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IRL: Bose SoundLink, DropCopy and Worldmate Gold
Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment. Happy Friday, folks. This week in real life, Brian invests in the Bose SoundLink after his pet rabbit destroyed his previous setup (no, really), while our own Andy Bowen explains why he'd rather use the DropCopy app than DropBox, much less AirDrop. And Darren, who racked up frequent flier miles this week traveling out to Google I/O, details the virtues of Worldmate over TripIt. Bunnies! Apps versus apps versus more apps. All that, just past the break.
Best of 2011 Nominations: Best Mac Utility Apps
During December and January, The Unofficial Apple Weblog is soliciting your nominations and votes for the best products for Mac, iPhone/iPod touch, and iPad. We'll start with nominations in a category, and then tally your votes for the top-nominated products a few days later. The winner in each category receives the highly-coveted title of TUAW Best of 2011. Today's category for Best of 2011 nominations is Mac utility apps. This category consists of many different apps if you take a look in the Mac App Store. Twitter is considered a utility, as is Dave Caolo's favorite app Alfred. Do you love Growl? It's also on the list. DropCopy Pro could be your favorite helper, or maybe Blotter enhances your desktop. There are a ton of utilities out there on the Mac App Store or available from other sources. Just leave a comment below with your nomination for the best Mac utility app of 2011, and if we get enough interest in a specific app, it'll be included in the voting in a few days. Nominations close at 11:59 PM ET on December 9, 2011.
Daily Mac App: DropCopy
Mac OS X Lion introduced AirDrop, which offers zero-configuration, Wi-Fi file sharing between Lion users. DropCopy offered a similar service when we wrote about it in 2007. Today, DropCopy still deserves a place on your Mac, as it does a few things that AirDrop doesn't. For one, DropCopy can auto-accept file transfers. Meaning, your recipient needn't be in front of his/her machine to initiate or accept a transfer. That's handy if you want some files to be waiting at a remote work station upon your arrival. DropCopy also passes the contents of one machine's Clipboard to another, creating a handy -- albeit makeshift -- inter-machine link. The way it works is similar to AirDrop. Just drag-and-drop your file onto the Dropzone and it'll show all the possible destinations. Participating machines must be running DropCopy on the same network. Simple. If AirDrop just doesn't cut it for you because you're on a non-Lion Mac, you must send files to a non-Lion Mac, or you need to send files across a wired network, DropCopy is the answer. It's available in a free 3-machine limited version or a Pro version for US$4.99 from the Mac App Store.
TUAW Faceoff: Mark/Space Fliq for Mac vs. Mobile DropCopy
A few months ago, Mark/Space delivered Fliq for iPhone, a free utility for sending contacts and photos to other iPhones and iPod touches that are also running Fliq. Later, they shipped Fliq for Mac, a US$19.95 application goes beyond the capabilities of the iPhone app by providing an easy way to move photos, contacts and notes from your Mac to any Mac or iPhone on your Wi-Fi network.There are several free or low-cost utilities that perform similar tasks, most particularly 10base-t interactive's DropCopy and Mobile DropCopy. The latter is a new iPhone app that, like Fiiq and Fliq for Mac, facilitates transfer of non-DRM data between iPhones and Macs. Since news of both of these apps appeared in my inbox on the same day, I decided that a faceoff was in order. So how do these apps compare, or am I comparing Apples and oranges? I think you'll find that they're similar in operation, but different in what they mean to accomplish.Read on to see how they fare in a TUAW faceoff!
Beta Beat: DropCopy for iPhone
Eric Redlinger of 10base-t dropped me a note to let me know that DropCopy for iPhone now has a stable beta release. DropCopy is a Mac-based utility that allows you to copy files from one machine to another by dropping them onto a sharing window. The iPhone beta extends that functionality to support phone-to-phone, phone-to-mac, and mac-to-phone file transfers. You can download a copy of the beta here (download link). I'm really looking forward to giving this a try. Good work, 10base-t guys!
DropCopy: Share Files and Clipboards Across Your Network
The apparently unexciting circle on the right is the main interface for DropCopy, a very cool little application for sending files between computers on your local network. First of all you need to install DropCopy on all the Macs on your LAN. When it is running, this little circle appears on your desktop and when you drag a file to it, a list of destinations (i.e. the other machines running DropCopy) will pop up. You choose the one you want and the file will "warp" to the other machine, no fuss, no muss. In addition to copying files you can also retrieve the clipboard contents of other machines running DropCopy (e.g. you can copy something to the clipboard on one machine, turn to another machine, retrieve it and paste it). I've found DropCopy to be the easiest and fastest way for sending a couple of files between machines on my home network (though you may have to open port 5052 on your firewall).DropCopy is donationware on networks with 3 or fewer Macs, and $25 for larger networks. It's definitely a convenient time saver.
