Worried about prying eyes when you’re working in a coffee shop? Adam Engst reviews EyesOff, a clever menu bar app that uses your Mac’s webcam to alert you when someone is looking at your screen. He also dives into ChatGPT Images 2.0, showing how its improved capabilities let you act as an art director—iterating on AI-generated images through conversation. The venerable BBEdit turns 16 with a grab bag of new features, including the ability to search for text within images, comprehensive Shortcuts actions, and more. We briefly share a jaw-dropping story about a gift card scam that shipped over $80 million in Apple products through New Hampshire warehouses. Notable Mac app releases this week include Audio Hijack 4.5.9, Default Folder X 6.2.8, DEVONthink 4.3, Fantastical 4.1.13, Firefox 151, OmniFocus 4.8.11, and Photos Search 5.0.
Worried about prying eyes at the coffee shop? EyesOff uses your Mac’s webcam to detect when someone’s watching your screen and can alert you, hide your work, or lock your Mac.
After 34 years, BBEdit keeps finding new tricks. Version 16 searches for text inside images, brings powerful text transformations to Shortcuts, and adds per-project color schemes, among much else.
If you’re better at critiquing images than creating them, ChatGPT’s improved image generation is worth a try. Recent enhancements let you direct iterative changes, fix specific areas, and finally get text that’s spelled correctly.
Watchlist
Adds support for the Quo VoIP app. ($64 new, free update, 27.7 MB, macOS 14.4+)
Fixes several handy bug fixes in the Open/Save dialog utility. ($39.95 new, free update, 28.7 MB, macOS 10.13+)
Document and information manager adds a new MCP server for connecting with AI tools. ($99 new for standard and $199 for Pro, free update, 89.7 MB, macOS 13+)
Adds support for combining events from Reclaim.ai on Microsoft 365 accounts. ($57 annual subscription, free update, 69.8 MB, macOS 12+)
Maintenance update with a handful of macOS-specific improvements. (Free, 152 MB, macOS 10.15+)
Small maintenance release focused on bug fixes. ($74.99 new, free update, 40.4 MB, macOS 14+)
Photo text recognition app adds support for searching within a folder of photos. ($17.99 new, free update, 1.5 MB, macOS 11.5+)
