In continuation of week 14, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the 15. week of 2024:

  • 🎮 I was briefly excited when I read that the first GBA emulator had landed in the iOS App Store. Unfortunately, it was not a legitimate app, and it was subsequently removed (again too late and why at all approved?) from the store: Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator iGBA From App Store Due to Spam and Copyright Violations - MacRumors.

  • 🛠️ Jarod Blundy released another great shortcut: Simple MB Image Uploader.

  • 🏎️ I’ve learned that in Mario Kart 8, you can choose from 703,560 driver, kart body, tires, and glider combinations, but you can still be more clever than others: Mario meets Pareto 🤯.

  • 📱 At first, I was skeptical, but Simple Scan • Quick Scanner gets updated regularly and has reached a stage where it is definitely much more useful than a simple one-step shortcut or going into the Files app and initiating the scan from within there.

  • 💻 I am a long-time Bartender 5 user and don’t see a reason to switch. However, for those who don’t already have a Setapp subscription or don’t want to pay that much money for a “simple” utility app, ‎iBar-Menubar icon control tool might be worth a look. However, you have to more or less blindly trust the developers, as their website will probably remain incomprehensible to many people.

  • 🛑 If it also bothers you that every App Store link in Safari directly opens the store instead of just calling up the overview page, maybe this will help: StopTheMacAppStore - Mac app that stops Safari from automatically opening the App Store app.

  • 🖥️ I used to have a version of iStat Menus (Setapp) running on every Mac, but nowadays I do without. However, there is also a number of alternatives, for example, the freshly updated Usage, which, for instance, also allows access to the status of the Mac from a mobile device, or the free Stats - macOS system monitor in your menu bar.

  • 📁 In week 9, I mentioned Manila, a free app that lets you change the color of a folder’s icon. There seems to be a similar paid upfront app called Foldery, that might be easier to set up and is regularly updated; bookmarked for the case that Manila stops working someday. If just a color is not enough, ‎Folderizer might be worth a try, too. So far, I was occasionally using the Setapp version of Image2icon but might give the former a shot.

  • 🎮 I fell in love with ‎Gamery - Game Tracker and switched to the app from GameTrack. Actually, I was looking for an app that runs both on iOS and macOS, but I am not very satisfied with the macOS version of GameTrack. The developer of Gamery has mentioned that he plans to enable the iPadOS version on macOS and is working on a native macOS version, too. That all sounds very good.

  • 🗓️ Sindre Sorhus makes so many great apps, and many of his programs are free. To support him, I bought the Mac App Store version of Dato even though it was available via Setapp, too. Anyways, if you’re looking for a free alternative, Itsycal for Mac or Calendrx might be worth a try.

  • 📸 I briefly looked into the new app from Aptonic, the developers of Dropzone (Setapp), called ScreenSnapAI - AI Powered Screenshot Manager. But that’s not for me. I will definitely stick with CleanShot X (Setapp) for the time being. By the way, did you know that pressing space to switch to window capture from capture area mode also works with CleanShot X and not only with the built-in macOS tool?

  • 🌐 The one and only master of the indie web, Robb, released EchoFeed. You have most probably already heard of his service to pipe an RSS feed to open web endpoints, like Mastodon or Micro.blog, etc. Love it.

  • 📲 Did you know that you can change the iOS wheel picker to a number pad by just clicking on it? I did not!

  • 🌍 Marcus reminded me that it is a very good idea to support OpenStreetMap. I am now an associated member.

  • 📺 Watched the Pilot of Palm Royale with my wife. Not yet sure what it will turn into.