Cool Mac Apps
10. Jul 2006 
15 comments
Well seeing all these cool programs apearing which use the advanced hardware in the Apple Hardware i thought i would compile a list of applications
To check you are capable of running these applications check out SenChecker
Motion Sensor:
- NetPong : Play Pong by tilting your computer! Play alone or with a friend over a local network.
- MultiAlarm : Movement Alarm designed for all Apple laptops with sensor
- Lilt : Control your iTunes play back with the motion sensor or light sensor
- MacSaber : MacSaber uses your Mac’s sudden motion sensor to detect movements, fast and slow. As you move your laptop, MacSaber plays varying levels of Light Saber sound effects, from a waving sound to exciting saber crashes.
- Carpenter’s Level : Carpenter’s Level is a dashboad widget that will turn your Mac into a Carpenter’s level tool. When you tilt the notebook left or right the bubble will move from left/right. Useful to find out if your desk is level or not.
- AMS2HID : Use the Sudden Motion Sensor as a human interface device.
- AMSVisualizer : a 3D visualization of the Sudden Motion Sensor.
- StableWindow : a window that counters motion.
- SMSRotateD : the Sudden Motion Sensor as a screen rotation trigger for automatic screen orientation based on a notebook’s physical orientation (portrait or landscape).
- Slapbook : Cool little program that allows you to switch your virutal desktops by gently slapping your laptop on either side, which visually makes the current desktop slide to the opposite side, changing to the next desktop.
- SiesMac : SeisMac is a Mac OS X Cocoa application that makes your MacBook or MacBook Pro into a seismograph. It access your laptop’s Sudden Motion Sensor in order to display real-time, three-axis acceleration graphs.
The resizable, real-time scrolling display shows an enormous amount of acceleration information. Place your laptop on a table and see the seismic waves from tapping your toe on the floor. Lay your laptop on your chest and see your heartbeat. And of course, if there is a real earthquake, SeisMac will be displaying full seismic information while you drop, cover and hold-on.
- Bubblegym : As far as I know the very first computer game that reacts to how the machine is tilted. The 2005 Powerbooks have a chip on the logic board that is there to signal if the computer is dropped. Thanks to Amit Singh (kernelthread.com) this chip’s values can be read and utilized for your amuzement. The gameplay is simple but challenging, control the balls by leaning the computer and get to the clouds before they disappear.
- MoveYourMac : A very simple program in java which uses the ported java library of unimotion, the game is basically move your dot to the red dots to go up a point, move your dot to the black dots and you lose a point. Quite simply a simple and interesting game
- BumpAlarm : BumpAlarm is a program that uses the motion sensors in Apple’s new Powerbooks to trigger various actions when motion is detected. It can be set it to automatically play a sound file, send an email alert, or run an applescript. (This was the first application to use the sensor as a alarm)
- LiquidMac LiquidMac simulates water on your laptops screen, so when you move the laptop the water particles also move around
Light Sensor:
The light sensor is yet to be put into any real programs that have a real function but these are the current first generation programs
- NightSounds : NightSounds is a small application that reads the light sensor available in Apple MacBook Pro and PowerBook computers and plays sounds in low light conditions.
- Shadowbook : After the (useless hack) SmackBook was released, some commenters were worried that giving the laptop a smack to the head might be bad for the hard drive, not to mention the soul.
- Lilt : Control your iTunes play back with the motion sensor or light sensor
Other Utilities:
- InsomniaX : It always has been a missing feature: disabling the sleep mode on a Apple Laptop. Who does not want to use it as a big juke-box or go warwalking. The best looking server ever, especially at about one inch height. This small utility is what you will want, this small utility acts as a wrapper to the Insomnia kernel extension.
If you want you SMS/LMU aware application added to this list, leave a comment saying so and ill be sure to add it.
Hello
Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!
G’night
COOOOOL
Hmm, seen quite a few of these already, and most of them are useless, but I’ll have fun trying them out anyways.
Thanks!
~Tim
Do you have any quick fixes for Leopard’s interaction with InsomniaX? I LOVE that software, it just doesn’t work in Leopard yet.
-jesse
nice nice nice nice!
Exstremely lovely site. Very impressed about all the lesson there are to learn and to know how much help is there also. Keep up the great work
great list, thx for sharing.
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