MacStories Team

3292 posts on MacStories since July 2011

Articles by the MacStories team. Founded by Federico Viticci in April 2009, MacStories attracts millions of readers every month thanks to in-depth, personal, and informed coverage that offers a balanced mix of Apple news, app reviews, and opinion.
team@macstories.net

Macminicolo [Sponsor]→

Our thanks to Macminicolo for sponsoring MacStories this week with their Mavericks promo.

The Mac mini gets better and better as a server and Macminicolo has been hosting them since they started this niche market in 2005. They host your Mac mini in a very high end data center where you can use it for all kinds of things. They’re known for their personal service and impeccable uptime.

To celebrate the release of Mavericks, they have a promotion running through the end of October. They’ll host your Mac mini for just $10/mo for nine months. More info here.

If you’ve been hosting a server from your office or home, here is a great chance to enjoy the benefits of a data center.

Federico’s note: I have been using two Mac minis at Macminicolo for the past year, for both personal (media server and automation) and work purposes (MacStories), and I couldn’t be happier. Great service and great support.

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Sponsor: Smile

Our thanks to Smile for sponsoring MacStories with PDFpen for iPad.

PDFpen is the goto solution for signing and editing documents from your iPad or iPad mini. Correct typos, highlight and add notes, and annotate documents with simple taps. Because PDFpen works with iCloud and Dropbox, you can be sure that your documents are conveniently available at your Mac. And because sharing those documents is just as important as making changes, PDFpen lets you send documents to services like Evernote, Google Drive, and Box. The next time you receive an email with that all important document, sign it with your finger, correct glaring typos, and send it back in just a few moments. It’s fast, easy, and powerful.

PDFpen for the iPad is only $14.99. You can learn more and watch a product demonstration on Smile’s product page, or download it from the App Store. In addition, don’t forget to check out PDFpen for the Mac, the perfect companion for getting things done when you’re at your desk.

 

Sponsor: Many Tricks

Our thanks to Many Tricks for sponsoring MacStories this week with Name Mangler.

Whether you’re renaming a collection of photos or preparing a folder of images for an online gallery, Name Mangler makes renaming easy. Name Mangler is fast, able to crunch through thousands of files in seconds. It’s flexible, letting you change the title case, add prefixes and suffixes, and insert words or phrases into your filenames. And it’s smart, letting you examine and customize each file name based on the file’s own metadata. As you’re renaming the files, Name Mangler can show you the result of each step, ensuring that you’re happy with the results. When you’re all done, Name Mangler keeps track of your renaming actions, and you can share presets across Macs through apps like Dropbox. You can even create droplets so you can drag a group of files into the icon for instant renaming.

Plain and simple, Name Mangler is a highly customizable tool that takes the pain out of renaming files. You can download a trial from Many Tricks, or purchase your own copy for $19 on the Mac App Store.

Sponsor: PDFpen for iPad

Our thanks to Smile for sponsoring MacStories this week with PDFpen for iPad.

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PDFpen for iPad is the mobile version of Smile’s award-winning PDFpen for Mac. With PDFpen for iPad, you’ll be able to sign contracts, make changes, and fill forms when you’re out of the office or on the go.

PDFpen provides iCloud and Dropbox support, so you can edit your PDFs seamlessly on your iPad, iPhone and Mac (you can also exchange documents via Box, Evernote, Google, and more). PDFpen lets you sign and return documents without printing or faxing, directly from your iPad – so, for instance, you’ll be able to fix typos or correct price lists immediately while an issue is foremost in your mind without having to wait to be at your desk with a Mac.

PDFpen for iPad is available at $14.99 on the App Store, and you can find out more about PDFpen for iPad here.

Apple Q3 2013 Results: $35.3 Billion Revenue, 31.2 Million iPhones, 14.6 Million iPads Sold

Apple has published their Q3 2013 financial results for the quarter that ended on June 29, 2013. The company posted revenue of $35.3 billion. The company sold 14.6 million iPads, 31.2 million iPhones, and 3.8 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $6.9 billion.

We are especially proud of our record June quarter iPhone sales of over 31 million and the strong growth in revenue from iTunes, Software and Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are really excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and we are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014.

The company generated $7.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter. Read more

Sponsor: Smile

Our thanks goes out to Smile for sponsoring MacStories with TextExpander.

TextExpander takes the pain out of typing the same mundane things over and over again. If you work in customer support, respond to inquiries, work with various signatures, or find yourself typing the same boilerplate text, TextExpander saves you time. On the Mac, TextExpander lets you create short phrases and keywords that can expand into dates, addresses, and paragraphs of text with just a few keystrokes. You can even create pre-formatted forms that let you add in things like a person’s name. For those who want to take TextExpander to the next level, TextExpander even lets you perform custom actions on text that you might regularly copy and paste from somewhere else, like a technical support guide. If you work with words, TextExpander will prove to be an invaluable tool for your Mac.

TextExpander touch 2.0 on iOS devices now comes with the same great features that are found on the Mac, such as formatted text and fill-ins. If you’re working on the go, it’s a great way to get the same benefits from of the desktop onto your iPhone or iPad.

Try TextExpander for your Mac today by downloading a free trial. If you like it, be sure to try TextExpander touch, which can be downloaded  from the App Store.

Learn more about the benefits of TextExpander here.

Sponsor: ReadKit

Our thanks goes out to Webin for sponsoring MacStories this week with ReadKit.

If you want to read articles from Instapaper, Pinboard, and your favorite site feeds all in one place, look no further than ReadKit on the Mac. ReadKit supports read later apps like Pocket and Readability, and connects with feed readers like NewsBlur, Newsbin, Fever, and Feed Wrangler. Plus ReadKit has its own feed engine for reading your favorite sites locally. Not only is it versatile, but it’s beautiful as well. ReadKit looks like it was built just for the Mac, and lets you read articles without page elements like spammy links with Focus mode. One of our favorite features is smart folders, which let you group together related articles from your feeds based on a custom set of rules. You can even tag articles and bookmarks to find related things later.

ReadKit manages to bring together the web’s best services for saving and sharing the articles, images, and videos you save online under one roof. Download ReadKit from the Mac App Store for $4.99, or learn more here.

Sponsor: Global Delight

Our thanks to Global Delight for sponsoring MacStories this week with Boom.

Boom goes above and beyond the speakers in your MacBook or iMac to deliver impressive sound. Boom boosts the volume of your Mac so you can hear your favorite music, movies, and games over noisy fans or background noise. Boom even boosts the volume of music files in your iTunes playlists so you can listen to tunes on the go at fuller volumes. Plus, Boom offers personalized presets through its built-in equalizer, meaning you’ll always get the best sound no matter what you’re listening to.

Earning Macworld’s Best of Show award in 2011, Boom takes your audio a whole new level. Try Boom today and get $2 off the regular price.

Sponsor: Drafts

Our thanks to Agile Tortoise for sponsoring MacStories this week with Drafts.

Drafts is the definitive scratchpad for your iPhone or iPad. It’s the fastest way to get any idea out of your head and onto something physical. You don’t have to come up with a title, choose a folder you’re going to save your text in, or even worry about formatting. Drafts intuitively keeps a blank page open for you, and even knows when previous drafts were written so you can recall your ideas later. It can integrate with services like Dropbox and Evernote so you can take your drafts anywhere.

Drafts supports Markdown, a markup language for generating text optimized for the web. And there’s little big things like action templates that makes everything actionable. Ultimately, Drafts can be your idea napkin, or a pro-tool that integrates seamlessly with most apps.

Drafts is available on the App Store. You can grab the iPhone version for $2.99, and the iPad version for $3.99. Learn more about Drafts and other Agile Tortoise apps here.