CNET Editors' review
iStat Menus is a comprehensive set of system monitoring tools, providing a quick-access view of system activity in your menu bar.
Formerly a free preference pane, iStat Menus is now a paid, standalone app--but it offers a lot of functionality to justify its price, along with a clean interface and very low system overhead. You need to open iStat Menus when you're configuring it, but most of the time you'll only see the app in an array of highly configurable menu-bar icons. iStat Menus can help you track CPU activity, memory usage, disk usage, disk activity, network activity, sensors (such as fan speed and temp), date and time, and battery. In addition to at-a-glance readouts in the menu bar, you can also click on each item for quick access to related data, apps, and preferences--so for example, clicking on CPU will show you active processes without having to actually open Activity Monitor.
If you're new to iStat Menus, it's easy to miss the fact that you can customize the content and visuals of each menu-bar item extensively. For example with Sensors, you can choose to display over 20 individual voltage, temperature, and current readouts. Less extreme and perhaps more widely useful, the Battery preferences let you customize the menu-bar display for different battery states--so you can show, for example, a percentage while charging, but time remaining while draining. Most menus also give you the option for different graphic representations, with pie graphs, horizontal and vertical graphs, etc.
iStat Menus is incredibly useful for anyone who wants fast, comprehensive visibility into their system, but even casual users can find a lot here to like--such as the app's Date & Time, which improves on the Mac OS's built-in Date & Time display, letting you see a monthly calendar, a "fuzzy" clock, and the day and time in user-specified cities. iStat Menus' free trial is definitely worth checking out.
Publisher's Description
From Bjango:
iStat Menus provides real time CPU graphs and a list of the top 5 CPU resource hogs. CPU usage can be tracked by individual cores or with all cores combined, to save menubar space. A realtime graph to keep on top of being sent and received for all network connections. Date & Time. A highly configurable date, time and calendar for your menubar, including fuzzy clock and moon phase. A world clock with sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset times for over 20,000 cities. See used or free space for multiple disks in your menubar. More detail for all your disks is only a click away. Detailed disk I/O in your menubar, displayed as a graph, a variety of different read and write indicators, or both. Realtime listings of the sensors in your Mac, including temperatures, hard drive temperatures (where supported), fans, voltages, current and power. Fan speeds can be controlled, with different rules when on battery power, if you'd like. Detailed info on your battery's current state and a highly configurable menu item that can change if you're draining, charging, or completely charged. Memory stats for your menubar, shown as a pie chart, graph, percentage, bar or any combination of those things. The memory dropdown menu shows a list of the top 5 memory hogs, as well as other useful info. Each menu extra comes with many different display modes, customizable colours, font sizes and widths.
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All versions:
5.0 starsout of 4 votes
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Results 1-5 of 5
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"Better than a car display. Informs me of relevant data"
Version: iStat Menus 3.10
Pros
Is always there. Let's me know what's going on with my computer.
Cons
Difficulty with ordering ikons across the toolbar
Summary
I think this is the month that I may have enough $ to pay for the app.
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"pushy sales tactics along with poor service an..."
Version: iStat Menus 3.01
Summary
...docu
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
In the past, iStat Menus proved to be a very useful application. However, I find several troubling aspects of the new paid version.
1) If you opt to stay with the previous version, a nuisance warning repeated shows up.
2) There is no real documentation accompanying the new version, at least none that I could find (for Intel Mac).
3) With other paid applications, there is real email help. I had a problem (see #4) and emailed through their contact page, where they state "Send us bug reports, suggestions, praise or harsh criticism" and received back only the most trivial one line response. I can only conclude that they are not really interested in helping, only selling.
4) Be careful with the Fan Speed Control in Sensor settings. Easy to get in trouble here and, as noted above, the folks who sell iStat are not much help. Specifically, to have a change in Fan Speed Control setting take place, you have to log out and then back in after making the change. If you are unhappy with the higher fan speed setting, there is no way to go back to the original setting without an SMC reset. Here is how you do it: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US .
So, despite my appreciation of the software, I do not like the marketing tactics, the lack of documentation, the terrible email support and the fact that they include low level system alterations without proper information for performing a reset. Absolutely terrible way to do business. iStat folks --- you asked for harsh criticism, now you have it. Let's see how you respond before the rest of us pay our user license. -
"It's everything that reviewers claim (many elsewhere)."
Version: iStat Menus 2.0
Pros
Just beautiful -- informative, tidy, elegant.
Cons
Made me part with old friend Menu Meters.
Summary
I've never kicked in the donation bucks so fast or been more please to do so.
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"Couldn't have asked for more of this program"
Version: iStat Menus 2.0
Pros
- Has all the system readouts you could ever need of your Mac
- sits conveniently and easily read-able in your menu barCons
Doesn't have a CPU temperature readout. For that you can look for a program called Temperature Monitor (it's on download.com and worth checking out for an accurate temperature of your computer.
Summary
In summary,I would say that this program is perfect for anyone that is looking for hd temperature, ram used and available, hd space, etc. I look up to my menu bar very often, so I can see how my computer is doing. I recommend this program for anyone who cares how their computer is running.
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"Best Ever"
Version: iStat Menus 1.3
Pros
This shows how hot me everything i need to know instantly. Like if it is getting to hot or how much memory or if the computer is running to fast. My laptop gets hot and I need something to tell me the temp and this is perfect cus it's always up at the top where i can see it.
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