOutliner for the iPad for example).

QuickShot is a $1.99 universal application available on the App Store, and we’re giving away ten copies to lucky readers who follow the rules after the break.

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