Posts in reviews

Life Web Browser 1.5 Introduces iPhone Version and…Pull To Refresh?

Life is an alternative web browser for iPad I reviewed back in June. The app was quite nice, but I ended up uninstalling it due to its numerous bugs. The feature set was interesting, though:

Life Web Browser tries a different approach, and it does so by telling us that we don’t need tabs and pages, we need to swipe.

Aseid Ghaffari and his team found out that users don’t find Safari’s behavior with new links exactly comfortable. Apple’s Safari forces you to go back and forth between a dashboard with thumbnails of pages, and another take on the subject such as iCab’s desktop-like tabs didn’t impress Ghaffari either. If it’s not about copying the desktop and it’s not about changing pages, then it definitely must be about gestures – the developers thought. So there you have it, you horizontally swipe between “windows”.

The latest 1.5 update, approved and released a few days ago, introduces iPhone support (the app is now Universal) and a couple of new options such as “Open sites” and pull to refresh for webpages. What, really? Read more

Monitor and Geotag Your iPhone Data Usage with DataMan

If you have an iPhone and a contract with your carrier (of course you guys in the US do), then I guess you’re obsessed with data usage tracking: how many messages can you send per month? What’s the threshold for mobile internet access? How much have you consumed this week? Depending on the country and carrier, the experience can be terrible. Fortunately, I have a pretty good plan with 3 Italia over here (4 GB internet / month, 400 SMS, 800 minutes voice) so I haven’t really worried about keeping track of my usage - I understand, though, that this is a problem for many.

DataMan by XVision is probably the most complete app to monitor and even geotag your daily, monthly and week data usage on your iPhone. Read more

My Very First App - Review & Giveaway

This review is a little different than most reviews on MacStories, it’s targeted towards children. I have a 4 year old son and a 2 year old daughter, so this app was an easy one for me to grab onto. For what it’s worth, I have always been very protective of my iPhone, afraid it could get scratched or dropped but I couldn’t help but to break my old ways and let my kids start playing with it. Read more

FaceNow: Handy FaceTime Shortcuts

I haven’t used FaceTime that much until now, mainly because none of my friends managed to find an iPhone 4 with 3 Italia. Last night, though, I found out that two of them bought one earlier this week (“finally”, they said) and 2 hours ago I got a call from my town’s 3 store about the availability of the 32GB model for my girlfriend. This means that starting tomorrow I’ll use FaceTime a lot. An awful lot.

Thanks to a free app called “FaceNow”, the FaceTime experience will be a lot faster and easier to setup. Read more

HimmelBar Lets You Launch Apps From Your Mac Menubar

Mac users have been debating for years whether applications should be launched from the dock, from the appropriate Finder window, from an app launcher (Launchbar, Quicksilver, Alfred) or even via keyboard-triggered Applescripts. The truth is you can’t find a “better way” for everyone, as a user’s specific workflow is always to be considered and it’s impossible (and silly) to make people agree on a particular way of doing something with a computer.

Debates aside, here’s neat little app I didn’t about before and I’ve just discovered thanks to One Thing Well: HimmelBar lets you launch (and browse) installed applications directly from the menubar. Read more

Ruler 2 - How Does It Measure Up?

Admit it, the iPhone in your pocket is like a Swiss Army Knife - it’s easy to carry and has a tool for almost every job; oh yeah, and it makes phone calls too. A ruler isn’t something you need all the time but oh-so-important when you do. So why not have an app that takes precise measurements? That’s where Ruler 2, by Andrew & Alexa, comes into play - its simple, easy to use and precise for not being an physical analog ruler. The UI elements are large, easy to read and retina display ready. The ruler has a great texture and looks very lifelike and the little cog wheels give the slider realistic movements. Read more

DomainBrain 2.0 Is The Ultimate Domain Management App for Mac

I’ve got a bunch of domains to manage, and it’s not exactly the easiest of the tasks. Each domain comes with lots of information (Registrar, expiration date, WHOIS record) and it’s very easy to get lost in all these usernames and passwords. Plus, if you consider that you’ve purchased a domain because you probably want to run a website on it - then add database data, hosting, content management system, users.

1Password isn’t meant for managing domains, especially multiple domains at once. If you, like me, wanted to buy goodfuckingdesignadvice.com but went for other 5 similar domains instead, then DomainBrain 2.0 is for you. It’s the best tool to manage a “domain library” you could ever find on OS X. Read more

Sketch for Mac, Reviewed

[This article was written by Raj Ramamurthy. You can check out his personal website here.]

Pieter Omvlee (the man behind the fantastic Bohemian Coding) has long been known for the amazing code behind Fontcase, which is perhaps the best font manager for the Mac.

Pieter has been working on something for the past year or so, though. Long before Sketch was released, Pieter had created DrawIt, a vector drawing application with support for bitmap filters. With Sketch, Pieter decided to rethink parts of DrawIt, and have two products with differing goals in his lineup of amazing applications.

Sketch was most certainly worth the wait. I beta tested the application, and I can confidently say that it’s one of the best drawing tools I’ve ever used. It’s also beautiful, not just in graphics, but also in simplicity: there are beautiful icons designed by Kevin Kalle and the application icon is done by Emanuel Sà. Pieter’s made the approach in Sketch quite simple: there are no document sizes, and the entire application is fluid and smooth. Read more