Vectornator unlocks the power of vector graphic design for everyone by bringing a high-performance rendering engine and a unique, user-friendly interface to iOS. It’s exactly what you need to create stunning artworks from anywhere.
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Vectornator integrates with the Adobe Creative Cloud, so you can work seamlessly between a Mac and your iOS devices. Of course the app supports the Apple Pencil, but it also works with several third party input devices too.
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What makes working in Vectornator fast and delightful is its one-of-a-kind interface that gets out of the way and puts the focus on your artwork. With the latest release of Vectornator, the user interface has been completely reimagined for simplicity and speed. Among other things, there’s a new color picker and a slick new toolbar. The toolbar now has contextual options which allow you to tweak path smoothing for example. There’s also a context-aware inspector panel, so what you need is always available where you need it.

The user interface is also a pleasure to the eye. Through the use of translucency it appears to float on top of the canvas. This way you get an immersive experience and what appears to be a much bigger canvas to work on.

​Their new design philosophy is inspired by their users’ workflows, built with amateurs and professionals in mind. Vectornator is the perfect place for new users to learn graphic design and grow their design skills. At the same time it offers a great environment for professionals to work for extensive hours on their next masterpiece.
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Vectornator adopts the latest iOS technologies to bring users the power they need to create compelling designs. For example, image layers are automatically named using CoreML and paths are rendered live with a Metal-accelerated engine. The app also includes CMYK color previews, color profiles, and integrates with Icons8, which makes over 80,000 free icons available to users. To learn more, visit vectornator.io.
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Best of all, Vectornator is completely free to download from the App Store. So don’t delay, download Vectornator today.
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Our thanks to Vectornator for sponsoring MacStories this week.

BetterTouchTool is a little but powerful app that makes it possible to customize your Mac’s input devices to perfectly match and improve your workflow. BetterTouchTool allows you to completely re-design your Touch Bar, configure various Magic Mouse and Trackpad gestures, define keyboard shortcuts, bind normal mouse buttons, use the Siri Remote with your Mac and do tons more.

BetterTouchTool offers many actions to automate various tasks on your Mac, these can be assigned to any input-device trigger you choose. Additionally, it contains some handy features like window snapping, a clipboard manager, a screenshot editor, and much more. It even includes a free iOS app to remotely control your Mac and trigger actions.

Recently, the BetterTouchTool Community was begun, which you can find at community.folivora.ai. Users have shared some amazing presets there, including some very advanced custom Touch Bar setups that you should definitely check out.

BetterTouchTool comes with a 45-day trial after which you can choose between a license that includes all updates for 2 years and a lifetime license.

BetterTouchTool has been around for 8 years, during which it has increased the productivity of many Mac users. To celebrate its 8th birthday, MacStories readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 15% off at checkout by using the coupon code MACSTORIESBTT for a limited time. So don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more and take advantage of the special limited-time, 15% discount on BetterTouchTool.

Our thanks to BetterTouchTool for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Letters is a free graphic design app for Mac. Providing hundreds of text design templates, Letters helps anyone feel like a graphic designer by creating stylish text designs in seconds.

Every template includes beautifully-stylized text with a unique texture and background. A wide range of seamless photo-realistic textures sets Letters apart from other text design apps.

Users of the app include small businesses producing their own promotional graphics, pro designers that are looking for a quick solution, and social media content creators who need fresh, new graphics on a daily basis for Facebook and Twitter covers, YouTube channel art, YouTube thumbnails, and Instagram posts.

The app’s template collection reflects most current design trends, including:

• Photorealistic 3D Texts
• Watercolor
• Retro & Vintage
• Photos with Captions
• Grunge Style
• 2D Calligraphy
• Neon & Glowing Effects
• 3D Transformed Texts

Users can experiment with template colors, while preserving the style color scheme, and change text or background color separately, replace background images, and set any document size. Text settings allow users to change the font easily, adjust color, control geometry (chamfer, thickness, depth, and perspective), apply shadow and glow, and tune lighting. All the textures are seamless and scalable.

Letters allows anyone, from average computer users to graphic design pros, to fulfill their text design dreams and make beautiful texts available for everyone. Download Letters today for free and make your text designs stand out from the crowd.

Our thanks to Letters for sponsoring MacStories this week.

CleanMyMac X by MacPaw is your complete Mac maintenance solution. Redesigned with a beautiful new interface that makes it a pleasure to use, CleanMyMac X frees up wasted storage space, protects against malware, optimizes your Mac’s performance, and more.

It all starts with Smart Scan, the all-in-one center for analyzing, optimizing, and protecting your Mac. Here you’ll find sections to clean up unwanted and unnecessary files that are cluttering up your Mac’s drive. CleanMyMac also scans for malware, protecting your Mac against malicious third-party code and vulnerabilities. There’s an optimization section that can free up RAM and manage login items, launch agents, and memory-hungry apps too.

At each step of the process, you’ll have CleanMyMac Assistant at your side. It’s an intelligent advisor providing explanations of everything CleanMyMac does and recommending courses of action. CleanMyMac X is faster too. MacPaw tests show that it’s up to three times faster than version 3 of the app.

CleanMyMac X has added an app update module that scans your installed apps for available updates too. It’s a fantastic, centralized way to see all the apps on your Mac that have updates whether or not you bought them on the Mac App Store.

Whether you’re prepping your Mac to install Mojave, or want to optimize it after updating, you owe it to yourself to make sure your Mac is running smoothly and safely with enough storage to get your work done. So, don’t wait. Go check out CleanMyMac X today. There’s a free trial waiting to help you get make your Mac as good as new.

Our thanks to CleanMyMac X for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Setapp is a Mac app subscription service created by MacPaw, the maker of CleanMyMac X, Gemini II, and other great apps. For one low monthly fee, Setapp offers more than 100 of the very best Mac apps from big names like Ulysses, Bartender, iStat Menus, and iMazing. It’s a collection that is continually growing, becoming more and more valuable to subscribers all the time.

Setapp is an app store done right. With over 100 apps in 10 categories to choose from, Setapp is the key to making you more productive on your Mac. You can pick from task managers and time tracking apps, text editors, photo editors, developer tools, and much more.

Getting the apps you want to use is fast and simple too. When you sign up, Setapp installs a handy catalog on your Mac for browsing its offerings. The included apps are carefully vetted and curated, so you know that only the highest quality apps from the best developers are involved. Setapp is designed to make finding just the right app easy too with its powerful search for finding apps by task or keyword.

The business model couldn’t be more clear either. There are no hidden costs or gimmicks. You pay just $9.99 per month for access to the entire catalog of apps including any updates. There are no fees for upgrades, no In-App Purchases, or other hidden costs. Every app is a fully functional version that updates automatically.

Sign up today to unlock this fantastic collection of Mac apps. Setapp is free to try, and you can extend the trial period up to six months by referring friends.

Our thanks to Setapp for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Migration to New iPhones

iMazing 2 provides safe and fast migration to any iOS device. Transferring data from your old iPhone to your new iPhone XS, XS Max, or XR is easy and convenient thanks to iMazing’s step by step wizard. You can even pre-load apps in iMazing’s App Library, so they’re immediately available once the transfer is done – no need to wait for your favorite apps to download after restoring an iTunes or iCloud backup.

Ready For The Future: macOS Mojave and iOS 12 Are Fully Supported

iMazing is made by Mac lovers, for Mac lovers. It features polished support for Mojave’s gorgeous Dark Mode, and handles the new security features gracefully. On iOS, iMazing works perfectly with iOS 12. If you haven’t updated already, backing up first with iMazing is a great idea: if anything goes wrong, you’ll have all your data at hand. Oh, and of course you can also update to iOS 12 from iMazing itself - in that case, iMazing will perform a security backup for you, just in case.

New Features Galore

iMazing is constantly updated with new features, quite a few of them resulting from user feedback. Calendars, Safari data, and ringtones management were added in June this year. The latest update has Dark Mode and a new drop zone called ‘Quick Transfer’: drop anything from your desktop to iMazing, and iMazing will display compatible apps installed on your device. You just need to pick the one you want your photos, media, or documents to go to.

Visit iMazing today to learn more and take advantage of a 30% off discount just for MacStories readers using the coupon code MACSTORIES30OFF2018.

Our thanks to iMazing for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Focus is a time manager that helps you beat procrastination and work more efficiently using the Pomodoro Technique. Available on iOS, the Mac, and the Apple Watch, Focus teaches you to work in intervals and reminds you to take regular breaks.

Taking breaks enables you to reenergize and concentrate better, be more thoughtful, and ultimately, work more productively. With its simple and lightweight way to organize and manage your tasks, Focus is the best way to get organized and achieve daily goals that keep you motivated. Because its task management features are unobtrusive by design, you’ll spend your time working on your tasks instead of fiddling with the app.

Focus is designed to work seamlessly across all platforms and devices through Apple’s latest technologies. You can switch devices by using Handoff and count on fast, reliable iCloud sync among devices. On iOS, you can see your current progress with a Today widget, and use rich notifications to start, stop, and extend your work. The beautiful and clear design feels right at home on macOS, and a menu bar app lets you see your current progress at a glance. Focus also helps you gain powerful insights about your work with charts comparing your activities day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month.

Focus is right on top of Apple’s new OS releases too. The iOS and watchOS apps feature Siri shortcut support, and the Mac app will include a Dark Mode that looks fantastic in Mojave when it’s released next week.

Be more productive and effective by adding Focus to your workflow. This week only, MacStories readers can purchase a Focus Pro subscription for 15% off the usual price using the promo code macstories18 from within the app. So don’t delay, get Focus on iOS and on the Mac today.

Our thanks to Focus for sponsoring MacStories this week.