best buys… Curated picks of third-party apps
Photo editor (mac ) Affinity Photo £49 serif.com
It’s hard not to love Affinity Photo. Whether you’re fancy yourself a seasoned pro or a photo novice, you will find it powerful and easy to use. Its interface has the perfect blend of ease of use and quick access to powerful features, and its useful batch processing is a great capability. An app that packs both power and practicality for less than £50? Sign us up!
Writi ng app (Mac ) Scrivener £44 literatureandlatte.com
Different people often need different things from a writing app, but Scrivener handles so many things expertly. The winner of MF319’ s group test has templates for scripts, short stories, novels and much more, allowing you to quickly get stuck in. That means it’s great value for money given its unrivalled flexibility. It’s the writer’s writing tool.
Streami ng service (MAc/iOS)
Spotify Free, £10 per month (Premium) spotify.com
Despite strong competition from the likes of Tidal, Apple Music and Amazon, Spotify is our top musicstreaming choice. It hits all the right notes, from its fair price to its curated playlists. Its library is one of the largest on the market, and its interface is simple and straightforward to use. And, unlike Apple Music and Tidal, it offers a free tier as well.
Video editor (Mac ) Final Cut Pro X 10.3 £300 apple.com/uk
Apple’s Final Cut Pro has always been a good option for video editors, but the latest version makes it even better. It introduces ‘roles’, which can be colour-coded to make your timeline’s components easier to navigate, something that’s further boosted by the streamlined interface. It supports the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, too, plus wide colour gamut displays.
Utilit y (Mac ) Moom £10 manytricks.com
Moom is the window manager that should be built into macOS. Hover over any window’s green zoom button and Moom’s controls appear, so you can quickly make it fill a full, half or quarter screen. It also features handy window snapping – just drag a window to the edge of the screen to snap it in place. It’s powerful, but so very easy to use.
Productivit y app (mac /iOS)
Fantastical 2 £49 (Mac), £5 (iPhone) flexibits.com
If you find your calendar and reminders are getting out of control, Fantastical is the ideal app for you. It supports natural language entry, so you can enter events and reminders as you would describe them verbally and the app will get to work. It’s got a nifty menu bar tool, plus a great interface, clever calendar management and a powerful iOS app to boot.
Web desig n app (Mac ) RapidWeaver 7 £70 realmacsoftware.com
Ever since Apple stopped updating iWeb, Mac users have been searching for the ideal replacement. Well look no further – it’s RapidWeaver. Don’t know code? No worries, RapidWeaver lets you design visually if you want to. You can build any type of page and publish to any type of platform, and extend its functions with thousands of add-ons.
Music -maki ng app (Mac ) djay Pro £49 algoriddim.com
When it comes to making music on your Mac, djay Pro is our favourite option by far. The app comes with everything you need to make amazing professional music, from coloured waveforms to a four-deck view, and even true-to-life grooves on the virtual records. It integrates neatly with Spotify, and its MacBook Pro Touch Bar integration is very handy.
Email ma nager (Mac /iOS) Spark Free sparkmailapp.com
Feeling inbox anxiety? This email app for Mac and iOS could be the solution you need. Spark is centred on a ‘smart inbox’, which prioritises your emails based on importance – no more losing that vital work email among a sea of spam. You can snooze emails and be reminded of them later, and search via natural language too. And to top it all off, it’s free.