10 Best Mac Productivity Apps

With the right set of apps in your arsenal, you can make your productivity skyrocket on your MacBook. We scoured Apple’s Mac App store to find the must-have apps to help you do everything better, from keeping better tabs on mail to making the most of multiple monitors. Want to be ahead of the game? Download our top picks.

Bloop S.R.L. AirMail ($1.99)

The Apple Mail app is good, but you may want a bit more than it offers. Enter AirMail, a well-designed app chock-full of options. This handy program lets you connect all of your cloud accounts, both email and cloud storage. The attractive unified inbox supports Apple iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, IMAP, POP3, Google Apps, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook.com and Live.com. You can also attach files from the cloud as if they were stored locally, thanks to integrated support for CloudApp, Dropbox, Google Drive and Droplr.

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10 Best Mac Productivity Apps

With the right set of apps in your arsenal, you can make your productivity skyrocket on your MacBook. We scoured Apple’s Mac App store to find the must-have apps to help you do everything better, from keeping better tabs on mail to making the most of multiple monitors. Want to be ahead of the game? Download our top picks.

Bloop S.R.L. AirMail ($1.99)

The Apple Mail app is good, but you may want a bit more than it offers. Enter AirMail, a well-designed app chock-full of options. This handy program lets you connect all of your cloud accounts, both email and cloud storage. The attractive unified inbox supports Apple iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, IMAP, POP3, Google Apps, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook.com and Live.com. You can also attach files from the cloud as if they were stored locally, thanks to integrated support for CloudApp, Dropbox, Google Drive and Droplr.

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Oink app

Oink is an iOS app that prevents your kids from bankrupting you with online or in-app purchases

We've all heard the stories about the parents that went out for an evening, left junior at home with a baby sitter and mom's Apple iPhone to keep the kid pacified for the evening. When the parents returned, they were out a ton of money because their beloved son made quite a few in-app purchases. But there is a solution (besides taking the phone away from junior and risking a temper tantrum).

Oink is an app for iOS that gives kids the freedom to shop online, buy apps and make in-app purchases as long as the amount of money spent stays within a pre-determined amount. Money can be distributed by giving junior a monthly budget, or parents can add money anytime to reward a job well done. And Mom and Dad can set it up so that a certain amount of money can be spent on a specific app, or on apps with a certain rating. That stops the kid from buying an app that he is not mature enough to handle. And the entire account can be disabled if the parents need to punish the kid for a few days, or the account password somehow gets into the wrong hands.

Oink also is great for online shopping, and allows parents to reward their older kids for a good grade. It is available for devices running iOS 7 or higher. Once you install the free app, you can set up your account and your kid's account and your card is never charged until there is a transaction. Check out the videos made by the company in the video slideshow below.

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Oink app

Oink is an iOS app that prevents your kids from bankrupting you with online or in-app purchases

We've all heard the stories about the parents that went out for an evening, left junior at home with a baby sitter and mom's Apple iPhone to keep the kid pacified for the evening. When the parents returned, they were out a ton of money because their beloved son made quite a few in-app purchases. But there is a solution (besides taking the phone away from junior and risking a temper tantrum).

Oink is an app for iOS that gives kids the freedom to shop online, buy apps and make in-app purchases as long as the amount of money spent stays within a pre-determined amount. Money can be distributed by giving junior a monthly budget, or parents can add money anytime to reward a job well done. And Mom and Dad can set it up so that a certain amount of money can be spent on a specific app, or on apps with a certain rating. That stops the kid from buying an app that he is not mature enough to handle. And the entire account can be disabled if the parents need to punish the kid for a few days, or the account password somehow gets into the wrong hands.

Oink also is great for online shopping, and allows parents to reward their older kids for a good grade. It is available for devices running iOS 7 or higher. Once you install the free app, you can set up your account and your kid's account and your card is never charged until there is a transaction. Check out the videos made by the company in the video slideshow below.

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Google may soon kill Google Voice and fold it into Hangouts

Voice has always been an oddity of an app. Diehard users love it, and often complain about how Google hasn't really done much to support the service (which still can't handle MMS for most users, and is limited to the U.S. only). On the other hand, many people don't know or care what Google Voice is because there is rarely any news about it. But, no news may be good news, because there is a new report that says Google Voice may soon be killed off.

It has been clear for a while now that Hangouts is seen as the unified communications platform for Google as we move forward. Hangouts has already taken over the instant messaging duties from Google Talk, the group messaging tasks fromGoogle+ Messenger, and it has become the default SMS handler app for Android devices. Soon, Google Voice may be added to the list of services absorbed by Hangouts. 

A new report is suggesting that possibly even within the next few months, Google Voice may be killed off and its functionality could be folded into Hangouts. The interesting thing here is that this could actually mean a new feature that wasn't present in either mobile app before: VoIP calling. Google Voice is a passthrough service, meaning that Google calls the number you want and calls you and connects the two in the background. It is not a VoIP service which would simply initiate a straight call over a data connection. And, Hangouts does video or audio chat between users, but not VoIP calling. But, when combining the two services that could change, and that could even be a change that would be made available to iOS users (assuming Apple approves the update). 

The details are all very limited right now though, but it does sound like the functionality of Google Voice won't disappear, just the standalone app. Given the timeline of "the next few months", we're assuming that if this is all true, it will be part of the Google I/O announcements, and possibly even be connected to Android 4.5 KitKat, which has been rumored for announcement towards the end of June. We'll have to wait and see though. 

Read More

Google may soon kill Google Voice and fold it into Hangouts

Voice has always been an oddity of an app. Diehard users love it, and often complain about how Google hasn't really done much to support the service (which still can't handle MMS for most users, and is limited to the U.S. only). On the other hand, many people don't know or care what Google Voice is because there is rarely any news about it. But, no news may be good news, because there is a new report that says Google Voice may soon be killed off.

It has been clear for a while now that Hangouts is seen as the unified communications platform for Google as we move forward. Hangouts has already taken over the instant messaging duties from Google Talk, the group messaging tasks fromGoogle+ Messenger, and it has become the default SMS handler app for Android devices. Soon, Google Voice may be added to the list of services absorbed by Hangouts. 

A new report is suggesting that possibly even within the next few months, Google Voice may be killed off and its functionality could be folded into Hangouts. The interesting thing here is that this could actually mean a new feature that wasn't present in either mobile app before: VoIP calling. Google Voice is a passthrough service, meaning that Google calls the number you want and calls you and connects the two in the background. It is not a VoIP service which would simply initiate a straight call over a data connection. And, Hangouts does video or audio chat between users, but not VoIP calling. But, when combining the two services that could change, and that could even be a change that would be made available to iOS users (assuming Apple approves the update). 

The details are all very limited right now though, but it does sound like the functionality of Google Voice won't disappear, just the standalone app. Given the timeline of "the next few months", we're assuming that if this is all true, it will be part of the Google I/O announcements, and possibly even be connected to Android 4.5 KitKat, which has been rumored for announcement towards the end of June. We'll have to wait and see though. 

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Google Play Store 4.6.16

Google Play Store 4.6.16 becoming available with batch app installing

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We’re always happy to see new updates and we’re now seeing the rollout of a new update from Google for the Play Store. This update bumps it up to version 4.6.16 and includes some nice features that should make the experience a whole lot better. One of our personal favorites is the ability to batch install apps. This should make life a whole lot easier whenever you’re loading all of your apps onto a new phone.

Another notable feature is that of new password options. Previously, there was an on/off toggle dealing with requiring passwords for purchases. That’s been replaced by three options: all purchases, every thirty minutes, or never. While most of us probably won’t notice this a whole lot, it should be good for parents with kids who often use their phones.

A few other updates were also thrown in such as some revised wording, ridding the settings overflow button and instead moving it to the slide-in menu, and after all these years, we finally have an option to manually check for updates to the Google Play Store. Nothing mind-blowing in this update, but it’s continued work towards a better Play Store.

Let us know when you see the update.

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Google Play Store 4.6.16

Google Play Store 4.6.16 becoming available with batch app installing

3
inShare

We’re always happy to see new updates and we’re now seeing the rollout of a new update from Google for the Play Store. This update bumps it up to version 4.6.16 and includes some nice features that should make the experience a whole lot better. One of our personal favorites is the ability to batch install apps. This should make life a whole lot easier whenever you’re loading all of your apps onto a new phone.

Another notable feature is that of new password options. Previously, there was an on/off toggle dealing with requiring passwords for purchases. That’s been replaced by three options: all purchases, every thirty minutes, or never. While most of us probably won’t notice this a whole lot, it should be good for parents with kids who often use their phones.

A few other updates were also thrown in such as some revised wording, ridding the settings overflow button and instead moving it to the slide-in menu, and after all these years, we finally have an option to manually check for updates to the Google Play Store. Nothing mind-blowing in this update, but it’s continued work towards a better Play Store.

Let us know when you see the update.

Read More