iStat menus 1.3 - improving an already excellent tool

One of my favorite applications was improved today when iSlayer released iStat menus version 1.3, a free utility for OS X. If you haven't already downloaded and installed it I can't recommend it enough. It's a great tool for monitoring the health of your Mac and I've used it as a quick-glance diagnostic tool whenever I want to see if something's amiss.


The obvious changes to 1.3 are in the UI for configuring the menus. The screens have a cleaner graphical treatment and the controls are organized a little better, especially in the calendar configuration area:

There are also a number of bug fixes and additional minor features in this release. If you aren't using iStat menu then by all means, click here, download it and install it. While you're at it you may want to look at their Dashboard widget as well: iStat Pro. Between the two I can see at a glance what is going on by looking up at my menu bar, click on it to dive in a little deeper, launch Activity Monitor from it if I see something I'm curious about or simply open my dashboard and get a comprehensive view of the health of my machine.

Like iStat menu as much as I do? Consider donating to these guys. It's money well spent and rewards some people for creating a really valuable utility.

Comments

Randal L. Schwartz said…
Yeay! They finally moved Mexico City out of *south* america and into *north* america where it belongs. I was thinking of mailing them a map. I mean, Guatemala was in Central America, but Mexico City was in *south* america? c'mon!
June 5, 2008 at 11:20 PM
Unknown said…
I had iStat pro but just downloaded iStat menus after reading this post. I think I will stick with the dashboard version, though, as the menus seem to take up to much room in my menubar.
June 5, 2008 at 11:24 PM
Unknown said…
I changed my mind and put the menus back up. I had to rearrange the menus with the ones I already had. I am now using the istat date and time and got rid of the os x one.
June 5, 2008 at 11:53 PM
David Alison said…
@Justin: Glad to hear you're giving it another chance. If I could only choose one item to have from iStat the CPU monitor would be it.

Also don't forget that you can move the items in the menu bar around by holding down the Command key and dragging them.
June 6, 2008 at 12:51 AM
Neurus said…
And they finally swapped the HDD arrows. Reading should be Up and Writing down... excellent :)
June 6, 2008 at 5:07 AM
Jeff Douglas said…
I am with Justin on using the iStat date/time rather than the OSX date/time. It's sooo much better.
June 6, 2008 at 9:55 AM
Anonymous said…
I use the iStat pro widget on the dashboard, but for the menu bar I prefer MenuMeters.

iStat menus suffers from being so forcibly monochromatic that it becomes difficult to discern the information at a quick glance.

MenuMeters works quite a bit better for me in that regard. One thing I like is the very clear "drive LED" indication for read/write access and the very good adaptability of the network throughput graph.

It also has a few information displays in the menus for the respective info graphics which iStat pro didn't match well enough for what I needed, although it has a few strengths of its own. But as usual, you can't have everything at the same time... ;-)
June 8, 2008 at 12:29 PM
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