Dan has been writing about all things Apple since 2006, when he first started contributing to the MacUser blog. Since then he's covered most of the company's major product releases and reviewed every major revision of iOS. In his "copious" free time, he's usually grinding away on a novel or two. More by Dan Moren
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. Learn more about GemFest in this Macworld podcast. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
Serenity has been writing and talking and tinkering with Apple products since she was old enough to double-click. In her spare time, she sketches, writes, acts, sings, and wears an assortment of hats. More by Serenity Caldwell
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
If it’s a Minority Report computing interface you desire, Flutter 0.5 (Mac App Store link) might get you one step further. The app aims to let you control your music and Keynote slides with hand gestures and your FaceTime camera, with ambitious long-term goals for scrolling, swiping between screens, and more.
Dan writes about OS X, iOS, troubleshooting, utilities, and cool apps, and he covers hardware, mobile and AV gear, input devices, and accessories. He's been writing about tech since 1994, and he's also published software, worked in IT, and been a policy analyst. More by Dan Frakes
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
OS X’s Boot Camp lets boot your Mac into Windows, temporarily turning it into a Windows PC. It’s a great feature, but if you value your Windows data—or if you want to be able to restore your Boot Camp partition to another Mac or to a new hard drive—you should back up your Windows partition just as you back up your OS X data. In my experience, many Boot Camp users don't.
Marco Tabini is based in Toronto, Canada, where he focuses on software development for mobile devices and for the Web. More by Marco Tabini
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
A Microsoft acquisition and several user-interface faux pas haven’t stopped Skype for Mac 6.7 from continuing to be the go-to personal communication app for many OS X users.
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
If digital photography is your hobby or profession, you know that processing a bunch of files at once can be a bit of a pain, especially if you don’t own expensive, top-of-the-line image editing software with tons of features that most basic photographers won’t ever need. With that in mind, PhotoBulk 1.5 (Mac App Store link) is a photo-editing app that provides a simple and easy way to process a bunch of images.
Dan is Macworld's Executive Editor and, thus, the senior Dan on staff. More by Dan Miller
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
OS X’s Launchpad was derided when it first appeared in OS X Lion. It was part of the then-new iOS-ification of OS X: It closely mimicked the iOS homescreen full of icons, through which you’d scroll sideways to find and launch the apps you wanted. Back then, our own Dan Frakes called it, “Lion’s most misguided adoption of an iOS feature.”
Dan writes about OS X, iOS, troubleshooting, utilities, and cool apps, and he covers hardware, mobile and AV gear, input devices, and accessories. He's been writing about tech since 1994, and he's also published software, worked in IT, and been a policy analyst. More by Dan Frakes
Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2013. Every day (except Sunday) from mid-July until late September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free or low-cost program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest page, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.
You’ve got plenty of choices for to-do-list apps, so why choose TaskAgent (Mac App Store link)? For starters, it has versions for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and syncs seamlessly between them—enter a task (or an item for your next trip to the supermarket) on your Mac, and the item immediately shows up on your iPhone.
