Five Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - July 2019

Apps designed for the Mac often don't receive as much attention as apps made for iOS devices, so we have a series here at MacRumors that's designed to highlight useful and interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out and potentially investing in.

This month's picks include apps for making your Touch Bar more functional, adding quick switches to the Menu bar, creating to-do lists, replacing the dashboard that's now defunct in macOS Catalina, and easily accessing Spotify and iTunes controls.


- Pock
(Free) - Pock is a simple little Mac app that's designed to make your Touch Bar more useful by adding your dock to your Touch Bar so you can quickly access your apps and even files within folders. The Pock options are customizable, so you can choose what you need most, adding options like a now playing widget for controlling music, a status widget for getting info like WiFi connection of battery level, and more.

- One Switch ($4.99) - One Switch is a nifty Mac menu bar app that adds various switches to the Mac's menu bar. You can add toggles that will do things like hide desktop options, activate dark mode, keep the Mac awake, connect to headphones, toggle on Do Not Disturb, activate Night Shift, bring up the Screen Saver, and more. Options are customizable so you can make your One Switch menu do just want you need.

- Microsoft To-Do (Free) - Microsoft earlier this month brought its popular Microsoft To-Do app to the Mac, making it more functional than ever because it's now available across all of your devices. Mac users no longer have to rely on the web app, and can access features like task syncing between devices, file attachments, list sharing, color coding, and reminders for due dates, among other options.

- Flotato (Free) - Flotato is designed to create web apps from your favorite website, so you can get quick access to the web services that you use most often. Flotato web apps can be dragged right into the dock, so you can set up quick access for things like Google Docs, Facebook Messenger, Netflix on the web, favorite news sites, and more.

- Spotmenu (Free) - Spotmenu is another Mac app that's super simple but super useful, especially for Spotify and iTunes users. Spotmenu lets you access Spotify and iTunes content from your menu bar, allowing you to see what song is playing, pause music, play music, and skip tracks.

If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Beta Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner. Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri ...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature

Kuo: iPhone 17 Models Won't Have Smaller Dynamic Island

Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models. ...
iPhone 16 Apple Store Levels

Gurman: Apple Stores Receiving 'Merchandise' Updates Next Week

Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch. In each of the past four years, ...
apple power beats pro 2

Apple's First Product Announcement of 2025 is Imminent

Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year. Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...

Top Rated Comments

Plutonius Avatar
73 months ago
At least they aren't recommending MacKeeper :(.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BWhaler Avatar
73 months ago
“Make your Touch Bar more useful”

Classic. Someone at Macrumors had a great sense of humor.

Separately, I love these types of articles. Let’s see more attention brought to software developers. Too much hardware fetish in the Apple world, and it’s thw software that makes or breaks the platform.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oneMadRssn Avatar
73 months ago
I love these articles. Though none of these apps interest me, please keep them coming. Always good to learn about useful Mac apps.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mrboult Avatar
73 months ago
Better touch tool !

This app makes multi touch on the Mac track pad soooo much more useful! You can set almost any gesture you like to do almost anything.. Either app specific, or across the entire system. I LOVE IT!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SecuritySteve Avatar
73 months ago
But seriously, where can we find that coffee mug in the still of the video?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
rlhamil Avatar
73 months ago
BetterTouchTool, in addition to mapping additional touchpad gestures (and keystrokes, Magic Mouse, etc) can now put the Dock on the Touch Bar too; it has for some time now been able to do other things with the Touch Bar, while coexisting with system or application specific uses thereof.

Formerly free, still quite cheap.
[doublepost=1562114369][/doublepost]
I wish someone would revive Temps, the menu bar weather app.
I use CARROT for that; choose the "boring" rather than "snarky" personality setting if you wish. :) I think its data is mostly from Dark Sky, which is about the best for local weather. Here in Maryland, if you don't like the weather, wait an hour or drive a few miles, and it'll change; so good location awareness counts for a lot.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)