Utility Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Scosche's RDTX-PRO for iPhone and iPod touch detects radiation

by Steven Sande (Aug 31st, 2011)

Scosche Industries produces a wide line of accessories for Apple products, ranging from iPad cases and flexible keyboards to screen cleaners and headphones. Now the company has developed and is selling the RDTX-PRO Radiation Detector and app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Primarily designed ...

Daily Mac App: TimePlus

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Aug 25th, 2011)

I'm almost afraid to write about TimePlus because it is such an accurate simulation of the LCARS interface from Star Trek: The Next Generation (complete with sound effects) I worry that the lawyers will descend upon the developer and force him to remove all traces of familiarity in the ...

Daily Mac App: Backdrop

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Aug 24th, 2011)

I've been using Backdrop for years, so I was eternally grateful to see it on the Mac App Store, still at the low cost of free. While it hasn't added any bells and whistles (I don't recall the "pixel test" before, but perhaps because I didn't use it) the app does one thing brilliantly: it places ...

Daily Mac App: WhatSize

by Samuel Gibbs (Aug 11th, 2011)

Getting to grips with the files and folders on your hard drive can be a chore, but the right tool makes it easier. WhatSize is a tool that combines the best of several disk visualisers into one package. WhatSize scans your disk(s) and reports on the size of your files and folders with a ...

Trover Mobile Discovery app re-launched today

by Mel Martin (Jul 28th, 2011)

Trover joins the ranks of free GPS-powered apps for the iPhone that can guide you intelligently to places of interest near you or while traveling the world. It has some interesting twists that make it unique, giving it kind of a feel of Instagram meets Yelp. Trover had a limited release that ...

Video App Demo: Wasabi

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Jul 25th, 2011)

Wasabi is another in a crowded market of "to do" apps, aiming to keep your to do lists handy across iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. There are a number of novel twists keeping Wasabi worth a look for your listmaking needs. The most unique feature are text files which become quicklists, a preset ...

Video App Demo: WhitePages

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Jul 19th, 2011)

If you're over a certain age and live in the USA you may remember the days when giant books filled with addresses and phone numbers were thrown at your house each year by Ma Bell. Unlike countries elsewhere, such as France, where computers took over the task of finding phone numbers before cell ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: AppTrap

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 14th, 2011)

With the imminent release of Lion, perhaps it's time to clear out all those apps you don't need anymore. AppTrap is an app up to the task, which integrates nicely into the OS X way of uninstalling apps. We all know that the Mac way of uninstalling apps is just to delete them. The size of the ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: TinyExpander

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 12th, 2011)

Every Mac comes with a built-in file compression utility, but its decompression support is limited. We've featured a perennial favorite, the Unarchiver before on the Daily Mac App, but today we'll take a look at a new kid on the Mac App Store block, TinyExpander. Just like the Unarchiver, ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Onyx

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 11th, 2011)

Cleaning up a Mac is something many users never do, but if you want to squeeze all the performance and disk space you can out of your Mac, you need a tool like Onyx. A free multi-purpose utility, Onyx lets you run a myriad of system tasks such as disk maintenance, cache clean-up and index ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Disk Inventory X

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 8th, 2011)

With Lion on the way, maybe it's time to give your Mac a bit of spring cleaning. The best place to start is always the hard drive, and Disk Inventory X is a great tool. You let Disk Inventory X scan your hard drive and it creates a visual representation of the used file space on your disk ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: HandBrake

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 7th, 2011)

Open-source software is a beautiful thing. It's free, community driven, and more often than not, incredibly useful. HandBrake, one of the best video converters around, is a classic example of great open-source software. The Swiss army knife of video converters and a perennial TUAW favorite, ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: QuitAppsMBI

by Samuel Gibbs (Jul 5th, 2011)

Quitting apps quickly can be a pain. If you've got loads open, but you want to quit them all fast, the best way has been Cmd+Tab then Cmd+Q. Now, the free QuitsAppsMBI app makes quitting some or all of your apps a breeze. A menu bar utility, QuitsAppsMBI sits patiently waiting for your ...

WWDC Interview: Ultralingua

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Jun 20th, 2011)

Neil Ticktin (Editor-in-Chief, MacTech Magazine and MacNews) interviews Jeff Ondich of Ultralingua at WWDC 2011. Jeff was kind enough to tell us about their thoughts on the announcements at WWDC, and how it will affect their plans moving forward. TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak ...

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Caffeine

by Samuel Gibbs (Jun 13th, 2011)

Caffeine, like a shot of coffee at night, keeps your Mac awake and your screen bright. We first covered it a few years ago. A tiny menu bar utility, Caffeine prevents your Mac from activating the screen saver or sleeping when idle. Presenting as a cup of coffee, the icon indicates whether ...