iStat Menus 5 Brings Refreshed Look, OS X Yosemite Support, More Data

[WilliamG]

Thank you so much! I hope it serves you well.



We're a very lean company (everyone works remotely).

Due to the specific nature of iStat Menus, we need to do testing on each model of hardware. This sometimes means we borrow friends' Macs, but often it means buying and reselling Macs.

Is ~$10 every two years (~$5 a year) a lot for something you might use every day? That decision is entirely up to you. We want to make sure iStat Menus is the best app of its kind, and that means constant maintenance. We really don't mind if you skip major versions (~$2.50 a year).

If we were on the Mac App Store, we couldn't offer update pricing at all. We also couldn't offer a trial. And we couldn't offer refunds. We're doing everything we can to make sure the only people who buy our software are those who like it.

I completely understand why you may be upset, but please understand it was a huge amount of work that went into this update. And please understand that the update is entirely your choice.

We're also offering free updates for anyone who purchased on or after 15 July 2014.

All we want is to ensure iStat Menus can continue to serve those who use it well. That means every couple of years, there may be a paid update available.

I bought version 4 last year, and bought version 5 today. I really like it. Thanks for all the hard work.

 

[Baklava]

Don't want to buy huh? try Pulseway then....

No, I will upgrade because my dark menu bar looks ugly on Yosemite. Even if I think that 10 bucks are a bit too much to upgrade from v4.

BTW: They offer a nice extension for the Color Picker called Skala Color. http://bjango.com/mac/skalacolor/

 

[Bjango]

I bought version 4 last year, and bought version 5 today. I really like it. Thanks for all the hard work.

Thank you!

and just how ugly, washed out and squeezed is the font of "cpu" etc. r those devs blind???

We want to make sure the menu items are an efficient use of space, so we stacked the label letters vertically. I think it works well, because most of the items can be represented by three letters. If you have an idea or example of something better, I’m all ears.

But, they are optional! You don’t need to use them at all.

 

[fhall1]

We want to make sure the menu items are an efficient use of space, so we stacked the label letters vertically. I think it works well, because most of the items can be represented by three letters. If you have an idea or example of something better, I’m all ears.

But, they are optional! You don’t need to use them at all.

I just upgraded from 4.x to 5 and must agree with the others here....those menubar fonts look crappy - there must be a way to "crisp" them up a little - V4 didn't look that bad.

 

[Bjango]

I just upgraded from 4.x to 5 and must agree with the others here....those menubar fonts look crappy - there must be a way to "crisp" them up a little - V4 didn't look that bad.

Are you talking about the labels? CPU, MEM, SSD etc? There isn’t many pixels to use. The menubar itself is only 22pt tall. We end up with about 16pt usable height for icons. Those labels are very similar to how they appeared in iStat Menus 4 (we did change them, but not much).

 

[yg17]

Everyone complaining about paying for an upgrade probably has no problem walking into Starbucks and paying $5 for a drink every morning.

Here's an idea: Skip the lattes for 2 mornings and then you can buy the upgrade. Or if $10 is such a financial burden for you, perhaps you shouldn't be purchasing expensive Apple products in the first place.

 

[fhall1]

Are you talking about the labels? CPU, MEM, SSD etc? There isn’t many pixels to use. The menubar itself is only 22pt tall. We end up with about 16pt usable height for icons. Those labels are very similar to how they appeared in iStat Menus 4 (we did change them, but not much).

Yep - those are the ones. Since I upgraded I don't have the V4 screen to compare with any more, but the fist thing I noticed was how blurry "SSD" looked on V5....those labels never bothered me on V4

 

[simonmet]

Paying AGAIN!? These annually upgrade costs for iOS and OS X apps make me really sick.

I bought version 4 in March 2013 so you can hardly say it's an annual paid upgrade when it's been almost 1.5 years since version 4 and possibly even longer.

At any rate there're very few apps I will pay to upgrade without even a second thought but iStat Menus is one of them. A family pack for me and my brother works out to be about two coffees each for the upgrade. That's hardly a ripoff or exploitation is it?

Now we just need Yosemite to be finished to go with it!

----------

Very minor bug...the check for updates dialog box is strangely long..

 

[crazyxzer0]

Are you talking about the labels? CPU, MEM, SSD etc? There isn’t many pixels to use. The menubar itself is only 22pt tall. We end up with about 16pt usable height for icons. Those labels are very similar to how they appeared in iStat Menus 4 (we did change them, but not much).

Awesome update btw. Is there a way to change it from saying SSD to HDD?

 

[linuxcooldude]

Where is the "Active GPU menu item" and how does it work? Does it apply to multiple GPU's?

 

[flash84x]

You should be happy that you don't have to pay for the OS upgrade.

Also, what is the point in complaining about paying for an upgrade. You upgrade your phone, you pay. You upgrade your computer, you pay.

Someone put the time and effort into upgrading the UI and options in this app, so why should it be free. If I had someone remodel my kitchen and then a year later the cabinets I used had a better model out I wouldn't expect the guy to come back and replace my old cabinets with the new ones for free.

People expect too many things to be given to them anymore...

BUT IT'S JUST COPIES OF BITS, WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO PAY FOR THOSE?! THEY LIKE DON'T EVEN TAKE EFFORT TO REPRODUCE!



----------

Paying AGAIN!? These annually upgrade costs for iOS and OS X apps make me really sick.

You make me sick with your entitled attitude. People put a lot of time into software. Why do you deserve to have it for free?

 

[MacSince1990]

It makes you sick that developers have to eat?
4 came out two years ago, and there's an upgrade price.

Hell yes! We need to start engendering a runway model culture among developers. They're not beautiful until they're as elegant and slim as their code.


>_> Okay moving on...

----------

You should be happy that you don't have to pay for the OS upgrade.

Also, what is the point in complaining about paying for an upgrade. You upgrade your phone, you pay. You upgrade your computer, you pay.

Someone put the time and effort into upgrading the UI and options in this app, so why should it be free. If I had someone remodel my kitchen and then a year later the cabinets I used had a better model out I wouldn't expect the guy to come back and replace my old cabinets with the new ones for free.

People expect too many things to be given to them anymore...

*Shrugs* If we're entitled, it's only because of the shift from software being a main source of income to hardware being the main money-maker. Companies are increasingly offering software for free, or at much reduced rates. Look at FCP, OS X, Microsoft Office... actually pretty much everything.

 

[Bjango]

Where is the "Active GPU menu item" and how does it work? Does it apply to multiple GPU's?

Under the CPU & GPU tab there’s an icon in the Inactive Items section that’s an N. If you drag that into the Active area and turn on CPU & GPU (if it's not already on), you'll get a letter in your menubar.

i = Intel or integrated GPU
A = ATi GPU
D = Discrete GPU
N = Nvidia GPU

I'm hoping to get more help online very soon. In the meantime, feel free to ask me questions here on on Twitter (@bjango).

I just upgraded from 4.x to 5 and must agree with the others here....those menubar fonts look crappy - there must be a way to "crisp" them up a little - V4 didn't look that bad.

The menubar height changed slightly from Mavericks to Yosemite.

That single pixel height change means moving from using odd height icons, to even height icons. For our text labels, that made things a bit difficult, if we keep them vertically centered (which we wanted to do).

1. iStat Menus 4, non-Retina.
2. iStat Menus 5, non-Retina.
3. iStat Menus 4, Retina.
4. iStat Menus 5, Retina.

I'm all for improving them, but that might be tricky. Note that it's not an issue on Retina.

*Shrugs* If we're entitled, it's only because of the shift from software being a main source of income to hardware being the main money-maker. Companies are increasingly offering software for free, or at much reduced rates. Look at FCP, OS X, Microsoft Office... actually pretty much everything.

Yep. And that's a tough game to play for software-only companies.

 

[mavis]

Finally bought this app - the customer service (interaction) and the app itself are awesome.

That said, I'm having a little trouble with the temperature graphs. Mine show a historical range of 5° - 105° (Celcius) for most of the sensors, including ambient. Is this just a bug or a change in the way iStat shows the range?

 

[scott523]

iStat Menus 4 lets you change the colours of almost everything. We added support for white menu items a long time ago, for those running Obsidian Menu Bar. iStat Menus 4 should be totally fine with Yosemite’s dark mode.

You can change the colours by clicking on items, like this:

Image

Ah you're right, I see it now. I had problems seeing the number shown in the menubar but the colors are also customizable. It looks good now.

Does iStat 5 have a toggle feature to turn on/off? Or maybe even switch to dark mode automatically when Yosemite goes to dark mode. That would be cool.

Have you tried iStat Menus 4.22 and the latest Yosemite preview?

Running the latest iStat 4.22 but I'm in Yosemite PB1. Fan rule editing doesn't work but I've never had to use it since getting a rMBP.

If I had iStat4 single, could I upgrade to iStat5 family?

 

[Bjango]

Finally bought this app - the customer service (interaction) and the app itself are awesome.

Thank you very much! Really appreciate it, and the kind words.

That said, I'm having a little trouble with the temperature graphs. Mine show a historical range of 5° - 105° (Celcius) for most of the sensors, including ambient. Is this just a bug or a change in the way iStat shows the range?

That's perfectly normal. Were you expecting the range graphs to start at 0º? or something else?

Ah you're right, I see it now. I had problems seeing the number shown in the menubar but the colors are also customizable. It looks good now.

Excellent!

Does iStat 5 have a toggle feature to turn on/off? Or maybe even switch to dark mode automatically when Yosemite goes to dark mode. That would be cool.

We do it completely automatically when the system is set to dark mode. We even show it in the preview in the iStat Menus app itself.

Running the latest iStat 4.22 but I'm in Yosemite PB1. Fan rule editing doesn't work but I've never had to use it since getting a rMBP.

Hmm. I'm not aware of any other reports of that issue. Do you mind doing an SMC reset to see if that helps?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

If I had iStat4 single, could I upgrade to iStat5 family?

Yes. If you buy the iStat Menus 5 Family Pack upgrade, that will work. We’re happy for people to change from single to family and vice versa when upgrading.

 

[Crazy Badger]

I like this, and was using 3 before 4. Upgraded to 4.xx which ran on the Yosemite PB without any issues, but for ~£10 to upgrade didn't really think twice.

Only problem I have is that I'm struggling to see what's new! OK, so it's a different font and the bars are squarer, but does that actually warrent a new 5.0 version?

 

[Bjango]

I like this, and was using 3 before 4. Upgraded to 4.xx which ran on the Yosemite PB without any issues, but for ~£10 to upgrade didn't really think twice.

Thank you.

Only problem I have is that I'm struggling to see what's new! OK, so it's a different font and the bars are squarer, but does that actually warrent a new 5.0 version?

The tl;dr version is: This update is MASSIVE. We’ve spent a very, very long time working on this update. Big portions have been rebuilt from scratch. So many small features have been added alongside the larger (easily marketable) features.

All the big features are mentioned here:
http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

And a bigger list is available here:
http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/versionhistory/

We will also likely add new Mac model support into iStat Menus 5 as Apple release new Macs.

 

[fhall1]

The menubar height changed slightly from Mavericks to Yosemite.

Image

That single pixel height change means moving from using odd height icons, to even height icons. For our text labels, that made things a bit difficult, if we keep them vertically centered (which we wanted to do).

Image

1. iStat Menus 4, non-Retina.
2. iStat Menus 5, non-Retina.
3. iStat Menus 4, Retina.
4. iStat Menus 5, Retina.

I'm all for improving them, but that might be tricky. Note that it's not an issue on Retina.

Thanks for the very detailed explanation.....but I don't think my Mac Mini will have a retina display for quite some time

 

[Scuba629]

looks like the battery is finally reporting right again. I hope it continues when I upgrade to Yosemite.

 

[mavis]

That's perfectly normal. Were you expecting the range graphs to start at 0º? or something else?

IIRC, in iStat4 it showed the range of recorded temperatures (useful for determining at a glance how hot the system got within the past hour, day, or week) ... Showing a max temp of 105ºC when the system never got even half that hot is confusing, counterintuitive, and different from how it was displayed in previous versions. Or am I missing something here?

 

[Bjango]

looks like the battery is finally reporting right again. I hope it continues when I upgrade to Yosemite.

Yep. We changed the method used for getting battery time.

 

[EDWW]

I've had iStat Menus since 3.18 and just upgraded to 5. However, in all the time its been on my i7 2.93 mid 2010 27" iMac it shows the AC/DC sensor reading +/- 12076.00 V and the AC/DC shunt at 2354.00 V. How do I know whether or not its a bug in iStat Menus?

 

[scott523]

Hmm. I'm not aware of any other reports of that issue. Do you mind doing an SMC reset to see if that helps?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

SMC didn't make a difference, but I figured out what exactly is/isn't working.

iStat 4.22 in Yosemite PB1 - Buggy:
1. The fan RPM adjustments are linked to the first drop down menu.
2. If I set medium on battery power, then unplug my mac, fan RPM will increase from idle as expected. In order to go back to idle, you have to toggle speeds in the first drop down menu.
3. Drop down menus are saved instantly (cancel and save buttons only apply to the fan RPM profile adjustments).

iStat 5 in Yosemite PB1
1. I reset SMC again, before and after installing iStat 5. This time, nothing works no matter how I adjust the fans, with or without my rMBP plugged in.
2. Works seamlessly with dark mode.

 

[mag01]

Upgraded today (to test build 564), some notes:

1. Those tiny grey characters in menus (not menubar but in menus after I open them) are much harder to read than in previous version (11" MBA)

2. When I hide some network connection from the Network menu (Hide This Connection) - how do I unhide it later? EDIT: Got it, in main menu: Stats / Reset Network Filtering restores them all.

3. Initially had some quirky behaviour when adjusting the Sensors config that I use in Combined mode. I added hard drive temperature to the menubar, didn't like the result so removed it, but the temperature remained in the menubar and since then it was impossible to add or remove anything from the Sensors menubar item. After quitting and relaunching I managed to get around that.