AppFlow

If you’re anything like me, when you go away, be it to a conference or on holiday, the first thing you pack is your MacBook!

If your MacBook is with you at all times, it makes sense for it to take care of everything for you;  Calendar, bookings, reservations and Alarm Clock.

But how do you wake yourself up in the morning with your Mac?  Sure, many apps will do it as a little side feature, but what about an app specifically designed to be your own personal waker-uper? Enter: Aurora.

How do you want to wake up?

With an app specifically built for being an alarm clock, you would expect some customisation tools in the alarm department.  Aurora delivers this well with a rather large panel of alarm customisation settings.

The big selling point of Aurora is the ability to wake you up to your music collection, something that is very simple, and yet very useful.  You can select from any of your standard or smart playlists to use, or your entire music library.  One feature lacking here is the ability to select a specific artist/album/song without creating a whole new playlist.

Then there are the other features.  You can set weekly, or one day alarms, tell aurora to wake up your computer, fade the volume, and even get an application to run when the alarm goes off.  This could be, for example, having it so that your calendar opens automatically and comes to the front when you are woken up, or your RSS reader.

In addition, Aurora has Apple Remote support for people who can’t reach their mac when they wake up!  The remote can be used to control the media playback in exactly the same way as iTunes, meaning theres no new controls to learn.

Falling Asleep

When it comes to late at night, whether you’re away or at home, falling asleep can be an issue.  When I’m away, I often set my Mac playing music, fall asleep, then get woken up by a particularly loud track later in the playlist.  Aurora can help with this.

The ‘Fall Asleep’ options in Aurora are perfect for setting a playlist playing to fall asleep to.  You can specify a certain number of tracks to play or a time period before the computer fades the music, reduces display brightness then sleeps.  These options are also customisable.

Another feature Aurora provides is to activate the ‘Fall Asleep’ after a quick time movie has finished, or after your DVD has finished playing.  I have to admit, this is the feature I use most!  Using Aurora you can leave your film playing and not worry about turning your computer off afterwards.

Conclusion

Aurora is an easy to use application that is specifically designed to wake you up and let you fall asleep.  It is the ideal companion to a traveler and very useful if you want a little bit of extra control from an alarm clock.

Aurora retails for £13.21 ($20.23) and is available from Metaquark.