iStat Menus Updated With New Look, History Views, and Bandwidth Monitor

[conigs]

Originally Posted by GIZBUG

after installing the free trial, im not sure how to get rid of the default mac Time, battery, etc. Any idea? Want to use istat time, and not the default time on the top bar on my mac.

Hold down ⌘, then drag it off the menu bar.

[ArtOfWarfare]

Originally Posted by vvebsta

Why do they keep charging for every version? Its so annoying once a new version comes out and then it either bugs you to update or if you update it by accident it will tell you now you need to buy it. Its still the same app just with some new graphics.

They need to put it on the app store and give free updates. Just my opinion. I know developers need to get paid too, but I don't think a few new icons is worth the money.

There's no way such a model is sustainable. MacRumors had a link to a blog nicely explaining it back in August, but to the best of my memory the summary was this:

Some things, like food, lose value over time. As you eat it, its value goes down. Therefore, a finite cost can be calculated.

Some things, like the news, have rather constant value. There's always something new to read about. It neither gains value nor loses value over time. Thus they charge a constant fee over time.

Apps not only maintain value, they actually get better over time. To properly charge users, apps must have paid upgrades. The developer went through the effort of adding new features, and so they have every right to ask for a bit more money than what you have already paid.

Having said that, big fixes should always be free. You should pay for apps with the expectation that they'll work as advertised.

In-App Purchases are a very nice start, but Apple needs to allow developers to start offering paid updates, where they can say "New users pay $15 to get V4, V1 users pay $13, V2 users pay $10, V3 users pay $7", or something to that extent.

It could be like the "complete this album" button in the iTunes music store.

[The Bulge]

Originally Posted by jvpython

What Mac are you using it on? Has never done that to me.

iMac 27" 2011.

[Namtaro]

I find the look quite... cartoonish. Maybe I just like the minimlistic more. I bought an app called 'System Monitor' instead. Looks a ton better IMO.

[coder12]

Originally Posted by Quu

I actually purchased iStat Menus 3 when it released but I don't think I'm going to pay for this new version. I don't see why I would pay to get what is essentially a Retina Graphic update. The new features are pretty worthless.

I've been really enjoying the ability to see what apps are using my bandwidth. Little Snitch always had its unique way of messing up OS X for the times I used it to monitor apps using the Internet.

[alphaod]

Do I need to upgrade? No.

But I am willing to support and update (even paid) for software that I find useful, which is the case for iStat Menus.

[Bjango]

Originally Posted by The Bulge

Still shows that all GPU memory is used.

This is a known issue. OS X 10.8 introduced some changes for some graphics cards that meant memory usage isn't reported correctly. At this point we believe it's a driver issue and one we can't fix at our end.

Originally Posted by oneMadRssn

iStat Pro for Dashboard is gone, no more. You can find a few thread on if here, one thread has been updating it and fixing some of the incompatibilities it has with Mountain Lion, but overall, its donezo.

That's correct — we kept the iSlayer website and all the widgets around for several years after we ceased development of them. If you'd like to download one of the widgets, I can provide a link.

Originally Posted by bobobenobi

I just upgraded. It's buggy. Clicking to next month takes me to December 2013. Clicking the heading to return to current month takes me to October 2012.

This is a known issues that some users (definitely not all) are seeing. We're working hard on a fix right now (we think we have it solved, but are still doing some testing).

Originally Posted by bobobenobi

The text indicator for upload/download speeds stays stuck at 0.0b/s.

Do you have the Primary Interface set to Automatic? It's possible you're monitoring an interface that's not the one you're using for internet.

Originally Posted by bobobenobi

Those disk space indicator bars and most of the other graphs are UGLY.

Ugly in which way? We're definitely going to make some design changes as version 4 progresses.

Originally Posted by bobobenobi

The text in the menus is way too large and makes my sensors menu extend WAY off screen.

Which Mac model do you have? The text is already smaller than Apple's standard menus. I'm not sure we'd want to go much smaller.

Originally Posted by davidwarren

I'll stick with version 3.

We're totally fine with that and hope you're enjoying iStat Menus 3.

Originally Posted by quester

I just bought v3 three days ago. Complained yesterday when I saw the new version, and they sent me a new registration for v4 five minutes later.

November 12 is the cut off. If anyone purchased iStat Menu on or after November 12, please get in touch and we'll give you an upgrade.

Originally Posted by quester

Not sure if v3 had info about which processes was consuming the most bandwidth, but very nicely done in v4 (no need for little snitch).

That's new for iStat Menus 4.

Originally Posted by Cougarcat

At least there is upgrading pricing.

If it were on the MAS (BTW, I think app store restrictions make it impossible) what would happen is the old version would get pulled and everyone would have to pay full price.

Relevant, Bjango's take on the app store.

Yep. We've been able to do a few nice things like upgrade pricing, a 14 day trial and we've been able to upgrade people who bought recently. All not possible if we were on the Mac App Store. (Not that iStat Menus could be on the Mac App Store anyway.)

Originally Posted by Blaine

Well for one, it's fugly.

I never thought I'd say this, but I downloaded the trial, and absolutely fell in love with it. I too wish it was on the mac app store, but oh well.

Thank you. Please see above regarding Mac App Store. Not possible for iStat Menus without drastically changing the functionality, unfortunately.

Originally Posted by paduck

Again, it's been 31 months since I purchased 3.0 and they've constantly upgraded the product through various Apple system upgrades to maintain compatibility. This product is a steal at the price. Don't begrudge the authors for wanting to make a little profit. They have a nice suite of integrated products at reasonable prices. It would be nice if there were more small developers like them.

We've updated iStat Menus 3 twenty times since the initial release, plus added new features and support for new Macs. To add support for new Macs, we typically have to buy every single model. We often sell the Macs not long after, but it's a huge app to maintain and develop. Thank you for your comments — this definitely hasn't been a trivial endeavour for us and we still have lots of things planned for 4.x.

—

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them in a timely fashion.

Cheers,
Marc

[parish]

Good to see a developer willing to join a forum like this and interact with their customers, so kudos for that

Originally Posted by Bjango

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them in a timely fashion.

Cheers,
Marc

Can you comment on the point I made (post #8) about the battery indicator please? I did report this to you.

[The Bulge]

Originally Posted by Bjango

This is a known issue. OS X 10.8 introduced some changes for some graphics cards that meant memory usage isn't reported correctly. At this point we believe it's a driver issue and one we can't fix at our end.

Why not put the text "Info not available" not a full progress bar? Full progress bar means what it means, i'm not a mind reader.

[Bjango]

Originally Posted by The Bulge

Why not put the text "Info not available" not a full progress bar? Full progress bar means what it means, i'm not a mind reader.

We don't have a full list of the GPUs affected. Also, the same GPU drivers do provide the correct info for OS versions prior to 10.8 *and* it's possible that the bug will be fixed in a future OS version. So we don't know the difference between a correctly reported 100% and an incorrect 100%.

It's not an ideal situation, but it seems like maintaining a list of the affected GPUs and OS versions so we can selectively hide or the info, not knowing if future OS versions will fix the issue.

It's definitely something we're thinking about and would like to solve, I'm just not sure that there is a good solution available to us.

Originally Posted by parish

I hope they've addressed the battery life issue that's been annoying me ever since I got my retina MBP. The iStat Menu battery remaining %age is consistently 2-5% less than the OS X battery indicator

Didn't happen on my old 2007 MBP

We're using the Apple provided and endorsed method for getting battery remaining time and percentage. They use a different method for their own menubar item. Which is more accurate? We haven't done tests to find out.

Originally Posted by Greg.

Simplicity and consistency

Good things to aspire to. Here's my menubar.

[Tastydirt]

Great app that I use regularly on all my Macs and I have no problem paying for a family license. There are too many people here from the iOS generation used to free software and living with it's deficiencies.

Thanks for giving us the choice to pay for quality.

[throttlemeister]

It's the first thing I install on my Mac. I upgraded immediately the moment I heard of v4 being out and love it. The only comment I would have is that I prefer the old battery icon over the new one, but that is a taste issue not a program issue. It's also not aligned properly horizontally, but oh well.



As for price, I don't think it is expensive, especially considering how the program is maintained and updated. Support questions are always promptly answered.

I just love being able to see my network/cpu usage at a glance. Menumeters is so fugly, I wouldn't even consider it as an alternative. But besides the looks, iStat Menus lets you customize what you want to see and more importantly how you want to see it in ways no other program does.

[Bjango]

Originally Posted by Tastydirt

Great app that I use regularly on all my Macs and I have no problem paying for a family license. There are too many people here from the iOS generation used to free software and living with it's deficiencies.

Thanks for giving us the choice to pay for quality.

Thank you for using iStat Menus. We really appreciate it.

[vvebsta]

I hear you guys. I think all of what you said about developers getting paid is legit. It was simply my personal opinion. There are some apps that to me serve a single function and I want to buy it once and not have to think about it ever again.

To me its like buying a flashlight app on your phone. It serves a single purpose, to turn the light on and off. I'm happy to pay full price for this up front. If the developer polishes the interface, upgrades the graphics, tweaks the UI... whatever the case may be, it doesn't matter to me much because the function remains the same.

The iStats app is a great app that I am happy I paid full price for, but once its setup to my liking I'm not inclined to change it. I just want it to diligently serve its purpose without having to think about it again.

Having said that I will probably still buy the upgrade just to support the dev team, though probably the last time for this app unless they come up with something truly revolutionary in v5.

[Bjango]

Originally Posted by vvebsta

I hear you guys. I think all of what you said about developers getting paid is legit. It was simply my personal opinion. There are some apps that to me serve a single function and I want to buy it once and not have to think about it ever again.

That's completely fair enough. The old app will continue to work, and if you're happy with it, then by all means keep using it!

There's very simple logic that can be applied to all software products: If the developer doesn't have enough income to cover maintenance and new features, everyone loses out and the app won't see any more updates. We try to be very upfront with our business model... we ask for what we feel is a very reasonable amount of money so we can continue building products we love and use ourselves.

[parish]

Originally Posted by Bjango

We're using the Apple provided and endorsed method for getting battery remaining time and percentage. They use a different method for their own menubar item. Which is more accurate? We haven't done tests to find out.

Thanks for the explanation. So the solution lies with Apple then?

At the end of the day, it's not a big deal - won't stop me u/g to v4 - it's just that when the battery gets really low and the Apple meter says 5% and yours says 2% I start wondering whether I can finish what I'm doing before it shuts down or do I need to go and get the charger.

[Bjango]

Originally Posted by parish

Thanks for the explanation. So the solution lies with Apple then?

At the end of the day, it's not a big deal - won't stop me u/g to v4 - it's just that when the battery gets really low and the Apple meter says 5% and yours says 2% I start wondering whether I can finish what I'm doing before it shuts down or do I need to go and get the charger.

The funny thing is that both numbers have been provided by Apple. We're just displaying one in our app and that differs to their own menubar item. One day I'd love to compare the two to see which is more accurate.

[jmnikricket]

Originally Posted by paduck

You've got to be kidding me. I bought v3.0 in May 2010 for $16. More than two and a half years later I can get an upgrade for $9. That's less than three lattes at Starbucks...

Yes, but it's 96 packages of Ramen; we're not all coffee-drinking hipsters

I'll stick with MenuMeters myself!

[enu]

Did any one else notice that total data used on each of the network interfaces is no longer displayed? Is this just a setting somewhere that I've missed?

[-SD-]

I'm using Version 3 and I find it very useful. I'll certainly be upgrading and supporting such a great application.

[Raunien]

Is there a way to hide the bluetooth DUN option under network in istatmenu 4?

Also, is there a method to switch on/off which sensors to show under sensor drop down menu?

Also another bug is that in calendar, the option to start the week on a sun/mon has been removed and that has resulted in calendars being off by one day

[sh4ne]

seems to have a few bugs.. date for one is a killer bug for me.

[wikus]

Got version 4 yesterday. Wow, its ugly. The graphs, icons, etc look far too iOS/toy like, theyre way too damn big to show so much information. Also, the Blaqua skin in version 3 was badass, made things look FAR more catered to the tech savvy user that likes to tinker with their computer, you know, the 'hacker geek' type.

Really hate the look of v4.

That said, I uninstalled v4, wiped preferences and went back to v3.

[parish]

Originally Posted by enu

Did any one else notice that total data used on each of the network interfaces is no longer displayed? Is this just a setting somewhere that I've missed?

Just hover over the Upload/Download of the interface on the menu and a pop-right appears

[gotzero]

I use it and updated. Very happy with old and new versions, not experiencing any problems.