As sturdy as Apple’s MacBooks are, it’s a little depressing to pull your laptop out of your bag and discover a ding or scratch on the aluminum case. If you want some extra protection for your laptop, Handy Candy Cases’ $60 HardShell Case might be the answer.

Hard Candy makes the HardShell Case for the Retina MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. (I tested a version for the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.) The case consists of four pieces of translucent, rigid plastic. The plastic doesn’t feel brittle or cheap, and it’s available in blue, black, lime, or red.

Snapping the HardShell Case onto your laptop is easy and takes just a few minutes. Before doing so, however, you’ll want to clean the outside of your MacBook and the inside of the HardShell Case’s pieces to prevent any dirt or debris from getting trapped inside.

With the HardShell Case on my MacBook Pro, I was able to connect various cables and several different USB flash drives without a problem. However, if you have a very oddly shaped USB device, there’s a possibility that the bottom shell, which sticks out a bit just below the computer’s ports, could get in the way.

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Panic's $10 Status Board for the iPad is an app that fits a niche so spectacularly, it leaves you kind of breathless. Designed to display and update data from a variety of sources, Status Board offers an amazingly customizable way to display your most important data on almost any screen, from your iPad to an HDTV.

It's important to note that Status Board is a niche tool; it’s not something you're likely to use casually at home or if you only have one iPad. But it is perfectly suited to situations where you want to publicly display specific information that's updated on a regular basis.

Open Status Board for the first time, and the app walks you through a quick setup process to configure and create some of the app's prefabbed status panels. These panels are little rectangles of data you can move, resize, and rearrange in almost any way you choose. By default, the app comes pre-loaded with calendar, clock, and weather panels, and can also display Twitter timelines, RSS news feeds, and the subject line of your latest email messages.

Some of the panels allow you to customize the way your data is displayed. So, for example, your Twitter, email, and news feeds can be displayed as a either a list or as a ticker; the ticker shows one message at a time, and it slides across the screen, sits for a couple of seconds so you can read it, then slides the next update into view. I loved the ticker feed, but was disappointed there was no option for adjusting the delay setting to something slower of faster than Status Board's defaults. 

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It’s been eight years since we reviewed the original version of Delicious Library, Delicious Monster's clever app for managing your media. But the question that greets Delicious Library 3, the latest edition in the franchise, is this: In 2013, is it still a good way to track and document all the items in your media collection?

The answer to that question: Mostly, but Delicious Library 3 has some mild shortcomings to be addressed.

If you’re not familiar with Delicious Library (the last major version of which, Delicious Library 2, was released five years ago), the Mac app organizes and tracks collections of books, movies, other media, and even tools—it’s media-oriented, but it’s not limited to media. Essentially, anything with a barcode can be scanned and added to the app’s customized “shelf.”

In the past, the easiest way to add an item to Delicious Library was by holding its barcode up to your computer’s webcam for scanning. The app uses this barcode to automatically find and enter pertinent information about the item (including a photo) to the shelves of your virtual library.

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Folio-style iPad mini cases are great for protection, since they cover both the back and front (and usually the sides) of the iPad. But they’re not terribly slim—in fact, a lot of folio cases are modeled after hardback books, and add quite a bit of extra bulk. STM’s $35 Skinny for iPad mini gives you protection without the bulk, or so its name would seem to imply.

The Skinny is a fairly basic folio case. It comes in four solid colors—pink, blue, black, or berry red—and features a plastic fitted cradle covered in textured cloth. The cradle is fitted to the mini’s dimensions and it’s easy to snap on. The case is a little more difficult to take off, but it’s manageable. The cradle has cutouts for the mini’s Sleep/Wake button, headphone jack, microphone, mute switch, volume buttons, bottom speakers, and Lightning port. None of the cutouts are too deep, which means all of the buttons and ports are easily accessible.

The Skinny’s cover is made of textured fabric on the outside and microsuede on the inside, which helps to keep the mini’s screen scratch free. It does have a magnet inside, which activates the mini’s magnetic Sleep/Wake feature. The cover is held shut by a wide tab that tucks into a strap on the back of the case. This tab holds the case securely shut—which is good, unless you’re trying to open it. When the tab is tucked into the strap, it’s so tight that it’s difficult to open up the case quickly. The case’s cover can also be folded back onto itself (and the tab tucks back into the strap from the other side) to form a stand or an angle for typing. The stand feels very sturdy.

Here’s the good news: the Skinny lives up to its name. It’s a very slim case, and it adds hardly any bulk to the iPad mini while still appearing to add a decent amount of protection. Unfortunately, while it’s slim, it’s not as sleek as some of the other slim-fitting folio cases I’ve seen. The case feels a little cheap—the sides are unfinished and fraying a bit, and the textured cloth cover seems like an afterthought, rather than a choice. Although the cradle is fitted to the Mini, the mini doesn’t seem to fit perfectly inside, like it does in the Speck FitFolio.

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No longer are rainbows, sparkly dolphins, and synth-pop ballads limited to acid trips in your high school buddy's Astro Van.

With Adult Swim's original Robot Unicorn Attack, an ironic novelty premise was married to a seriously addictive endless platformer, which then gave birth to a phenomenon that has spawned imitators, sequels, and pop-culture status.

And now, several years later, we have a sequel to what was perhaps a semi-joke game that has a devoted following. The challenge for Adult Swim was following up a game known for its over-the-top premise and difficulty. Fans may be disappointed that the universal Robot Unicorn Attack 2 for iOS isn't as difficult, but they certainly can't say the game is subtler.

The Robot Unicorn Attack world is as strange as ever. Full of rainbows, dolphins, floating space whales, and other leftovers of a seven-year-old’s fever dreams, the opening level of the game is everything that fans of the series would hope for. You get to frolic in a heavenly dreamscape until you violently die, your poor robot unicorn decapitated in an explosion of failure. Thus, ends your “wish,” or one of your three lives that you're given during each run.

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These days, it’s hard to imagine going on a camping trip or relaxing by the pool without our favorite tunes playing in the background. But when a battery-powered device is exposed to the elements, worries about damage are surely at the back of your mind. Luckily, a number of manufacturers have developed speakers with such use in mind. I tested nine rugged, Bluetooth-equipped speakers designed for portable use in electronics-hostile environments.

Of course, “rugged” is a vague term, but the industry has developed a specialized standard called Ingress Protection (IP). A product’s IP rating indicates how well that product’s enclosure resists solid particles (such as sand and dirt) and liquids (such as water).

In reviewing the Bluetooth speakers, I was particularly curious about sound quality, given their overall compact size—after all, a rugged speaker that sounds tinny and underpowered may not be a desirable tradeoff. I also gave consideration to each unit’s intended use: Some models forego toss-in-your-bag size in favor of bigger sound, making them more apt for poolside entertainment than a long hike in the woods, while some make too many compromises in the name of packability.

Braven BRV–1

Braven’s $180 BRV–1 (4.5 of 5 rating) is a relatively new addition to the company’s lineup of Bluetooth speakers that sports an IPX5 rating, which means it’s good enough to withstand rain, splashes, and jets of water, though not full immersion. The speaker, which comes in black with a blue or gunmetal finish, also sports a 3.5mm audio-in jack for connecting a non-Bluetooth source, although this requires opening a waterproofed port at the back, thereby reducing its water resistance.

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Chartsmith is a Mac app designed to do one thing, and only one thing: make charts. If your charting needs are casual and infrequent, this is not the app for you; you’ll be more than happy using Numbers, Excel, or any other spreadsheet to create the occasional chart. Conversely, you’d assume that if your chart needs are serious and frequent, Chartsmith would be the app to use, right? The answer to that question, unfortunately, isn’t an automatic yes.

Launching Chartsmith is a bit like stepping into a time machine: Chartsmith’s interface seems dated, with a two-window setup (plus a nearly-required Inspector window), a drawer for chart notes, and an odd toolbar-like thing that floats next to the chart window, yet is attached (with a delay) when you move the chart window around.

The flashback extends to the tutorials, too. Remember Aqua’s stripes and bright blue 3D-esque tab buttons? You’ll find them alive and well in the screenshots in the tutorials. (Thankfully, the app itself doesn’t share the appearance of the tutorial’s screenshots.) The whole thing just feels somewhat dated and dusty, though everything works.

Using Chartsmith is unlike using a spreadsheet to create charts. Once I learned the interface, though, Chartsmith was relatively easy to use. The aforementioned two windows contain the chart viewer (which holds the charts) and the data viewer (for entering/editing data), and the inspector is used to customize every element of your charts. The chart viewer window shows real-time changes as you make edits in the data viewer window, and you can change text (but not values) directly on the charts, if you prefer. Creating a chart is as simple as adding rows and columns in the data viewer, entering your data, and choosing a chart type. Want to change one bar of a three-bar chart to line? One click of a button in the data viewer window, and that task is done.

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The hallmark of the FlipStands tablet stand ($30 MSRP, but available online for under $15) is its versatility. Weighing just six ounces, this plastic stand provides 20 viewing angles plus a dedicated typing position, all in a package that folds flat for easy transport—it fits easily in a backpack, tote, shoulder bag, slip case, or brief case.

Looks are not the FlipStands' strong suit—made of black, heavy-gauge-plastic, it’s not designed to enhance your home decor. The stand features two thin, rubber bumpers across the back to keep your tablet from slipping around, as well as four rubber pads on the bottom. A pair of plastic brackets with rubberized interior ridges hold your tablet securely in either portrait or landscape orientation.

At 8 inches high by 5 inches wide (and just over 0.4 inches thick when folded up), the FlipStands can accommodate iPads and other tablets from 5 to 11 inches in size. The brackets are large enough to fit a tablet in a thin case.

If your tablet charges using a Lightning-connector or standard USB cable, a cutout just above the bracket is large enough to string that cable through to charge in portrait orientation. If you’ve got an older (30-pin-connector) iPad, you can still do this, but you’ll need to thread the cable through USB-end first—it’s easier to just connect the cable in landscape orientation.

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There’s an endless array of minimalist, “distraction free” text editors to capture notes and ideas, but what about more visual, free-form thoughts? Fapptory’s $7 Delineato Pro (Mac App Store link) is a new diagramming and mind-mapping Mac app with a clean design and lack of visual clutter.

Each Delineato Pro document starts fresh with a gray canvas that is limitless in size. There are five other themes to choose from, but they’re mostly similar. To add to the canvas, either double or right-click to bring up a palette of shapes and lines, then drag the desired object onto the canvas. A grid can be enabled to help you align objects.

There are two simple ways to connect shapes. You can just drop a line out of the palette, then drag each end to connect it to a shape. Alternatively, click on a shape, then drag on one of the pop-up arrows to draw a line to another shape. If you just drag a line out of a shape and drop it on a blank spot in the canvas, it will create another shape of the same type.

There are a number of shapes to choose from, like clouds, but there are also purpose-specific shapes intended for Concepts, Tasks, Ideas, and Notes. You also have a selection of lines to choose from, including my favorite, a curved line that makes just about any diagram look elegant.

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Animated GIFs—we’ve all seen plenty of them. They’ve become the de facto standard for Internet memes and funny animations, but they’re also useful as alternatives to short video files—any modern browser (or in-app Web view) displays animated GIFs, so you don’t need to worry about which video formats a particular browser supports. In fact, some software vendors have taken to using animated GIFs instead of videos for short demos.

But how do you make good animated GIFs? The easiest method I’ve found is the $5 GIF Brewery (Mac App Store link). This nifty utility is simple to use, yet it offers a slew of useful features for creating your own animated images.

To create an animated GIF, first you open your source video in GIF Brewery. The app works with any video format supported by QuickTime on your particular Mac, which means it also works with formats supported by QuickTime plug-ins you’ve installed. GIF Brewery presents an editing window that looks much like what you’d see in any standard video-editing app. Buttons in the toolbar let you resize and crop the video to best fit the size you want for your final animated image.

If you don’t want to use the entire video in your animated GIF, you simply drag the playhead to where you want your animation to start, and then click Set Start. Drag the playhead to where you want the animation to end, and then click Set End. (The app offers many keyboard shortcuts for editing your clip.) You can preview the video at any time by clicking the Play button; however, oddly, instead of playing just your selection, GIF Brewery plays the entire video. In addition, according to the developer, OS X limits the in-app preview of your animated GIF to 10 frames per second. To view the GIF at full framerate, you need to export it (see below) and then open it in your browser.

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Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

Wargame: European Escalation is a technically accomplished and challenging strategy game that will definitely appeal to hardened strategy gamers. But it could be a bit daunting for less experienced players.

The game is set in Europe during the period 1975 to 1985, when the Cold War was still very much alive and kicking. It presents you with a what-if scenario in which a minor skirmish on the border between East and West Germany escalates into all-out war between the Western forces of NATO and the Russian-led Warsaw Pact.

Focus Home Interactive

It’s an intriguing set-up, and the fact that it’s set only a few decades in the past allows the developers to use real news footage to set the scene and create an atmosphere of tension at the start of the game’s 22 missions. However, you are thrown into the action with very little help. The game does include a Skirmish mode where you can practice against the computer in small battles, but there’s no real tutorial to help you get started and we quickly found ourselves stumped by even simple tasks, such as troop selection and movement.

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Rokform’s $39 RokShield V3 case has rough and tough outsides that guard your iPhone 5 against bumps, falls, and scratches, thanks to its two-piece design and screen protectors. The case comes in seven two-toned color varieties; I reviewed the black-on-gunmetal model.

The RokShield V3 has a polycarbonate interior, and is surrounded by a removable rubber bumper that gives your iPhone a little extra protection around the sides and corners. When I put both the plastic case and the rubber bumper on my iPhone, I was disappointed to see the rubber bumper lift up in a few places—I couldn’t get it to sit perfectly flush with my iPhone, not matter how much I adjusted it.

Without the rubber bumper, the case did a fine job of protecting my iPhone from scratches. Adding the bumper just adds more insurance against damage if your iPhone falls and lands on one of its corners. With both pieces of the case on my iPhone, it felt well protected without being bulky. Rokform also includes two screen protectors to help shield it from nicks and scratches.

Unlike other rugged cases, such as Otterbox’s collection or the Case-Mate Tank, the V3 is a good option for those who like to use their iPhone with dock-cradle accessories. You can quickly remove the rubber bumper and slide off the bottom half of the case by unclipping it from the top half. It might take you a few extra seconds, but it beats taking your phone completely out of its case.

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If you’re looking for an iPad stand, you face a plethora of options and possible features. Will you be using the stand to hold the iPad for FaceTime and video viewing, or will you just be surfing and typing? Do you need to be able to prop up the iPad in both portrait and landscape orientations, or will one or the other suffice? Is one position enough, or do you need a stand that adjusts to multiple angles? Do you need a stand that will accommodate an iPad in a bulky case?

But perhaps the most important characteristic of an iPad stand is whether it’s made to stay on your desk or to be carried with you. I tested seven portable iPad stands small enough to fit in your laptop or tablet bag.

Maximo iU-AS1 iUp Anodized Aluminum Stand

Maximo’s $50 iU-AS1 iUp Anodized Aluminum Stand (3.5 of 5 rating) is constructed of brushed aluminum with nonskid silicone feet and protective silicone cushioning everywhere the iPad comes in contact with the stand. The iUp works with any iPad model, bare or in a slim case, and in landscape or portrait orientation. The iUp feels quite sturdy, and I was able to tap and type on the screen without fear of it toppling over.

The stand consists of two pieces that you can assemble in two different ways to get different angles: roughly 45 degrees or a more-upright 60 degrees. The former is comfortable for on-screen typing, while the latter is good for video-watching or working with an external keyboard.

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The iPad is a great device for reading. And there are a variety of apps focused solely on reading ebooks with the device—almost all of which work on the iPhone, too. So how do you judge a reading app? What are the criteria?

For me, I want an app with a pleasant reading experience—in other words, an app that gets out of the way and lets the words on the page shine. I also want an e-reading app to take advantage of the fact that it is an app: It should offer benefits like a built-in dictionary, easy and fast navigation and search, and customization options. And an ebook app is only as good as the content you put into it, so I want a store with a massive ebook selection, and one that’s ideally easy to browse from my iOS devices, too.

Amazon’s Kindle app shines on all those fronts. That’s why—despite competition from no lesser a giant than Apple—it’s still the best e-reading option in the App Store.

In terms of getting out of the way: Tap on a page as you read in the Kindle app, and all the accoutrement—the buttons, the progress bar, the whatnot—vanish. It’s just you and the book’s text.

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Back in the days of 56-kbps modems and 1.44MB floppies, compressing files was a necessity. These days, bandwidth and storage are less of a concern, but there are still reasons to package files into neat little bundles. A zip archive, for example, lets you attach a single “file” to an email message instead of tacking on multiple items. The zip file is smaller than the sum of those separate files—and it’s an industry standard that works across platforms.

OS X has long been able to uncompress zip files and some other archive types, using its built-in Archive Utility, but I’ve switched to The Unarchiver (Mac App Store link) because it supports more formats and offers easier customization options—and it’s just as free as Archive Utility.

When you launch The Unarchiver, its preferences window automatically opens to the Archive Formats tab. There you can see the software’s extensive format support, comprising 58 different file formats. Some, such as rar, are widely used, but you’ve probably never heard of some of the others—and are just as unlikely to encounter them.

This list is where you choose which formats you want The Unarchiver to handle. By default, zip and the other dozen or so other formats that OS X’s Archive Utility normally handles are unchecked, but by checking the box next to any of these, you can choose to have The Unarchiver deal with them instead. Handy 'Select All' and 'Deselect All' buttons let you make changes en masse.

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Cooler Master is known for its PC-cooling devices, but the company also makes laptop stands designed especially for the MacBook Pro. I’ve been using two of Cooler Master’s stands, the $70 Jas Pro and the $60 L-Stand.

Jas Pro

Made of aluminum, the Jas Pro matches the aesthetics of Apple’s MacBook Pro and feels solid. The stand has rubber strips so the metal of the MacBook Pro doesn’t rub against the metal of the stand.

Cooler Master

The Jas Pro is pretty basic and offers only height adjustability. I was able to adjust the stand so that the top of my 15-inch MacBook Pro’s screen lined up with the top of my 27-inch display. If you need to turn the laptop to the right or left, you turn the whole stand—rubber feet keep the stand from slipping. The Jas Pro folds into a compact package that makes it easy to put in a laptop bag.

While Cooler Master advertises the Jas Pro as a MacBook Pro stand, it works nicely as an iPad stand as well, especially if you’re using an external iPad keyboard.

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Thanks to an ever-growing, and increasingly diverse, array of apps for using your iPhone on the go—think GPS apps, cycling apps, and travel apps—one of the biggest questions iPhone owners have is, “How do I mount my iPhone [in my car/on my bike/wherever]?” The answer has generally been to buy a bike mount, and a car mount, and maybe even a separate dock or stand for your desk. Annex aims to fill all these needs with a single mounting system, and in my testing, it fits the bill.

The cases

The system starts with the company’s unique case: the $30 Quad Lock Case for iPhone 5 or the $25 Quad Lock Case for iPhone 4/4S. (I list individual component prices in this review, but Annex offers various packages that include multiple components at a discount. For example, the $70 Bike Mount Kit for iPhone 5 includes the aforementioned iPhone 5 case, the $30 Bike Mount Pro, and the $25 iPhone 5 poncho, discussed below.)

Though the two versions of the case differ slightly, they’re very similar, and each is a very good shell-style case. Made of semi-rigid polycarbonate, the case is easy to put on and take off, and shock-absorbing enough to protect the iPhone from drops, but thin enough that it doesn’t add a huge amount of bulk to your phone. The surface is tacky enough for a good grip, but not so much that the case is tough to slide out of your pocket. Around the edges, the case extends a good way past the front of the screen—more than with most shell cases—to help protect the screen if your phone ends up face-down.

But it’s the back of the case that makes it special. In the middle is a slightly raised section that hosts a recessed mount point—the Quad Lock Mounting System. This mount point looks like a circle with four notches spaced evenly around the perimeter. When attaching your phone to one of the Quad Lock mounts, you line up the mount’s four “teeth” with these notches, and then you rotate the encased phone 45 degrees to lock it in place. The design of the mounting system lets you attach your iPhone to a mount in any of four orientations.

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While I can't remember the last time I did any amount of pen-to-paper long-form writing (do signatures count?), it's hard to refute that Evernote’s free Penultimate for the iPad is a rather attractive concoction.

Evernote

This handwriting app doesn't try to be anything more than that: It’s a solid digital alternative to your old notebook and pen. But despite its simple functionality, Penultimate is incredibly elegant. Each virtual notebook is trussed up in digital leather and lined with your choice of paper: plain, lined, graph or whatever else you purchased from their store.  To navigate between pages, swipe along the bottom right corner in whichever direction you so desire.

With Penultimate, you won't get fancy features like decorative brushes or paint buckets; the tool set here is rather sparse. There is a pen (you can control the color and thickness of it), an eraser (you're stuck with the app’s default size), and a way to cut and paste elements from a page. You can also drag a photo from your Camera Roll onto your page. Penultimate is supposed to allow you to search for words you may have scribbled down, but so far, I haven't been able to convince search to work. (It could just be that I have terrible handwriting, of course.)

Bottom line

While there is plenty to like about the bare bones—yet elegant—Penultimate, it isn't perfect. You can't adjust the eraser diameter, use a zoom function, or rest your palm comfortably on the screen without causing unnecessary squiggles to happen. Still, for its unbeatable price, there’s not much more you ask of this little note-taking app.

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Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just plug a flash drive into your iPhone or iPad when you want to transfer a file or you’re short on storage? PhotoFast actually has one: The i-FlashDrive HD is a flash drive for the iPad, iPhone, and Mac.

The i-FlashDrive HD has a USB 2.0 connector on one side and a 30-pin connector on the other; it comes with a Lightning adapter for newer iOS models. PhotoFast offers four storage configurations, ranging from 8GB to 64GB.

PhotoFast

When you first use the i-FlashDrive HD, the device promptly takes you to the App Store in order to download the free app needed for viewing and transferring files. While I wasn’t keen on having to install a third-party app in order to view my files, it is necessary, and the app itself is an easy-to-use file viewer that allows access to the drive, and also comes with options to back up your contacts and to sync with a Dropbox account.

While in the app, you can encrypt any of the files on the drive by pressing the small padlock icon on the bottom right side of the screen. You’ll then be able to select which files to encrypt and set a password. Accessing the encrypted file is done by simply retyping the password that you created earlier. However, decrypting is only possible from the iOS app itself—trying to open the encrypted files from your computer won’t work. This is a nice little feature of the app that adds protection to the drive’s contents.

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We all receive photos—scads of photos—via email, many of which we ignore because they’re not worth the bandwidth. But what if you want to show your kid that cute picture of a cat dressed up as a scuba diver—the one you got some past Halloween from who knows whom? As time passes, it’s harder to sort out, much less find and archive, such images. That’s where the appropriately titled Lost Photos (Mac App Store link) comes in.

A lightweight utility from Space Inch, Lost Photos (free; $3 to download unlimited photos) has a fresh, clean interface. The app connects to your IMAP email accounts using a secure connection and extracts all the photos from each account quickly and efficiently. Just type your email address and password into the Lost Photos window, and the app sifts through every message on the server, scraping up any photos it finds and placing them into a folder, named for that email account, on your drive for later viewing. (The app does not remove images from the mail server; it just finds and downloads them.)

The app provides some simple filters to help spare you the agony of viewing every company logo and headshot you receive: For example, the program can skip images under 8KB, as well as GIF files. (In my testing, it took about 25 minutes for the app to crawl through some 1300 email messages with these two options enabled.) You can also choose to ignore any images received before a particular date—so, for example, you can have Lost Photos search only messages received in the past two years.

Once Lost Photos finishes its search, the app offers buttons for adding all found images to iPhoto or showing your found photos in the Finder (where you can choose to manually import only some of them to iPhoto). You also get buttons for posting your found scuba-kitty image to Twitter or Facebook, emailing it to your friends, or posting it on Flickr.

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It’s easy—and cheap—to stick with the native apps that Apple installs on its iOS devices. But sometimes third-party apps are heads-and-shoulders above what’s already on offer. Buzz Contacts, a $1 offering from Savvy Apps, is in that category: Simply put, it blows Apple’s native Contacts app away.

When I first reviewed Buzz Contacts last year, I loved it, particularly praising the ways it makes emailing groups on the iPhone easier. But I also suggested that “for people who use their phone mainly as a phone—that is, to make voice calls—there’s not much here the iPhone doesn’t already offer.” That’s no longer true, as the app has updated its dialing function in clever ways, and now reads your habits to put your most-frequent contacts right at your fingertips.

Better contacts organization

In the native Contacts app, there are two groups of people: Your favorites, and, well, everybody else. Buzz Contacts lets you organize your contacts (for phone, email, FaceTime, and SMS) into as many different kinds of groups as you wish—friends, family members, clients at specific companies, or any other preference you have. This makes it really easy send out bulk emails or SMS messages directly to an entire group, without taking time to add each name and number individually to the message.

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As a MacBook Pro user, I can attest to the hassle of plugging and unplugging keyboards, headphones, ethernet cables, and external hard drives every time I arrive at and leave the office. The Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock should make things a bit easier: With just a single Thunderbolt cable (not included, unfortunately), this dock allows you to connect a deskful of peripherals to a Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook.

At its list price of $300, the Thunderbolt Express Dock isn’t cheap, but you do get lots of ports. The second of the two Thunderbolt ports gives you the ability to add up to five more Thunderbolt devices to the dock by daisy-chaining them together. This Belkin dock also has three USB 3.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, a gigabit ethernet port, and audio-in and -out ports.

Mike Homnick

I was able to connect gigabit ethernet, a FireWire 800 drive, a USB thumb drive, and a pair of headphones to the dock, all at the same time. As for Thunderbolt devices, I connected a LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series hard drive to an Apple LED Cinema Display, using a Mini DisplayPort connector attached to the drive’s second Thunderbolt port.

When I connected a Thunderbolt cable from a MacBook Air to the Thunderbolt Express Dock, all the drives mounted on the desktop automatically, the keyboard and mouse were recognized, the Cinema Display turned on with the proper resolution, and I was able to connect to the network through the gigabit ethernet connection. When it’s quitting time, you unmount the drives, disconnect the single Thunderbolt cable that connects the dock to the Mac (and the power cable), and you’re ready to hit the road.

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If you’re looking for a slim, minimalist folio-style case with a built-in stand, you may want to check out Moshi’s $45 Concerti for the iPad mini. The Concerti is a pretty, soft-to-the-touch case that protects your mini’s screen and back, and also lets you position the mini at multiple angles in landscape orientation.

The outside of the Concerti is made with Moshi’s special “Terahedron microfiber” material, which feels and acts a lot like suede. The front of the Concerti has a small, metal Moshi logo, and the case is held closed with a thick gray strap. The Concerti comes in just one color: falcon gray.

The Concerti is a little different from other folio-style cases in that it opens from left to right, which feels a bit backwards. This design choice was probably made to allow the inner part of the case to bend back and allow access to the back camera, but it is a little disconcerting at first. The cover has a magnet installed to take advantage of the iPad mini’s magnetic Sleep/Wake feature.

When you open the Concerti, you’ll find a slim, black silicone shell that holds your mini in place. The shell is thin and flexible, which makes it easy to put on and take off of the iPad. The shell is only attached to the Concerti’s hard cover on the left side, so you can bend back the cover and use the mini’s rear-facing camera (though this is a bit awkward). The case leaves access to all ports: there are cutouts for the back camera, orientation-lock/mute switch, headphone jack, microphone, speakers, and Lightning port; there are press-through rubber button overlays for the Sleep/Wake and volume buttons.

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I’m no graphic designer or image manipulation pro. I mean, I know my way around Photoshop well enough to smudge out a birthmark or to create a graphic for a Macworld story, but I’m not a power user. That’s why I’ve long preferred to leave Photoshop sitting silently in my Applications folder, while Flying Meat’s Acorn takes up residence in my Dock.

At its traditional price of $50, Acorn has never aimed to be a Photoshop replacement. Instead, it’s a Photoshop alternative. The developer describes the app as an image editor “built for humans,” and that description fits. Though Photoshop offers far more features, Acorn is no slouch: It supports layers, masks, alphas, and multistop gradients; it can import and export files in PSD (Photoshop) format; and it’s fully optimized for Retina displays, too.

With the release of Acorn 4, the app gains nondestructive filters; faster and smoother drawing tools; new shapes like curves, arrows, and stars; and some 150 other performance improvements and added features. These additions have the interesting, double-faceted effect of making the app both impressively more powerful and decidedly simpler for folks like me.

The basics

Acorn’s interface gets an overhaul in version 4. No longer are the drawing and editing tools coupled in a squat palette with their options, your layers, and everything else. Instead, there’s a narrow palette with drawing tools, a separate one with tool options and layers, and, of course, a stand-alone canvas.

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Reallusion’s CrazyTalk7 Pro is a powerful image morphing and character animation application with an easy-to-use interface that is fun and rewarding for hobbyists and professionals alike. Select any photo or illustration as your subject, and with just a few clicks, you can bring it to life by making it move and talk.

You can use prerecorded voice scripts and animation settings to apply to your own model, import recorded audio clips, or record your own right in the software. You can even use Apple’s Text to Speech features and write the script you want your characters to say.

CrazyTalk7, which has just come to the Mac after being a Windows-only program for a number of years, is available in two versions: Standard and Pro. The standard version ($30) is the only one available in the Mac App Store. However the Pro version ($150), reviewed here, is available via the Reallusion website.

The Pro version of CrazyTalk7 has more features and advanced controls than the standard version, and gives you a broader range of muscle/motion controls and key animation choices. Plus it makes available additional bonus materials such as motion templates and special character models. The Pro version also lets you use multiple audio tracks and apply more expressive facial and mouth characteristics with the program's Auto Motion feature. It  lets you create and save custom puppet profiles and provides detailed face key editing for better lip-syncing.

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For folks who want to digitize every paper note, receipt, or bill, a dedicated scanner—preferably one with a duplexing automatic document feeder—is a must. But if you aren’t a hardcore paper-hater and you occasionally need to get the contents of printed material into your computer, you may not need a dedicated scanner that takes up precious desk space. Instead, you can use an app like Prizmo 2. With Prizmo you use your iPhone camera, point and shoot camera, or DSLR to capture images of documents, and then the software uses optical character recognition (OCR) to turn the scans into editable text. Prizmo also works with scanner that lacks OCR capabilities from companies like Brother, Canon, Xerox, Lexmark, Epson, and HP.

Scanners have flatbeds or feeders that help keep pages straight, flat, and in focus. But images of documents captured with a camera can have problems—they can be crooked, have the wrong exposure, or be distorted—which makes it difficult for OCR software to correctly recognize the scanned letters. Even images that you takes pictures of can suffer from barrel distortion or be trapezoidal. Prizmo has many tools to help fix these common problems. You can open images already captured in Prizmo, or you can attach your iPhone or iPad to your Mac and, if Prizmo is on and active, photos taken with your iOS device will show up automatically in the application.

Prizmo has a clean, modern user interface. When you first launch the application and select new document, a large grey window appears that invites you to drop pictures onto it, or to click one of three icons to open an existing image file, import from a camera or scanner, or to browse your image libraries.

A dark grey tool bar sits along the bottom of the application window, the contents of which changes depending on the file type that you’ve chosen to work with: Text, Business Card, or Image. The tools on the toolbar let you rotate and crop the images and adjust the brightness, contrast, sharpness, and saturation of images to make them easier for the OCR engine to recognize. You can even calibrate your camera using Prizmo to improve the quality of the images captured. Once you’ve processed the scan, click on the toolbar’s Export icon to send the text to Mail, Evernote, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, WebDAV, or a document saved in iCloud.

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The original Magicka, Arrowhead Studios' inaugural release for Windows PCs, was—for a while—the best possible excuse for killing your friends. It is a comical action-adventure game that features full-out friendly fire, a gaggle of wizards, a surprisingly robust spell system that allowed you to mix and match elements at will, and more downloadable content that you could ever shake a stick at.

Paradox Interactive's $2 Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet for the iPad is exactly like its PC counterpart—except that it’s a little more streamlined, a little more cartoony, and missing an entire dimension. Plus, it’s optimized for mobile platforms. The basic premise is still the same: you're a wizard of dubious competence who must go out and remove a particularly obnoxious plot, possibly with an entourage of friends. No, the plot isn't particularly inspired, but few, if any, have ever messed around with the Magicka series because of its narrative.

Like its predecessor, Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet is best completed alone and best played with friends. The control system is wonderfully intuitive to work with. To move, you tap on a desired location on the screen. To cast a spell, you hit any combination of the seven elemental icons at the bottom of your window. Depending on what elements you've put together, you might find yourself doing everything from summoning a massive thunderbolt from the sky to healing a boss to setting your teammates ablaze. The possibilities are, while not limitless, certainly extensive.

What makes all of this better are the restrictions and the ways the elements interact with one another. For example, if you first take the time to soak a foe (or a friend), you'll be able to freeze them instead of simply slowing them down with a dusting of ice. Did you accidentally set yourself on fire? Be certain to douse yourself or risk taking slow, continuous damage. Naturally, some elements exist in direct opposition with another. If you try to mash Lightning and Water together, the attempt will fizzle out.

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Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

Typical—you wait ages for a good racing game and then three come along at once. They’re all from the same company too, as Feral brought F1 2012 and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing to the Mac recently. Grid allows you to take part in a wider range of races on professional race tracks or on ordinary streets in various locations around the world.

The start of the game is a bit of a shock. There’s no tutorial and you are thrown into a rookie race that you have to complete in order to earn your racing license. The starter car for this race seems extremely sensitive at first and even a slight tap of the left or right keys on your keyboard can send you screeching into the barriers at the side of the track. A gamepad might provide smoother controls, if you’ve got one available.

It doesn’t take long to get the hang of the controls, and Grid also includes a “flashback” option that lets you to rewind the action to just before a bad crash. You can try again without having to replay the entire race from the beginning.

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The first thing I noticed about Mapi’s $90 Orion case for the iPhone 5 is its stylish look, with a soft leather exterior and leathery smell. Upon closer inspection, however, I found that the case emphasizes style over protection, and the high-quality feel is limited to its looks. I reviewed a red Orion, but you have your choice between white, black, brown, or tan as well.

Mapi’s Orion covers your iPhone enough to protect against scratches and nicks, but won’t stave off damage if your iPhone slips out of your hands and hits a hard surface. The case is too bulky to easily fit in a smaller pants pocket, so it’s best suited for people who keep their iPhone in a bag or purse.

To install the case, you slide your iPhone in from the bottom and wrap a small flap around the bottom of the phone. At first, I seriously questioned that this small, wrap-around tab could stop my iPhone from falling out, but no matter how much I shook the case, my iPhone wouldn’t budge. There’s no way to use the iPhone with a dock-cradle accessory while in the case, but it’s easy to slide out the phone to dock.

The Orion has a front flap that covers the bottom of the iPhone and its screen when not in use, and is held in place by two magnets at the top of the case. Unfortunately, the magnets feel weak and don’t do a great job of holding on to the flap when you slide your phone into a pocket. There is a small cutout to plug in headphones with the flap covering the phone, but the flap either gets in the way or just unplugs your headphones if you try to use your iPhone at the same time.

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Many folks loathe the latest version of Skype on the Mac. That’s because it’s clunky and unpleasant to use. The iPhone version of Skype, however, is a fine app that works great for making VoIP calls and video chats while you’re mobile.

Annoyingly, the app does contain ads. But they’re easy enough to avoid.

Once you’ve logged into your Skype account, the app by default shows all your Skype contacts. I prefer to just see who’s online right now; fortunately, Skype makes changing that list easy—though it doesn’t always seem to remember my preference between relaunches.

Tap on a contact, and you can place a video or voice call, send an IM, or send a photo or video message.

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