Your desktop on steroids: Bumptop « The BEST Apple Hardware and Software Reviews

Written By Editor February 9th, 2010

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Every so often, an app hits our virtual desk that literally makes us stop, jaw wide open.

Take for example Bumptop. This is possibly THE coolest mac app ever made. The Mac desktop is pretty nifty at allowing you to organize icons easily into groups or bundles as you so wish. Compared to Vista, OSX is far superior. But what if some clever developer decided to take this concept of using the desktop like an actual workspace – and make it 3D? We’d say they we’re absolutely genius. And so, enter Bumptop.

So, I think Bumptop is probably one of those apps that I’d better just show you rather than try explain it. Here’s my normal Desktop, just bog standard leopard stuff, nothing of note and no organization what so ever.

Pretty standard right?

Let’s add some 3D awesomeness!

Ok, so firstly, Bumptop looks cool. This is the very first thing I look at in Mac apps. But then, when you get past that, you actually realize that this app will drastically change your workspace forever.

There’s so much to this app. The basic concept is that you have a desktop in 3 dimensions, giving you access to 3 walls and the ‘floor’. The 4th wall rule is in place, because your on it in this perspective.

Piles

Your probably wondered where this was going for a moment there. But BT allows you to create ‘piles’ of icons. This is pretty clever in my opinion. This is a massive bolster to organisation, because you can categorise items so to speak. The app will automagically create piles for you if you wish, organised by type as you can see here.

Piles of icons works amazingly well, use this to pile related files together, or allow the program to do this based on filetype for example.

Now, the Piles element could result in a UI nightmare. Let’s face it, when you pile real paper it gets a bit of a handful. Not in Bumptop! Simply double click the pile and…

Double click and you get an expanded view of the pile. This works amazingly well and looks very slick.

Alternatively, you can make use of multi-touch on the Magic Mouse or MBP trackpad (or the scroll wheel) to cycle through icons.

Notes

Don’t get me wrong, but any self-respecting organization / productivity app should have notes. Notes are hard to pull off too, because you can either make them ridiculously complex or superbly simple. Bumptop follows the latter. They simply work as a normal post-it would. Your not limited to what you can place within them. This means you can make a to do list, shopping list or a note to remind you to silence the neighbors budgie. All you need to do is hit the “New Note” button.

Physics

Bumptop doesn’t disappoint in terms of physics. They really make this app feel ‘real’ by allowing icons to overlap (and appear as though they have been done so through an altered perspective). This is handy. Then of course you have piles. One of the coolest features though, is you can through icons and notes around and they will “bounce” off walls and other elements. This isn’t massively handy unless your angry or trying to tidy up a bit, but it looks very cool indeed!

Causing chaos by throwing stuff around!

Then of course there are the ‘walls’.

Walls

Walls allow you to pin files to the surface. These icons appear on a different perspective, and stand out. This is one of the most handy features of Bumptop.

The 3 planes in action.

Background

You can even customize the backgrounds or literally wallpapers – either use one across the whole thing or separate wallpapers.

4th Wall

I did just say you can’t use the 4th wall. I was wrong! If you double click on a wall to the right for example, you will be transferred to a 1st person like view. See below.

Double clicking on the right wall, takes you to this view. Do it again to see the hidden wall…

The back or 4th wall. Due to it’s seemingly hidden nature this may make this wall quite useful for hiding your MI6 secret files from view of your cat.

Find as you type

Need to find an icon quickly? Just start typing…

No matching files in this case, but matching icons do jiggle about just to let you know they are there.

OSX integration

BumpTop will stay out of your way, complementing all of the Mac OS X features you know and love: like Spaces, Exposé, and Quick Look.

Verdict

There aren’t many apps that I would rate as useful as WriteRoom or Mailplane, but BumpTop is 100% in my recommended-because-I-use-them-constantly list. For $29 I cannot fault this app even if only on pricing. Not in one bit, it’s great value, it’s more productive than espresso and it looks awesome. If you don’t buy this app right now even just to try it you like Bill Gates more than Steve Jobs.

Find out more at Bumptop.com: http://bumptop.com/mac/index.php