3 Favourite Apps: April 2025
TL;DR: Lickable Menu Bar, Sleeve, & Capture
I fell in love with the Mac because of its apps. Growing up, Windows software always felt utilitarian; functional but uninspired. It got the job done, but rarely felt crafted with care. In contrast, Mac OS X was full of beautifully designed apps that felt thoughtful and personal. Being developed for a much smaller user base by a much smaller group of developers, you could feel love imbued throughout the apps.
Now, times have changed, and Apple is many thousands of times the plucky single-digit competitor it was when I started using the platform, but some apps retain that creative spirit. To pay tribute to the smallest fraction of them, here are three little apps I adore using daily.
Lickable Menu Bar
Lickable Menu turns your boring Mac Menu Bar into a glossy Tiger Era diva!
This is the number one request anytime I post a screenshot. "What app is used to make that menubar like that?" and "How do you get the menu bar with that glossy effect?". The answer: Lickable Menu Bar! Developed by Honghao Zhang, Lickable Menu Bar styles your Menu Bar into one of three previous Mac Menu Bar Styles: Matte (ala OS X Mavericks), Flat (ala OS X Catalina), and the best of the trio, Glossy (ala Mac OS X Tiger).
Lickable Menu Bar features three styles: Matte, Flat, and Glossy (obviously the best).
This free and lightweight app launches when you log in and makes your Menu Bar look, well, lickable!
Sleeve
Sleeve is a highly customizable Music Widget for macOS.
Sleeve is a beautifully customizable floating music controller for Mac, built by Alasdair Monk and Hector Simpson. When running, a persistent widget-like control on your Mac shows information about the media you're currently listening to. You can display the album artwork, artist and album information, playback controls, and progress slider. You can have all of these things displayed or just one; this app's customization is infinite. After just a minute of tinkering, it’s unlikely any two users will have the same setup. You can tweak the size, position, shadow style, and even pick from three different wood finishes if you opt to use the optional shelf.
From sizing to shadows, lighting to shelving materials, Sleeve offers endless customization options.
The app retails for $5.99 USD with no in-app purchases or subscriptions. It's an absolute gem.
Capture
Capture is an all-in-one depository for organizing and actioning items you collect from the web.
Every day, I cruise across dozens upon dozens of sites and services. I read the news, check my social media accounts, get a podcast recommended, or remind myself about a YouTube video I want to watch later. Most sites maintain a bookmarking services embedded into their site, which helps me to save things but doesn't solve the problem of remembering where I saw something or why I wanted to save it in the first place.
Cue Capture. Capture is a wonderfully simple utility that perfectly solves that problem. Available across all of Apple's platforms (yes, even including visionOS), Capture helps me effortlessly save and organize content across the web. With one click, I can save content to the app, quickly place it into a subfolder, and add a quick note about why I am saving something (i.e., wallpaper idea, read later, the recipe I want to make, funny video to show the wife, etc.). And because Capture is available across all Apple platforms and syncs via iCloud, all my saves are available across all my Apple devices.
Capture is also integrated with dozens of Applications, meaning I can open the app and send the item I captured and make it into a reminder, Siri Shortcut, or send the content to Notes, Agenda, Craft, Photos, Obsidian, Bear, Todoist, and over a dozen more. Within each app, you can control how you want the content handled (add specific tags, create or append to a document, add to a particular Reminders list). Once actioned upon, items can be set to archive automatically, or you can delete them yourself.
Capture is a subscription app, but an $11.99 Lifetime option is available. The app is well worth it and quickly pays for itself, especially regarding how streamlined it helps me feel about my workflow.
In Sum
Great apps help define a platform and encourage and inspire other developers to create new and amazing products for the Mac. I hope you check them out and find value in these three little apps. And if you like this sort of content, let me know. I'm open to creating more of these mini spotlights in the future.
