Why Many App Store Developers Choose Not to Offer Free Trials
A free trial sounds better for customers. For some one-time-purchase iPhone and Mac apps, adding one can quietly cost the product its most reachable path to discovery.
Reverse Everything
Stories, research, technical notes, and software and hardware investigations by Ighor July
Latest posts
I Built App Archiver to Free Disk Space Without Deleting Mac Apps
Why I built App Archiver, how it keeps rarely used Mac apps visible, and how staged compression and restoration reclaim lasting disk space.
How One Fire TV Stick Became FTVDB
How a Fire TV Stick led from unreliable updates and logcat URLs to FTVDB, a community index of public Amazon device update metadata.
My Mac Apps Story, Part 4 - More Apps That Made macOS Work My Way
Display Menu, PopClip, Sublime Text, and WiFiSpoof, plus three exclusive interviews with the developers who kept these Mac apps alive.
PopClip — An Interview with Nick Moore
Nick Moore explains how PopClip began, how its core interaction survived years of macOS changes, and why simplicity matters in long-term app development.
Display Menu — An Interview with Thorsten Karrer
Thorsten Karrer explains why Display Menu was created, how Retina support was reverse engineered, and what keeps this focused Mac utility alive.
WiFiSpoof — An Interview with Russell Gray
Russell Gray explains why WiFiSpoof began, the App Sandbox challenge, and what helped this focused Mac utility survive years of platform changes.
Xcode 27 May End the Golden Era for Backward-Compatible Apple Apps
Xcode 27 turns old deployment targets into build errors. A hidden workaround still works, but Apple may be moving backward compatibility from a developer choice to a platform rule.
How to Use AI Without Losing Control of Your Code
A practical approach to using AI for prototyping and development without losing understanding, maintainability, or responsibility for the software we build.
My Mac Apps Story, Part 3 - Apps That Shaped My Workflow and Developer Interviews
Find Any File, PCalc, Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, and iStat Menus, plus exclusive interviews about keeping Mac apps alive for decades.
Find Any File — An Interview with Thomas Tempelmann
Thomas Tempelmann explains the file-system knowledge behind Find Any File, the features users requested, and why it remains a one-time purchase.
PCalc — An Interview with James Thomson
James Thomson explains how PCalc began in 1992, survived major Apple platform transitions, and remained a one-time purchase.
iStat Menus — An Interview with Bjango
Bjango explains how iStat Menus grew from Dashboard widgets and what it takes to support changing Mac hardware for nearly two decades.
My Mac Apps Story, Part 2 - Coming Back to Mac and Exclusive Interviews with Mac Developers
Returning to Mac with a 2014 MacBook Pro, the apps that made macOS work for me, the utilities that disappeared, and exclusive interviews with long-time Mac developers.
Little Snitch — An Interview with Objective Development
Objective Development explains how Little Snitch changed over two decades and what keeps the team building it through major macOS transitions.
Keyboard Pilot — An Interview with Richard Hult
Richard Hult explains why Keyboard Pilot returned, what its modern rewrite required, and how small updates can keep an app alive for years.
WiFi Explorer & WiFi Signal — An Interview with Adrián Granados
Adrián Granados shares how WiFi Explorer and WiFi Signal grew from a research tool into dependable apps for Wi-Fi professionals and Mac users.
My Mac Apps Story, Part 1 - My First Mac and the App I Still Use Today
The first part of my Mac apps story, starting with my 2008 MacBook, my early switch from Windows to Mac OS X, and why I still use coconutBattery today.
Clean Uninstall Dropbox on macOS and Reset File Provider
How I traced Dropbox filesystem changes on a clean macOS VM and made a dry run first script to remove Dropbox local state, caches, services, and File Provider leftovers.
How to Check Whether a Mac App Can Connect to the Internet
A practical macOS security workflow for inspecting an app bundle, looking for network-capable code, and deciding what to allow before you trust an app.
Welcome to Reverse Everything
A personal introduction to Reverse Everything, a blog by Ighor July about software, reverse engineering, apps, bugs, and the stories behind the tools I use and build.
Parall — Multi-Instance App Launcher for macOS
How Parall creates native macOS app shortcuts for launching multiple independent app instances, including isolated browser and Dropbox workflows.
ChatGPT for Mac Is Broken — and Support Is Worse Than You’d Expect for a Paid Service
A 2025 report on a ChatGPT for macOS freeze, OpenAI support responses, and the localization setting that caused the model selector bug.
The macOS Dock Nightmare: How I Finally Stopped It from Jumping Between Screens
A DockLock story about the long-running macOS Dock jumping problem, the first fixes in DockLock Lite and Plus, and the DockLock Pro direction.
Experian Sends Scam Links by Email, Putting Millions at Risk
A 2024 investigation into a ProtectMyID alert email that linked to a scam domain and how identity protection alerts can become a delivery channel for phishing.
Found 18K+ games on NVIDIA GeForce NOW
A 2021 GeForce NOW investigation into exposed catalogue metadata, more than 18,000 entries, internal apps, emulators, and unannounced game listings.
How a Seatback Screen Escaped Its Kiosk Interface
A translated 2017 in-flight entertainment security report about an Android kiosk escape and the disclosure effort that followed.
A Recursive Shortcut Bug in Older Versions of Windows
A translated 2012 Windows experiment about recursive shortcut folders, Explorer crashes, and the risks of treating interface glitches as file protection.