There’s certainly no shortage of password managers for OS X—there’s even a basic one (Keychain Access) built into the OS, and the next versions of OS X and iOS will include a cross-device-syncing option. But rather than over-saturating the market, these apps are catering to different kinds of users—and that can only be good news if it means better security for more people.

A case in point is Lunabee’s $13 OneSafe (Mac App Store link), one of a genre of apps designed to keep your personal information safe from prying eyes while making it readily available when you need it. (I review the OS X version here, but a $6 iOS version is also available—your data synchronizes between devices over iCloud.)

Setting up OneSafe is a simple process; a quick wizard walks you through the process of choosing how you’ll unlock your password database. Unlike most of its competitors, which support only passphrase-based unlocking, OneSafe offers a choice of four unlocking mechanisms: a four-digit PIN, a full passphrase, a pattern-drawing keypad similar to the one implemented by some versions of Android, and a set of four combination-lock wheels. (To help you if you forget your combination or password, OneSafe allows you to choose two security questions, although these are optional.)

Giving users multiple options is a great idea, particularly for those who suffer from disorders like dyscalculia, or people who simply have a hard time remembering complicated passwords. Still, I’m not a fan of the app offering a four-digit PIN as an option, given the weak level of security it provides.

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If you like Lightroom 4, you’re probably going to appreciate version 5 even more. The latest iteration of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom introduces a new set of well-thought-out features while maintaining snappy performance. Our stock MacBook Pro 15-inch Retina Display laptop had no trouble importing large raw files, scrolling through hundreds of thumbnails, or applying sophisticated image edits. In other words, Adobe kept its house in order during this refresh.

Some of the touted new features, such as Smart Previews and Upright, are quite innovative. Others are refinements to existing tools. Some of my favorite improvements didn’t even make the top five list, yet make a noticeable difference in my interaction with the application.

Full Screen Preview is an excellent example. Now, when you press the F key, your image is presented to you in true full screen with a solid background. It’s beautiful. No more cycling through full-screen modes hoping to get what you want, but never receiving it.

Lightroom 5 can now handle PNG files alongside common formats such as JPEGs and TIFFs. And a new -Q shortcut lets you toggle back and forth between Clone and Heal spot-removal modes. These are part of Adobe's signature Just Do It improvements that make image management a little more enjoyable.

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iChat’s transformation into Messages was not exactly welcomed with open arms by Mac users everywhere. Some find the integration between iMessages and instant messages clunky; others have experienced a lot of flakiness (some of which Apple claims to have fixed in a recent OS X update); and yet more don’t like the app’s search functionality.

It’s the last of these that Fantastical maker Flexibits has focused on with its newest app, Chatology. The software aims to revitalize the Messages search feature, providing advanced functionality that makes it even easier to find the messages that you’re looking for.

Though it’s a standalone app, Chatology does integrate with Messages; when you install it, the app hijacks Messages’s Command-F shortcut. Use that key combination and Chatology launches automatically. (If you’d rather it only launch manually, you can deactivate that feature in Chatology’s preferences—in fact, it’s the only option there.)

Searching in Chatology is much like searching in messages. Enter a search term in the field in the top right of the window, and you’ll be presented with a list of results that match. When you enter the search term, the app also lets you choose to search for conversations that contain that term or places where that term appears as a name—for example, I can search for chats about my friend Evan or chats from my friend Evan.

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For those familiar with the TextExpander 4 for Mac utility, it may come as no surprise that Smile Software offers a $5 iOS version of the app called TextExpander touch. While some may have been disappointed by TextExpander touch version 1’s limited feature set when compared with the Mac version, Smile has recently released TextExpander 2, a huge upgrade that has added support for more advanced “macros” and “fill-in” fields, putting it nearly on par with the latest Mac version.

In TextExpander’s terms, a macro is a placeholder that inserts variable information (like the current date, the contents of the clipboard, performing a math calculation, or moving the cursor) into an expanded snippet. A fill-in field tells TextExpander to pause while expanding the snippet so that you can fill in variable information yourself. TextExpander’s macros allow you to build some very powerful snippets.

Here’s one small example from my snippet library. I store just about everything on my Mac in plain text files that sync to Dropbox, where I can access them from my iPhone and iPad using any of a variety of Dropbox-powered text editors. I store my business expenses in one of these files, and I use the following snippet to enter an expense:

Date: %Y-%m-%d%|
Project: %filltext:name=project%
Amount: $%filltext:name=amount%
Mileage: %filltext:name=mileage% miles
Purpose: %fillarea:name=purpose%
Billable: %fillpopup:name=billable:default=Yes:No%

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Armor Games' Kingdom Rush for iOS was a challenging, charming, and moderately deep real-time strategy experience. Enemies and the soldiers you hired to kill them were adorably caricatured, and you could easily whittle away hours at a time coming up with the best strategy for stopping your foes. Kingdom Rush Frontiers, the sequel (spin off? successor?) to Kingdom Rush landed earlier this month and brought with it a number of improvements that help make it one of the best tower defense games on mobile.

Fans of Kingdom Rush will be very familiar with Frontiers’ gameplay. You can think of Frontiers as the Angry Birds: Seasons of the Kingdom Rush franchise: it’s more remix than innovation. Still, if you liked the frenetic strategy, endearing artwork, and memorable personalities of the first game, you’ll enjoy Kingdom Rush Frontiers as well.

As in the original title, you’re commanding an army of cartoon soldiers as they seek to defend their lands. You’ll get mission briefs and updates on the story—something about evil tribesman invading—then you’ll deploy towers to kill them all. The tribesman/cannibal enemies are perhaps not as well-worn as the high fantasy enemies the first game utilized, but the "evil tribesman" plotline feels a bit tone-deaf and borderline offensive.

The campaign appears a bit scattered at points too, introducing gimmicky enemies that are hard to kill (teleporting, laser-gun toting) and break from both the overall medieval theme and the rock-paper-scissors combat mechanic Armor Games perfected in the original game. The jokes and easter-eggs are equally anachronistic, but they’re still a highlight—look for an Indiana Jones reference in one of the temple stages and an exceptionally fun pirate-themed stage (with requisite Pirates of the Caribbean jokes).

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The Star Trek universe is appealing in many ways: there’s a frontier of outer space with thousands of planets, a virtually limitless number of aliens, a galactic federation dedicated to peace. (Also: big space ships and funny costumes.) But its concepts of freedom, commanding a ship and crew, and going on adventures appeal to almost everyone. Those ideas make up the main premise of $3 Star Command, an adorable, challenging, and addictive sci-fi strategy game loosely based on Star Trek itself.

You're not tasked with boldly going where no one has gone before. Instead, you have the more cliché task of helping Earth's fleet defend its borders and ultimately save humanity. You're given a ship and a crew, and you’ll learn to utilize both to fight off enemies over several missions.

Make no mistake: from retro pixelated crewmembers to the dialogue choices, this game is a love letter to Star Trek. The most obvious example is how you organize your crew, who can be assigned to one of three classes, distinguished by the color of their uniforms. The red shirts operate the ship's guns, armory, and bridge. They're also your first line of defense against any enemy invaders beaming onto your ship (yes: they die a lot). Yellow shirts, meanwhile, are engineers who operate your “dodge” drive (a sci-fi tool that allows you to dodge enemy attacks), sentry robots, and engines. They're useless in combat, but can repair any damage your ship takes once they don their adorable little welding masks. Finally, there are blue shirts, which are your science officers. They maintain your ships’ shields and medical bay, but essentially they're a healer class.

Combat in Star Command has a steep learning curve and a huge list of things to pay attention to, but once you get the hang of it, you only wish there was more to do and things to fight, which is, in short, the mark of a great game. Through combat, you earn tokens, which serve as Star Command’s in-game currency. At first, this combat is overwhelming, and not entirely well explained; just when I had gotten used to ordering my crew around, I was thrown into battle and had to manage about a dozen different things at the same time. You have to dodge, use shields, brandish weapons, and take care of your crew simultaneously.

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Most of the products Apple announced at WWDC won’t ship until later this year, but the new MacBook Air models are here. The MacBook Air didn’t undergo a dramatic, Mac Pro-like redesign—all of the changes to the MacBook Air are hidden under the hood. Even compared to last year’s MacBook Air—which brought Thunderbolt and USB 3.0—this new Air is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Mike Homnick

Haswell inside

The biggest change in this iteration of Apple’s most portable of portables is the inclusion of Intel’s latest generation of Core processors, code named Haswell. These fourth-generation Core processors replace the Ivy Bridge processors in last year’s MacBook Air. The Haswell processors require less power than Ivy Bridge, which improves battery life in portable computers like the MacBook Air.

Haswell also includes new integrated graphics in the form of the Intel HD Graphics 5000, which Apple says provides 40 percent higher performance than the HD Graphics 4000 used in Ivy Bridge processors.

The new MacBook Airs all support the new 802.11ac wireless networking standard, and the flash storage has also been improved, with higher capacities on the 11-inch models and faster performance across the line.

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Ten One Design’s $50 Magnus Low-Profile Magnetic Stand for iPad holds your tablet in place using magnets, and the nifty design of the stand means that with your iPad (2 or later) in the stand, the thin aluminum base of this low-profile stand is literally all you see from the front or side—it appears to any observer as if your iPad is standing up all by itself. The stand itself blends into the iPad so organically that unless you look very hard, there’s no obvious point at which the tablet ends and the stand begins. It's minimalist design to the max.

The Magnus is machined from recyclable aluminum, nickel-plated neodymium, and recyclable plastics. (The packaging is also made from recyclable materials.) Customized magnets are hidden in the base—these grab the iPad’s Smart Cover magnets for a secure grip—and rubberized feet on the bottom keep the stand from sliding around. The whole thing is hand-finished.

Despite its small size, the Magnus is still a bit hefty and chunky, as it’s designed to stay put rather than be transported. It works best with a bare iPad, but the magnets are strong enough that you can also use the stand with a very slim protective skin on your tablet.

It’s easy to get caught up in the coolness factor of this stand. It works well and it’s very stylish. But it’s a one-note performance: There's only a single landscape-orientation viewing angle (roughly 80 degrees), and while you can prop up your iPad in portrait orientation, you forego the stability of the stand’s magnets (since only the left-hand edge of the iPad has magnets). So for doing anything other than passively viewing the iPad’s screen, you’ll want to seat your iPad sideways.

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Four years ago, we reviewed Mailplane 2, the first dedicated Gmail client that avoided traditional IMAP and POP approaches to Gmail, opting instead for standard browser technology under the hood. The result was an app that gave you the benefits of “real” Gmail with the advantages of a native Mac app.

Like that version, Mailplane 3 beautifully transforms Google’s webmail service into a full-fledged desktop app, with an impressive interface and well-thought-out features. But it’s not the only game in town these days—and many traditional email clients now handle Gmail better—so whether you’re willing to spend $25 for slightly more functionality than what is already offered through your Web browser may depend on just how much you love Gmail.

I briefly used Mailplane 2.5 a few months back, and Mailplane 3 represents a huge, applause-worthy improvement. Not only does it work flawlessly with Gmail’s recent interface updates, but it’s also considerably more polished in its look and feel than previous Mailplane versions. Big, friendly icons highlight the program’s sleek, silver look, and Mailplane 3 boasts numerous improvements beyond its surface appeal.

Like its predecessor, Mailplane ties Gmail neatly into the rest of the Mac OS. You can import up to ten different accounts, use Mac-friendly keyboard shortcuts, and add recipients to a new message by picking from your contacts.

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Though not specifically made for the iPad mini, STM’s $25 Blazer D7 Sleeve fits the tablet well, is light (just five ounces), and offers solid protection you can carry alone or inside another bag. The zippered, water-resistant case is lined with soft material over thick, high-density foam, and it’s large enough to accomodate an iPad mini clad in a Smart Cover or other thin case.

On the outside, you’ll find a handle, attachments for the included removeable shoulder strap, a slip pocket on the back for small (folded-8.5-by-11-inch) documents, and a zippered pocket on the front for accessories and a smartphone.—Dan Frakes

Literature and Latte's $15 Scapple is a unique amalgamation of productivity tools from the folks who brought us the amazing Scrivener () writing app. The developers describe Scapple as a freeform, nonlinear, mind-mapping text editor—unlike most mind-mapping software, there’s no suggested hierarchy and no set system for capturing ideas.

The app starts you off with a blank canvas. Double-click anywhere to add a new note. To connect notes, just drag and drop one onto the other. If you change your mind, you can repeat that process to disconnect the two notes. The default connection is a simple dotted line, but if you’d rather have a directional arrow, hold down the Option key as you drag and drop. If you’d rather the arrow point the other way, instead hold Command+Option. If you prefer an arrow that points both ways, hold down Shift+Command.

In addition to connecting notes, a feature typical of mind-mapping software, you can also stack notes to form lists. After typing a note, press Shift+Return to create a new note stacked underneath. To stack existing notes, you just drag to select them, and then either choose Notes -> Stack, or press Command+’ (apostrophe). You use the same procedure for adding a note to an existing stack: Just select the stack and the note and then use the Stack command.

Oddly, you also use this procedure to reorder a stack: First you select the note just above the place in the stack you want the moved note to go, then you select the note you want to move, and then you use the Stack command. I find this process to be annoying, as I’d much rather simply drag and drop notes to rearrange them.

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Despite being told we shouldn’t, many people use their email messages as glorified to-do lists: We note the bills we have to pay, the calls we have to make, the messages we must respond to—and all with our own crazy system. Mail Pilot for iOS offers one solution to the email organization mess by letting you choose when to deal with your new messages, rather than where to put them.

The app operates under the conceit that all messages arriving in your inbox are “Incomplete,” whether they’ve been read or not. Once they arrive, you can do one of four things: file it away for another day, file it away indefinitely, send it to a specific Mail Pilot list, or mark it as done, archived, or deleted. Mail Pilot’s user interface is full of tiny icons and fancy gestures that allow you to perform these actions; swipe to the right, for example, to set aside the message by a specific number of days. Other gestures include swiping to the left (to mark multiple messages), tapping the small arrow below each message (to reveal icons for scheduling, sending to a list, archiving, or deleting emails), or dragging down to refresh.

Unfortunately, Mail Pilot’s innovative design falls a bit short when coupled with the underlying framework of the app. Simply put, the mail servers the app communicates with often have trouble knowing when or where I categorized a message; most messages move without complaint, but 10 to 15 percent of my emails had trouble getting from my Inbox/Incomplete list to their final destination—not a great feature for an email app.

I suspect this isn’t entirely Mail Pilot’s fault—the app’s special “filing system” is really just a set of folders in your email account, and its communication problems sound like an IMAP issue, not an app one. But any missing email is a little scary, especially when there’s no option for undoing your selection.

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Standzout's $100 Standzfree Telescoping Floor Stand for iPad is a tall, upright stand that lets you get your iPad off your desk or table and position it virtually anyplace in your home or office. With its long, flexible extender (which looks something like a gooseneck lamp, only somewhat stiffer), it gives you myriad of ways to position your tablet, and a telescoping tube extends the stand from 36 to 48 inches in height. (You’ll likely bend the neck at least somewhat, taking a few inches off the total height.)

The Standzfree best-suited for passive viewing of your iPad’s screen: watching videos or reading in bed (especially while lying down), sitting on the couch, standing with your instrument in front of musical notation, on the exercise bike, and in other situations where you want to view your iPad close up without having to hold it. That said, the Standzfree is acceptably stable for typing and swiping, if required—the six-pound stand is sturdy, and the weighted, V-shape base does not budge, even on thick carpet.

Like a piece of assemble-at-home furniture, the Standzfree ships in a long box; you unpack and assemble the pieces. This was a very simple procedure—I didn’t need the directions to figure out what went where. A plastic ball joint at the top of the stand fits into the socket on the back of the frame, with a screw cap holding them together. You loosen this screw cap to adjust the position of the tablet in an infinite number of ways—landscape, portrait, or anything in between.

However, as with some of the DIY furniture I’ve used, everything wasn’t perfectly clear when it came to using the stand. Specifically, I had some questions as to how to get the adjustable-height tube section working properly. The answer: Make sure that the first time you adjust the height, you move the inner ring that's on the goose neck part of the stand. Doing so requires removing the ring from the telescoping base, and moving it with your hand. When you place the ring back in the base, it's then easy to adjust the height of the stand and use the screw cap to tighten it in position.

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Incipio's $35 LGND for the third- and fourth-generation iPad is a folio-style case with a unique design, somewhat resembling a more conservative version of Moshi's VersaCover Origami. Though the folding configurations aren't as robust as some other cases, you do get a decent variety in a slim package.The LGND is available in two materials, vegan leather and Nubuck suede, and also a modest selection of colors (black, navy blue, gray, pink, or red).

All of the iPad's ports, buttons, and speakers are left exposed for easy access, and keeping the case's cover out of the way while taking pictures with the back camera is a piece of cake. The hardshell that protects the iPad's back is covered with the same material as the cover; I didn't like the all-around texture at first, but it grew on me the more I used the LGND. This material softens impacts, and when you place your iPad on a hard surface it doesn't slide around.

The cover is foldable along some unconventional paths, and you can prop your iPad up in one angle for typing and another for landscape-orientation viewing. Both require the same fold, in which you sort of pop the corners in along the cover's diagonal creases. Once folded, magnets hidden in the cover will keep the fold in place. This will give you a 20-degree prop for typing, and if you flip your iPad around you can stand it up for landscape viewing at 45-degrees.

Albert Filice

While I quite like the feel of the cover material, I found that it gets scratched when carrying it in a bag and with general use. My short fingernails could easily leave what seem like permanent marks on the cover, and I lost a small chunk early on. Granted, this doesn't stop the case from doing its job—my iPad showed no signs of bumps or bruises—just keep in mind that the LGND shows wear fairly easily. (I tested the Nubuck suede version, so perhaps the vegan leather case might be more durable.)

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There are so many email applications available that any newcomer has to have a nifty addition to stand out from the App Store crowd. Recent products like Triage and Mailbox, which both feature intuitive tools for getting down to “inbox zero,” fulfill this promise. Another new offering—Evomail, a $3 iPad app for Gmail users—is competent, but it’s barely distinguishable from Gmail’s own, free iOS client.

I spent some time with Evomail when it first launched, and found several similarities between Evomail and Gmail. Both apps let you access multiple Gmail accounts, search your entire mail archives, see threaded conversations and profile pictures, and send attachments more easily than Apple’s native Mail app.

Evomail has a couple of things, though, that Gmail doesn’t, gestures being the most noticeable. Swipe an email from right to left, and you’re given the option of releasing a reply to the original sender; pull a little further to reply to everybody in the recipient list. There are also social media functions: Emails can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, or SMS. Evomail also color codes any custom-created sub-mail boxes in Gmail, which is pretty handy.

Are those differences enough to justify the $3 difference between Evomail and Gmail’s free app? Not to me. Except for the color-coded folders, I’m not likely to use the available gestures, nor the social media options—but your mileage may vary.

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Computers are a great way to keep all your data in one place—and none more so than the myriad notes you may take throughout your life. Things like your family’s health history, your interactions with clients and contractors, or even just details about that upcoming family trip are—in principle—easy to jot down into a text file using nothing more than the free tools that come with most modern operating systems.

The problem with that approach is that the information you gather with it tends to “rot” over time: unless you are very careful about keeping things organized, individual files are often buried inside complex directory structures, forgotten and lost during system upgrades, and so on.

Tropical Software’s TopXNotes (Mac App Store link) aims to solve these issues by creating a centralized location where you can store and categorize all your information, focusing on strong features that span across multiple platforms.

Note taking, evolved

TopXNotes’s interface has a strong Mac vibe to it; unlike so many apps these days that have embraced a minimalistic look in an attempt to help the user focus on a single task, it embraces a classic OS X window structure, with plenty of functionality at your fingertips. I originally thought that this would make the app feel dated, but I didn’t take me long to realize that a lot of thought has gone into organizing the structure of the main window so that it would be easy to use without requiring digging through dozens of menus to find the one feature you’re looking for.

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Twelve South's $35 SurfacePad is a sleek and elegant looking cover for your iPhone 5 that doubles as a stand. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much going for it apart from looks—it fell apart on me relatively quickly, and provides little to no protection from drops.

Made from soft leather, the SurfacePad covers both the front and back of your iPhone. It has a folio-style cover that flips back when you need to use your iPhone's display, and that cover can fold into a stand for propping your phone up in landscape-orientation as well. It's available in three solid colors: red, white, or black.

Albert Filice

The SurfacePad leaves all of your iPhone's buttons and ports accessible to use. The volume buttons and Ring/Silent switch are hidden by the case's front cover, and while the volume buttons are easy to use, the Ring/Silent switch is a different story: you'll have to flip the case open to reliably get at it. The back camera is also exposed via a small cutout in the back of the case.

Applying the SurfacePad to your iPhone is a bit different from other cases. You attach the cover like a sticker, affixing it to the back of your iPhone. Careful now, as you'll want to line it up just right. It took me two tries to get it done, but it seems like the adhesive held up fine after peeling the whole case off. Your milage may vary, but I'm not a fan of this adhesive approach.

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For a while, Apple has been selling two generations of iPod touch side by side: the 16GB and 32GB, 3.5-inch, Retina display fourth-generation versions and the 32GB and 64GB, 4-inch, Retina fifth-generation models. That confusion finally ended when Apple recently introduced a 4-inch 16GB iPod touch and in the process killed off the older fourth-generation for good.

Did I say the confusion ended? Well, sort of. In most ways, the $229 16GB fifth-generation iPod touch is identical to the 32- and 64GB fifth-generation models released in October 2012. It has the same 4-inch Retina display, the same dual-core A5 processor, the same front-facing FaceTime HD camera (with its 1.2-megapixel photos and 720p video capabilities), the same bundled Lightning cable and remote-less EarPods, and the same dimensions. The 16GB model is in fact notable only for what it lacks: It offers no rear-facing iSight camera, no strap post (and therefore no strap), and no choice in colors (this model comes only with a black face and silver back).

Given that it has no new or improved capabilities over its higher-capacity siblings, your buying choice is nicely narrowed down to just a few factors: Money, storage space, and what you want from an iPod touch’s camera.

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Many Mac users whose relationship with the Mac predates Mac OS X retain an affection for macro utilities—applications that let you string together a series of actions, and summon those macros with a click or a key press to automate repetitive tasks. Chief among them was QuicKeys, an application passed from company to company before finally coming to rest (and currently in deep hibernation) with Startly Technologies.

With the decline of QuicKeys and the arrival of new users who are generally unaware of utilities of its ilk, macro utilities seem to have dropped off the radar during the past few years. And that’s regrettable, particularly when one as useful, powerful, and affordable as Keyboard Maestro 6 ($36; $18 for upgrades) exists.

Working with the Maestro

When I reviewed Keyboard Maestro 4.2 in 2010, I covered the utility’s workflow, which hasn’t changed significantly (though its system requirements have—version 6 requires OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion). Feel free to check that review for all the details, but here’s the gist: The macro editor is laid out in three columns. The first includes any macro groups you’ve created. as well the All Macros group. The second column displays all macros in the selected group (both those included with Keyboard Maestro and those you’ve made). The third column details the actions included in the selected macro.

When you create a new macro, the third column becomes the editing area where you add actions and configure triggers (the things you must do to execute the macro—type a keyboard shortcut, type a string of characters, or launch an application, for instance). When adding an action, you’ll notice that the first two columns change: The first shows categories of actions, and the second offers actions associated with the selected category. To create a macro, you just drag actions from the second column to the third, in the order in which you want them to execute.

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X-Doria’s $50 Widge iPad stand is somewhat similar to the iPhome 2 case/stand I recently reviewed, in that both are made with kids in mind. The Widge, however makes a better attempt at being aesthetically pleasing by offering a smoother, more streamlined plastic exterior, along with an almost appetizing color.

The Widge is lightweight and easy to carry thanks to a cutout handle in the back. There's also something about the way the Widge looks and feels will likely make the kid in everyone feel good: It has an inviting, squishy feel, its fat corners makes it easy for kids (and adults) to grab on to, and it's easy to clean.

The Widge fits tightly around your iPad (iPad 2 or newer), and at 10 by 7.7 by 3 inches in dimension, it’s conservative in the amount of space it occupies. It holds your iPad very securely, though it doesn’t accommodate an iPad in another case—or even just Apple’s Smart Cover—if you want to protect the glass, it will accommodate an on-screen cover, but that’s about it. (That’s one way in which the Widge is less versatile than the relatively homely iPhome, which lets you turn the iPad face-down to protect the glass when not in use.)

While testing the Widge at the office, I could easily grip the back to transport my iPad to meetings without having to fiddle with opening a case or stand or making any adjustments—it was just there and ready to work. The Widge offers two landscape-orientation stand angles: One is nearly vertical for screen viewing, while the other is about 30 degrees from horizontal for typing or other tasks where you’ll want to touch the screen frequently.

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There was a time when PowerPoint presentations were seen as an answer to the age-old question of how to liven up dull meetings. That promise quickly gave way to a reality where such presentations—poorly thought out, or simply uncreative—have possibly made workplace meetings even more dull.

Enter Haiku Deck for iPad, a free offering from Giant Thinkwell. The app offers beautifully designed slideshow templates and draws upon immense resources—including more than 35 million free photos available under a Creative Commons license—to inspire users and help them easily craft a good-looking presentation in just a short period of time.

New users will sign in using Facebook, Twitter, or an email address. Then, jump straight into the creation of a presentation: Just push a “plus” button on the bottom of the home page to get started. You can choose from one of five themes with its own font that are free to the public; 11 more themes are available to buy, either at $2 apiece, or $15 for an entire “theme pack.” One of the free offerings should do, at least when making your first presentation.

Once you’ve picked a theme, choose a title for your presentation, and the process is pretty straightforward after that. Choose one of three options for each new slide after the title page: an animated graph (pie, bar, and stat), text on a solid-colored slide, or text overlaid on a picture. For the picture option, you can pick your own photos from Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, or from the camera roll on your iPad—that is, if you don’t like one of the 35 million stock images available.

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It pays to know what’s going on inside your Mac, whether you’re watching your free memory or monitoring hardware. To that end, almost no piece of software does what Bjango’s $16 iStat Menus 4.05 achieves, offering full monitoring of your system’s CPU, RAM, and disk usage; network activity; component temperatures; fan speeds; Bluetooth functionality; and international dates and times. If you crave useful, at-a-glance information about your Mac’s components, iStat Menus puts that data right in your menu bar.

Over the years, iStat Menus has had a few radical transformations, growing beyond its origins as a freeware System Preferences pane to become a full-fledged application—but it has grown up gracefully. You can customize the application, which now resides in your menu bar, to display information about the specific components you’d like to watch. On my 2011 13-inch MacBook Pro, I prefer to display the Battery, Network, Hard Drive, RAM, and CPU modules on display. Dragging the desired components into place is easy enough.

iStat Menus offers generous portions of valuable technical information in a readily digestible format. A quick click on the Temperature-sensor module, for instance, reveals the temperatures for each element of your computer, down to components such as the CPU cores, your MacBook’s palm rest and battery, and so on. The utility can display historical data as a chart that allows you to see exactly how each component in your Mac has performed over time. This feature is handy for diagnosing components that may be failing, and outside of a few programs—including the tools generally leased to Apple Certified Macintosh Technicians—it’s rare to find a program that offers readouts for specific modules, sensors, and system components.

Other features, such as a battery-cycle counter and -condition readout, help answer pertinent questions, such as whether your battery is in good shape and when you might need to fork out some dough to Apple for a replacement. Shortcuts for Apple’s Activity Monitor, Console, Terminal, System Profiler, and System Preferences give you easy access, so you don’t have to wade through the /Applications/Utilities folder to get to the app you want.

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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.

Feral Interactive’s Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (Mac App Store link) is aimed at a younger audience who probably isn’t concerned about realistic driving controls and real-world race-tracks.

You can choose to play as any of a wide range of Sega characters, including Sonic himself, as well as his arch-enemy Doctor Eggman, or even characters such as cool-dude Ryo Hazuki from the Shenmue game series. Each character has their own set of wheels, so you can opt for Ryo’s fork-lift truck if you don’t like the cutesy vehicles driven by Sonic and his crowd of cartoon friends.

Feral Interactive

The choice of vehicle seems to be largely cosmetic though, and actual driving is pretty simple. All you can really do is just steer left or right, accelerate, or use the drift control to help with some high-speed turns. There’s no brake, and you can’t wreck your vehicle either; crashing into obstacles just slows you down a bit, or sends you careening around the track like a ball trapped in an oversized pinball machine. Even driving over the edge of a cliff just causes the Sega logo to flash onto the screen and then returns you to the track completely unharmed. The fact that there’s no real penalty for bad driving means that adults and older children won’t find the game much of a challenge, but there are enough colourful twists to keep younger players happy.

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App.net (ADN) is a relatively new online service that many people think of as just an alternative to Twitter: a place to post short messages and to read the messages of people you follow. But App.net also offers a number of other services, including group chat rooms and—my favorite—a place to store and share files.

Specifically, every paid App.net account starts out with 10GB of space, with a file-size limit of 100MB, while free accounts get 500MB of storage with a file-size limit of 10MB. Paid members can increase their total storage through new-member referrals. (Speaking of which, if you’re not using App.net yet, and you’d like to give it a try, you can get a free account using this link.)

App.net’s file storage is designed to be app-neutral—you can access and manage your storage from any app or service that uses the App.net File API, including Web apps and any App.net clients that support the feature. The most common use of this storage, so far, is for sharing files—photos, videos, PDFs, you name it—with other people. Many ADN clients include features for uploading files and then linking to them from within messages posted to the service, but you can use your ADN storage to share files anywhere: email, IM, and even on other social-media services such as Facebook or Twitter.

The easiest way to do this is by using a dedicated Mac app. I’ve tried several, and my current favorite is Orangutango’s $8 Swing 1.0.2 (Mac App Store link). If you’ve got a file you want to share, you just drag and drop it onto Swing’s systemwide menu icon. The menubar icon fades in and out during the upload. When the upload finishes, you hear a confirmation sound and see a Notification Center alert. Even better, the direct URL to that upload, for sharing the file with other people, is copied to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

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For $120, Sena’s Magia Zip case for the iPad 2 and third- or fourth-generation iPad protects your tablet with nice leather outside and soft velvet inside. You also get a case that’s awkward to use and comes with a few too many unneeded features.

True to its name, the Magia Zip folio-style case has a zipper around the edge to close the case and protect your iPad. When fully zipped, the case completely obstructs every button and port, though you can easily unzip just a small opening near the dock-connector port to connect a charging cable. The Magia Zip is only available in a solid black.

To hold your iPad in place, Sena uses “Magia Tape,” a small rectangle of adhesive that sticks to the iPad. I’m torn on the adhesive; my iPad didn’t budge once I stuck my case to it, despite lots of shaking and holding upside-down, but I question how long the stickiness can last. Removing the iPad from the sticky square required some effort, but there was no adhesive residue left behind.

The inside of the case has several card holders and pockets, but you can’t put more than a few pieces of paper in the pockets without making the case lumpy. Sena also throws in a cheap pen and stylus combo that doesn’t add much.

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I’m a geek, and I’m a golfer. As such, the $130 GolfSense Glove-Based Sensor system seems like a gadget designed just for me. The Sensor itself is a small, very light (17-gram) device that attaches to your golf glove and works with an iOS or Android app to help improve your golf game. Specifically, the Sensor stores swing data, and then communicates that data with the app for analysis. You interact with the app to study the recorded data and (in theory) figure out why your golf ball isn’t going where you want it to go.

The hardware

The Sensor attaches to your glove using two rubber straps on the back of the sensor, which slide over the velcro closure found on (most) golf gloves. The Sensor is amazingly light: Whether I was hitting balls at the range, playing a round of golf, or just swinging a club in the backyard, I didn’t even notice the device was on my hand. It’s also small enough that it doesn’t interfere with any hand motions.

On the other hand, while I never had any issues with the Sensor falling off during a swing, the way it attaches does make it much less convenient to remove your glove, say, when putting—remove the glove the wrong way, and the sensor falls to the ground. Also, the rubber straps feel like they may stretch over time, leading to a less secure attachment, but I had no problems during my two weeks with the device. Finally, closing the velcro on my glove was a bit trickier with the sensor in place, as there’s not much free material to grab and pull.

A USB-based charging station keeps the Sensor ready to go when you’re not using it.

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To celebrate the ten-year anniversary of its original release, Knights of the Old Republic—arguably the greatest Star Wars game of all time—has been ported to the iPad, and is now available on the App Store for $10.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic set the gaming world on fire when it launched on consoles and PCs in 2003; it not only garnered numerous awards (including a Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year in 2004), but also received accolades from sci-fi fans, Star Wars nerds, and RPG fans in equal fervency. This was the Star Wars game that finally delivered on the promise of the universe that George Lucas created. Even after ten years, the core elements of KOTOR—great storytelling, sharp dialogue with fully realized-characters, and an immersive, deep world—shine all the brighter on the new tablet platform.

Knights of the Old Republic is set thousands of years before the events of the original Star Wars trilogy, and you play a character caught in the midst of a galactic civil war between the Republic and the Sith. While it's hard to spoil a ten-year-old game, KOTOR's plot is still worth preserving for the uninitiated, so I'll say this: the dialogue is snappy, witty, and full of difficult choices. More so than even modern Bioware titles like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, your Jedi character is called upon to utilize his/her powers of persuasion and negotiation to get things done: You'll diplomatically try to resolve disputes, you'll solve murders, and you'll actually get to do a great deal of what “being a Jedi” supposedly means.

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Screencasts—video tutorials that focus on a captured computer screen accompanied by narration—are an increasingly popular instructional medium. They show rather than simply tell, making them a solid aid for illustrating what can be confusing concepts when confined to print.

Producing a polished screencast, however, requires more than firing up any old screen-capture utility, pressing Record, and nattering away into your MacBook’s microphone. You want a tool that captures action at acceptable-and-better frame rates, offers flexible export options, doesn’t slow you down by taking dozens of minutes to render your work, has enough flexibility to capture not only your Mac’s screen but also an attached camera, and provides an easy way to focus on the portion of the screen you’d like to draw attention to. If that tool also includes a good set of editing and annotation tools, you’ve really got something.

And “something,” in this best sense of the word, pretty well describes Telestream’s $99 ScreenFlow 4.

Workflow basics

We’ve covered the basics of previous versions of the application in our ScreenFlow 2 and ScreenFlow 3 reviews, so I needn’t run through all the features introduced in the past. Rather, I’ll sum up the workflow.

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Writing a script is fun. Formatting a script? Less so. Many an idea can be paused or squashed entirely when you’re focused on making sure your character headers are properly centered. Film industry favorite Final Draft attempts to automate many of these hassles, but the program is still somewhat chaotic for those looking to simply write.

Enter the $20 Highland (Mac App Store link), which uses the Markdown-inspired Fountain syntax to offer screenwriters a simpler, cleaner place to bring their characters to life.

Highland’s big appeal comes not just from its minimalist writing interface, but its conversion capabilities. The app can import a text-based PDF or FDX (Final Draft) file and translate it into editable Fountain text without losing your initial formatting. You can likewise export a Fountain file to a PDF or FDX file once you’re ready for an inital reading or more-advanced formatting.

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If I could rate a game based solely on how adorable it is, High Voltage Software’s $1 Le Vamp for iOS would easily get five mice. Unfortunately, “adorableness” isn’t really part of the criteria we use for rating games. But Le Vamp’s cuteness is just icing on the cake: this endless side-scrolling runner is a great game, with a couple of twists to keep you playing for hours.

Here’s the plot (because Le Vamp, unlike other casual runners, actually has one): Le Vamp is a restless French baby vampire who wants to go outside and play. Unfortunately, Parisians aren’t known for their tolerance of the undead—even the super cute, mostly harmless undead. So poor little Le Vamp finds himself running through the forest, being chased by an angry mob of villagers wielding pitchforks and baguettes. (Apparently, Parisians aren’t known for their ability to choose effective weapons, either.)

Le Vamp is a side-scrolling endless running game, similar to Jetpack Joyride. To play the game, you take on the roll of Le Vamp’s phantom one-eyed butler, controlling the environment around him to ensure he has a smooth journey. This is a little different from other endless runners, in which you control the character’s moves directly. Instead of dodging, jumping, and leaning, you cut trees to create bridges, fling blood pigs toward Le Vamp to keep him healthy and fed, and destroy enemies so he can pass through the forest unobstructed.

There’s a health meter at the top of the screen; each time Le Vamp stumbles or runs into an enemy, he loses one portion of that health meter, and the angry mob gets closer. You can replenish the health meter by feeding him “blood pigs:” cute, round, red pigs with hearts inside them. There are also coins to collect in the form of Francs, which have hot dogs emblazoned on them (pun totally intended). You can later trade in Francs for upgrades in the Crypt, which is Le Vamp’s in-app upgrade store.

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