Remote Control for Mac is an iOS app that lets you use your Mac whether you’re sitting in front of it or not. Whether you’re running a Mac as a media center or just want to launch apps or control system settings on your Mac when you’re doing something else, Remote Control for Mac makes the process simple.

One of the greatest use cases for Remote for Mac is controlling a Mac that serves as a media center. A Mac mini makes a great media server, but it’s not comfortable to sit on the couch with a keyboard and trackpad or mouse. Remote Control for Mac cuts through the complications making it easy to control your media center. Just install a helper app on your Mac and use Remote Control for Mac to control system settings like volume and apps and services like iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, Plex, Kodi, SoundCloud, Spotify, and VLC.

Remote for Mac isn’t just for Mac media centers though. The uses are only limited by your imagination. You can just as easily use the app to browse the web or read email on a Mac connected to your TV. Using the app’s keyboard and virtual trackpad makes navigation a breeze. When you’re finished, Remote for Mac can turn off your display or shut down your Mac too.

Remote has a special giveaway for MacStories readers. The first 20 readers who visit this link will get a free copy of Remote for Mac.

Take control of your Mac today. Download Remote Control for Mac from the App Store.

Our thanks to Remote for Mac for supporting MacStories this week.

Email robs you of precious time. Spark recovers those lost moments by knowing what’s important and organizing it for you neatly and automatically.

Spark’s smarts start with its inbox. Messages that arrive in Spark’s Smart Inbox are automatically categorized as Personal, Notifications, and Newsletters, which makes it easy to focus on what’s important and return what’s not later.

Intelligent search makes it simple to find messages no matter where they are. Spark’s natural language algorithm thinks like you do. Just ask for messages the way you would if you were asking a friend.

Email notifications are a problem that can spin out of control quickly. Spark uses Smart Notifications to filter out the junk and only notify you what you need to know now.

In addition, Spark features beautifully designed card-style calendar invitations that can be accepted with just one tap, the ability to send later and set up reminders for messages that don’t receive a reply, message snoozing, and Quick Replies that let you acknowledge a message with a single tap. Spark also has customizable gesture actions and works with Dropbox, Box, iCloud Drive, and more. Spark is beautifully designed too with a threaded message view that makes following a conversation simple.

As if that weren’t enough, in just a few short months, Spark 2.0 will introduce Spark for Teams, which will change the way teams collaborate giving them the ability to do things like comment and discuss messages and write messages together.

The future is now. Download Spark today for free on iOS or on macOS and take control of your inbox.

Thanks to Spark for supporting MacStories this week.

Timing for macOS is the first step to recapturing your most precious resource: time. Before you can find lost time, you need to understand how you are spending it. But manual time tracking interrupts your workflow, and it’s easy to lose track of what you’ve done. That’s where Timing comes in. It’s different because Timing automatically tracks how you spend time on your Mac.

Timing shows you how much time you spend per app, website, and document, and categorizes that time into projects. Timing helps you be more productive by analyzing how you are wasting time too. Best of all, Timing includes automation features to help you save more time by doing things like automatically categorizing activities. The app can even ask you what you did when you return to your Mac, so you never forget to track a meeting. In addition, freelancers will love Timing’s ability to generate a timesheet for your clients.

Download Timing’s 14-day free trial today and save 10% when you decide to buy. You can also download Timing as part of Setapp, the service that gives you access to more than 100 Mac apps for just $9.99/month.

Stop worrying about time and focus on doing your best work instead with Timing.

P.S.: Check out Faviconographer too. It’s a free utility from Timing’s developer that adds a favicon to your Safari tabs. It’s a clever touch. When you have a lot of tabs open, it’s much easier to find the one you want when you can see its favicon.

Our thanks to Timing for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Behind the elegant design of the quip electric toothbrush is a mission to care for your mouth. Fixing bad habits makes a big impact on oral health, but too often, it’s ignored and glossed over by oral care products and services. The quip toothbrush changes that.

The quip brush has a beautiful slim design that makes other electric toothbrushes look like power tools by comparison. The slender body of the quip brush also makes it easy to take on the go when you travel.

There’s more to quip than its sleek looks though. The brush has sensitive vibrating bristles with 30-second pulses that guide you through a 2-minute brushing routine. There’s also a wire-free, suction-based wall mount that doubles as a carrying case for when you travel. Best of all, the quip is affordable.

Brush heads wear out and if they’re used too long become unhygienic and ineffective. That’s why quip also offers a subscription plan that delivers a new brush head to your home every three months along with a AAA battery to keep it powered. For added convenience, you can even add a tube of quip toothpaste to your subscription. Subscribing is an effortless way to start a good habit by putting brush head replacement on autopilot.

We have a special deal for MacStories readers. You can get your first brush head refill from quip for free by using this link. Start a good habit today. Take care of your mouth with quip.

Our thanks to quip for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Email steals precious time from everyone. Spark recovers those lost moments by identifying what’s important and organizing it all for you neatly and automatically.

Spark’s smarts start with its Smart Inbox. Messages are categorized as Personal, Notifications, and Newsletters making it easy to focus your efforts on what’s important and save the rest for later.

Powerful search makes it simple to find messages no matter where you may have filed them. Spark’s natural language search thinks like you do. Just search for messages the way you would if you were asking a friend.

Notifications can spin out of control quickly with email too, sending you alerts about everything. Spark filters out the junk with Smart Notifications that only notify you of what you need to know now.

In addition, Spark features beautifully designed card-style calendar invitations that can be accepted with just one tap, the ability to send later and set up reminders for messages that don’t receive a reply, message snoozing, and Quick Replies that let you acknowledge a message with a single tap. Spark also has customizable gesture actions and works with Dropbox, Box, iCloud Drive, and more. Spark looks great too with a beautifully threaded design that makes following a conversation simple.

As if that weren’t enough, in just a few short months, Spark 2.0 will introduce Spark for Teams, which will change the way teams collaborate.

The future is now. Download Spark today for free and take control of your inbox.

Thanks to Spark for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Forming good habits can be hard, but if you do, it can change your life. HabitMinder makes it easier to form new, healthy habits than ever before.

Each goal you set in HabitMinder has a dedicated screen. There are so many built-in habits that you’re likely to find one that suits your needs, but you can set up your own too. Next, personalize your habit by picking from dozens of colors and hundreds of icons. To stay on track, set reminders for yourself, so you never forget about your new goal.

From HabitMinder’s Today view, you can swipe left on a goal to reveal quick actions, so you can get in, log a habit, and get out in seconds. HabitMinder has a widget and an Apple Watch app too. When you want to see where you stand, check the Statistics screen for an overview of your progress.

Up next for HabitMinder is iPad support and iCloud support. HabitMinder has a pure black mode coming for iPhone X users too.

Habits are hard to form but can lead to meaningful change like Sally Rooney’s recent story in The New Yorker of how her fainting spells were cured by tracking her water intake with our other app, WaterMinder. So whatever your goal, download HabitMinder today to get started.

Special Offer: Sign up for our newsletter with this link by December 1, 2017 and you’ll be entered to win one of 25 promo codes to create an unlimited number of habits in HabitMinder.

Thanks to HabitMinder for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Behind the elegant design of the quip electric toothbrush is a mission to care for your teeth. Fixing bad habits makes a big impact on oral health, but too often, it’s ignored and glossed over by oral care products and services. The quip toothbrush changes that.

The quip brush has a beautiful slim design that makes other electric toothbrushes look like power tools by comparison. The slender body of the quip brush also makes it easy to take on the go when you travel.

There’s more to quip than its sleek looks though. The brush has sensitive vibrating bristles with 30-second pulses that guide you through a 2-minute brushing routine. There’s also a wire-free, suction-based wall mount that doubles as a carrying case for when you travel. Best of all, quip is affordable.

Brush heads wear out and if they’re used too long become unhygienic and ineffective. That’s why quip also offers a subscription plan that delivers a new brush head to your home every three months along with a AAA battery to keep it powered. For added convenience, you can even add a tube of quip toothpaste to your subscription. Subscribing is an effortless way to start a good habit by putting brush head replacement on autopilot.

We have a special deal just for MacStories readers. You can get your first brush head refill from quip for free by using this link. Start a good habit and take care of your teeth today with quip.

Our thanks to quip for sponsoring MacStories this week.

We are on the cusp of a financial revolution fueled by crypto-currencies and Balance makes it easy for everyone to get involved. You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin, one of the earliest crypto-currencies, but there are others like Ethereum. Balance connects to the most popular crypto-currency exchanges like Coinbase along with traditional financial institutions bridging the gap between the old financial world and the new one.

Balance for macOS.

Balance is a menu bar app for macOS. The app connects with crypto-currency exchanges as well as traditional bank accounts, investment accounts, credit cards, and online services like PayPal using Plaid, a super-secure platform that works with financial institutions around the world.

When you set up accounts in Balance, the app automatically updates them periodically with new transactions, so you’re always up to date. You can click through the app’s tabs to view balances, transactions, notifications and gain insights about your spending. Soon, Balance will release an iOS version of their app too.

Balance for iOS is coming soon.

Balance is ready for the future. The current financial system is based on outdated, legacy software. Blockchains are the bedrock of a more secure and open system based on cryptocurrencies, but not many people are using them yet. Balance is poised to change that by becoming a single destination for traditional financial accounts and crypto-currency exchanges.

Balance has a great offer for MacStories readers who want to see what crypto-currencies are all about. Just go to bal.money/macstories and you’ll get $2 worth of Ether in a Coinbase account that you can link to Balance and track with its menu bar app. It’s a great way to see for yourself what the financial world’s future looks like.

Our thanks to Balance for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Learn Ulysses is a video course from The Sweet Setup, a site known for picking the best apps in certain categories. Their pick for the best writing app on Mac, iPad, and iPhone is Ulysses, and with their Learn Ulysses videos, The Sweet Setup can help you get the most out of the app.

There’s a lot of power just under the surface of Ulysses’ simple interface. It’s the power-user features that make Ulysses more than just a simple text editor. Tools for document organization, exporting to a wide range of formats, filtering, and more make Ulysses a complete writing environment.

The Sweet Setup created their Learn Ulysses course to help users get the most out of Ulysses’ power. The seven high-quality videos will get you up and running with all the features of Ulysses so that you can stay on top of your ideas, your writing, and more. Each tutorial dives deep into the details making even complex topics easy to follow and understand.

Each video can be streamed or downloaded, and there are full transcripts of each so you can pick up tips even when you can’t access video. In addition to the videos, Learn Ulysses includes bonus content. There’s a cheat sheet highlighting keyboard shortcuts and additional features and interviews with writers, in which each explains their Ulysses setup and workflow, which is a fantastic way to get ideas about how to use the app yourself.

The Sweet Setup has a special deal for MacStories readers. This week only, you can get the Learn Ulysses video tutorials and all the bonus content for 20% off by visiting learnulysses.com.

Our thanks to Learn Ulysses for sponsoring MacStories this week.