We now live in a world that is all subscription-based. Whether it’s for a streaming service or a productivity suite, there seems to always be some sort of pricing attached to it. OnlyOffice, the team behind the popular open-source project, is trying to alleviate all of that. They have just launched a new solution – OnlyOffice DocSpace.
Expand Expanding Close
This comparison of the differences between Microsoft Office on Mac, Windows, and iOS devices was put together by Kurt Schmucker who (disclaimer) works for Parallels — the company that makes slick virtual machine apps for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac — but he also happens to know a thing or two about the subject after his previous role as Senior Mac Evangelist at Microsoft and on the Office team. So what exactly is missing on Mac and iOS devices compared to Windows when it comes to the Office suite?
Expand
Expanding
Close
AgileBits has updated its popular login manager app 1Password to include new features for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus as well as other security and function enhancements for all users. 1Password 6.2 for iOS adds 3D Touch quick actions from the Home screen icon plus Peek and Pop for previewing items within the app. Pressing the app icon firmly on the latest iPhone models lets you quickly search for items, jump to your favorited passwords, or create new entries. Once you open the app, 3D Touch lets you preview items and swipe up to access popular functions like copying usernames and passwords or opening the 1Browser within the app. There are also a few new security and convenience enhancements for all iPhone and iPad users…
Today, Readdle has launched PDF Expert for Mac. Compatible with OS X Yosemite and El Capitan, this productivity app offers a multitude of PDF editing tools including text annotations, customized shapes, multiple signatures, and “smart tools for filling forms.” Support for Apple Continuity and Handoff allows you to work without interruption when moving between different devices. Readdle is positioning PDF Expert as being a more powerful solution than the built-in Preview app and more cost-effective than Adobe DC.
PDF Expert for Mac is now available on the Mac App Store for $19.99. As part of a limited time launch promotion, PDF Expert for iOS is now free on the App Store (down from $9.99).
When it’s time to edit, all the great tools you need are easy to find and just a click away. PDF Expert’s quick annotations, easy form filling, and powerful file merging will chew through your work in record time.
* Read – An award-winning, lightning-fast, and tabbed document viewer will get you through multiple PDFs faster than ever.
* Annotate – Classic tools and unique innovations enable you to highlight, note, and instruct with just a click.
* Edit – Easily make your mark by adding text, customized shapes, and more.
* Merge – Combine multiple documents into a new PDF, or borrow individual pages.
* Sign – Create multiple signatures for every situation and sign on the line with a single click.
* Fill Out – Avoid your printer with smart tools for filling forms that save you both paper and time.
A new update to Google Drive for iOS brings a couple notable, highly-requested features to the app. Included in the update, users will now be able to select multiple files at once in order to perform an action like saving for offline, adding a star to important files, or rearranging and organizing. The new feature is something that has long been requested by users and makes managing and sharing multiple files at once much easier than in the past.
In addition, the update includes the ability to share, rename or view file details much quicker with new quick share buttons when tapping on a file.
And lastly, Google says the updated app will include the usual performance improvements.
The updated Google Drive app for iOS is available on the App Store now.
Workflow for iOS has become the go-to automation tool for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch users wanting to streamline actions on mobile devices, and now the latest version is ready to put its useful Today widget in Notification Center to work. Workflow originally launched last December after a number of high profile iOS 8 apps were being pulled from the App Store for doing too much with widgets newly made available in Notification Center, but Apple has clearly cooled off and decided that widgets that do more than present information are fine. Workflow’s new version highlights this as the updated widget can now run many tasks right from the swipe down Today view without launching the full app. The latest update also adds a few new actions as well as a new sync and backup service for workflows.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Nuance, the voice recognition and productivity software company behind the iOS keyboard’s Dictation feature, today has revealed a series of updates to its applications and a new cloud-based synchronization service at the core. Nuance provided us with a demonstration last week of the new iOS and Mac apps, and we came away impressed with the accuracy, speed, and capabilities of the upgraded platform.
Microsoft today released a new update to OneNote for iPhone that makes it a universal app, now OneNote for iOS. That means that the existing OneNote for iPad app is being replaced by a single, universal app that runs on both iPhone and iPad.
The benefit, aside from having a single version, is that the iPad app is gaining some recent features introduced in the iPhone app including a OneNote widget in the today view of Notification Center. iPad users will also notice a new “recent notes” section for notes made on either device, and landscape mode on the iPad now presents a column of page previews.
Catch the full release notes below:
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple may not have included its Reminders app on Watch OS, but Todoist is bringing its own to-do list app to the Apple Watch. Included in the latest update to the iPhone version, Todoist for Apple Watch lets you sort through your tasks and projects, respond to alerts, and even create new assignments.
Expand
Expanding
Close
The TweetDeck Mac app today received an update with a handful of new features including the ability to share account access with others, direct messages to groups, support for in-line GIFs and videos, and much more.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Update: Both 11/9 and my second technothriller, The Billion Dollar Heist, are now available on Amazon.
Of all the stereotypes we hear about Apple owners, there is perhaps none so enduring as the guy writing a novel on his MacBook in Starbucks. Well, one November, I became that guy. Fast-forward a few years, and I have a 110,000-word technothriller ready to unleash on an unsuspecting public.
I’d had an idea for a novel years earlier, but I’d initially done what almost everyone does when they have an idea for a novel: absolutely nothing. The gap between having an idea and having a completed novel seemed too enormous to contemplate, especially when it would have to be combined with, you know, working for a living.
But then someone told me about something called NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. Every November, around 400,000 people across the USA, UK, Canada and a number of other countries around the world attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel. I decided to become one of them–using Apple technology, naturally …
Expand
Expanding
Close
Tapbots, the developers behind the popular third party Twitter app Tweetbot, is out today with a major new version of their advanced calculator app Calcbot. As the ‘bot’ theme implies, Calcbot approaches the stock calculator experience and applies character through animations and sounds while delivering more function than the out-of-the-box calculator from Apple.
The completely new version follows the debut of Calcbot for Mac last fall and includes support for quick iCloud sync between the Mac and iOS versions. While the new version of Calcbot is free, an in-app purchase unlocks additional features including what was previously a separate app called Convertbot.
Expand
Expanding
Close
OneNote, Microsoft’s cross-platform application for taking and organizing notes, received a useful update on the Mac adding support for OCR, or optical character recognition. OneNote version 15.7.1, which is rolling out on the Mac App Store now, adds the ability to scan images from OneDrive notebooks for text.
Once OneNote’s OCR system has ran, you can actually copy the text and save it to your notes just like if it were a editable text file from the start. Searching images for text is currently possible for new images added to OneDrive notebooks, but a future version will make text search possible on existing images as well.
The update also includes the ability to toggle viewing authors and closing the window without quitting the app. Microsoft also added support for iCloud Drive on its iOS versions of Office yesterday. Full release notes below:
Flexibits, makers of Fantastical for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, just kicked off their huge Black Friday holiday sale early with savings up to 65% off the regular price of their apps.
If you haven’t already tried Fantastical, it’s my favorite calendar replacement app–especially for iPhone–with natural language input and a clear list view for finding your appointments easily. Both the iPhone and iPad versions feature Today view widgets, extensions, and interactive notifications for iOS 8 users, and the Mac app is a simple menu bar app for accessing from anywhere.
Here are the deals:
Fantastical for iPhone: $4.99 $1.99 (60% off)
Fantastical for iPad: $14.99 $4.99 (65% off and lowest price yet)
Fantastical for Mac: $19.99 $9.99 (50% off)
In addition to discounting Fantastical for each platform, Flexibits is also taking half off its Chatology app which helps you archive and search messages on your Mac. Available from Flexibits.com, the $19.99 app is on sale for $9.99 for the holidays. For more deals and savings, stay tuned to 9to5Toys for all the best Black Friday deals.
Microsoft announced a number of changes to its Office for iOS apps last week: deep Dropbox integration, dedicated iPhone versions, and editing and saving features without the need for an Office 365 subscription. All of those changes seem to be paying off, at least in the short term, as TechCrunch points out the new and updated Microsoft Office apps are now on top of the App Store charts.
Currently on the iPhone App Store, Microsoft Word takes the #1 spot for Top Free iPhone Apps while Microsoft Excel ranks in at #8 and Microsoft PowerPoint follows at #10. It’s a similar scene on the iPad side with Microsoft Word at #1, Microsoft Excel at #3, and Microsoft PowerPoint at #7 on the Top Free iPad Apps list.
Expand
Expanding
Close
We’ve already taken a close look at Fantastical 2 for iPhone and Fantastical 2 for iPad, and today Flexibits is releasing Fantastical 2.1 for both platforms with a list of new features and discounting Fantastical for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Among the list of changes include new snooze functionality, event invitation notifications and badges, notifications for upcoming birthdays, external keyboard shortcut support, and more. Below we’ll take a look at each new feature added to Fantastical for iPhone and iPad…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Fantastical for Mac received a small performance update today but also added one really useful feature: Reminder due times. As we mentioned in our full review here, Fantastical 2 for iPhone recently picked up full Reminders support and today’s update brings further parity between the two apps.
Fantastical for Mac, which I find to be the easiest way to input dates and reminders, is available on the Mac App Store for $19.99 to new users and today’s update is free for existing users.
Full change log below:
Expand
Expanding
Close
After a rather successful launch (it was #1 in the App Store for quite a while), Flexibits has updated Fantastical 2 for iPhone with a number of small but notable improvements.
Most notably, Fantastical alerts now come with a notification tone. New options for assigning the app icon badge are available as well.
If you haven’t already tried it out, you can pick up Fantastical 2 on sale for $2.99 in the App Store (regular $4.99) and read our full review here. Fantastical 2.0.1 is a free update to existing customers and available now. (Full change log below.)
Expand
Expanding
Close
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77sh3jwB7pQ]
LinkedIn announced new software today called LinkedIn Intro, and it’s available for fans of the professional social networking site to try out now.
Basically, LinkedIn Intro connects your Apple Mail inbox, whether it’s iCloud, Yahoo!, AOL, or Gmail, to your LinkedIn account and contacts without requiring a new mail app.
Expand
Expanding
Close
The popular Evernote productivity app was updated yesterday to offer the ability to customize the homescreen, view notes on a map and improvements to saved searches.
Premium users can now change the order of the homescreen buttons, or remove altogether the ones you never use. Just hit the Edit button at the bottom of the screen. Users can also view notes in a map view or by tapping on the name of a location (handy for notes on particular places, probably less so for unrelated notes you happened to take in the back of a cab somewhere) and create and remove saves searches directly from the search results.
If you haven’t yet tried Evernote, check out our in-depth guide. Evernote 7.1 is available on iTunes as a free app, with in-app upgrade to get premium features.
During Apple’s September event, the Tim Cook announced that all new iOS devices purchased after September 1st would be given the option to get iWork and most iLife apps for free. Some users who had purchased iOS devices after the first of the month, however, had already paid for those apps prior to the announcement, or paid for them after the announcement due to confusion about how to claim the free versions.
Today Apple began sending out emails to eligible users who paid for the apps informing them that their iTunes accounts would be credited for the software they should have gotten for free. The amount listed in the tips we’ve received varies from customer to customer, so it appears the credits are only for the apps that were paid for, not the total price of all five apps.
The refund can be claimed via an iTunes Store redeem code included in the email. You can read the full message from Apple below.
As promised, Realmac Software has brought its modern to-do list Clear to the iPad with its latest version release for iOS 7. Clear for iOS 7 also features enhancements to its user interface that better suit it for the lighter environment of Apple’s latest UI overhaul. For the first time, Clear is a universal iOS app, meaning one purchase provides an app for both the iPhone or iPod touch and the iPad. Below we’ll take a look at the brand new version of Clear for iPad.
Expand
Expanding
Close
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUinMxBHLPk&feature=youtu.be
While there is no shortage of to-do lists or note taking apps on the App Store, it isn’t always easy to jump from one app to another and still stay productive. NoteSuite features note taking, task management, PDF viewing and annotation, and Office document management all in a single app, creating one digital briefcase of sorts.
I had the chance to meet Peter Tamte of Theory.io during WWDC week in San Francisco and see a preview of NoteSuite in person. Peter’s demonstration was very impressionable and left me with one particular thought: NoteSuite is entering a saturated app market, but should thrive as it does a few key things better than its competition.
Continue reading for specific thoughts and observations as I unpack the features of NoteSuite.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Vloggr, an app that launched on Kickstarter today, is an interesting new app designed to quickly shoot and edit video blogs. The app sports a fairly simple interface that allows you film and reorder clips, then publish them to your social networks with a few taps.
The Kickstarter campaign is seeking $6,000 to cover the app’s development costs . A few of the rewards for early backers include promo codes to download the app at launch and your first vlog featured on the app’s website for a month.
