AppAddict Newsletter

Custom Shortcuts by Houdah Software is a free application that allows you to assign your own keyboard shortcuts to any menu item in any application. In these days of do-it-yourself progressive web apps, you may have many applications without any native keyboard shortcuts and this small utility is the solution to that problem. Its features include:

• Auto-completion to help you navigate menu hierarchies
• Making sure you get menu titles exactly right
• Checking for ambiguous menu items
• Copy & pasting shortcuts between applications

If you are a KeyClu user, you'll find that Custom Shortcuts is 100% compatible and accessible from the KeyClu interface, a simple and handy overview of applications shortcuts. Easy to use: just press ⌘ twice and hold to see the list.

Back in the days of Classic Mac OS (pre OS X), the Apple menu offered a way to launch applications and access folders. The closest you can get to that today is through Devon Technologies free menu bar app, Xmenu. It provides six pre-defined categories of accessible shortcuts:

• Applications
• Developer Applications
• Home
• Documents
• User-Defined
• Snippets

The interface has different custom options for sorting, font size, icon size and menu titles. Xmenu is a real app, not a hack and works best when added to you login items. Xmenu on the App Store

For technically inclined Mac aficionados, Apparency by Mothers Ruin Software is an app that also serves as a plugin for the macOS QuickLook feature. After installing Apparency, you can select an app in the Finder, press the spacebar and get a variety of information in the resulting window. You can take it one step further and choose to open the app in Apparency to answer even more questions including:

• What did Gatekeeper say?
• Was it notarized?
• Is App Sandbox enabled?
• Inspect the code signature
• Browse entitlements
• Browse the Info.plist
• Find the executable
• See macOS version info
• Inspect linked frameworks
• See identifiers and versions
• Browse “components” inside
• See document types and URLs

Apparency is a free app and currently supports Intel and Apple silicon processors on Mac OS versions 12, 13 and 14. Download here

Apparency was updated to v2 on 2024-04-24. The major changes were:

• You can now use AppleScript to automate Apparency. Read about what you can do with AppleScript and Apparency or use Help > Open Scripting Dictionary to browse Apparency's terminology, along with many example scripts.
• Improved performance when opening components, especially for large or complex apps. Apparency now does more of its analysis in the background, which means the window will open more quickly, and the app shouldn't SPOD while doing analysis. Also, the top-level component is now given priority to start signature verification, so that this most-likely-to-be-interesting information is shown as soon as possible.
• When opening a Developer ID-signed app, Apparency will now request an updated notification ticket from Apple servers before evaluating the Notarization and Gatekeeper status. This is to avoid a misleading Unnotarized Developer ID status on an app that actually is notarized, but that wasn't “stapled” and hasn't been launched yet. https://www.mothersruin.com/software/Apparency/relnotes.html

Opener is so integrated into the way I use my phone that I forget it’s an app and not built into iOS. When you’re browsing the web in your iOS browser and you come across a link you want to open, usually you have to copy and paste the address to get it into the app you want. Using Opener, you can go straight to the app from your browser or any app that allows sharing a URL. If, like me, you use an iOS browser other than Safari, Opener lets you send links to the browser of your choice. In fact it supports over 40 browsers! It’s fully integrated into the share sheet and I have it at the top of mine. Out of the box it supports 240+ apps to include YouTube, Twitter, Ivory, Amazon, Spotify, Reddit and more. You can see a complete list on the developer’s web site. It’s $2 and well worth it in the App Store.

In the example below, I have an App Store Link on the clipboard. Opener presents all of these options for opening it.

Shortcuts on the Mac is missing the built-in automation features offered in iOS but Shortery from UnitNo5 steps in admirably to fill the gap. With a comprehensive list of 17 triggers, Shortery can automatically launch shortcuts to accomplish all sorts of tasks. Some of my use cases are:

• Launch my five "morning apps" at 4am so that my computer is ready to use when I wake up
• Automatically convert RAW and HEIC photos to JPEG when I export from Photos app
• Minimize all open Windows on my work iMac when I unlock the screen to hide  everything from prying eyes
• Automatically eject my backup drive every morning so that all I have to do is unplug it from my laptop
• Launch a file syncing app every day at 2am to back up my Obsidian vault

Triggers

• Appearance - Run a shortcut when your Mac changes dark and light mode
• Application - Run a shortcut when you start or quit an app
• Audio - Run a Shortcut when you start, stop or record audio.
• Calendar events - Run a shortcut when a meeting starts/ends
• Camera - Run shortcuts when your webcam is switched on/off
• Devices - Run a shortcut when you connect/disconnect any USB or Bluetooth device
• Focus mode - Trigger a shortcut when focus mode on your Mac is enabled
• Folder Contents - Run a shortcut when the content of your folders change
• Keyboard - Define a global hotkey for your shortcut
• Login & logout - Use the login-trigger to get your day started
• Monitors - Trigger a shortcut when you connect/disconnect a monitor
• Power - Run a shortcut when you plug in a power adapter
• Screen - Trigger a shortcut when you lock or unlock your screen
• Sunrise & sunset - Run shortcuts when the sun sets or rises
• Wake up & sleep - Run Shortcuts before your Mac goes to sleep or wakes up
• Time - Set a time when the shortcut should run and define how often it should be repeated
• WiFi - Run a shortcut when your WiFi connection changes

Shortery has a free version, but you get full functionality for $9.99 a year in the App Store.

Better Display is a menu bar app that lets you do things with your built in or connected displays you never thought possible. It does: 

• Custom Resolutions - Define favorite resolutions and reach them using the app menu, resolution slider or keyboard shortcuts.
• XDR/HDR Extra Brightness - DR brightness upscale to 1600 nits, external HDR display brightness upscale depending on the display's capability. Native XDR, color table (Apple Silicon) and Metal (Apple Silicon and Intel) methods are all supported.
• Virtual Screens - Including custom displays for headless Macs (servers)
• Picture in Picture
• Display Disconnect and Reconnect
• Display and EDID overrides 

It even gets rid of the notch on MacBook displays! The free version offers access to many features and full access is $18. 

It’s refreshing to download an app that has the capability of collecting personal data - but doesn’t. Listy, a private list manager is an app you just download and start using. It has customized templates for tracking all types of lists. My personal categories are movies, TV shows, books, apps, YouTube and restaurants. I add items to the list from my phone most often using the share sheet, but the app is also available on my iPad and Mac. For media lists you get release dates, ratings, descriptions and additional metadata for every category. You can use it as a read it later app by using the links category.  It’s available with a lifetime purchase or a yearly subscription. Listy in the App Store.

I’ve been collecting quotes for a long time. I first used the great Quotebook app from Lickability, but it was removed from the App Store in 2016 and I don’t know how much longer it will work. Thankfully, this free app (w/IAP) from Henri Bredt is a worthy successor to manage quotes, authors and tags. It creates a personalized feed from your collection that you can view from a widget. If you already have a collection, you can import into thoughts from a CSV file. It also offers shortcut support.You can create mini-art works with selected quotes for sharing. If you are having trouble finding quotes, Thoughts offers access to curated collections. Finally, it offers iCloud backup and sync for use on more than one device. Thoughts on the App Store

Practically everyone has a need for a habit tracker. Streaks strikes just the right balance between ease of use and richness of features. An Apple Design Winner, Streaks makes it easy to create up to 24 habits to track daily or at user-determined intervals. It ties in with Apple Health and can automatically determine things like your step count, heart rate and recorded blood pressure. It can help you remember other habits like journaling, dog-walking, language practice and more. It’s a universal app with editions for iOS, Apple Watch and macOS - all synced with iCloud. It even provides detailed charts and graphs on your progress and completion rate over time. Streaks on the App Store

I don’t have an app review tonight, just a link to a longer form piece on the 34 apps that launch every time I log in on my Mac. I do my best to explain why I use so many apps and I provide a link to and a description of every one. 

Open at Login - The Balancing Act: Every App You Run Has the Potential To Slow Your Computer Down But Some Stuff You Just Can't Live Without

Scrap Paper is the ultimate scratch pad for macOS and iOS. On the Mac it lives in the menu bar and can be brought to the front with a hotkey, giving you the same functionality as Raycast’s floating note. You can choose the text and background colors , as well as the font. You have the discretion to keep the open window on top of all other apps (recommended). When not in use, you just close the window and it keeps the content safe. You can export the text via the share sheet and because it’s text, you have access to tools like spelling and grammar, search and replace and even text to speech. You can even keep Scrap Paper synced between Macs and iOS with iCloud. I use the app a dozen or more times a day. You get all of this for $2.99 in the App Store.

If you’ve been on the Internet longer than about 15 minutes, you realize that there may, in fact, be people online who do not tell the truth. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Except this time, it’s true. Read the whole incredible offer on the website for the FreePrints app, which works with Google Photos and Apple’s Photos app, and delivers you up to 1,000 free prints a year and charges nothing more than $1.99 in shipping and handling when you order 4x6 prints.

WHAT DO I GET FOR FREE?

• Up to 85 free 4x6 prints per month
• Limit 1 free print per photo
• Up to 1,000 4x6 free prints per year

WHAT DO I PAY FOR?

• Additional 4x6 prints
• Other sizes — 5x5, 5x7, 8x10, 11x14, 12x18, 16x20, 20x30, Wallet
• FreePrints Shipping & handling — starts at $1.99, never more than $9.99, no matter how many prints you order

FreePrints on the App Store

Before Elon Musk ruined Twitter, in part by eliminating third-party apps, I was a big fan of Tweetbot. After the Twitter-pocalypse, I stayed away from social media for awhile (except for Reddit), until I found out that most of the tech folks I enjoyed following had moved over to Mastodon.  There are a variety of apps for accessing the network including a native app, Mona, Ice Cubes, Mammoth and Radiant but the one I chose was Ivory for Mastodon by Tapbots, the same developers behind Tweetbot.

Features include:

•  Beautiful design
•  Fast performance and  smooth scrolling
•  Many theme and app icon options
• Support for multiple accounts
•  Create and view content warnings
•  Create and participate in polls
•  Easily search for and post gifs
• Customizable push notifications and viewable notifications tab
• View post statistics for the day and graph for the week in the stats tab
• Powerful mute filters with regex support
•  Ability to follow hashtags
•  Bookmark posts to refer back to privately
•  View local and federated timelines as well as trending posts
•  Powerful timeline filters to quickly show/hide posts of different criteria
•  Never lose your place in the timeline across Ivory on multiple devices including iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

Ivory for Mastodon on the App Store

If you are all in on the Apple ecosystem, you have plenty of choices for clipboard managers with iOS companions to simplify sharing between your Mac and your iOS device: PastePal (my favorite) and Paste.app are two well respected titles.

But what if you have to use a PC? Perhaps your job (like mine) requires you to use Windows. Maybe, for some strange reasons, you just plain out and out just like Windows more? What do you do about clipboard sharing with you iPhone then?

Luckily, there is a solution in Clipboard Fusion. (Web Site). The developer behind the app is so versatile that they actually make versions for macOS, Windows and iOS. I don’t use the Mac version, finding that PastePal has more features that I like. But, on my work PC, Clipboard Fusion is my app of choice to share my clipbaord with my iPhone. Its features include:

• Clipboard formatting
• Replacing clipboard text
• Hotkeys
• Macros
• Triggers
• Clipboard Palettes (saved clippings)
• Online Syncing (web version)
• 256 Bit Encryption

Clipboard Fusion on the App Store

If you enjoy investigating new apps, AppRaven acts as an interactive App Store for your browsing pleasure. Featuring full access to Apple’s App Store, it also includes user reviews with interactive feedback. The app runs on iPhone, iPad and macOS. Other features include:

• User curated app collections
• Charts for the most popular apps by category
• Lists of new releases
• The ability to follow your favorite developers
• The ability to follow certain categories of apps
• Notifications for free and reduced prices on apps
• App wish list with notifications for price drops
• Notifications for IAP price drops
• Detailed filtering to find just the apps you want
• Optional email notifications
• No ads or sponsored apps

AppRaven on the App Store 

Launcher is the king of widget apps. I use a launcher widget on my lock screen for ready access to my most used apps. I use multiple launcher widgets on my home screen to increase the number of apps above what iOS offers. Not only does Launcher open applications, it also allows you to create actions for specific messages, emails and social media entries. Launcher on the iOS App Store

Due is a hybrid of a reminders app and an alarm clock. You can set one time or persistent reminders for things like moving the trash to the curb, clocking in or out at work, changing the filter in your Britta, the time you need to make a phone call or visit someone’s office. You can’t ignore Due. It’s alarms repeat every minute on the minute until you turn them off, up to five times by default and configurable up to ten times. It also has reusable precise countdown timers for things you repeat constantly like brewing tea. It has natural language input capabilities. It’s a snap to set up a reminder on the fly. It cost $7.99 for all the features it has right now and has an IAP to insure your rights to upgrades. There is even a Mac app that syncs via iCloud. I’ve had Due on my homescreen since iOS 4. You should add it to yours.

Due in the iOS App Store

This one is on my wish list. I haven’t downloaded it yet. I hate relying on Google location for tracking because, well, Google. A problem with these types of apps is some of them are not that accurate and they can be real battery hogs. Based on the reviews (4,9 average on the App Store) this app has neither problem. The developer describes the app as “your companion for effortlessly tracking your daily adventures and transforming them into a captivating timeline of memories. Gain invaluable insights into how you spend your time with detailed time reports and dynamic charts that reveal highlights and trends with ease.” App Store Link

A primary concern for apps of this type is what they do with your data. The privacy policy states “Rond values your privacy and believes that your data belongs to you and you alone. Rond uses Core Data, which is supported by iOS, as its database to store your information. This means that all your data is stored only on your device. Even if you enable iCloud sync, your data will still be stored securely and encrypted on Apple’s servers, just like other native apps.”  Developer’s Web Site