The Second-Best Way To Find Great Mac Apps (After MacApper!)

Quick, what is the best way to find great software for your Mac?

MacApper, of course. But if you’ve read every article we’ve got and your insane thirst for insanely great software has not yet been quenched, where do you turn? The answer lies in your menu bar, thanks to a great little piece of software called MUMenu.

The “MU” in the name stands for MacUpdate.com, which – in case you don’t know – is an awesome online collection of software in the style of Download.com, but it’s all Mac-only. MacUpdate provides information, screenshots and user-reviews of freeware, shareware and commercial applications, along with download links and lots more. It deserves a spot in your Bookmarks (right below MacApper, of course!). The only downside is that there is so much excellent software available for the Mac that it’s hard to stay up-to-date with the new stuff that’s released every day.

That’s where MUMenu comes in. The current version of this little gem (v2.1.2) is only a 208 kb download. Once you download it and unzip the archive, you will find the application itself and an extras folder which contains three additional sets of icons you can use if you want.

Once launched, the app sits in your menu bar and, whenever it receives word of new software available on MacUpdate, the icon changes to alert you. When you click on the icon, the resulting drop-down menu lists the software that is available (new releases push older titles down and off the bottom of the list) and each item contains a sub-menu with a brief description and links for more information or the download itself. The items are even identified as free, shareware, demo or commercial.

The application’s simple Preferences screen (which you reach through MUMenu itself) lets you set the frequency at which it looks online for updates (in 30 minute increments) as well as which icon set you want to use. You can also choose how to order the menu, with the default set to show the most recently released titles first. Additionally, you can choose to group the items by license type and them sub-sort them by release date in each group, which I love. The final option is a check-box which, if checked, will launch MUMenu every time you log on, which I recommend. (In the screenshot, the items highlightedin red are what MacUpdate calls “Hot Picks” which probably means that the developer paid them for a more prominent listing.)

I don’t know about other writers here at MacApper World HQ, but I rely heavily on MUMenu to stay on top of the constantly changing landscape of Mac Apps. While I would never imply that any application, no matter how useful, could ever replace the service we provide, I know that MUMenu could become one of your favorite ways to stay abreast of what’s available for your Mac. You can pick up your free copy of MUMenu direct from MacUpdate.