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Posts in reviews

Tomates Time Management: Elegant Pomodoro Timer for Mac

If you’re a fan of the Pomodoro Technique, you’ll be interested in Tomates Time Manager. Version 4 is a great-looking menu bar app with detailed reporting, Touch Bar support, and a handy Today Extension.

If you’re not familiar with it, the Pomodoro Technique is a timer-based way of getting work done in 25-minute sprints with short breaks between, and then a nice long break after a set of four. I first tried the Pomodoro Technique many years ago and it worked well for me, but I didn’t stick with it. Over the years I went back to it a few times, but it still didn’t stick. It was only last year when issues with my ADHD caused me to desperately need a system exactly like this.

There are a plethora of good timers available for Mac and iOS, including the elegant Zen Timer on Mac (which I’ve mentioned here before) and Focus Time on iOS. What sets Tomates apart is the combination of elegant design and powerful utility. It allows customizable work and break times, Work Series counts, alarm sounds, and handles task names and reporting.

Version 4 introduces a Today Extension, providing an overview of your progress right in the Today View of Notification Center, tracking your tasks and sessions along with trophies for reaching your goals.

Reporting is also enhanced, with both task and time-based reports. The time-based reports can show today, this week (or this workweek), this month, or a custom time period. The reports can also now be printed or saved as beautiful PDFs. I’ll admit those reports aren’t something I really need hard copies of, but they are nice looking.

Lastly, version 4 adds Touch Bar support so you can work with the timer from the Touch Bar on your MacBook Pro. Manage and reset timers, and reset the session and goal counters with a tap.

Head to the Mac App Store to check out Tomates Time Management. $2.99 US isn’t a bad price to pay for something that could change the way you work.

Ulysses 2.8 Adds Touch ID Security and More

The Soulmen released version 2.8 of Ulysses on iOS and macOS today. The headline feature of the update is Touch ID support, which gives users the option to lock Ulysses automatically as soon as it is closed or after one, three, or five minutes. If your iOS device or Mac doesn’t support Touch ID, you can require Ulysses to use a password instead. I don’t have any particularly secret documents in Ulysses, but there are some documents I would prefer to keep private. With Touch ID, it’s so easy to unlock Ulysses that turning it on was a no-brainer.

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Sway Review: Meditation Through Movement

It’s 11:30 p.m., and I’m waltzing, rather awkwardly, around my room. If you were to walk in, you’d see me performing the slowest of slow dances, my iPhone clutched in my left hand, my AirPods nested in my ears, and my feet shuffling over my small, blue carpet.

What may look like a drug-fueled trip is my attempt at meditation using Sway, a movement-based mindfulness app for the iPhone. Since I picked it up over a weekend, I’ve been setting aside moments of my day to perform my tiny routine and attempt to center my mind.

I think it might be working.

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Game Day: Trilogic

Simple puzzles that make you think are a great way to unwind. Getting the hang of playing them is easy, which eliminates any up-front frustration. The challenge is all in the puzzle itself, which is an excellent distraction from whatever might be on your mind. There is virtually no friction to getting started with Trilogic, the follow-up to developer 1Button’s game called Bicolor. That makes Trilogic’s progressively tricky puzzles a perfect escape for brief moments throughout the day.

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My Reasons Review

I’m a creature of habit, both positive and negative – and one of my most evident habits is the absurd amount of Diet Pepsi I drink. Although it’s not the worst habit I could have, it’s still concerning, especially considering that my water intake is embarrassingly low.

However, habits are hard to form and break, requiring effort, consistency, and constant motivation. While it’s nice to cheer yourself along through the journey of change, we often fall short of our goal because we forget the reason we started.

My Reasons for iOS and Mac is a productivity app that collects the things that motivate you and reminds you when working on your habit. It’s a tool that may just help me kick my Diet Pepsi habit – and some of your habits, too.

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Game Day: Typeshift

Developer Zach Gage describes Typeshift as ‘Anagrams meets Word Search, with a sprinkle of Crosswords,’ which fits well. Gage is the creator of SpellTower and other excellent iOS games. It’s a clever mashup of the familiar in an unconventional way. With an extensive library of free puzzles, new daily puzzles, and puzzle packs that are available as In-App Purchases, TypeShift is a thoroughly addicting, seemingly bottomless pit of word game fun.

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Interact Scratchpad for Mac Takes the Pain Out of Adding Contacts

Last year, Agile Tortoise introduced Interact for iOS, a powerful app for managing contacts. One of the most popular features of that app is the scratchpad that parses contact information, making quick work of turning a block of text into a new contact. Agile Tortoise has ported that functionality to the Mac in the form of a menu bar app called Interact Scratchpad.

Adding information to contacts is tedious. Too often I find myself switching back and forth between a webpage and the Contacts app typing information into field after field or copying little bits of text and pasting them into those fields. Scratchpad does the monotonous part for you by automatically recognizing all kinds of contact information.

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Game Day: Mushroom 11

Chicago-based Untame released Mushroom 11 on iOS this week as part of Apple’s Celebrating Indie Games promotion. Mushroom 11 started as a PC game, but its unique gameplay works especially well in a touch environment. You play as a green blob of goo in a post-apocalyptic world populated by mushrooms, glowing jellyfish-like creatures, and the ruins of the present world. To get around you erase behind the blob, which regenerates on the opposite side. It’s a novel mechanic that forces you to approach the game’s challenges in a different way. The result is perplexing and fun.

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Organizing Windows with Magnet

When I switched back to the Mac for most of my work a couple of months ago, one of the biggest selling points of macOS was window management. The differences between macOS and iOS make comparing them difficult, but I’ve learned to prefer the way the Mac presents information to the iPad’s split screen functionality.

That’s not to say, however, that managing windows in macOS is perfect. While macOS’s Split View makes for a better multitasking experience, it can fall flat when working in three, four, or five apps at once.

Magnet, a Mac app by developer CrowdCafé, is what built-in window management should be like on the Mac. It’s a smart, robust tool that will make your desktop look better than ever.

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