Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
ShoveBox for Mac and iPhone
ShoveBox's main advantage is its very simple interface. The little ShoveBox icon sits in your menubar waiting for you to drop something on it: URL, text, images, etc. Without any fuss the box opens and accepts your newest shove, ready to be accessed at some later time. My impression is that ShoveBox is best not so much for things you want to keep in the long run (though it will do that), but perhaps more as a scratchpad or an updated and more advanced URLwell.
The iPhone companion app does exactly what you'd expect, giving you access to your notes, etc. on the go. One particularly nifty function is a bookmarklet that allows you to import a website on both the desktop version (from Safari) or the iPhone version (from mobile Safari). So if you're reading something on the go, but want to make sure you save it for later as well, this looks like a great feature.
ShoveBox for Mac is $24.95 and a demo is available; the iPhone version is $3.99 from the iTunes App Store.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jeff (Not that one ^ ) said 6:16PM on 4-06-2009
Hell for $25 the desktop version should include the iPhone version free.
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Alfred said 6:17PM on 4-06-2009
I think they will unlock the last two earlier. Bundle sales tend to increase after everything has been unlocked. They'll probably try to profit from this effect.
(Btw, if you plan to buy it, it would be wonderful if you did it via my invite link http://www.macheist.com/bundle/u/140885/ - it'll unlock another app for me. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!)
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Alfred said 6:21PM on 4-06-2009
SORRY for the post above, I already reported it myself. 1Password had saved the comment and automatically submitted it...
I just wanted to say that I found a 40% discount code for the desktop app in my iPhone version example data. If you like ShoveBox, you might purchase the iPhone app before buying. As long as it hasn't been updated, the coupon should still be in it.
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listservs said 7:03PM on 4-06-2009
I've been playing with ShoveBox for a few weeks now, and am generally pleased with it. There are a few drawbacks that potential users should be aware of, however:
1. No spotlight integration. I use spotlight to find everything these days, and it would be nice to include my ShoevBox contents in the search results.
2. No tagging. Shovebox uses a fixed number of coloured labels, which is rather limiting when entries have more than one attribute.
3. No smart folders. I find a far more efficient way of organising things is to have a single archive with smart folders to pull out items of interest. The problem with manual folders is that items cannot be in multiple folders without making copies of them.
4. And finally, a minor point, I prefer having some sort of dock icon rather than a taskbar icon, particularly when it comes to dragging content to ShoveBox. The taskbar icon is pretty tiny.
Again, overall I am pleased with the app. I abandoned Evernote for ShoveBox and do not regret the choice. The clincher for me was the fact that the iPhone app keeps your notes locally on the phone, rather than in the cloud. The Evernote iPhone app was far too slow to use because of this.
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DentalMac said 9:40PM on 4-06-2009
Evernote can store files locally. When viewing an item click the very light grey star next to its title. This tags it as a Favorite and stores it locally. Then click on the Favorites star at the bottom of the screen to see all of your locally stored files.
With this feature, Evernote is now much easier to use from the iPhone.
listservs said 12:14AM on 4-07-2009
Good Evernote tip, DentalMac. Thanks.
Jonathan Wise said 8:27AM on 4-08-2009
Evernote also has a Windows Client, which makes life easy for those of us using all 3 platforms every day...
Daniel Brusilovsky said 7:19PM on 4-06-2009
I've been using Shovebox for a while now, and now I can't live without it! It's one of the best Mac/iPhone companions ever!
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Sam Odio said 7:28PM on 4-06-2009
I find ShoveBox extraordinarily useful. Especially for finding apartments!
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artist-illustrator said 7:38PM on 4-06-2009
Got this through MacHeist a few weeks back (the desktop app) and gave it a go
Problem: Any editable illustrator PDF i "shoved" into shovebox ended up with all its elements grouped together when it retrieved it. not good :n(
I actually loved the "shoving" of things to the menubar, very handy. But what it does to my PDFs just isn't acceptable. Waiting for an update to iron out a few bugs. its potentially a great app that I can see myself using a lot
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Unregistered said 8:13PM on 4-06-2009
I already use FileMagnet and Instapaper so it's not worth spending $29 more for the shove desktop & phone editions.
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WalrusCP said 10:07PM on 4-06-2009
Been using ShoveBox a bit since getting it from MacHeist as loot. Overall it is a neat little application that serves as a nice "short-term memory". Tagging would a great addition as would integration with some other mac apps.
I agree that Instapaper and some other services do not make the iPhone app necessary, but it's nice to have an all-in-one option.
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Smarky said 11:23PM on 4-06-2009
I really love this app, however I don't use it, Simply for the fact you have to click on the subject of the item and open it in a new window, you can't view it within side everything else in a separate plane like you can with all the other apps like this. This makes it slower and harder to view and sort through all the information stored in it.
Else i would use it. I need an app like this to store all my ideas and all my references to review at a later date, I have tried them all out there and stick with Soho notes, however I much prefer this app if it had said functionality, it doesn't need anything else, keep things simple!
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Christina said 11:46PM on 4-06-2009
Will microsoft works be able to open a pages doc? Just got a mac book after my windows laptop decided to crash the month of finals. I feel like im in a foreign country with this computer. haha.
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Plasmanut said 1:02AM on 4-07-2009
I really like this app, but there are a couple of things annoying me at the time. First, I contacted tech support late last week and still haven't heard back.
I'm trying to figure out how or where to use the bookmarklet to facilitate URL entry into note. I can't figure out when they say it needs to be synced to the iPhone. Synced from where?
The other thing really bugging me is the inability to make a screen cap (or an an existing picture on your phone) a note in Shovebox. This would be a very quick way to save an address when lloking it up in Safari, as an example, and syncing it to your Mac. I hope this gets included in an update really soon.
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Sav said 2:19PM on 4-07-2009
Shovebox is an outstanding piece of software. Why? It just works! I'm using it to sync notes between my mac and iphone. It updates over Wifi -- so there's no need to plug in your iPhone.
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Mike said 4:09PM on 4-07-2009
@Plasmanut
Here's a link explaining how to install and sync the bookmarklet feature. It should be the first post at the top of the page.
http://www.wonderwarp.com/blog/
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