MacUpdate's Mac App Bundle: Stream iTunes, Edit Video, Photos, and More [Archive]

MacRumors

Sep 9, 2008, 10:58 PM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

A few times a year, MacRumors partners with MacUpdate to promote their Mac application bundle deal (http://www.mupromo.com/deal/593/4438/macupdate-software-bundle ). Their latest bundle delivers up to 10 Mac applications for $49.99 (a $621.65 value if all purchased separately) including:

- HookUp (http://www.dottunes.net/) ($20.00) - access, stream and download iTunes libraries in remote networks.
- Alarm Clock Pro (http://www.koingosw.com/products/alarmclockpro.php) ($19.95) - programmable "alarm clock" that can trigger SMS, email, audio, video, and more
- Periscope (http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=7002) ($39.95) - use your iSight to monitor a room for motion, send images remotely
- Devon Agent (http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonagent/) ($49.95) - improve search results
- Mellel (http://www.mellel.com/) ($49.00)- word processor aimed at writers, scholars, technical writing and multilingual word processing.
- Norrkross Movie (http://www.norrkross.com/software/movie/movie.php) ($59.00) - edit video in multiple layered tracks, use a green screen
- Bookends (http://www.sonnysoftware.com/) ($99.00) - bibliography/reference and information management system
- MacJournal (http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=85) ($34.95) - create a personal journal to record your thoughts and ideas
- Contactizer Pro (http://www.objective-decision.com/en/products/contactizerpro/) ($119.90) - contact management system
- LightZone (http://www.lightcrafts.com/) ($129.95) - photo editing software with "smart" visual edits, batch functionality

This bundle sale (http://www.mupromo.com/deal/593/4438/macupdate-software-bundle) is almost over and expires on Wednesday night (September 10th). All applications have been "unlocked" so all purchasers of the bundle will receive all 10 applications for the $49.99 price.

MacRumors is a promotional partner with MacUpdate (http://www.mupromo.com/deal/593/4438/macupdate-software-bundle). Bundle sales through these links (http://www.mupromo.com/deal/593/4438/macupdate-software-bundle) benefit MacRumors financially, and provide a way for readers to directly support this site.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/09/macupdates-mac-app-bundle-stream-itunes-edit-video-photos-and-more/)

ChrisH3677

Sep 9, 2008, 11:12 PM

Geez, they're scratching the bottom of the barrel. Surely they ould have found a few that would have had universal appeal.

wingedturbo

Sep 9, 2008, 11:25 PM

complete mac newb here, guessing these programs are a waste of time?

Icestorm815

Sep 9, 2008, 11:30 PM

Yey! Advertisements! Don't you just love them! :rolleyes:

WalrusCP

Sep 9, 2008, 11:31 PM

complete mac newb here, guessing these programs are a waste of time?

Not at all. DevonAgent is a terrific search tool, MacJournal is a great Journaling/blogging app, Contactizer Pro is a very nice contact management system app, Mellel is considered on the best word processors for mac...

Really, it's a matter of whether or not you need apps like these for whatever you do with your computer. I bought this, and DevonAgent and MacJournal alone were worth it. Finding I really like Contactizer as well.

spydr

Sep 9, 2008, 11:54 PM

wow...I bought Bookends last year for $100. Terrific reference manager (particularly for medical sciences).

Feel so angry now :mad::eek:

freebooter

Sep 9, 2008, 11:54 PM

If you have a digital camera, Lightzone (alone) for $50 is a good deal--even if you already have Photoshop. It's a wonderful application. The rest of the pkg. looks alright, too, especially Mellel.
I think I'll be getting this bundle.:)

jasonbee

Sep 10, 2008, 12:01 AM

I bought early on in the offer, so I just got the news that the last app has been unlocked - woohoo.

I have tested these apps and already see use for five of them.

Periscope
Devon Agent - all I can say is wow.
Alarm Clock Pro
MacJournal
LightZone

For 49 dollars...really no complaints if I liked only two. As with everything not every app will be useful to all, but I only buy them to get two or three apps with the bonus of owning a license for trying all the others. I usually end up really liking 75% of the bundle. So again...it's well worth the cash.

JB

fuziwuzi

Sep 10, 2008, 12:02 AM

looks like the macupdate site is down

berniemac

Sep 10, 2008, 12:04 AM

Lame. Advertisements like this should be put off to the side and marked as such (ala Google).

Small White Car

Sep 10, 2008, 12:05 AM

Lame. Advertisements like this should be put off to the side and marked as such (ala Google).

Every single iPod nano, iPod touch, and iPhone article today is also an ad!

Should they have all been "put off to the side?"

Please.

psychboy

Sep 10, 2008, 12:06 AM

I think it's worth the price just for Bookends -- and if Mellel integrates with it as well as people say, that just doubled the value for me.

ezekielrage_99

Sep 10, 2008, 12:26 AM

I have purchased MacUpdates' Apps before but this one I've passed on, there seriously isn't anything that useful or worth getting...

If they added Pixelmator or something else useful I might have considered.

Animalk

Sep 10, 2008, 12:27 AM

Lame. Advertisements like this should be put off to the side and marked as such (ala Google).

Admittedly, the selection of apps this time around is not exactly amazing, but I am sure that some people out there might benefit from a couple of them.

These sales benefit macrumors and thus they are sponsoring this site. If you like macrumors then I would recommend you refrain from "bashing" it. People are often quick to forget that one is business to make money, always. Macrumors, in my opinion, is very respectful and honest to their users with respect to advertizing and am quite pleased with that.

But, as I stated just before, the list seems to be somewhat uninteresting. But then again, thats purely my opinion and nothing more.

Vanilla Thunder

Sep 10, 2008, 12:37 AM

This looks like a seriously good bundle to me. Mellel is very highly regarded and is normally $49 alone. The rest must be worth $0.99 don't you think?

Macmaniac

Sep 10, 2008, 12:39 AM

I four getting 2 million site views on a single day, why not get a great ad space?

MR is a business now, sadly some things we have to accept

Lou22Lou

Sep 10, 2008, 01:49 AM

I also purchased on day one. The gold in this bundle for me turns out to be an app I'd never heard of. HookUp.

Remember the old OurTunes app. It was big in Campus and Colleges and allowed you to download from local itunes shares. Apple made changes to iTunes which stopped OurTunes from working. HookUp gives us this feature again so that wherever you can see local iTunes shares you can download from them.

However that's just the start. HookUp also allows you to connect not only to remote iTunes libraries but entire networks of iTunes shares. So if you were on a campus where there were 30 shares visible on the local network and you install HookUp on one computer within that network. Then from anywhere else on the internet you can connect to that HookUp app and play and download from all 30 of those iTunes shares in that entire network.

Lightzone looks cool, Contactizer looks good although I still have not received my code but every other app in the bundle is a replacement for another app but HookUp seems to be the silent winner in terms of a unique app with no alternate apps which offer that functionality.

BTW: HookUp is free from http://www.dottunes.net and the promo gives you a plugin which lets you download from these remote or local shares.

PM me if you want to connect to my HookUp

macshill

Sep 10, 2008, 01:50 AM

Ah. Ye Olde Shameless Cash Grab. I know ya well. :)

davidee

Sep 10, 2008, 01:51 AM

you know it takes 2 seconds to pass on an article that you don't care for. we get news, ideas, and regular updates. I'd much prefer this to macslash (very sad what happened to that site). anyway, the only one I was interested in was Light Zone. LightZone seems worth it for me for the 100 times in a year I may need a cool effect from an otherwise seemingly wasted shot (outside the window of a plane for example of terrain). Looks like I will be getting this one just for at least that app. Also on another note, where if not here are smaller developers ever able to showcase cool mac apps, after all they all don't have adobe's budget. oh and thx arn :-)

/end soapbox

jnc

Sep 10, 2008, 01:55 AM

That is pretty good value - I guess you only need to find two or three apps to be useful for you to make this a really good deal. I'm going to look into the apps a bit more. Appreciate the heads-up!

you know it takes 2 seconds to pass on an article that you don't care for.

qft :)

t4cgirl

Sep 10, 2008, 02:12 AM

The idea that any of these products manage to sell at all, let alone for two to twenty times their value, astounds. Most of them would be meager successes as freeware.

DaveTheGrey

Sep 10, 2008, 02:43 AM

Hookup shows up as free on the page ?!? :confused:

mcarnes

Sep 10, 2008, 04:08 AM

Tried 3 times to buy it. MacUpdate would not work (said it could not create an account twice, and just hung the third time). What a POS site that is. Use something else please.

Unspeaked

Sep 10, 2008, 05:23 AM

Tried 3 times to buy it. MacUpdate would not work (said it could not create an account twice, and just hung the third time). What a POS site that is. Use something else please.

Yeah, I tried Firefox and Safari twice a piece and just gave up.

If they want to make it that difficult, they clearly don't want my money.

spetznatz

Sep 10, 2008, 05:29 AM

Just have to say that Norrkross Movie is a great little app. It does everything that iMovie ought to do.

japanime

Sep 10, 2008, 05:42 AM

Hookup shows up as free on the page ?!? :confused:

Look at the Hookup page again, and you'll see that the application itself is free, but the plugin that allows you to download (steal) music from other people's iTunes libraries is $20.

I always get a kick out of software "developers" who charge money for applications that are designed to pirate music, etc.

Abstract

Sep 10, 2008, 05:51 AM

Igantius

Sep 10, 2008, 06:38 AM

I'm going to buy this for:

Lightzone - I do photography, and this sounds wonderful.
Bookends - PhD student and probably future researcher. I think I'd rather have Papers though. :o Not 100% sure.
Contactizer - There are people I need to contact sometimes. I'll use this to replace iCal and Address book, as it does both, and can do several things that sound great, such as looking at all the email associated with a person in your address book.

and maybe Mellel. MS Word isn't something I really enjoy using. ;) I only like it because it's at least able to write a few maths equations when I need to, and can handle tables from Excel, albeit very poorly. I know there are supposedly "better" apps for writing equations as well, but the equations I write in MS Word look fine to me. Too bad I can't use LaTeX templates. D'oh!

Bookends is very well integrated intro Bookends – and I believe it can also be used with Pages and Word 2008. It’s great tool for managing bibliographies and references – sounds perfect for you!

I rather like Mellel – not my area, I don’t believe this is one of Mellel’s strengths but I think there are a number of ways to incorporate equations with (free) third-party solutions… I think you can use LaTeX, but I’m sure the Mellel support forum will have the answer.

Lightzone – nice app… enjoy!

rKunda

Sep 10, 2008, 07:24 AM

I can't believe the complaining that comes from having to suffer the indignity of one single ad.

Roller

Sep 10, 2008, 07:48 AM

The only one of these apps that I've used (Bookends) is excellent, and worth the price by itself.

But it is sort of sad that this is as exciting as Apple's announcements yesterday. :)

saxman

Sep 10, 2008, 07:59 AM

While I have not purchased any of these bundles, and don't plan on purchasing this one, I'm not offended by the advertisement. I'm not aware of many great applications for the Mac and these bundles give me a chance to review applications that could be useful to me.

If you can't look past an occasional advertisement, maybe the Internet isn't for you

bolibic

Sep 10, 2008, 07:59 AM

Look at the Hookup page again, and you'll see that the application itself is free, but the plugin that allows you to download (steal) music from other people's iTunes libraries is $20.

I always get a kick out of software "developers" who charge money for applications that are designed to pirate music, etc.

Just leave that application for countries where copying a song is not a crime. ;)

Spanky Deluxe

Sep 10, 2008, 08:14 AM

This one actually has some stuff I'm interested in - Bookends etc. Shame the site doesn't want to let me purchase it. I get the error page attached and clicking the "create an account" link goes to a "The requested URL /mem-login.php was not found on this server." page. :confused::(

Nordichund

Sep 10, 2008, 08:21 AM

I bought it. I'm glad I did. I also enjoy supporting MacRumors and MacUpdates. It's a great idea and I've bought some useful, cheap software over the last couple of years. :)

This collection of software is certainly a lot more interesting than Apple's updates yesterday. That's for sure. What an anticlimax.

wavelayer

Sep 10, 2008, 08:43 AM

I was wondering when MR would post this. Like others have said, Lightzone alone is worth the price. This is a GREAT deal. I am surprised at all the whining.

zzebi

Sep 10, 2008, 09:15 AM

davidee

Sep 10, 2008, 09:51 AM

yea I had a problem shortly after I made my post.

I went to purchase it and entered my card info and then hit submit, it sat there and spun finally error'ing out.

I did get an email immediately though from Koingo Software, apparently the ones that made/host/or distribute
Alarm Clock Pro. So i waited...

about 30 mins or so later I received the MacUpdate bundle email with the S/Ns

So I am good and maybe was lucky but I know it had to be an anomaly as the first bundle I purchased 2 or 3 ago did not do that. Oh and after I went and looked back at Mellel, I can see that one is really interesting as well.

berniemac

Sep 10, 2008, 10:02 AM

Admittedly, the selection of apps this time around is not exactly amazing, but I am sure that some people out there might benefit from a couple of them.

These sales benefit macrumors and thus they are sponsoring this site. If you like macrumors then I would recommend you refrain from "bashing" it. People are often quick to forget that one is business to make money, always. Macrumors, in my opinion, is very respectful and honest to their users with respect to advertizing and am quite pleased with that.

But, as I stated just before, the list seems to be somewhat uninteresting. But then again, thats purely my opinion and nothing more.

I appreciate the service macrumors provides and have no problem with the use of advertisement to support the site. But when you insert and advertisement as though it's newsworthy it hurts the credibility of the site.

pagansoul

Sep 10, 2008, 10:35 AM

It seems that HOOKUP is like SIMPLIFY on the APP store but with the ability to download songs for an extra cost. There have been programs to copy music off ipods not belonging to a machine for some time. I used to use iFILL which copied off radio to iTunes until Apple stopped the program from working. Also iShark does this. I wonder how long HOOKUP will work?

kironin

Sep 10, 2008, 11:04 AM

I use Papers and I would strongly recommend anyone considering buying this bundle just for Bookends should check out Papers first ( http://mekentosj.com/papers/ ) especially scientists. Papers is only $42 (29 euros) if you decide to buy it. In my opinion it's far better.

Mellel seems good in theory but I haven't heard from anyone actually using that. If you are really producing long technical documents you probably should be looking at LaTeX or MacTeX ( http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ). Personally If I am not using Word or Pages I am using WriteRoom or freebies like the wonderful Cocoa based Bean ( http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html ). Mellel is currently on sale at it's website for $35 regular license and $29 for student license. A 5 license pack is $79.

And those looking at this bundle because of MacJournal should definitely first consider the wonderful and powerful free program Journler ( http://journler.com/ ) and the free program viJournal Lite , which has fast become because of it's simplicity and flexibility my daily journal for writing out my agenda for the day and tracking my daily journal of notes and task of accomplishments. ( http://freespace.virgin.net/jeremy.dronfield/skoobysoft/vijournal/lite.html )

I'm going to buy this for:

Lightzone - I do photography, and this sounds wonderful.
Bookends - PhD student and probably future researcher. I think I'd rather have Papers though. :o Not 100% sure.
Contactizer - There are people I need to contact sometimes. I'll use this to replace iCal and Address book, as it does both, and can do several things that sound great, such as looking at all the email associated with a person in your address book.

and maybe Mellel. MS Word isn't something I really enjoy using. ;) I only like it because it's at least able to write a few maths equations when I need to, and can handle tables from Excel, albeit very poorly. I know there are supposedly "better" apps for writing equations as well, but the equations I write in MS Word look fine to me. Too bad I can't use LaTeX templates. D'oh!

jeremyrader

Sep 10, 2008, 11:27 AM

I don't see this as an ad at all. Saving 5% your total order or free shipping on $75 or more is an ad. This is an opportunity to get over $600 of apps for under $50 - legally. It's something that doesn't happen all the time. It's become a topic of interest in the mac community over time. As far as rumor sites go, it's pretty newsworthy.

It's being labeled as a back-to-school bundle, and I can see the usefulness as such for just about any undergrad (or higher), particularly with Mellel, Devon Agent, and Bookends. Serious students can also get great use out of Contactizer Pro and Alarm Clock Pro. LightZone, Norrkross Movie and MacJournal help keep creative minds active outside of studies. And Hookup and Periscope I'm sure would be handy in a dorm-type environment or other common area where lots of people are online listening to music.

For me, LightZone was worth the price of admission. iPhoto is neat and all for a free app. I love using Aperture, but it has its limitations as far as intuitive use. CS3 is incredible, but much more than I need as a hobbyist photographer. I watched the tutorials, downloaded the demo, and purchased the bundle within a 24 hour span.

I haven't tried Mellel, Devon Agent, or Bookends yet, but it looks like they'll go together well, and I have a lot of writing to do this semester.

I'll give Norrkross a shot. I have a camcorder, but I haven't used it much and iMovie seems to do me fine.

I've toyed with Alarm Clock Pro and I know I'll be using it a lot.

Contactizer Pro, not so much. But my need for contacts is pretty small - I'm a bit of a shut-in. My wife could probably get good use out of it, particularly the project tracking.

Hookup and Periscope probably won't get much use from me. As much as I'd love to move into the co-ed dorms, my wife is dead set against it...

mandoman

Sep 10, 2008, 01:30 PM

I've bought most of their bundles, but this one I'm passing on, just nothing in it I'd think I'd use.

Hopefully the next bundle they'll have some more apps in it I'll use. To those that are interested in this bundle, buy with confidence, these are always a good deal, it's like buy 1 get 9 free...

stone315

Sep 10, 2008, 11:48 PM

so with 15 minutes left, anyone have any definite yes/no reasons why a college freshman should or shouldn't get it? i'm thinking math/comp sci major at the moment, so i'd be mostly getting it for alarm clock pro, mellel, and bookends. anybody with prior experience with bookends have a recommendation?

wingedturbo

Sep 11, 2008, 12:41 AM

I'm looking to get the upcoming macbook and would appreciate some recommendations as far as software goes. What on the mac can be used and what will not do. for eg. the word processor. Is it the equivalent of notepad? or will it handle most people's needs. same goes for contacts, spreadsheets, and so on. is the standard office for mac? or is there something better? aperture? photoshop? light room? light zone? apologies in advance if this has been answered elsewhere but some here seemed to have an idea of what is usefull and what doesn't cut it. thanks for the help.

p.s. the point is, the bundle might be good... but i get the feeling they are not the benchmark in their relative fields, was just wondering what examples of some cornerstone programs are.

Abstract

Sep 11, 2008, 12:45 AM

I use Papers and I would strongly recommend anyone considering buying this bundle just for Bookends should check out Papers first ( http://mekentosj.com/papers/ ) especially scientists. Papers is only $42 (29 euros) if you decide to buy it. In my opinion it's far better.

Mellel seems good in theory but I haven't heard from anyone actually using that. If you are really producing long technical documents you probably should be looking at LaTeX or MacTeX ( http://mactex-wiki.tug.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ). Personally If I am not using Word or Pages I am using WriteRoom or freebies like the wonderful Cocoa based Bean ( http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html ). Mellel is currently on sale at it's website for $35 regular license and $29 for student license. A 5 license pack is $79.

Thanks.

Ended up getting this bundle. I missed one last year and was kicking myself. I wanted Yep!, which is supposed to handle PDFs. In some ways, it makes a lot more sense than any other app despite being so simple in concept. On the other hand, if you have hundreds of PDFs on one topic like I do, it may not have been practical to weed through stuff unless you use LOTS of tags. Papers couldn't do what Yep! did as easily, but it was more powerful in almost every other way.

I don't know if I really care. I just want something right now to make things easier.

Oh, and Contactizer is really quite ace. I'm sure LightZone will be fine. I'm using it in conjunction with Lightroom, and neither Capture NX or Photoshop are perfect.

Detektiv-Pinky

Sep 11, 2008, 08:17 AM

I'm going to buy this for:

Lightzone - I do photography, and this sounds wonderful.
Bookends - PhD student and probably future researcher. I think I'd rather have Papers though. :o Not 100% sure.
Contactizer - There are people I need to contact sometimes. I'll use this to replace iCal and Address book, as it does both, and can do several things that sound great, such as looking at all the email associated with a person in your address book.

and maybe Mellel. MS Word isn't something I really enjoy using. ;) I only like it because it's at least able to write a few maths equations when I need to, and can handle tables from Excel, albeit very poorly. I know there are supposedly "better" apps for writing equations as well, but the equations I write in MS Word look fine to me. Too bad I can't use LaTeX templates. D'oh!

Look for LaTeXiT (http://ktd.club.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php)
This let's you set your Math formulas with Latex and include them in other programms - works great for me...

Igantius

Sep 11, 2008, 09:33 AM

Hookup and Periscope probably won't get much use from me. As much as I'd love to move into the co-ed dorms, my wife is dead set against it...

Some women! (BTW, nice overview of the apps)

Mellel seems good in theory but I haven't heard from anyone actually using that. If you are really producing long technical documents….[/url] )….

Thanks for the pointer about papers.

Personally, I like Mellel – solid, fast piece of software, does the job for me!

Not that I’ve needed this, but from what I’ve read, it’s the best word processor for multi-lingual documents. I don’t use it to produce long, technical documents, so I’m not the best person to give an opinion on this (to put it mildly!), but just about every review and user feedback I’ve read all praise Mellel for this type of work.

I'm looking to get the upcoming macbook and would appreciate some recommendations as far as software goes…

p.s. the point is, the bundle might be good... but i get the feeling they are not the benchmark in their relative fields, was just wondering what examples of some cornerstone programs are.

I’m afraid it depends what your needs are really. For instance, Mellel is aimed chiefly at those writing academic or technical documents, but will handle the needs of most users nicely.

There are quite a few threads started by people switching to Macs and wondering what would be the best software to get – so I would do a forum search as I’m sure you would get a few pointers and maybe start a thread in the Buying Advice forum.

Raid

Sep 11, 2008, 09:40 AM

I appreciate the service macrumors provides and have no problem with the use of advertisement to support the site. But when you insert and advertisement as though it's newsworthy it hurts the credibility of the site. I guess some people feel that a bundle of apps selling at a touch over 8% of their regular price is newsworthy.

I can only imagine how many tech sites would consider this news if Apple did this kind of bundle with software... (or dare I dream... hardware! :D )