Software bundles seem to be all the rage nowadays, but in my humble opinion, MacHeist is still the best. It doesn't just lump a bunch of apps together for special price, but instead, it turns getting a discount into a game.

As a recent Mac switcher, I was utterly confused by MacHeist 3, the first edition in which I participated. Someone told me to check out the MacHeist bundle, so I went to the web site to see what applications it contained. But the site didn't tell me. It soon became clear that I was going to have to work for my software!

The whole idea, if you're not familiar with MacHeist, is that you need to complete a series of challenges, labeled "heists," in order to get free software. Yes, free. As in what lunches aren't. And the software isn't anything to sneeze at (neither are lunches, by the way), as there are always some real gems to be found.

UPDATE: We took the 4 from the title as it is currently unknown whether this is actually MacHeist 4 or an early bundle offer.

The MacUpdate Promo Spring Bundle has been revealed, and it is, as the kids say, wicked (or sick, or whatever the kids say). This thing is packed with truly useful applications. If you were considering buying any one of these apps, the $49.99US pricetag makes the rest of them a high-value proposition.

There's been some controversy surrounding bundles of this type, but I believe that it's great exposure for developers, and I'm hoping that everyone's getting a fair cut. MacUpdate is my current favorite source for great software deals and they've been doing a great job of providing really useful, intrinsically valuable apps. This bundle is no exception.

I don't know much about the inner workings of bundle assembly, but I assume the bundle sponsor contacts developers and has some kind of engineered plan, even if it's just an inward bias toward certain genres of applications. Whereas the last MacHeist bundle had a somewhat "creative" bent, this MUpromo bundle has a definite technical angle, with a heavy dose of DVD ripping/remastering/viewing tools.

Read on for the list of included apps...

In the midst of the holiday shopping season, MacUpdate is in the process of offering their Holiday Bundle. MacUpdate tells us that their new purchasing system now allows purchases to be gifted, and in this particular bundle if you purchase three copies, you'll receive a fourth free.

The bundle is selling for $49.99US, and includes the following applications at a hefty discount:

• Drive Genius 2
• RapidWeaver 4
• DefaultFolder X 4
• VirusBarrier X 10.5
• MacGourmet Deluxe
• LittleSnitch 2
• KeyCue 4
• MacPilot 3
• WhatSize 4
• iVolume 3

If you're looking for a last minute holiday gift idea for the Mac user in your life, consider MacUpdate's Holiday Promo. The deal runs through December 18, and can be purchased/gifted through the MU Promo website.


Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Must be software bundle season -- on the heels of the MacHeist bundle last week, the MacUpdate Parallels bundle is now on sale. MU is featuring the usual unlock scheme, whereby the top-line apps remain off the table until the requisite number of bundles have been sold.

For this bundle, as you might have sussed out from the name, MU is headlining Parallels as the final unlockable app; other apps include Hazel, Art Text, Leap, Typinator, DVD Remaster Pro, and (still to be unlocked) Sound Studio and BannerZest. $64.99 for the lot of them (assuming the unlock thresholds are reached), less than the retail cost of Parallels alone -- not bad.

As the value of a bundle decreases proportionally with the number of applications you already own, you might consider a bundle gift for the switcher in your life. Especially with Parallels in the mix, a new Mac user coming from Windows-land would probably be thrilled to get a whole pile of goodies.

A heads-up for readers -- while MU has an affiliate-link program in place, please don't use our comments for linkfarming. Comments with affiliate links will be deleted.

Now that all of the bonus applications have been unlocked, MacUpdate is back with some surprises. Beginning today (December 13), the MacUpdate Promo bundle, also includes a license for SRS Labs iWow 2.0. The iTunes plug-in, which is especially great for anyone on a laptop, is now Leopard compatible and can really bring some extra oomph to your digital music files. The MacUpdate Promo is $49.99 and available until December 22. Buyers who have previously purchased this bundle should be receiving (or may have already received) a registration code via e-mail.

The good news: against expectations (well, mine anyway) the MacUpdate Promo bundle has sold well enough to unlock the final application in the ten-pack, the Aquafadas slideshow creator PulpMotion. You now have until shortly after midnight ET to get the full bundle for $49.99; see my earlier post for the full app list.

The bad news: right now it appears that http://mupromo.com is responding only intermittently, perhaps due to heavy volume. If you can't get to the site immediately, wait a few minutes and try again.

Update: The original deadline appears to have applied only to unlocking the full bundle; you now have another eight days to buy, if you choose.

Graphic Converter from Lemkesoft is an arguably under-appreciated photo editor and basic organizer for Mac OS X. Provided free on some (maybe all?) Macs that Apple ships, it is a quietly powerful app for performing a good number of photo editing and basic retouching, and it even includes a basic photo organizer á la iPhoto, Lightroom or Aperture. For even more features, Lemkesoft just released a new v6 of Graphic Converter, bringing a long list of new and updated features, including:

• a save for web option
• basic layer support
• 'go to photo position' in Google Earth
• rulers for measuring various aspects of images
• support for Microsoft's new free-to-use HD Photo image format that rivals JPG
• compatibility with the Leopard beta
• and a ton more

My download is still working its way to 100%, so check out the new features for yourself or download a demo. If you were a customer of this month's MacHeist / MacUpdate promo in which you scored a license for Graphic Converter 5.x, you'll be happy to know you should be receiving an email (if you haven't already) with your new license for v6. Otherwise, Graphic Converter costs just 29.95 Euros / 34.95 USD.

Last week I wrote about something brewing over on the MacHeist pages, and this week it looks like the project has come to fruition-- it's called Skunk Works, and in addition to the giveaways they're doing with the MacUpdate promo, they're now giving away software.

Yes, signing up on that page is supposed to give you a free copy of Linkinus (up to an including 1.1, not including 1.2, so read the fine print), the IRC client we mentioned earlier this year. The app is also now included in the MacHeist version of the MacUpdate bundle (so if you already bought that, save the free copies for someone else), and MacHeist recommends that even if you get it for free, you go ahead and purchase it anyway (to support the developers). Plus, a purchase will clear you until the next major version, not just 1.1.

Like some of you guys, I'm getting a little tired of all the hype around these Mac software bundles, so I've been trying to cut back on this kind of news. Still, free software is hard to pass up. If you've been looking for a substitute for Colloquy, this might be just what you need at a price you can't pass up.

MacUpdate has another one of these bundle promotions going on-- is it just me, or is Mac software the only place (besides, say, pyramid schemes), where increasing bundles like this are sold? I don't show up at the grocery store to buy some oranges only to find that they're cheaper because 10,000 people bought them earlier that day.

Anyway, the bundle's not too bad, even without the extra promotional stuff. Right now, for $50, you get copies of:

• SRS iWOW, an iTunes audio enhancement plugin
• GarageSale, the eBay client
• Cocktail, the utility that our own Scott McNulty calls "indispensible"
• ProfCast, for lecture recording
• Amadeus Pro, for multitrack sound editing
• Fetch, an FTP client
• Graphic Converter X, a useful little image editor

And then if the promo pans out, you can get more software out of the deal-- if a certain number of people (up to 10k) buy the bundle, then Little Snitch, Intaglio, and TechTool Pro get added to the bundle. With a week to go, they've only sold about 700 (for Little Snitch) today, so there's no guarantee you'll see any of the extra stuff, but the bundle might be worth it just for the apps above.

And MacHeist, always ready to jump on the hype train, is trying to add a little extra bonus onto all of this.

[ Thanks to everyone who sent this in! ]

Well shiver me mousies - it's a good thing I haven't quite convinced my wife why I need yet another piece of software, because Desktopple, the powerful desktop hiding and management app from FoggyNoggin Software that I just mentioned, is on sale at MacUpdate for a mere $9.95. That's 41% off its regular price of $17.00, and a great deal on what is probably the most powerful and easy to use app in its class for podcasters and desktop clutterbugs alike (oh yea, just like the car commercials - I went there). Check out my previous post for a refresher on what Desktopple is capable of, or snag a demo and take it for a whirl yourself, but don't forget that MacUpdate's sale is a one-day-only deal.

I could've sworn we've blogged this, but a peek at our extensive archives turned up nothing: App Update, like Widget Update, is a widget that acts like Software Update for all your non-Apple apps. It allows you to specify any extra directories where you store your apps if, like me, you put them wherever you want, and it can ping Apple, MacUpdate and VersionTracker to see if any updates are available. App Update even has limited support for checking on Quicktime Components, Frameworks and Preference Panes, and it can be automated, with Growl support rounding off the list.

App Update is free, really handy and available from DashboardWidgets.

Thanks Alex

I heard somewhere that there are only something like 30 basic movie plots, and all films are just twists and forks of these original few. Some would say that the same is true for e-business, and they would probably be right. MacUpdate.com has announced a new feature in which a featured piece of software will be heavily discounted and available for only 24 hours. If this concept sounds familiar, it's because it is. The massively successful MacZot got the idea from woot.com, and woot probably found the idea somewhere else.

Because Mac software is a relatively niche market, I see one of two things happening. Either the competition between sites leads to a bidding war to see who can bring in the most dough for the developers, or one of the sites becomes much more popular than the others. Either way, I think the new feature will benefit us end users in the end.

[via Chris Messina]

MacUpdate.com is offering a free membership to anyone who registers in the month of January. The membership will last through the entire year. That's a nice New Year's gift.

I've known Joel Mueller of MacUpdate.com for a really long time. My brother and I used to attend the Traverse City, MI-based Macintosh Users Group (CherryMUG) meetings back in the mid-90's, which is where we first met Joel. He's a bright, talented programmer, and just a really nice guy and I knew he'd succeed in whatever he chose to do. But it's not my personal acquaintanceship with Joel that keeps me coming back to MacUpdate. For years, I was a VersionTracker addict. I checked their software listings many times every day. But then they were bought out by the TechTracker Network and the site changed. The design quality went down (even now I think it's clunky) and and I began to resent the enforced "wait-time" when clicking on the download link(s). Then MacFixit.com joined the TechTracker network and started locking most of their content behind a subscription fee. I was worried that VersionTracker would follow suit but they wisely kept their software listings free, though introduced a "professional" membership you could pay for to get extra features. Meanwhile, Joel continued to improve MacUpdate.com and it soon became my default destination for finding Macintosh software downloads. Even now, years later, I still feel MacUpdate is better than VersionTracker. Every now and then, I'll go back to VT to read a user comment which solves a particular problem, but most of my downloading is done via MacUpdate.

Seems Joel has been busy updating some of the design behind different sections of MacUpdate. The front-page hasn't changed, but individual pages are markedly different. A program's screenshot (if available) has moved up from the bottom of each page and the star rating system has nice big stars to better draw attention to the rating system. Joel has jumped on the "rounded corners" bandwagon (not necessarily a bad thing) and each software entry is rendered in an attractive two-paned box with rounded corners. The text is rendered in a larger font (a good thing), and it's overall more readable.

Overall, these are some nice changes. Congratulations Joel and keep up the excellent work!