Juice 1.2

Beautify Bluetooth controls on Mac

$5.99 From deadbeef, deadbeef.me needs macOS 10.13 or later

Some parts of macOS still look a little… well, traditional, despite others embracing iOS aesthetics. Juice changes that when it comes to Bluetooth devices. From its menu bar icon you can open the app’s Control Center. However, it’s a shame a simple click doesn’t do that, and that the feedback/ update options aren’t tucked elsewhere in the app.

The Control Center looks like Apple’s Home app. Clicking a device’s tile initiates connection, which is confirmed by a notification. (If your Mac has a Touch Bar, you can add a button that reveals a list of devices, also used to connect.)

Status info is accessed with a secondary click. Weirdly, we could use our trackpad’s two–finger gesture but not by Ctrl–clicking, so the info was unreachable if that gesture was turned off in System Prefs. You may never need most of what’s displayed, but alongside is the jewel in the crown: the ability to assign key combos to connect without opening a window or menu at all. Elsewhere, you can set a combo to open Control Center — to check battery levels, say. If only that were pre–emptively shown in connection notifications.

THE BOTTOM LINE. Juice is a neat add-on that works best once you’ve set up some key combos.