mac.iLounge

The past few versions of OS X have added lots of features to help keep you organized—Spaces, Mission Control, Notes, and more. Lion and Mountain Lion were particularly big on gestures. Software Ambience’s new app Unclutter ($2*) adds even more organizational tools, while incorporating the same kind of intuitive gestures. It provides quick access to your notepad and clipboard, and temporary file storage. Read More

We don’t normally feature apps aimed solely at developers, but this one’s too cool to pass up. Tokens (Free/$29), from developers Oisin Prendiville and Pádraig Kennedy, is a standalone tool for managing App Store promo codes. If you’ve never had to deal with getting them out, consider yourself lucky. It’s normally a big hassle, but Tokens makes the process whole lot easier and gives you features Apple doesn’t. Read More

We could probably just say “Angry Birds Star Wars” and tell you everything you need to know. Rovio Entertainment’s latest game brings together two incredibly popular franchises, at the $5 cost the company has established for its games on the Mac. Thankfully it took full advantage of the license, bring more than just a new coat of paint to its tried and true game. Read More

First released as an iPhone app in the winter of 2012, Realmac Software’s reminder application Clear garnered a lot of attention for its cool looks and inventive interface. Our review found it to be beautiful and fun, but lacking in features. At least one of those issues is being addressed with the launch of the Mac version, which arrives on November 8 at a fairly steep $15 price. Read More

Fans of the popular webcomic Penny Arcade and classic RPG players should both take note of TinkerHouse Games’ new Mac App Store release, Penny Arcade’s On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 ($5). The third installment in the comic’s foray into video games is full of the humor and irreverence Penny Arcade is known for, plus SNES-style graphics and play. Read More

The gift and curse of the Internet is the ridiculous quantity of reading material it makes available—new information that keeps arriving even when you have no time to take it in. A handful of services including Apple’s own Reading List aim to solve this issue by time-shifting your stories, kind of like a DVR does for your TV shows. One of the more popular options is Idea Shower’s Pocket. Formerly known as Read It Later, the service came to iOS with a truly great app updated in April 2012, and is now available for free in the Mac App Store. Read More

We’re suckers for cool pinball games, so when Operatio’s Pin Tiki Ball launched for the Mac, we had to check it out, and it’s a cool take on traditional pinball tables. Ported over from the iOS version, the tropical theme allows the developer to employ a novel twist: instead of metal balls, you bounce around hot lava balls to crush fruit and protect the natives. Read More

NimbleBit’s games are the kind that suck you in and refuse to let go—at least one member of our staff had a pretty bad Tiny Tower addiction until he quit cold turkey. The developer’s latest title is Pocket Planes, including the just-released free port to the Mac. Once you’ve loaded it, good luck pulling yourself away from this airline simulator. Read More

This isn’t the first Mac app to offer audio playback control via hand gestures, but none has worked as well as Flutter (Free), developed by the company of the same name. Described as “Kinect for Mac,” the app only recognizes three gestures, but they let you play your music, pause it, and skip back and forth between tracks using just your Mac’s FaceTime camera and your hand. Read More

It’s time to bring out your inner engineer. We didn’t know what to expect when we heard about Bridge Project (£16/~$26), but after checking out Application Systems London’s new game, we’re actually pretty impressed. The developer clearly put some real muscle into this bridge-building title, which looks gorgeous and uses real-world physics, making the higher-than-typical-App-Store-price tolerable.  Read More

Originally released two years ago for game consoles and PCs, Call of Duty: Black Ops ($50) has just debuted in the Mac App Store, continuing Activision’s most popular franchise to date. Set in the 1960s and featuring guest appearances by virtual versions of JFK and Fidel Castro, Black Ops is a traditional first-person shooter with atypically excellent intensity, graphics and audio, focusing on the CIA’s covert “black” operations during the Cold War. Helping to justify the price tag in a world of $10 apps: Hollywood-caliber voice work by actors Sam Worthington, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, and Ice Cube. Read More

Sometimes gamers want to sit down and solve puzzles, and sometimes they just want to blow up lots of baddies. Klei Entertainment’s Shank ($10) falls well inside the latter category. A port of the popular console title, it’s a 2-D side-scroller that’s designed to play somewhat like a graphic novel. Read More

Not long after the launch of Mountain Lion and just in time for Windows 8’s release, the two most popular Windows visualization apps for Mac computers have been updated to support both new operating systems. Parallels today announced that Parallels Desktop 8 ($80) is available for existing users, with a broad release to new users on September 4, 2012, while VMware’s Fusion 5 ($50) debuted last week. Both apps bring loads of new features to the virtualization game. Read More

Stop motion animation—think Wallace & Gromit, Robot Chicken, or the California Raisins—is a labor-intensive process. But with the right tools, you can actually create these videos using your Mac, without any real experience. Boinx Software has just released the third edition of iStopMotion ($30) to the Mac App Store, making it even easier for users to create their own cartoons. Our favorite feature is Remote Camera, which allows you to transmit a live feed from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to your Mac. Read More

Even more than the Mac App Store, Valve’s Steam platform has been the driving force behind “real” gaming on the Mac since it launched in May 2010. Steam quickly brought a collection of popular titles to OS X from the Windows world, proving that Apple’s computers can indeed be legitimate gaming machines. The most recent big release is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive ($15), the latest chapter in the popular first-person military shooter franchise, and this isn’t just a port of an old game: Valve is releasing the Mac version on the same day as it premieres on Windows. Read More