Aside from the whining about my personal life, let’s get onto today’s review which is covering a relatively simple app by the name of Bartender. I’m one of these people that like a clean computer desktop and menu bars, and I’m probably not unique. It’s one of the same reasons I like Mac’s, they’re neat clean and uncluttered.
Bartender is one of those desktop apps that solve the cluttered problem in a simple way. It’s a single menu item that opens up a larger area where the majority of your icons that aren’t used often are located. It’s actually a really simple concept, the kind that makes you wonder why someone hasn’t added it before. “What? It took how many versions of OSX before someone added this?”
The setup is a quite easy. Install the app and your apps that are currently running will appear in the preference option where you can decide whether to hide them in the Bartender menu, leave them as is, or hide them altogether. From there you are left with a clean desktop and the flexibility to show and hide apps as you need to. It will only show the apps currently running but you can add additional apps manually or as you use them.
From a reliability perspective, the app has been flawless to date and it’s a well designed app. They could have just had just stopped at having the folder, but they’ve included functionality like the ability to configure Bartender to push apps back in the task bar if they are doing anything like updating. It’s these little things that tend to leave you with an app that feels complete but I can’t help but wish they could have extended it slightly to include one or two extra features (outside of the core folders), like the ability to prevent the screensaver enabling or hiding desktop icons. Obviously I’m aware that there are apps that cover this functionality (Caffeine and Camouflage) but it seems crazy to have that many small applications simply covering minor pieces of functionality. Sure, this app does help hide them but no one wants 27 apps running in the background.
Pricing for the app is $14.92 (exchange rate pricing I assume) and it’s available directly through their website and not the Mac App Store. The price of 3 coffee’s if you think of it from perspective. It’s not expensive, but given the pricing of other apps on the Mac app store, I’d be inclined to say it’s probably more suited to the A$10 category. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good app, but given the limitations to what it actually does there are other apps that offer more at the same or better pricing. This app falls into the nice to have category. You don’t need it, but chances are you’ll want it.
About the author
Athol Hill is the Practice Lead for Stonebridge Systems, an SAP & OpenText implementation partner specialising in web and content management implementations and strategy.
He is a certified SAP and Project Management Professional with a large number of implementations spanning the globe including Australasia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. When he isn't kitesurfing or spending time with his family, Athol writes part time for Mactalk on a range of subjects including iOS/OSX in the workplace, bleeding edge, product reviews and anything Mac. If you have something new and exciting to review, feel free to get in touch. He can be contacted via twitter on @themissionman or email on athol.hill@mactalk.com.au. Opinions noted here are Athol's own and aren't any official policy of position of his employer.
