MacPaw Blog

Since 1955, Red Dot has existed to reward good design, with its Communication Design category laser-targeting projects that exhibit “clarity and emotion” and “affect the viewer in an emotional and sustainable way.” As people who believe every app — even a supposedly boring utility — should make you feel a tiny bit better, we’re happy Gemini 2 was recognized for that particular effort.

Back to the future, or how Gemini 2 got this way

When we started designing the new version of Gemini, the task seemed daunting, because the bar had been raised pretty high in the past. Gemini was one the Best Apps of 2012 according to Apple, imitated by a few hundred other duplicate finders and loved by users everywhere. So, we fished for ideas in the future.

“My theory was that in 30 years UI design would play with surfaces: nanomaterials, textures, fabrics,” says Dmitry Novikov, Art Director at MacPaw and Gemini’s lead designer. “So I thought, what kind of surface is the most fitting for finding duplicates? That’s how we came up with the one made entirely of duplicated circles.”

Sorting out thousands of files can be soul-crushingly boring, so we wanted to cheer up and reward our users. With a little inspiration from computer games, sci-fi movies, and other nerdy stuff, we came up with an achievement system for Gemini 2. Much like a game, it would have badges, ranks, levels, and experience percentages.

“I think a big idea behind gamification is that every minute of your time is valuable,” says Aleksandr Ageev, the author of the achievements artwork. “You might as well make it fun.”

In the end, it’s all about you

Although it’s flattering to have the recognition of design critics, it’s you — our users — we’re doing this for. And because it’s you who suggest, beta test, and comment, this award is also yours. Thank you for a chance to affect you in an emotional and sustainable way make your Mac life a little happier.

Kudos to everyone who worked on Gemini 2

Anton Mironov

Denis Stas

Alexey Prykhodko

Oleksii Nezhyborets

Serhiy Tatarchuk

Serhiy Buchnev

Serhiy Krivoblotsky

Alexey Pawlowski

Vera Tkachenko

Alex Chirva

Alex Yemelyanov

Dmitriy Novikov

Oleksandr Ageev

Liudmyla Khomiak

Oleh Prokopenko

Pavlo Haidamak

Dmytro Litvenchuk

Roman Tyshchenko

Anatoly Kasyanov

Serhiy Grigoruk

Volodymyr Radchenko

Volodymyr Voronin

Yaroslav Kopylov

Taras Neporozniy

Dmitriy Tereschuk

Ray East

Dmitriy Bilkun

Ivan Kuziv

Sergey Yaremenko

Julia Petryk

Olga Kurylenko

Olga Medikari

Oksana Kizikelova

Alice Kotlyarenko

Pavlo Huk

Roman Tikhonychev

Yevhenii Peteliev

Yevhenii Batsiun

Oksana Vdovychenko

Oleksandr Kosovan

Bogdan Grechanovsky

Andrew Dvoynos

Kate Uglitskikh

Oleksandra Cherniavska

Beta testers of MacPaw

Eventually, the team moved on to their next big project, which gobbled up 99% of their time and resources. They could no longer support Wallpaper Wizard, but 400K users who couldn’t picture their desktop without it expected updates, and fixed issues, and new content. So, we stepped in and acquired the app.

Since then, we’ve gone a long way with Wallpaper Wizard. We put together a massive database of HD photos, hired a person with impeccable taste to curate them, built a powerful engine from scratch, created all-new design that complements the beautiful content. And today please give a warm welcome to Wallpaper Wizard 2, the newbie in the MacPaw squad!

In short, here’s what you’ll like about Wallpaper Wizard 2:

Seriously good images

Like we said, all wallpapers undergo the scrutiny of a moderator, so you’ll never have to sift through Windows XP-ish landscapes. We’ve already done that for you, don’t thank us.

HD 4K quality

Finding good pictures for your desktop is one thing, but finding pictures that look good on a big Retina display? Ouch. But don’t worry: all wallpapers in the app are in 4K quality, so no resolution issues anymore.

A new desktop every day

Wallpaper Wizard works like a playlist: just add all backgrounds you like to Roll and let the app set you a new one every week, day, or hour. With over 25K images and new arrivals monthly, you’re very unlikely to run out of wallpapers within your Mac’s lifetime.

Beauty for all your displays

For a little extra, you can use Wallpaper Wizard 2 on each of your multiple displays. Set the same background on all of them, use a different for each, or have wallpapers roll through all displays one by one.

What about upgrades?

Wallpaper Wizard 2 is available on the Mac App Store, which is notorious for the absence of upgrade pricing. So, unfortunately, there’s no way we can offer a special price to the users of version one. But those who like to try before they buy can do so on Setapp, the app subscription service we launched earlier. You can get a taste of Wallpaper Wizard 2 and an impressive array of other Mac apps for free, because the first month of Setapp is always on us.

As Mac users find out shortly after buying their Macs, macOS is far from perfect when it comes to interaction with, for instance, RAR archives. More often than not, you’re stuck in a clumsy dialog with your friends and colleagues about sending files some other way, because you just can’t view them from the archive.

Dag Ågren, the creator of The Unarchiver wrote it more than ten years ago. He never expected this little utility to make its way to the Top of the Mac App Store and stay there for good, gaining millions of users in a few years.

Dag was excited about the success for quite a while but ten years is a long time to spend on one project. Not so long ago he got carried away with other endeavours, leaving the Unarchiver almost unattended.

When MacPaw team found out that Dag has no time whatsoever to work on the app, we swooped in and seized the amazing opportunity: to keep The Unarchiver alive for the users. Since millions of people love it and rely on it, it would be truly sad to leave the app with no support for the future OS or with no design updates.

As the shop grew and became a landmark Apple dealer, the Tekserve team found themselves surrounded by beautiful Macs of all kinds. In twenty years they decided to turn the best of them, groundbreaking models, as they put it, into a museum-like exhibition. And later, when the shop was shutting down, an Apple Lisa, an alien Nextstation Turbo machine, and the rest of the grand collection had to find a new home on an auction.

The prospects looked pretty grim, because a collection like that had a high chance of ending up in some millionaire's basement. Luckily, MacPaw’s CEO Olexandr Kosovan heard about the auction and made an instant decision. He secretly bought all of the iconic Macintosh computers before the collection was taken apart and sold piece by piece.

That is how almost 40 Macs from every generation were reverently moved to MacPaw’s Ukrainian office, to the uncontrollable joy of a hundred Apple fans who work here. We think there’s hardly a better place for historical Apple computers than our futuristic Apple-inspired office. And hardly a better audience than a team of passionate Mac developers.

We also plan on adding the few missing models to perfect the collection. By the way, the collection is not just for us, it’s an office-based museum and we can give you a tour next time you’re in Kyiv. You’ll get to see a 128K Macintosh signed by Steve Wozniak, an illustrated edition of Apple Design History, and even a couple of WWDC relics.

We have them all (though it’s still hard to believe).

Back when we were shut in our developer cave planning the product, it seemed right to integrate it into macOS: what could be simpler, more seamless, more Mac than a folder in the Finder? It would be just like Applications, only full of surprises and ever growing. But when we finally showed Setapp to users, they started tweeting at us asking for more guidance, a better structure, a simpler discovery mechanism. In other words, for something to help them decide which apps to download.

Could it be that the paradox of choice we were trying to eliminate was still there, even though Setapp was a lean suite of only 65 apps? We thought we had it all figured out with 9 years on the Mac market and millions of users.

However, after a couple of surveys and a few dozen face-to-face interviews, we learned this: a staggering 47% of Setapp users wanted the apps grouped and categorized. It would help them understand what every app was for and, therefore, make decisions more quickly.

So, we’ve done exactly that.

The new Setapp is no longer a folder — more like a catalogue you can flip through, still with full descriptions for apps you find interesting, but also with brief summaries to give you an idea of the app’s purpose right away. It’s like a snug little store, except you already own all the merchandise.

In short, what is new in the new Setapp?

App categories

Apps are neatly organized now, into categories from Productivity and Lifestyle to Mac Hacks and Maintenance. There’s still an app for every job, but now you’ll find it faster.

Brief summaries

No need to open previews and read full descriptions to figure out what apps do. With one-line summaries like “The Duplicate Finder” you see it at a glance.

Installed apps at hand

Apps you’ve already installed are grouped into a separate category, so you can jump straight to the tools you already know and use.

Now, in case you’ve grown accustomed to the Finder integration, we’ve got good news: as a current subscriber you can use Setapp the way you prefer, either as a folder in the Finder or a standalone app with categories. But if you’re all for new and better, just trash the Setapp folder and enjoy the revamped UI: your updated Setapp application can be opened from Launchpad.

We want to thank everyone that took advantage of our beta. Your input has helped us to turn the user experience dial all the way up, through the addition of refinements, optimizations, and additions to the service itself.

We are confident that you’re going to be blown away by Setapp’s offerings on day one, but know that this is just the beginning. Every day we will be working to make Setapp even better for our subscribers.

What is Setapp?

If you’ve been out of the loop, let us tell you why Setapp is so special.

Here at MacPaw, we are developing apps that add value to people’s lives. Every one of our apps is easy to use, offers clear and practical benefits, and is continually being refined to improve the user experience.

In short: we know good apps. And we know that most apps are not good.

With Setapp we are handpicking apps that are safe, continually updated, always the latest version, offer significant benefits, and provide a high-quality user experience. When the beta launched, we had just over 40 apps that met these criteria. Now we’re at 61, and the Setapp library will continue to grow and grow until you can’t believe how many amazing apps you’re getting.

To get these apps, people need only subscribe to Setapp for $9.99 a month. At least 60 high quality Mac apps for the price of a couple coffees! For that single price, you can use all 61 apps (and the apps to come) without any extra fees and completely free of advertising.

The first month is free so everyone can try out Setapp and get the full experience before deciding whether to subscribe.

Setapp: You’re all set

We hope that you’re as excited about Setapp as we are. If you’ve been following MacPaw for a while, you know that we’re obsessed with finding new ways to improve the user experience and deliver even more value.

Setapp is not just the next big step for our company; we believe it could be the next step for the industry. We encourage you to join us in rejecting the status quo and experiencing the evolution of app distribution.

For launch, we have secured all the major payment options including Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Amex, Discovery, and JBS. The ability to pay via Paypal will also be added soon.

Setapp is based on a monthly subscription. One payment—dozens of applications. Setapp is free (and will always be) from advertising, in-app purchases, and paid updates. You sign up, install it on your Mac, and get instant access to all the apps on the list. But that is not the best thing about it.

The best thing is the app collection itself. We have exceptionally high quality standards for software vendors. As app developers ourselves, we know the definition of a good product. We hand-pick every app that ends up on the list and rapidly disqualify anyone who appears to be not as committed to quality and UX as they should be.

That is why Setapp collection is not just 40+ apps for the price of two coffees ($9.99), it’s a trash-free space where you don’t have to guess if any of the ten identical apps is worth anything. Luckily for us, there are enough diligent macOS developers out there, so Setapp collection keeps growing. We want to cover most of user needs for any occupation, from time management and freelance writing to coding and server monitoring. And we’re almost there.

Naturally, it cleans more

We discovered another dumpster closet on your PC, literally. The so-called ‘memory dumps’ contain old memory files and can grow as big as 8 GB each. With the new cleaning tool in CleanMyPC you can click all that garbage away.

We’re taking care of your privacy in Edge

If you’re one of the dedicated Edge browser users, rejoice. CleanMyPC is now clearing history, cookies, and downloads in Microsoft Edge as well. Keeping your private data private just got easier.

A whole new look

With its clean, polished design, CleanMyPC is a perfect fit for the new Windows systems. It’s sleek and simple, nothing extra but the tools you need to keep your computer in good shape.

This year we’ve done a bit of eavesdropping and it seems like OS updates are going to be the major topic, with both Mac OS X, WatchOS, and iOS getting a new version. There’s also a rumor about a Siri SDK, which is BIG for iOS developers.

Meet up with the MacPaw team this year

For MacPaw, WWDC is traditionally the biggest meeting of the year. We’re always getting ready for it as if it’s prom night all over again. This time it comes on the heels of our last big release, Gemini 2, so our team will be sporting branded Gemini tees. When at the venue, look for the blue eggs on the white field, that would be us (not the eggs, the people in the tees).

We’re very much looking forward to making new partnerships this year, so do stop by. We have projects up our sleeves that might be of great interest to you.

Here’s a list of the lucky attendees:

Oleksandr Kosovan | @kosovan CEO

Sofia Dvoynos | @sofiux Operations Team Lead

Egor Belenkov | @belenkov VP of Business Development

Yaroslav Stepanenko | @Yaroslav_S Product Marketing Manager

Julia Petryk | @ua_philka PR Manager

Vera Tkachenko | @ivira Cocoa Team Leader

Sergey Tatarchuk | @1Serg Cocoa Developer

Nikita Savchenko | @_n1ks Product Manager

Dmytro Tretiakov | @dimaty_86 Cocoa Developer

Serhiy Buchnev | @tanlan3p Cocoa Developer

Alexey Pawlowski | @fellowmartian Cocoa Developer

Sergey Krivoblotsky | @krivoblotsky Cocoa Developer

See you very soon.

Here at MacPaw — we just do our thing, and our thing is helping you keep private data private.

With that in mind, we made Encryptor, the engine we built to power our Encrypto app, open-source for developers and anyone interested. Why? Because one, we believe data protection tools should be widely available and easy to make. And two, we think people have the right to know how apps that handle their private files actually work.

But that’s not even the best part. The coolest thing about Listen Radio is custom-tailored stations selected based on your own music preferences.

The new Listen online radio has:

Radio stations near you

Stations around the world by genres

Curated radios, based on your tastes

Check it out on the App Store and you’ll never have to look for new music again.

People don’t know about Kyiv. We have to do something.

While we pondered how to fix it, our designer landed the news about On the Grid right on us and solved the problem altogether.

On the Grid started as a home project of a Brooklyn-based design agency Hyperakt. They had moved to a new district and, amazed by the variety of hip places, set out to create a friendly guide for anyone interested. They felt that yelp-ish platforms don’t do justice to the vibe of their new ‘hood and made sure the guide is rich with nice photography and insider tips.

On the Grid grew bigger and bigger, as agencies from other districts volunteered as tributes to join. The next thing Hyperakt knew, they were in charge of a massive movement comprised of design agencies from all over the world.

This photo looks nothing like the district we picked for On the Grid.

Designers’ City Guide sounded exactly like what we needed. We contacted Hyperakt and in a few days were gathering a team of activists as a newly assigned Ambassador to Kyiv. We ran around the local gems of our chosen district and found curators for the other parts of the city.

Finally, Kyiv City Guide for Designers by MacPaw is ready. We have to admit, we checked the New York’s version, and found something even New York cannot offer — the friendliest, warmest feeling you get when you’re going out in Kyiv. The feeling of instant and lasting connection to people and places. But it’s not worth advertising here, check the guide and try it on your own.

Special thanks to our fellow curators:

Postmen

DepositPhotos

Eugen Shylov

Zajno

Sekretniy Dvorik

What’s new in Listen 2.2.5?

Added Sorting by Artists

"Shake to Shuffle" option is now turned off by default

Fixed all known playback issues

Added “Settings” icon to the main screen of the app; now it’s always visible and easily accessible

Now it gets even more convenient to use Listen, you can sort your songs not only by albums and playlists, but also by artists. For the seamless experience the "Shake to Shuffle" option is turned off by default, so that you don’t have to worry about random music switching in your pocket. And all your settings can be accessed hassle-free from the main screen of the app.

Stay up-to-date and enjoy your music with Listen!