The Week in Mac Apps: Time and again

Time is of the essence in this week’s app roundup. Whether it’s keeping track of it, knowing when it comes, or just figuring out how much of it is left, we’ve got an app that can cover your every need.

Curious about what goes on inside your Mac? FIPLAB’s Battery Health ( Mac App Store Link) keeps tabs on the status of your battery and lets you take a peek at just about everything there is to know about its health.

The free app also lets you record and visualize historical information about the battery’s performance, and even gives you tips on how to keep your juice for as long as possible when you’re on the road.

If you’re in the market for a new way to introduce yourself, Chronos Inc.’s $20 Business Card Shop 5 ( Mac App Store Link) may well fit the bill.

It comes loaded with more than fifty templates and lets you build all sorts of cards—included the double-sided and folding varieties—that you can then either send to a print shop or directly to your printer.

Tension Software’s $2 Calcline 4 ( Mac App Store Link) keeps a small calculator handy by providing a convenient window in which you can type in quick formulas—a bit like what you can do in Spotlight, but with a lot more capabilities.

Thanks to a handy service, you can also create (and solve) formulas directly from text you select in any other app—even if Calcline itself is not running at the time.

ACT Productions’s $7 Clockwise ( Mac App Store Link) is your “digital butler,” keeping track of what you need to do and when.

You can use it to schedule events either at fixed or recurring times, and then have your Mac perform specific tasks—such as playing a song or take a photo with your iSight camera—when they are triggered.

John Holdsworth’s $2 Lightning Web Browser shows that the browser wars are alive and well, and that there’s still room for a different take on this well-worn path.

Built with a focus on speed, Lightning loads in less than a second and can perform searches against a variety of Internet sources—at lightning speed, of course.

Bohemian Coding’s $80 Sketch 3 ( Mac App Store Link) is a tool aimed at design professionals who want to create great-looking vector images.

It features a single-screen interface that intelligently shows and hides the tools you need, allowing you to focus on your work without having to deal with too much clutter.

Time-tracking apps may be a dime a dozen these days, but developer Niko Kramer’s $15 Timelime ( Mac App Store Link) stands out as a tool that wants to be more than a glorified kitchen timer.

Timelime allows you to create and track multiple activities, and then visualizes them in a number of formats, including a calendar view and a set of great-looking and informative charts.

No need to check your calendar—you didn’t get magically taken back to 1985. Avantar’s Yellow Pages ( Mac App Store Link) really does bring the venerable business directory to your Mac for a quick and convenient way to find everything you could possibly need.

The free app allows you to search businesses by location, category, and name, and offers you a full listing, including directions and the ability to leave your feedback.

TLA Systems’s $10 excellent calculator app PCalc ( Mac App Store Link) is now at version 4.0.1, which comes with enhancements to its algebraic mode, new keyboard shortcuts, and a number of bug fixes.

GrowlyBird’s $5 Growly Notes ( Mac App Store Link) has been bumped to version 2.0.4, which allows you to resize elements with a trackpad gesture and manage notebook templates, along with a number of other minor fixes and enhancements.