BEST BUYS… Curated picks of third-party apps
PHOTO EDITOR (MAC)
Affinity Photo £48.99 serif.com
It’s hard not to love Affinity Photo. Whether you fancy yourself as a seasoned pro or a photo novice, you’ll find this image editor powerful and easy to use. Its interface offers the perfect blend of ease of use and quick access to powerful features, and its useful batch processing is a great addition. An app that packs both power and practicality for less than £50? We’re in!
REMINDERS APP (MAC/iOS)
GoodTask £19.99 (Mac), £9.99 (iOS) bit.ly/mfgtapp
Apple’s Reminders app has always been a tad lacklustre, but GoodTask is the polar opposite. It blends simplicity with sophistication, giving you a huge amount of control over your reminders without swamping you with options. Firing off reminders is quick and easy, and its smart snippets and extensive customisation make it powerful. There’s so much on offer, we’d recommend it to everyone.
OUTLINING APP (iOS) OmniOutliner 3 £9.99 for Essentials, £38.99 for Premium omnigroup.com
Sometimes you just need to get your ideas down quickly. For times like that, you need to get OmniOutliner 3. It’s extremely easy to get started, and enables you to quickly search and reorganise your notes. The Pro version adds encryption, automation, custom templates and much more. It’s the best way to jot down and organise your ideas.
VIDEO EDITOR (MAC)
Final Cut Pro X 10.3 £299.99 apple.com/uk
Apple’s Final Cut Pro has always been a good option for video editors, and 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. This version also supports the Touch Bar and wide colour gamut display on recent models of MacBook Pro.
UTILITY (MAC)
Carbon Copy Cloner 5 £31.10 bombich.com
When disaster strikes and your hard drive fails, having a backup can be a lifesaver. This app makes creating and restoring from backups an absolute breeze. It comes with a helpful guided restore feature, plus a Cloning Coach that monitors what you do and looks out for potential problems. If you’re looking to clone or back up your hard drive, this is the app you need.
PRODUCTIVITY APP (MAC/iOS) Fantastical 2 £38.99 (Mac), £2.99 (iPhone) flexibits.com
If your calendar and reminders are getting out of control, Fantastical can sort things out. It has support for natural language entry, so you can enter events and reminders as you would say them. It’s got a nifty menu bar shortcut, plus a great interface, clever calendar management and a powerful iOS app. It won MF #338’s group test, underscoring its prowess.
WRITING APP (MAC/iOS)
Ulysses £35.99/yr (Mac/iOS) ulysses.app
Whether you’re making notes, jotting down ideas or writing long-form documents, Ulysses is your go-to app.
As a writing tool, it’s fast, flexible and easy to get to grip with. Plus it’s packed with handy options for saving and sharing your work across all kinds of platforms, and it supports Markdown and iCloud sync, too. The £36 annual subscription unlocks both the Mac and iOS versions.
SYSTEM ENHANCEMENT (MAC)
Bartender 3 £11.10 macbartender.com
Some apps are so simple and effective that you don’t know how you lived without them. Bartender is one: it lets you choose what appears in the menu bar, and when things appear too. You can set triggers, such as an app only appearing when it’s updating, and rearrange items. Bartender’s settings are clear and concise. It sounds simple, but it’ll change the way you use your Mac.
EMAIL MANAGER (MAC/iOS) Spark Free sparkmailapp.com
Feeling inbox anxiety? The solution could be Spark, our favourite iPhone email app after winning MF #340’s group test. Its ‘smart inbox’ prioritises emails based on perceived importance – no more vital messages getting lost in a sea of spam. You can snooze messages to be reminded about them later, and search your mailboxes using natural language. And to top it all off, it’s free.