If you’ve ever sat down with a pen and piece of paper to work out calculations, you’ll understand the power of Soulver immediately. The Mac and the iOS apps are part text editor, part calculator and work the way you think by letting you combine text and numbers on the same page.

For anyone who spends more time in a text editor than a spreadsheet app, Soulver is perfect. By mixing text and figures, a Soulver document becomes a roadmap making it easy to retrace your steps when you revisit your work later. Instead of guessing what all the numbers on a page mean, you can give each a descriptive label and add other text providing context. Writing calculations in plain English is faster than using a spreadsheet too because you don’t have to stop to consider what formulas to apply to which cells.

Best of all, Soulver approximates how you’d solve the same problems with a pen and paper, making it intuitive, but also better because the calculator is built right into the page. As you type on the left side of a document, Soulver keeps track of the math on the right-hand side with syntax highlighting that makes the calculations simple to follow.

Soulver is smart too. It keeps a running total of all lines in a document, and it can look up currency conversion rates, stock prices, and commodity values for things like gold and oil. The app handles all sorts of conversion rates too from weights to cooking units and much more. Students and programmers will appreciate features like the built-in trigonometry functions as well as the ability to calculate values in binary and hex.

To learn more, check out Soulver’s website or download both versions today from the Mac App Store and iOS App Store.

Our thanks to Soulver for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Airmail is the 2017 Apple Design Award-winning email client from Bloop for the Mac and iOS that marries elegant design with rich, customizable features that tame your inbox.

Everyone approaches email a little differently. For some people, their inbox is a sort of task manager. For others, keeping their inbox empty and messages neatly organized into folders is paramount. No matter how you manage your email accounts, Airmail has you covered.

Airmail is highly customizable while maintaining a clean, intuitive interface that makes it a pleasure to use. The app supports all major email technologies, including Gmail, iCloud, Exchange, IMAP, and POP3. On macOS, Airmail also incorporates the latest operating system features like the Touch Bar.

With Airmail, you can manage one or several email accounts. With multiple accounts, it’s just as easy to review messages from every account in a unified inbox as it is to dive into just one account. Airmail also features rich customization like the ability to send messages later, snooze messages, and create smart folders and rules. Actions let you send messages to other apps you use like task managers and your calendar or create a PDF from a message. On the Mac, Airmail supports the Touch Bar too. Best of all, you only need to set up Airmail once because your settings sync via iCloud to all your Macs and iOS devices.

Airmail is actively developed across all of Apple’s platforms. Most recently, Airmail has added a redesigned and improved search system, user templates that sync across all your devices, and Spotlight search, so you can find messages even when you’re not in Airmail. The app’s broad feature set and customization all add up to make Airmail the perfect choice for email power users.

Download Airmail for the Mac today from the Mac App Store and for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch from the App Store.

Our thanks to Airmail for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Advertising and trackers are a big problem on many websites. Pages load slowly wasting your time, draining your battery, and using up your mobile data. Even worse, ads sometimes serve malware to unsuspecting users. To take back control, you need 1Blocker X.

1Blocker X is a complete ground-up rewrite of the original 1Blocker that puts even more fine-grained controls in the hands of its users. In fact, the app now has over 120,000 powerful rules that are organized into categories like:

• Block Ads
• Block Adult Sites
• Block Annoyances
• Block Comments
• Block Trackers
• Custom Rules
• International Rules

In the unlikely event that 1Blocker X doesn’t have a rule you need, you can add your own too.

One aspect of content blocking that often gets forgotten is that they aren’t just about blocking ads. 1Blocker X also eliminates distracting page elements like social network share buttons and comments that get in the way of an enjoyable web experience.

You can even hide individual elements on a webpage with 1Blocker’s powerful action extension. All you have to do is invoke the extension, tap what you want to hide, and then save. It’s incredibly simple and effective for page elements that aren’t already blocked by 1Blocker X’s extensive built-in rules.

So don’t wait, go get 1Blocker X today on the App Store or if you’re feeling lucky, enter to win one of 30 copies of 1Blocker X that we are giving away here. The giveaway will be open until Noon Eastern time on Monday, July 23, 2018 and winners will be contacted within 7 days thereafter.

Our thanks to 1Blocker X for sponsoring MacStories this week.

OmniFocus 3 for iOS is a fresh, major update to the app that’s been the trusted gold-standard to-do app for 10 years – since the very first day of the App Store. It’s the best OmniFocus ever!

Download it for free. Put it through its paces with a 14-day free trial, and then buy the Standard or Pro edition. Users of earlier versions of OmniFocus for iOS get a 50% discount.

Tags – new in OmniFocus 3 – add a powerful organizing tool. Create tags for person, energy level, priority, location, and more.

The Forecast view now shows your tasks and calendar events in order, so you can better see what’s coming up in your day and adjust if needed. With the Pro version you can also set a special tag so that items always show up today.

Enhanced repeating tasks are easier than ever to set up – and they work with real-world examples such as the first weekday of the month.

Batch editing, a feature we brought over from the Mac, lets you set due dates, tags, and other data for multiple tasks all at once.

Flexible inspectors now allow you to show only the features you use, and reorder them so your favorites are where you want them.

Get the most out of OmniFocus by reading our ever-growing list of articles and customer stories on Inside OmniFocus. And if you ever need help, contact our world-class support team via email – or even just call. We’re here to help you.

Download OmniFocus 3 today and accomplish more every day.

Our thanks to OmniFocus 3 for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Standard Notes is a simple, safe place to access your notes wherever you are.

The app is available on iOS, Mac, the web, Android, and even Windows and Linux, making it universally available whatever mix of hardware and OSes you use. But just as important as being everywhere is security. That’s why Standard Notes uses state-of-the-art AES 256-bit end-to-end encryption to secure your notes from prying eyes. The app syncs across the web, but its encryption lets you rest easy knowing that no one can read your data.

Standard Notes features on-device security too. You can set up a passcode so if you are logged into your computer or mobile device, even people with physical access to your devices will not be able to access your encrypted notes.

All of these features are entirely free as are tagging, pinning, archiving, and locking notes. Even encrypted and decrypted backups of your notes are free.

Additional features like editors, which provide options like advanced Markdown and code editing, are available as are themes, version histories for your notes, two-factor authentication, and sync with popular cloud services such as Dropbox and Google Drive, for a reasonably-priced monthly or annual subscription.

Learn more and protect your privacy today with Standard Notes.

Our thanks to Standard Notes for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Whether you work on iOS, a Mac, or both, FirstSeed Calendar takes advantage of the unique features of each platform providing a seamless experience that anyone with a busy schedule will appreciate.

The app has a comprehensive month view that makes viewing, adding, editing, deleting, moving, and duplicating events a breeze and an innovative week view. Most calendar apps require scrolling to see a full day’s events in week view. FirstSeed provides a grid view of the core of your day and shows any other activities as a list view, making it possible to see everything at a glance. There’s a list view, day view, and reminder support too.

FirstSeed Calendar packed with clever features. There’s a clock interface for intuitive event editing, a dedicated button to quickly switch between views and a continuous month view that takes advantage of every pixel on your screen.

The app has natural language support for English and Japanese too. Just type events as you would typically describe them and FirstSeed populates your calendar like magic.

FirstSeed is designed with each platform’s hardware in mind. On iOS, the app’s emphasis on one-handed operation makes it the perfect choice for working on the go. The iOS versions of FirstSeed support keyboard shortcuts too. On the Mac, FirstSeed uses the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar and includes a menu bar app for quick access to your schedule.

Managing your calendar doesn’t have to be hard. Take control of your schedule today with FirstSeed Calendar.

Learn more here, or go straight to the App Stores and download FirstSeed Calendar for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac today.

Our thanks to FirstSeed Calendar for sponsoring MacStories this week.

LumaFusion is the most powerful multi-track video editor ever created for iOS devices. Used by journalists, filmmakers, music video artists, and professional video producers to tell compelling visual stories, LumaFusion delivers affordable power and flexibility in an intuitive mobile interface.

The functionality packed into LumaFusion is remarkable. The app is full of features that match or exceed expensive desktop apps like Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premier. LumaFusion delivers because it’s built by professionals who understand video editing. Terri Morgan and Chris Demiris, who met at Avid and founded Luma Touch in 2013, have had long careers in the video industry, which made them the perfect pair to bring sophisticated video editing to iOS.

Since its introduction in 2016, LumaFusion has attracted a loyal following among video artists. The app allows users to create complex multi-track stories with up to three video/audio tracks in resolutions up to 4K, up to three additional audio tracks, and dozens of transitions. Titler functionality allows you to create unlimited layers of text, shapes, and imported graphics too.

Users have quick, direct access to color correction, multiple key-framed effects on every clip, and professional features like Insert and Overwrite mode, Clip Linking for sync management, and much more. There’s support for audio channel mapping too, which allows users to shoot with separate background and voice microphones and then separate the stereo file into two mono tracks for independent control of each track.

This past spring, LumaFusion introduced a custom integration with GNARBOX, which allows users with large amounts of media to wirelessly preview and edit media from GNARBOX right inside LumaFusion while importing media that’s added to a timeline in the background. Later this summer, LumaFusion will introduce a Pro I/O Pack with professional features like external monitor support, batch export, and .xml project export.

For more details about LumaFusion, visit the Luma Touch website and watch their video tutorials. For a limited time, you can get started with LumaFusion for just $19.99 (regularly $39.99), which is a small fraction of the cost of comparable desktop apps.

Our thanks to LumaFusion for sponsoring MacStories this week.