CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition is coming to the Mac this week, a few months after the port was announced as part of Apple’s M4 MacBook Pro introduction last fall. The good news for Mac gamers is that Cyberpunk will run on just about anything with Apple Silicon in it, going all the way back to the original M1 (though owners of the last few fading Intel Macs won’t be able to play it at all).
One hard-and-fast requirement for playability is at least 16GB of unified RAM. The 8GB versions of the M1, M2, and M3 don’t have the memory they need to play the game. Any Pro, Max, or Ultra chip of any generation will clear this requirement, so it’s only really a concern for buyers of lower-end Macs.
Users who want to play the game will also need to install the macOS 15.5 update, since the game won’t run on anything older. The game will also require 92GB of storage when downloaded from Steam, GOG, or the Epic Games Store and 159GB of storage when downloaded from the Mac App Store. The difference in size is because the App Store version “has all voiceovers included” and because Apple’s App Review guidelines (see section 2.4.5, item iv) prohibit apps from downloading additional files after the initial download is done.
Mac owners will finally get their chance to play one of the best open-world RPGs in recent years when Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition hits the Mac App Store on Thursday, July 17. Alongside the core game, all its updates, and DLC, this new version will take full advantage of Apple silicon technologies and brand new spatial audio to make it the definitive way to play.
After an initially rocky launch, Cyberpunk 2077 has managed to pull off an impressive redemption story through major bug fixes, performance updates, and a huge Phantom Liberty DLC paired with its 2.0 version. The game has now reached version 2.3 and has fully delivered on the rich storytelling and visually impressive world CD Projekt Red promised. However, one thing no one predicted was Mac support. Now, CD Project Red has not only brought the hit RPG to Macs, but fully optimized the experience for that hardware.
CD Projekt Red
Available starting Thursday, July 17 on the Mac App Store, Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store, Mac users will be treated to a “For this Mac” graphical preset that will automatically select the best graphics settings for any Apple Silicon Mac, ranging from M1 to the M4 family of chips, so long as they have 16GB or more of unified memory. This means the game will be optimized for a host of Mac devices, including the new iMac, MacBook Air, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and Mac Studio with M3 Ultra. Depending on your Mac, players can expect MetalFX upscaling, AMD FSR upscaling and frame generation, HDR optimized for Apple XDR displays, and more. As good as Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition will look on Mac, it is also going to sound amazing. Those with AirPods can enjoy exclusive spatial audio with head tracking support to offer an even greater level of immersion.
And if you’ve already experienced Cyberpunk 2077 before on another platform, you can download it for free on your Mac and can take advantage of cross-platform support to carry your save over from any other platform.
This is the latest example of Mac pushing to be a more recognized gaming platform after adding major new releases like Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, and Resident Evil 4.
The concept of an app switcher tool is rather odd. After all, why would you need a tool for jumping between apps, when the Command+Tab shortcut works just fine and the three-finger swipe opens the Mission Control on the Mac? Well, there are solutions that work better.
Second, when you bring the mouse and keyboard combo into the picture, the fluid convenience of the trackpad gesture flies out the window. Over the years, the developer community has produced some real app switcher gems.
AltTab has been a favorite in the Mac user groups for a while now. Witch and Contexts have also attracted their fair share of Mac power users. But there was still some scope for making things easier, and more importantly, elegant. Dory fills that gap.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Dory is the latest app switcher application for Mac, one that is as flashy as it is about sheer substance. Instead of asking users to shift their hands from the keyboard deck to the trackpad or asking them to remember a special keyboard shortcut, Dory takes things to the elementary stage.
C is for Chrome. S is for Safari. T is for Teams. That’s how easy Dory makes it to bring your desired app window into the foreground focus. It does so beautifully, with an added dash of versatility.
All you need to do is hit the button of your choice on the keyboard, or the mouse. After that, you’re just an identifier key away from launching the app of your choice. Alternatively, you can save yourself the second key press and just go with a hover gesture above the desired app’s icon.
A refreshing solution to a basic problem
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
The idea behind Dory is not too different from the side panel on OnePlus and Samsung phones. The objective is to make it a tad bit easier for users to access one particular app among the dozen running in the background. And with as little effort as possible.
In Dory’s case, you’re a mouse click and an identifying letter away from doing it, without getting overwhelmed by a screen full of small and big app windows. Dory essentially puts the desired app just one key-press away. C will summon Chrome, D will launch Docs, and so on.
While working away from my desktop (and the overpriced mouse), I set up the left Control button to open Dory’s app switcher. My favorite part is not the ease of switching between the apps, but the extremely non-intrusive way it happens.
By default, the app switcher opens as a tall pillar, but that’s not where the fun is. You can make the app switcher look like a palette of icons, just the way you see paint color strips. Or better yet, go with the scroll wheel look, which opens with a smooth animation and is pretty cool to witness.
I wish there were an option to control the animation speed. Either way, have a look:
The whole premise behind Dory might sound meh, but it actually makes app switching a tad quicker, less visually formidable, and easier to execute. It’s more convenient compared to the updated Spotlight approach in macOS Tahoe or third-party apps.
You are not tasked with remembering a shortcut for each app. Starting with the first letter of an app’s name just feels more natural. Plus, the trigger action is not a two-key approach. With a mouse, you are actually dedicating (and giving a purpose) to the middle key, which is hard to forget or even confuse with any other action.
Likewise, you can pick any key on the deck that you don’t use and assign it a task. Either way, you’re not memorizing anything or getting confused among the native or third-party shortcuts. Dory is saving merely a second, or even less, but when immersed in work, it makes a tagible difference by saving you a few “Tab” keystrokes, a visit to Spotlight, or launching the Mission Control.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
You don’t even have to lift your hand from the keyboard deck to reach for the trackpad. It feels and acts like a native macOS solution. That’s a huge victory, and something not many apps can claim to offer.
How does Dory work?
The best part about Dory is that it lives as a Menu Bar utility. Some of my favorite macOS utilities — such as Antinote and Maccy — also live as Menu Bar items. Setting up Dory is pretty straightforward, and it doesn’t offer any overtly complex or deep customization tools.
All you need is a mouse, and you’re good to go with your Mac desktop setup. On a MacBook, any key of your choice will get the job done. By default, Dory picks the middle button of the mouse — which is usually redundant apart from scrolling — to open the app switcher interface.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
When you open the app, you pick the app picker design from among three layouts. I love the list view and the pillar design, but my favorite is the card-style wheel of app icons. The app section is where you assign the key shortcut for apps. That’s about it.
Alternatively, if you don’t have a mouse, Dory offers an even more convenient route. Just pick any keyboard hotkey to summon the app switcher. I picked the right Option key on my MacBook Air, since it lies mostly unused and rests within easy reach of the thumb.
The only thing Dory misses is the ability to assign two-letter shortcuts, the way Spotlight lets users set quick keys in macOS Tahoe. That’s because you will eventually run into an overlap with app names. For example, which app do you pick for “S” between Google Sheets and Slack?
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
The team behind Dory says when you launch the app picker and hit a shortcut letter, it will prioritize the app that you use predominantly, or visit most frequently. It’s a thoughtful idea, but it doesn’t fully solve the overlap problem.
For example, I run Apple Music and Asana all day. The former is active in the background all day, while Asana is where I track my daily work. Likewise, the situation with Asana and Antinote duplication over the letter “S” is a bit confusing.
To Dory’s credit, as you keep pressing the assigned identifier key, it will cycle between the apps until you land on the one you want to open. So, between picking Slack and Sheets, you just have to press on “S” one more time. It isn’t something that ruins the experience, but just a minor naming situation beyond anyone’s control, to be fair.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Another minor nuisance is that while working across a multi-screen set-up, it sporadically opens the app switcher on the other screen, and not where the cursor is currently resting. But this only happened when activating the app switcher using the designed keyboard shortcut key, and not the mouse.
Overall, Dory is the best app switcher I’ve used in a while. It may not sound like something that will supercharge your productivity, but it grows on you. And for something as fundamentally recurring as jumping between different apps on a Mac, it’s absolutely worth the $3.99 one-time fee.
Even the fresh batch of AI features — such as live translations and intelligent Shortcuts — are fully supported on the machines that will soon be five generations old. I can’t say the same about Windows and its AI-powered rebirth with the Copilot package. Before confusion ensues, let me clear things up.
Copilot is a suite of AI features, just like Gemini or Apple Intelligence. Then we have Copilot+ machines, which is a branding for PCs that meet certain hardware-level requirements to enable AI-powered features on Windows laptops and PCs. Here’s the weird part. A healthy bunch of Intel silicon launched in 2025 — even those in the powerful “H” class — don’t meet those AI processing requirements.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
All of it has created a weird kind of divide in the Windows ecosystem where certain advanced AI features are locked to a handful of cheaper machines, even if you paid a much higher price to get a laptop with a far more powerful processor. Oddly, it’s not just the hardware, but the software experience that now feels different.
Copilot+ is not merely AI hype
Before we get into the hardware limitations, let’s break down the features. Copilot+ machines require a powerful hardware chip for AI acceleration to enable certain features, down to the OS level. For example, in the Settings app, Microsoft is pushing its own Mu small language model (SML) that runs entirely on the NPU.
The NPU on a chip, however, must meet a certain performance baseline, something not even Intel and AMD silicon launched in 2025 fulfill universally. Let’s start with the AI-powered Settings app interactions. It can now understand natural language queries and make suggestions so that users can directly take action with a click.
Microsoft
If you type something like “My screen doesn’t feel smooth,” the Settings app will show a dialog box underneath the search bar, where you get an actionable button to increase the refresh rate and make the interactions smoother. Apple is chasing something similar and has implemented it within the Spotlight system in macOS Tahoe.
Next, we have Recall. It’s like a time machine system that takes snapshots of your PC activity in the background and analyzes them contextually. In the future, if you seek to revisit or find something, you can simply type a natural language query and find a record of the activity, complete with a link to the webpage or app you were working with. It almost feels magical, and you can read more about my experience here.
The crucial benefit is that a healthy bunch of Copilot+ AI features will run on-device, which means they won’t require an internet connection. That’s convenient, but in hindsight, it’s a huge sigh of relief that all user activity remains locked to your device and nothing is sent to servers.
Microsoft
Copilot+ hardware also enables a bunch of creative features such as Cocreator and Generative Fill in Paint, Super Resolution, Image Creator, and Restyle in the native Photos app. But there are a few that are meaningful for day-to-day PC usage. With Click to Do in the Snipping Tool, the AI analyzes the text and image on the screen, somewhat like Google Lens and Apple Intelligence.
You can select text, look it up on the web with a single click, send email, open a website, summarize, rewrite, and take a wide range of image actions such as copy, share, visual search in Bing, erase objects, remove background, and do more — without ever opening another app.
Microsoft
On the more practical side of things, we have translated Live Captions that cover over 40 languages. The translation and captioning happen in real-time and work during video calls and video watching, too. Finally, we have Windows Studio Effects, which can perform chores such as automatic frame adjustment, portrait lighting tweaks, switch background effects, minimize noise, and even make gaze adjustment.
It’s disheartening, because the Copilot+ experiences in Windows 11 are meaningful OS advancements. Most of them, at least. I have used a few of them extensively, and they feel like a practical evolution. Yet, depriving machines that merely miss out on a powerful NPU, despite packing plenty of compute and graphics processing power, is simply unfortunate.
Microsoft has laid out tight hardware requirements for machines that can bear the Copilot+ badge — 256GB of storage, 16GB DDR5 RAM, and a processor with a dedicated AI accelerator chip that can output a minimum of 40 TOPS performance. That’s a bottleneck from both ends.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends
First, there are still a healthy bunch of machines that ship with 8GB of RAM, and that too, the DDR4 type memory. Take, for example, the Asus Vivobook 17, which costs $700 and ships with 8GB of DDR4 memory on the entry-point configuration, even with the variant that packs a 13th-generation Intel processor.
Let’s say you pay up to reach 16GB of RAM. Despite that added stress on your wallet, you are still limited by the RAM type and won’t be able to run Copilot+ tools on the machine. It’s worth mentioning that there are a LOT of Windows machines that still pack 8GB of RAM, and even when they go up to 16GB capacity, they still rely on the DDR4-type memory.
Now, it’s time to address the elephant in the room. The silicon situation. The latest from Intel is the Ultra 200 series processor family, which is bifurcated across Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake lines. These Ultra 200 series processors are available in four formats: V-series, U-series, H-series, HX-series, and H-series.
This Razer laptop costs 6x as much as the Surface Pro 12, but still can’t run Copilot+ suite.Razer
Out of the four brackets, only the V-series processors support Copilot+ experiences on Windows 11. Even the enthusiast-class H and HX series processors don’t meet the NPU requirements, and as such, they are devoid of the Copilot+ AI features. As perplexing as the situation remains with Intel Core 200 series silicon, the situation with AMD and its Copilot+ readiness isn’t too different.
At the moment, only AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series processors fall under the Copilot+ bracket. That means if you invested in a top-shelf AMD silicon in the past few years, or even aim to build an AMD gaming rig this year, you either lose out on Copilot+ perks or must pick from the Ryzen AI 300 series line-up.
Even older Macs do better
The situation with Copilot+ is weird because it has created fault lines in the Windows 11 experience that don’t make sense, neither from a price perspective, nor from a firepower angle. It even makes one feel bad about spending a fortune on a top-tier Intel processor, only to find it locked beyond next-gen AI features in Windows 11 because the NPU isn’t up to the task.
Launched in 2020, the MacBook Air can run the full Apple Intelligence AI package.Andy Boxall / Digital Trends
The only other option is to pick a Qualcomm Snapdragon X-series processor. But in doing so, you run into the compatibility hurdles that come with Windows on Arm. Plus, the GPU limitations rule out gaming or other demanding tasks where you need a powerful GPU. Right now, it seems like Copilot+ is a bag of serious caveats.
And as Microsoft’s team comes with more AI-first experiences, the gulf within Windows 11 is only going to widen. An $800 Copilot+ machine will run native AI experiences that even a powerful desktop won’t be able to handle in the near future. The situation within the Apple ecosystem is just the opposite.
This $800 Asus laptop with Snapdragon chip is Copilot ready, but far pricier gaming laptops are not.Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
Even if you have a nearly five-year-old M1 MacBook Air, you can run all the Apple Intelligence features just fine. Now, one can argue that AI is not the deciding factor for picking up a laptop. But as companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google deeply integrate AI packages such as Copilot, Siri, and Gemini across their OS at the native level, these AI features will essentially serve as a key computing evolution.
Google has already given us a glimpse of how tightly interweaving Gemini across its Workspace tools can flesh out, and somewhat similar is the progress of Apple Intelligence within maCOS. But when it comes to the OS-level AI progress, it’s Microsoft that finds itself in an odd place where a huge chunk of Windows 11 users are going to feel left out, while macOS users will move forward just fine even on aging hardware.
When Apple put a notch on the MacBook, I was immensely excited about the functional possibilities, the same kind you see built around the Dynamic Island on iPhones. Expanding live updates, current activities, and navigation guidance are just a few of the examples.
I recently wrote about the Boring Notch and was impressed by with the premise of turning it into a hub for music playback controls, sharing files, calendar access, and even webcam preview. A week ago, I came across another notch-focused app to help you get focused work done using a familiar technique.
What is FocusNotch?
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
FocusNotch is a dual-purpose app. First, it turns the notch into a Dynamic Island where you see a persistent progress timer. Second, it lets you block certain websites (read: social media) at a network extension level and get focused work done.
The setup is fairly straightforward. You download the app from the Mac App Store, launch it, grant it network extension permission, and you’re good to go. Next, all you have to do is take the cursor close to the notch area, and it will expand to show you more controls.
The app lives entirely around the notch. There is no dedicated window running in the background. You don’t even see an active icon in the menu bar. Up front on the home section, you see a large digital stopwatch timer that you can set according to your routine.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Next to it is the section where you can add websites you want to block during focused work, such as YouTube, X, Instagram, or whatever corner of the internet that distracts you. You can add multiple websites in one go, but you can’t whitelist as long as a focus is active.
Does it work?
Well, to be fair, whether this app works depends on your own discipline. The underlying idea is similar to the Pomodoro technique. Simply put, you set small targets where you engage in deep work, take a small break, and then return for another session.
Does it work? Well, it did, for me. The sight of a persistent task timer around the notch kept me from stepping away from my Mac. Only when I had finished one cycle of focused work did I take a small break, before returning for another session.
Taking pre-determined, systematic breaks during a study session had mood benefits and appeared to have efficiency benefits (i.e., similar task completion in shorter time) over taking self-regulated breaks.
Here is my suggestion, though. Don’t set too long focus sessions, as they will only give you fatigue and eventually suppress the benefits. Depending on your work, try sessions that are like 30 minutes, and then make gradual progress. For me, sessions between 45 minutes to 2 hours worked best to finish research or write an article.
What can it do better?
There is a certain charm in apps that focus on accomplishing one particular goal, and do it in a minimalist fashion. FocusNotch falls in that category. However, I wish it could integrate a few other tricks. For example, instead of setting a single timer, it should also allow the creation of multiple focus timers separated by a break.
TimeCraft, a beautifully designed macOS utility, lets you set multiple timer-based work targets and even color-code them, as you can see below. I also wish there were a route to automatically import a list of distracting websites and whitelist them automatically based on the focus duration with a scheduler tool.
Apps like AppBlock do a fantastic job at it, and for free. 1Focus is another neat option, offering users a block-based approach to restricting websites and creating multiple lists, as well. FocusFirewall is a rather pricey alternative that runs entirely in the Menu Bar and offers a Mac-native design.
I also noticed that the website blocking system in FocusNotch sporadically conked out on my M4 MacBook Air. Of course, I mentally sidelined the thought of opening X when a focus timer was flashing atop the screen, so there’s that helping hand from self-discipline.
Overall, FocusNotch is a neat little app that can help you get work done across short spells of no-distraction activity. And the fact that it gives a purpose to an otherwise useless notch, without costing you a penny, is just the cherry on top.
Apple’s execution with note-taking on macOS leaves a lot of room for improvement. There are so many areas where it feels like an abandoned project, instead of the future-proof experience that native iOS apps often deliver. In fact, the disparity across its own platforms is troubling.
Take, for example, iPadOS and iOS. You can quickly launch a notes page straight from the control, without having to close the existing app and launch the Notes app. On macOS, you don’t get any such facility.
If you want to seamlessly save a webpage or its contents as a standalone note, there are a few hurdles. For web-based workflow, you must use the Safari browser, because only in Apple’s browser does the Share Sheet offer a quick notes shortcut. Otherwise, trigger the Notes app with a keyboard shortcut.
Apple should “imitate” Antinote and make the Notes app native to the Menu Bar.Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Why won’t Apple put a Quick Notes button in the control center, or implement it in the Menu Bar, is simply perplexing. The whole concept of burdening users with another app window, when there is a solution waiting to be activated, also puzzles me.
There’s plenty of inspiration
I’ve often focused on the missed opportunity that is macOS’ Menu Bar. On the other hand, the open-source and indie-developer community has created so many lightweight and deeply practical utilities that live predominantly as a Menu Bar app.
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon BarNotes. It’s a neat app that essentially serves as a scratchpad and lives in the Menu Bar. It has been designed in the same aesthetic format as a native Apple app.
As far as functional depth goes, you can adjust the font size, pick between four styles, and change the notepad color. I like the “transparent” effect, as it sits well with Apple’s own glassmorphic design elements that first arrived with macOS Big Sur.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
It doesn’t burden you with too many features that aren’t required from a digital scratchpad, and also strips all the stylistic formatting when you paste your content, which is a convenient touch. The best part? BarNotes is free and available on the App Store, which means you don’t have to worry about the security aspect, either.
Tab Notes Lite is another free app that lives in the Menu Bar and offers a few extra goodies. It lets you click on the screen’s edge to take a note, pick up the local storage folder, and offers customizable shortcuts, as well. There are a whole bunch of paid apps, too, but I recommend sticking with the free options if they get the job done.
Apple Intelligence
The best place for AI is the low-stakes scenario where it can handle the task at hand with minimal scope for correction. Like asking it to compose a quick note in a formal tone, convert the file format, or send it as an email. The kind of tasks Google Gemini can currently handle, and so can Apple Intelligence.
The major hurdle, however, is the platform-wide implementation. For example, the AI-powered Writing Tools system doesn’t always work reliably, especially within third-party software. For example, when writing a paper in Docs on Chrome, a right-click doesn’t show Writing Tools in the context menu.
Digital Trends
To use it, you must copy-paste the text passage in the Notes app and then repeat the process to perform an AI-driven task, such as proofreading, style conversion, and summarization. If there were a Menu Bar shortcut for Notes, users wouldn’t have to do a back-and-forth between two apps in order to get the best of Apple Intelligence.
I would love for Apple to put Notes within the Menu Bar and make Writing Tools a crucial part of it. Then there is the situation with integration. Gemini will seamlessly perform tasks across Gmail, Maps, Drive, and Calendar, among other apps, using text and/or voice input. Apple Intelligence, despite its ChatGPT integration, can’t do any of that, yet.
Make it happen, Apple
Digital Trends
It was only last week that ChatGPT gained the ability to access files in your Google Drive, among other cloud storage services such as Dropbox, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Box. Moreover, the rumored Gemini integration within Apple Intelligence is nowhere to be seen. I dearly hope WWDC 2025 can offer some clarity on that front.
And while at it, Apple should add some quickly accessible voice input features, as well. Narrating a quick idea instead of having to type it out, and then getting a transcribed version (with summaries) would go a long way toward boosting day-to-day productivity.
With Notes’ arrival in macOS Menu Bar, supercharged by Apple Intelligence and meaningful integration with other services, users won’t have to jump between different apps, or even pay money for basic third-party software. Apple must fill these fundamental gaps, and I am dearly hoping that the company pays attention to this aspect at its developers conference.
MacOS is preferred for its fluidity and seamlessness. Of course, solid hardware and fire-breathing silicon add to its appeal, but the software experience developed by Apple focuses on convenience and security more than anything.
See that line at the top of the screen, filled with icons on the right side and core system control text on the left? Yeah, the Menu Bar. Apple hasn’t done much with it in the past few years, despite several third-party utilities doing an excellent job while living as a menu bar tool.
I prefer menu bar apps because they are easier to access, don’t clutter the screen estate, and are fairly lenient on the system resources. Apple hasn’t done a stellar job at optimizing the in-house apps as Menu Bar utilities, but there are plenty of apps out there that get the best out of it.
Hide Icons
That’s how my Mac desktop usually looks.Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
My Mac desktop is a mess. And no matter how frequently I clean it, I end up with a fresh batch of images, screenshots, and file packages on the home screen every single week. I keep some of them intact for quick access to necessary files, but that comes with its own dilemma: Privacy.
I often use the screen sharing feature in Google Meet and Zoom video calls. And each time, I’ve had to scramble with window resizing to cover things up in the desktop background. It’s untidy, and there’s always a privacy scare attached to the whole exercise.
Likewise, for my assignments, I often have to do weird cropping or make post-capture edits, because the screenshots have the desktop items peeking from the sides. My editor recently shamed me after spotting an unhealthy number of files and emails on my home screen.
This is how it looks after a single click.Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Thankfully, Hide Icons does the job perfectly for screen capture and live video presentations. The app lives in the Menu Bar and hides all the items on the screen with a simple right click. Going the extra mile, you can pick your own wallpaper color instead of showing the one you’ve set on your Mac’s home screen.
You can specify this behaviour for only the active screen, or all the screens if you’re working across a multi-monitor setup. You can even set a periodic reminder to hide the items on your desktop, which is a thoughtful touch. The best part? It’s free, and doesn’t pester you with ads, either.
By far, one of my favorite macOS menu bar, this one is tailor-made for folks who appreciate goal-based workflow. TimeCraft lets you set daily work targets in the form of cards so that you can keep an eye on tasks that need your attention.
You can set names, pick a color identifier for each one, and then start a timer as soon as you jump into the task at hand. Once again, this app lives entirely in the menu bar, and all the core controls are just a click away.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Once you enable a task and get into work mode, the app shows a neat timer at the top of the screen, revealing the progress you’ve made on the current activity. The design is neat, and the app respects your light / dark mode UI preferences, as well.
Now, you might wonder whether this strategy works? Well, it certainly keeps me disciplined. As far as scientific research goes, a paper published in the PLOS One journal notes that “time management impacts wellbeing—and in particular life satisfaction—to a greater extent than performance.”
Of course, installing a lot of menu bar utilities comes with its own set of hassles. As you can see in the image below (left), my menu bar is brimming with app icons, both native and third-party. And that’s not even the full set, as I’ve got a lot more that were inactive at the moment.
Plus, with the wide boat-shaped notch, you get even less screen real estate to accommodate menu bar utilities. In a nutshell, things get crowded as you discover and add more Menu Bar tools that come in handy on a daily basis.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Hidden Bar offers some needed respite, and in an extremely convenient fashion. This free app hides all the icons behind a slide-out menu. You can hide or reveal the icons manually, using either a left click, or even assign a keyboard shortcut for it.
Additionally, you can set an auto-hide behavior for the menu bar icons at intervals of 5/10/15/30 seconds, and one minute. You can choose to activate it automatically at system log-in, and customize which apps you want to keep in view permanently using a simple drag-and-drop gesture.
Look, Macs are fast, and the near-instant screen-on experience is something you must experience firsthand. It took Windows years of experiments to finally achieve the instant-on laptop experience, riding atop the Windows on Arm platform. That begs the question: If your Mac is blazing fast, why bother with shutting it down?
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Well, there’s a lot of debate about the perceived benefits of shutting down your computing machine every once in a while. It’s the frequency, however, that makes a tangible difference. Here’s what the experts at CleanMyMac say:
“Restarting your Mac is the number one tip on any troubleshooting list. Shut Down mode can help fix many Mac issues; plus, it will also flush your RAM and allow your device to cool down, protecting it from overheating.”
Like me, if you forget to shut down your Mac for prolonged spells, or even put it to sleep mode, there’s a neat app that can offer some respite. Shutdown Scheduler is a free utility that lets you set timers for shutdown as well as sleep mode separately.
It also shows the countdown behavior, so you can keep an eye on the timing and make adjustments, if necessary. The app also comes with a command log viewer facility, and you can execute it with admin privileges, as well.
I have missed more transitory ideas than I can count while absorbed in work. Or missed deadlines. Or forgot minor chores. On a few occasions, I was just too lazy to reach out for my iPhone, open a to-do app, create a new page, and type in. You feel the flow here, right?
On other occasions, I just lost my train of thought mid-way through it all. Often, an app just doesn’t have the functions I need for that fleeting, low-stakes note-taking job. Then there’s the load of “yet another app” taking up precious screen space.
Over the past few years, I’ve tried a bunch of apps for my transient note-taking, but clunky UI, poor design, or lack of features have always pushed me back to Apple Notes or Google Keep. That’s until I discovered Antinote. It’s the best $5 I have ever spent on an app. By a far margin.
It just makes things… easy
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
At the fundamental level, Antinote is a, well, note-taking app. But it can do calculations. And unit conversions. And set timers. And even scan text from your images. All using words. You don’t need to memorize a shortcut or dig into some multi-step menu list.
Above all, it looks stunning. Think of digital sticky notes, but a lot more customizable and surprisingly functional. Some people would even call it a scratch pad for the Mac, and it won’t be out of character.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
With a customizable keyboard shortcut — option+A for me — you can open a new sticky note. It just pops into the foreground, atop whatever app you are running, with a slick animated effect.
But it does a lot more than just taking plain text notes. For example, if you want to jot down a list, simply type the “/” command, and you will see a list of formats. Just type the number for whatever it is you want, and the app will switch to the appropriate layout.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
That’s the hard way, and not as fun as shortcuts. To start a list, simply type “list” or “todo” in the text field, and all entries will be added with a checkbox. Want to sign off a particular item as completed? Just type “done.”
You are firmly in command
Here’s the most fun part. You can pick up any hotword you like, or just invent a new word. Being a fan of spy films, I prefer the term “mission.” For all my to-do lists that include stuff like buying onions and cleaning the room, I start my journey by typing mission in the “Antinote” sticker.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Want to check off finished tasks. Why not go with “Poof” instead of clicking with the cursor or typing “done?” Yeah, you can do that, too. It’s quite fun, or adds some energy to otherwise mundane chores.
And don’t worry about capitalization rules, as no commands are case sensitive in Antinote, custom or default. In the meantime, you can switch between new and old notes with a swipe gesture, and there’s also a reliable search system baked at the heart of the app.
Likewise, you can add up or average things out in a natural language statement instead of pulling up a calculator app. All you need to do is type the “=” operator, and you will get the answer. Just take a look at the image below, and you will get the whole gist.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
On a similar note, you can perform distance, volume, and currency conversions by simply typing them. I have never experienced such functional ease in an app like this. Everything works like a charm in Antinote.
My favorite part is the automatic paste function. All you need to do is copy content from any app, and it will be automatically added to the note. You just have to activate the paste function by literally typing the word “paste” atop the scratch pad, and every copied item will start appearing there. No more dealing with clipboard apps.
You don’t have to juggle between a source and destination app, nor do you have to hit the paste command for every entry. Another fantastic tool is the OCR facility. Just copy or drag any screenshot, and Antinote will automatically extract and paste it on the scratchpad.
Simplicity with functional depth
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
One of the most joyous aspects of using Antinote is that the app has a relatively clean user interface, and it delivers simplicity by heap. Yet, if you dig into the Settings menu, you will be taken aback by the sheer level of customizability that it has to offer.
Starting with access controls, you can choose to put it in the dock, have it appear in the menu bar (hidden behind a click), combine both, or make it invisible and summon it via a keyboard shortcut.
You can customize this hotkey combination, by the way. Next, you can pick from over a dozen themes with zesty color combinations, adjust the paper’s looks, change font size, and even tweak translucence effects for the sticky notes.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
I customized it to launch a new note page every time I opened the app, and followed it by setting an auto-delete protocol worth one week. You can go with daily, monthly, and annual cadences, as well.
Alternatively, you can also batch-delete untouched notes dating back to a certain point in the past. I also love the fact that you can force the language layout to an RTL (right-to-left) format, which came in handy for saving snippets from my favorite Urdu and Persian literary pieces.
As I mentioned above, customizability is at the heart of AntiNote, and to that end, you can adjust the shortcuts for all the quick actions. From opening a new note, moving one to the front, deleting it, and searching through the library to pinning them and adjusting text size, you can change all of it to your liking.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
The app digs even further and lets you adjust the granular side of pasting content on a sticky note. You can even specify whether you want to retain the empty lines while pasting content, automatically remove leading spaces, and wipe formatting remnants such as bullets.
It keeps on surprising
One of the best parts? You can directly export your notes as a .txt file or in markdown format. There are built-in options for exporting them to your specified Obsidian vault, as well. Or, you can export them all in one go as a bundled zip package.
The best route, however, is the Apple Notes option, for a couple of reasons. First, since Antinote saves all your data locally, you can’t access it on your iPhone, iPad, or any other Apple device. Exporting them to Apple’s app enables cloud sync, which means you see the contents on all your synced gadgets.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Second, there’s a neat integration that relies on a shortcut to export your Antinotes content to Apple Notes in a jiffy. You don’t have to create the shortcut manually, as enabling the integration automatically saves it your Shortcuts app library. Neat!
The app is also fairly transparent about the privacy aspect, and lets users disable whatever terms they aren’t at ease with. For example, you can separately choose to disable sharing of anonymized usage data, crash reports, and feature update calls.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Overall, Antinote is an absolute powerhouse that keeps things visually minimal and serves just the right dose of functional depth. The real gem, however, is the simplification of tasks that would otherwise require users to jump across multiple apps.
For $5, this app is a steal. If you are someone who loves research, writes down more notes than you can count, and appreciates a beautiful design, Antinote is as good as it gets. Personally, I’ve never made a more satisfying software purchase in my life than Antinote for the Mac.
Apple’s approach to Mac computing is rather odd. The unwavering focus on simplicity, fluidity, and elegance sets it apart from Windows. But at the same time, it can feel a lot restrictive. Nothing exemplifies that better than app windows in macOS.
In its latest iteration, macOS suggests tiled positions as you drag a window across the screen. But it’s still far from perfect. The situation with window resizing is even more frustrating. It’s no surprise, therefore, that multiple third-party apps have filled that gap.
Rectangle has long been a hot favorite in the Mac community, and for good reason. But then, paying $10 for an app that handles app windows isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. That’s where Swift Shift comes into the picture.
It’s yet another open-source, completely free app that dramatically reimagines how you manage Mac app windows. There are no ads. It doesn’t eat into your system resources. No hidden charges or subscription caveats are at play here.
Developed by Pablo Varela, the app doesn’t even launch as its own dedicated window. Instead, it lives on a utility in the menu bar, with a tiny drop-down populated by a small set of core controls.
What makes it special?
The motto behind Swift Shift is pretty straightforward. “Never look for those tiny arrows again.” That’s a reference to the tiny colored buttons in the upper left corner of an app window and the two-sided arrow you see when the cursor hovers over the edges.
It’s quite frustrating to drag the cursor, wait for the arrow to appear, and then grab the edges to resize the window. But even while at it, you can only make horizontal or vertical adjustments.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
You need an extra dose of patience to do a corner grab and perform diagonal resizing. Those are all the problems that Swift Shift solves elegantly by altogether ditching the grab-and-drag approach. You don’t need to deal with window edges at all.
Instead, you can resize an app window or move it across the screen, right from the spot where the cursor is currently sitting. What I discovered is that the Swift Shift works just as fine with a laptop’s trackpad, even though this app is tailor-made for mouse-based controls.
How does it ease window management?
Swift Shift follows a quadrant approach for moving and resizing windows. That means the entire app window is an active canvas. All you need to do is just click and move the cursor around wherever you want.
These blocks roughly define the active resizing area for each app window.Swift Shift / GitHub
For moving around a window, you simply hit a keyboard shortcut and move the cursor. This keyboard shortcut is customizable, thankfully, so you can choose the most accessible option for maximum comfort.
I set it to Command + Option (⌘ + ⌥), as those two keys sit together. All I need to do is hit the keyboard shortcut, left click on the mouse (or trackpad), and move it. This gesture allows app window movement on the same screen or across external display panels, as well.
The real magic happens when you need to resize windows. You no longer have to go with the preset macOS tiling controls that are accessed by hovering the cursor over the tiny green button in the upper left corner. Or worse, try to grab the edges in order to grab the resizing arrow.
Swift Shift lets you assign a separate keyboard shortcut for resizing. I picked Command + Control (⌘ + ⌃) for resizing. Simply hit the keyboard shortcut, left-click on the mouse, and start moving it to adjust the window size with respect to the corner that is closest to the cursor.
For example, if the cursor is closer to the lower right corner, the bottom and right edges of the app window are simultaneously used for resizing the app window. It’s a freeform adjustment and has been executed with a smooth animation in tow.
Fewer controls, clear ambition
As mentioned above, all the tools and controls offered by Swift Shift live in a small drop-down window that can be accessed by opening the app’s icon in the menu bar. You can also choose to hide it if things have started to look cluttered at the top.
For the sake of added flexibility, you can also adjust the shortcut behavior and let it focus only on the foreground window to trigger the window movement and resizing.
Moreover, you can skip the mouse (or trackpad) click and use only the combination of keyboard shortcuts and cursor movement to get the job done. This way, you won’t be mistakenly tapping or clicking any active UI element in the app window.
Active quadrant area for window resizing.GitHub / Swift Shift
Alternatively, you can switch things around from the usual left click on the mouse to the right click. I love this thoughtful flexibility. Not just because it eases my workflow, but also because it addresses personal dexterity, as well.
Irrespective of whether you are a left or right-handed person, or the preferred placement of the mouse, you can customize the modifier keys and pick the most easily reachable combination on either side of the keyboard deck.
The overall experience is snappy, without any weird transitions or jitters. Another aspect that surprised me was the app’s origins. “I made this project cause it’s something I always wanted to have,” says Varela.
“I had no idea about Swift or macOS APIs, I learned most of it using ChatGPT and looking at other open source projects,” he adds. It seems vibe-coding delivered a fantastic utility, for once, instead of all the hype built around it.
Thanks to the open-source roots, the Swift Shift community has been handing out feedback and fixing bugs at a relatively brisk pace. It certainly helps that there are not many layers of UI controls to handle, or fancy overlays to deal with.
Overall, Swift Shift is one of my all-time favorite utilities. The fact that it’s free and open-source makes it a must-have for all macOS fans who want an added dose of functional convenience for their day-to-day Mac computing.
My experience with Apple’s Magic Keyboard for the Mac has been a love-hate situation, at best. It is slim, sleek, offers a fantastic scissor-switch, and serves the Touch ID convenience. What’s not to love?
Well, for starters, the asking price is a steep $200, which is too much for a non-mechanical keyboard. There is no backlight. It is not ergonomic. The looks, though understated, are bland.
Merely months into splurging on it, I replaced it with a mechanical keyboard for my Mac setup. But typing on a mechanical keyboard that was destined for gaming wasn’t exactly kind to my fingers.
That is, until I came across the Satechi SM3 Slim, a low-profile mechanical keyboard that is almost tailor-made for Mac productivity. It gave me everything Apple couldn’t, for nearly half the price.
Oodles of charm, and substance to go with it
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Satechi has been making fantastic accessories targeted at Apple gear for a while now. Their Mac Studio base is a beautiful piece of functional add-on, and I particularly love their trio wireless charging kit. The keyboard, however, is an altogether different ball game.
With the SM3 Slim, Satechi didn’t chase the signature matching Apple aesthetics. Instead, the brand created its own two-tone design language while fixing some of the biggest flaws of Apple’s pricey keyboard.
To begin with, the build is solid, thanks to an aluminum frame. The whole kit, however, isn’t too bulky, thanks to the polycarbonate base. The resting height profile is over twice that of the Magic Keyboard for Macs.
It’s not much of an issue, but there’s a kickstand underneath to achieve the elevation you need for a comfortable wrist position. And oh, it is backlit, something Apple’s keyboard sorely misses out on.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
The feet are not step-locked, which means you can’t adjust the incline height. What you get is a sole elevated profile, or a flat platform. It wasn’t a problem for me, but you should check it out in person, if possible, before splurging on it.
You can adjust the brightness levels and pick from over a dozen backlight patterns. I typically work in a dark room for maximum immersion, and it was quite a sigh of relief to see that the Satechi keycaps were backlit.
The optical passthrough through the keycaps is sufficiently bright, even at mid-settings. In case you’re wondering, yes, there are dedicated keys integrated with the functional row for backlight adjustment.
It fills a lot of gaps
This is a full 108-key layout we are talking about, and thankfully, the deck is spacious enough for clearly demarcated key islands. The direction, page control, and the number pad are well spaced.
You also get dedicated shortcut keys for connection switching, playback controls, and mode change, among others. Talking about connectivity, the suite is pretty decked out on the Satechi SM3 Slim keyboard.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
It can be paired with up to four devices at once, and switching between them is nearly seamless. I often keep my iPad close to my computing desk, and didn’t face any troubles switching the input across.
Though I did notice a few occasional input lags during device switching. For wireless connections, you can either pick between the dual Bluetooth 5.0 lane or the 2.4 GHz channel. I appreciate this flexibility, and so will any other person who prefers a clean desktop view devoid of a wired mess.
I prefer wired input, so the bundled USB-C cable was my preferred connection route to the Mac. However, I also used it for a while with my Windows PC, and for that setup, the 2.4 GHz receiver came in handy.
Types like a smooth charm
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Let’s talk about the typing experience, which is the real differentiator here. Satechi has equipped the SM3 Slim with in-house brown switches. Now, there are both good and bad sides to this approach.
These are proprietary switches, which means if you run into mechanical issues, your only option is to contact Satechi customer support for replacement units. Second, these are not hot-swappable, though it shouldn’t matter much to the target audience that is predominantly buying it for productivity.
On the positive side, the switches offer a delightful typing experience, despite being low-profile. It’s not quite as fluid as linear switches, but even after working all day, you won’t feel the tardiness that usually comes with working on mechanical keyboards.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
The keys offer an acceptable 2.6mm of vertical travel, and the actuation force worth 50gf also sits in the comfort territory. The keycaps have a beautiful inward curve that offers ample resting place for the fingertips.
On a comparative note, the actuation point is registered at a vertical depth of 1.4mm, which is slightly above the key travel you get on the MacBook keyboard and a bunch of other laptops out there. So, if you are starting your journey with a mechanical keyboard, the Satechi SM3 Slim is the most subtle and rewarding transition route.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Feedback from the switches is satisfyingly springy, and the inward press is also fairly reassuring. You can almost feel the actuation point, which goes a long way at ensuring that the keystroke has been registered and you didn’t run into the proverbial case of a ghost press.
Another benefit of using the brown switches is that they are relatively quiet. And thanks to the low-profile layout and the open undersides, the sound dissipation is also fairly subtle and not as annoyingly clicky as gaming keyboards with blue or green switches.
Satechi offers additional keycaps in the bundle for switching the Command and Option keys with those corresponding to a Windows layout. Thankfully, you don’t need a tool to remove the keycaps.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Just pull around the keycap edges and gently press the new ones in place. With a simple keyboard shortcut, you can switch the input mode between the two platforms. Now, this bit is pretty controversial, but I like that there’s no extra app involved here.
It’s a simple plug-and-play approach, and only a few keyboard shortcuts to ease you into your workflow. On the flip side, you can’t create custom shortcuts. Personally, I don’t mind, since this is an unabashedly all-work, no-play keyboard.
It’s an easy pick
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Priced at $119.99, the Satechi SM3 Slim is a fantastic option for any desktop setup. For getting work done, it’s far more versatile and inherently superior to the Magic Keyboard. There are plenty of connectivity options to pick from, and the keyboard is backlit with a brightness control perk.
The build quality is sturdy, the switches offer a lovely level-up in the typing experience, and the multi-device connectivity is an underrated convenience. The only miss is Touch ID, but I can trade that out for a password input if the rest of the package is appealing.
My only advice when you go shopping for this one? Pick the Light color option, which offers a stunning two-tone white-grey color combo. The black shade I got for myself is quite a looker, too, but it doesn’t match my desktop styling.
