In the days that Macs featured rainbow-colored Apple logos, there was a handy tool that lived in the Apple Menu—the Scrapbook. The idea was that you could use it as a place for images, text, sounds, and other content that you could later paste in documents. Unfortunately, with the transition to OS X, Scrapbook didn’t make the cut. Realmac Software has sort of resurrected the idea with Ember, a $50 Mac app and free iOS app combo.
Review: Realmac Software Ember
Realmac has updated its Ember image-collection and syncing tools, adding the much-requested annotations feature to the iOS app and a handful of smaller tweaks and features to its Mac app. Realmac has released Ember for iOS, the companion app for the company’s popular Mac digital scrapbook and sharing app. From the Ember for iOS App Store page: Build Collections of related things – how about “My Dream Kitchen” – and as you add tags and other information to your images create Smart Collections – for example “Images Tagged with “Kitchen” whose primary color is “White””. Say hello to the sweetest image compression app on the Mac. Squash will save you time, speed up your web pages, and make you smile too! App Store Realmac Store. The following month, Realmac Software released Ember, an app designed to capture and organize screenshots. The company announced the release of Typed, an OS X app for writing in Markdown, in July 2014. That October, Clear was ranked 12th on Business Insider's list of 'The World’s Greatest Apps.' The 1.8.5 version of Ember for Mac is available as a free download on our website. This Mac application was originally created by Realmac Software. The application is included in Design & Photo Tools. Our antivirus check shows that this Mac download is virus free.
Ember on Mac
Ember has its roots with LittleSnapper, a Mac application focused on taking and collecting screenshots. Realmac Software added features, redesigned the interface, added an iOS companion app, and relaunched the whole combination as Ember, hoping to be a scrapbook for everything. Some have described it as a personal version of Pinterest, and the analogy does have some value, but there are some serious productivity uses of having all sorts of items available whenever you need them, or organizing bits of content around a particular project.
Ember can store content locally on devices, but it also integrates with iCloud to share content among devices. On the Mac, the interface is much like iPhoto and prior version of iTunes—a sidebar to the left, content to the right. The interface is clean, simple to use, and there are a number of ways to categorize content. Opening a snap presents it in the full width of the window, and there are some basic editing tools, including crop, rotate, and annotate. The third one gives you the option to doodle and caption your snaps in a nondestructive manner. With the newest version, you can also blur or pixelate content—great for developers and software reviewers. A share button allows you to share your snaps to a number of services, including AirDrop (if your Mac is so equipped), email, iMessage, Facebook, Twitter, CloudApp, Flickr, iCloud, Tumblr, or a simple image export.
In addition to local content, Ember also allows you to subscribe to select content through RSS feeds. A few are included so you can see how it works, and it shows you unviewed items. Finally, there is a built-in browser, which can be handy if you’re a full-screen app fan.
Speaking of web browsers, Ember offers browser extensions for Safari and Chrome allowing you to snap content directly from your browser of choice. After clicking the button, you are presented with a pop-up to enter some metadata, and the page is snapped and added to your Ember library. Snapping web pages actually gives you an image of the entire page, not just the contents visible in your browser window at that particular time.
https://poever924.weebly.com/blog/nvsip-app-for-mac. With the update to 1.3, Realmac has added a number of enhancements, demonstrating that they’re not content on resting on their laurels and growing the capabilities over time. The release notes claim “over 50 other tweaks and enhancements” and one notable one is the ability to back up the library to a specific location—good if you don’t use Time Machine.
Ember on iOS
While it is not as powerful as its desktop sibling, Ember on iOS is a handy way to collect things on the go, either as screenshots or photos, and later sync back with its desktop counterpart. Ember doesn’t offer many of the advanced organization and editing tools, save for the optional in-app purchases. In theory, it really is intended as a good collection or quick viewing companion for on the go. https://poever924.weebly.com/blog/app-linkedin-per-mac. If you look at it from this perspective, it serves its purpose well, and works quite nicely.
One notable feature of using the two applications in tandem is that Ember recognizes iOS screenshots based on dimensions and files them appropriately. We think this is rather slick.
Other Tools?
Some may argue that there are services and tools that are free, but many are ad-supported or require some sort of proprietary account. Ember on Mac’s screenshot and annotation tools are quite handy and worth at least a third if not half of the price of admission alone. As more people are concerned with where their data is being stored, Ember offers a good alternative using familiar places like local storage or iCloud.
Unfortunately, Ember seems focused around image files. While this isn’t bad, we would like to see support for other file formats, even rudimentary ones like text files. This could make Ember a full-blown replacement for tools like Evernote.
While $50 is arguably steep for a piece of software, at least to those who complain about $5 iOS apps, it does fit in line with a lot of other polished productivity tools. From a review standpoint, we would think Ember would have a bigger audience at a $30 price point, but developers do have to put food on the table. The universal iOS app is free and offers much of the same functionality, although some of the new headlining features that are in the Mac version require in-app purchases on iOS. Annotations are $5 and Screenshot Auto-Import is $1. While you can live without these, or use the functionality on your Mac, having the option to add them is nice (especially if you’re filing content while mobile). Fortunately, Realmac Software does offer a free trial of Ember for Mac, so you can see how it fits in your workflow. If it is a tool that you’ll actually use, it’s a great product and well worth the money. If you can’t get into a routine of using it, it might be money better spent elsewhere.
The One-Sentence Verdict™
Ember combines a good interface, handy organization, and flexible options to provide a place to keep all sorts of content you might need.
Pros: Well-designed interface, iOS version free, excellent organization, iCloud synchronization Cons: Mac version may be considered a bit pricey for some, would like to see other content types The Facts
Product:Ember
Company:Realmac Software Platform: Mac OS X Mavericks & iOS 7 Price: $49.99 (Mac), Free w/in-app purchases (iOS)
This post has been filed in iOS Apps, iPad, iPhone, Mac Apps, Miscellany and Reviews
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If you're the kind of person -- a designer, perhaps -- who finds visual inspiration on the Web, where photos and layouts and color schemes feed your soul and generate sparks of ideas, you may warm to Realmac Software's Ember for Mac, a digital scrapbook now available in the Mac App Store for US$49.99.
Ember lets you generate and store images from websites -- photos or just snaps of areas of pages -- and then lets you organize and categorize them into collections. You can annotate images with built-in drawing and text tools, letting you provide feedback to others or simply communicate the elements of design that you like -- or dislike, for that matter. https://poever924.weebly.com/blog/foscam-vms-app-mac.
While Ember can be used for digital scrapbooking, it's also meant for collecting online images to act as catalysts for projects. What kind of project? Any that lends itself to design, art, space, light, usability, mood or function.
Ember is for 'creatives,' according to Realmac Software, and it's an evolutionary re-creation of LittleSnapper, which was a similar tool for organizing and storing images. Ember for Mac, it turns out, has far more features than the discontinued/renamed/rebuilt LittleSnapper.
Key FeaturesOrganization:
Subscriptions: One of Ember's particularly interesting features is its ability to let you subscribe to websites visually, letting you browse the images from your subscriptions.
Realmac Ember Mac App Install
Built-in Browser: Ember includes an integrated responsive browser, which lets you save pages from responsive websites at any width wanted -- for instance, to match iPad or iPhone views.
Browser Extensions: With extensions for Safari and Chrome, Ember doesn't have to be running in order to send images directly to collections inside Ember.
Screenshots: Ember lets users take a variety of screenshots, including full-screen, timed full-screen, area and windows. Plus, Ember will automatically name the screenshots.
Annotations: Text and freehand sketch tools make it easy to write on images, as well as crop or rotate them before sharing.
Realmac Ember Mac App Download
Sharing: Of course, Ember lets users send and post their images via email, AirDrop, Messages, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, CloudApp and Tumblr.
LittleSnapper Imports: Previous LittleSnapper users can import their LittleSnapper libraries into Ember, as long as they are importing from the 1.8.5 version.
Realmac Ember Mac App StoreMore to ComeRealmac Ember Mac App Installer
For LittleSnapper users, Ember for Mac should bring more heat and light than pain. There are new features, and Realmac is alluding to even more on the way. However, the Mac App Store doesn't allow upgrade pricing, so everyone will have to start fresh at $49.99.
Realmac Ember
Ember for Mac requires OS X Mountain Lion, version 10.8.3 or higher.
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