21 comments

Ok your entitled to you opinion…But there is a huge drawback to the MacHeist bundle: it has already been released. Almost all of the apps, except the last two games, have been released in previous bundles. Also MacUpdate has added WhatSize to the bundle for early adopters, making it likely more hidden goodness will turn up.

Gareth Sloan, on April 21st, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Just be careful with Wallet guys n gals, I have had problems on two occasions and nearly lost all my data. I would recommend Steel or OnePassword.

Hope this helps!

Jon

Jon Moss, on April 21st, 2008 at 12:20 pm

[...] - though I confess I haven’t tried any of the apps yet. (Aha, Cult of Mac has just posted a comparison of the two bundles that goes into more detail on the [...]

Here comes another Mac shareware bundle -- Reality Distortion: Macs, Mac OS X, and Apple stuff, on April 22nd, 2008 at 2:50 am

Hey, I just wanted to point out that the “innovative strategy” of unlocks you mention (and attribute to MacUpdate) was in fact ripped off by MacUpdate from our first sale back in December of 2006, as were many other elements of our bundle, including the same number of apps and price.

Phillip Ryu, on April 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 pm

wow. nice comprehensive review, you’ve obviously done your research…you gloss some of the more useful apps in both bundles (leap, devonthink) - it ends up sounding like a glib piece of ad-copy rather than something that actually does a comparison.

Ben, on April 22nd, 2008 at 11:15 pm

“Personally, I admire MacUpdate’s innovative strategy here, unlocking by tiers as well as the fear of loss (only 10 days left) marketing, are exceptionally clever. ”

MacHeist did this first during their MacHeist I bundle… MacUpdate is only “borrowing” their idea.

Craig, on April 23rd, 2008 at 2:14 am

How is the unlock approach in the latest MacUpdate Promo bundle “innovative”? Just a scant few months before The Parallels Bundle, MacHeist II used an unlock system, and even gave you two more apps (Circus Ponies Notebook and LaunchBar) if you got people to buy through your referral links.

Back in December 2007 there was another major MU Promo bundle which also had unlocks (which also ran up against bundle offers like MacSanta, and the “choose your own bundle” GiveGoodFoodToYourMac), and before that, in May 2007 MacUpdate and MecHeist collaborated on a bundle which not only had unlocks, but also had “hidden” bonuses if you were in the know and bought through MacHeist.

And before that still, there was MacHeist I, which was the first and original execution of a massively hyped Mac shareware bundle with high desired unlockable applications.

rampancy, on April 23rd, 2008 at 4:49 am

The bundles serve very different purposes. The MU software is very useful, and the marketing tricks - mostly copied from earlier MacHeist bundles. The unlocking and bonus apps - we have seen before. But it is a great bundle.
The MacHeist bundle is a ‘best of’ bundle - all of the apps were either in bundles previously or in the bonus apps. It is on sale all year, will eventually be sold in boxes, and is a great intro to some great Mac shareware. When MH3 happens - it will be all new apps again and will have the unlocking drama and bonus apps and loot for solving mysteries. MH has a community.
Both are great but they are very different in their targets and style. While there is competition between the two Mac shareware sales outlets - there is room for both. What a great time for Mac users and developers!

Carolyn Hayes, on April 23rd, 2008 at 5:16 am

Mac Bundle Battle Royale | nerdd.net…

\r\nCult of Mac battles MacHeist\’s bundle vs MacUpdate\’s bundle, comparing the real value of the c…

nerdd.net | news and opinion, on April 23rd, 2008 at 6:23 am

@ben: I was going to do a full product head to head, but that doesn’t really fit with the cult’s format. We like short glib ad-copy pieces.

@”the innovation” comments. Your clarification is noted. The tiered unlocking is pretty innovative regardless of who came up with it. Credit where its due: MacHeist came up with it first. I do hope they weren’t as downright deceptive in their print ads as MU was (I saw the MacILife ad after I wrote the articlen or I’d have mentioned their utter failure to mention the tiering in their print advertisements, which I do consider to be deceptive.

leigh mcmullen, on April 23rd, 2008 at 6:40 am

Are you serious? You compare software without ever trying any of it? I bought both bundles and at the time had the ‘winners’ in mind. I now use the apps I had no interest in more than the ‘winners’ (Cha-ching…lame and buggy…moneywell is far better). Same for the MU bundle.

You can’t determine how useful something is until you try it. Do you also do movie reviews by reading other people’s reviews? Thats about the level of thought you gave this. You should be embarrassed to have published this.

Ryan, on April 23rd, 2008 at 6:51 am

Wow how long did it take to do all the research for this article…. Really in depth?.. well maybe not!!!! Really accurate?.. not very is it!!!

Both bundles are good, and both serve different markets. Macheist have said all along its a BEST OF bundle. and BTW DevonThink rocks…

MUPromo also has some great apps you missed off. I mainly bought it for Hazel, Typinator and Leap..

Phil, on April 23rd, 2008 at 8:42 am

My last comment was not published, I’m not sure why I assume it was because it was critical of your methodology. I’ll make my point less critically this time:

I bought both bundles. I looked them over before and decided what I liked and what I didn’t. After using the apps for a time I found that the apps I bought it for often did not live up to expectations. Other apps I thought of as ‘filler’ I use daily.

So you can’t simply look at them and decide how good they are. If you don’t use them you can’t possibly comment on their usefulness much less make any kind of assessment on the two bundles.

ryan, on April 23rd, 2008 at 9:48 am

My editor would have canned me if I’d turned in a software review based on Google searches and the reviews of others! How can you possibly compare software like that?
For example, I agree that Scrivener IS better than StoryMill, but I only know it and believe it because I actually tried them both!!! I’m still shaking my head in disbelief that you think it’s ok to do a “head-to-head” comparison this way.

macpug, on April 23rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm

DVDRemaster can create h264 rips of DVDs and comes with fairmount (which is open source and free) that can mount encrypted dvds as though they were unencrypted.

It uses the magic of VLC to achieve this

Adrian, on April 23rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm

We get under the covers of these bundles to see which are worth your hard-earned duckets.

I think you meant “ducats”, from the Italian ducato.

Roger D. Parish, on April 24th, 2008 at 5:10 am

I don’t really consider Nanosaur 2 to be a “get” simply because it came on my mac for free (g4 ibook). So basically people are getting a 3 year old freebie.

Still, the macheist one turns my crank more.

K Sawyer, on April 25th, 2008 at 5:43 am

As I’ve said before, we don’t really have the format for an indepth review. So I chose to do the same type of comparison a consumer would do before purchasing the bundles: I looked at at the products features at face value and other people’s reviews. What’s more I was 100% up front about that.

What I would be interested in is if anyone disagrees with my summation?

IS there anything in the MacUpdate bundle worth 65 bucks, if you don’t get parallels?

leigh mcmullen, on April 25th, 2008 at 10:03 am

I have bought the 2 MacHeist bundles and The MacUpdate bundle, I like them all. I had the hardest time getting Wingnuts when it was released and even now, I can not get it to run. Unfortunately, MacHeist seems to have lost all my registration info (but I still get their emails, hmmmm…). Adding WhatSize to the early adopters as a surpise app was pretty cool and it is a nice app. I like that I get to really use the software, and pay for it to find out whether ot not it is something I will use, while supporting the programming community

What I did not like about the MacHeist bundles was that bot all the registration came at once, (nor did it in the MacUpdate), but it is all kept in one accessible place which is cool for instance Leap registration info did not come in the receipt email, nor was thw email sent, but when I logged into the website I was able to get the registration info. And the aps are pretty decent. ANd MacUpdate had nice little vids from the programmers, which was pretty cool too.

I will continue to support both, but I am enjoying the MacUpdate process better (and you get their service for an additional $9 instead of $20).

B K Ray, on April 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am

update: Parallels and BannerZest are both unlocked on the MacUpdate promo, making it a pretty darn good deal indeed, now.

Unfortunately I’m unable to update the main post.

Thanks

Leigh.

Leigh McMullen, on April 26th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Great deal with Parallels.

Partners in Grime, on April 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm