Utility Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

1Password Pro grabs the TUAW Best of 2011 iPad utility app award

by Steven Sande (Jan 5th, 2012)

The latest TUAW Best of 2011 award should come as no surprise, particularly since the winner also topped the iPhone utility app voting. 1Password Pro (US$14.99) was voted by TUAW readers as the best iPad utility app of 2011, pulling in a whopping 56.6 percent of the votes. Why has this app ...

Daily Mac App: Typingstats

by Kelly Hodgkins (Jan 4th, 2012)

Typing- whether it's writing a blog post or responding to an email, almost everyone with a computer has to type. So why not make it fun? One way to liven up your typing experience is to use the small utility Typingstats. Typingstats is an OS X app that sits in your menu bar and keeps track of ...

Covert Chirp offers camouflaged Twitter for the workplace

by Erica Sadun (Dec 20th, 2011)

You're in an important meeting. The voices are droning on about procedural nonsense and forward looking outlooks. No one is paying attention. You're dying for any kind of mental stimulation. You reach for your iPhone. You launch Twitter. Then, Dwight the worker bee sitting next to you decides ...

Daily iPhone App: Nixie Clock

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Dec 14th, 2011)

I'm probably a little weird, but sometimes I love listening to police scanners and various chit chat as I'm going to bed. I also like analog devices, so a Nixie Clock Radio seemed like a neat idea: the look of the classic Nixie clock merged with streaming radio and an alarm/sleep timer. It works ...

Daily Mac App: Mi-Fi Monitor

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 13th, 2011)

I don't travel a lot, but I do have a MiFi which I use during the frequent power outages that seem to plague the area where I live. To help monitor my connection and the battery life of my MiFi, I use a Mac utility called Mi-Fi Monitor. It resides in the menu bar and displays both a battery ...

Friday Favorites: Using Little Snitch to stop apps from phoning home

by Kelly Hodgkins (Dec 9th, 2011)

One thing that drives me mad is when applications try to phone home with information. Usually, these requests are benign; the app is either looking for the latest update or making a serial number verification request. If it's a rogue app, though, it could be sending back information you'd ...

Quickly share website addresses to your iPhone with AirLink

by Michael Rose (Dec 9th, 2011)

Last week, Erica and Victor shared a hack for transferring the URL of an open webpage from your computer to your iPhone via the intermediary of a QR code. It's easy and quick, but as is often the case our astute commenters pointed to a slew of alternative solutions to tackle the same ...

Daily Mac App: iClip

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Nov 1st, 2011)

I missed out on iClip during its initial heyday a few years ago, so I was pleased to see it make a comeback. The OS X utility keeps a copy of almost anything that can be sent to the clipboard. It'll also organize those into scrapbooks or however you want. iClip sits off to the right side of ...

iClip makes a comeback, now on the Mac App Store

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Oct 31st, 2011)

It's always fantastic to see a good app make a comeback, and iClip is one of those apps. Developer Steven Audette of Irridated Software acquired iClip from its original developers and has released version 5.0 nearly five years after the software had its last major upgrade, now officially ...

Daily Mac App: GeekTool

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Sep 14th, 2011)

GeekTool was released as a free download on the Mac App Store a few weeks ago, and it's remained at the top of the download chart since. It's been around for years, and we've featured it a couple of times on TUAW, but the MAS release allows it to reach a new audience. Unlike the GeekTool of ...

Daily iPad App: PDF Expert

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (Sep 7th, 2011)

We've covered PDF Expert a bit before, but this week they rolled out a 3.0 update that greatly enhances the functionality in the app. When the iPad debuted, one of the first apps to rocket to the top of the charts was GoodReader, and with good reason: it was a better PDF reader than Apple's ...

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 ...