Mac App Suggestions.

Talbot

*** Please don't turn this into a hate on mac thread. ***

Hey guys.

Just got my first mac. I have never had one before so I'm looking to see what applications I should get. I already got Things, Steam, Adobe, Office, and Evernote.

Any suggestions?

Tom Ellis

Socialite if it's still available. I got it a looong time ago before they were bought out by another company but if it is still the same, it's an awesome all-in-one RSS/Social Media aggregator which will show you all yout Twitter/FaceBook/RSS updates.

Oh and CandyBar if you want to get busy with changing your dock/icons etc although personally I prefer to keep it stock.

pior

Adium, a multi-protocol chat client.
Chrome, much faster than Safari.

VPrime

Dropbox
Appzapper- removes left over things when deleting programs. THis cost money but there is a fre alternative I cant remember.
Bettertouch tool- Lets you assign new gestures to your trackpad or magic mouse. Awesome. Also includes window snapping like windows aero snap.
Cinch - Window snapping like aero snap (though if you get better touch tool this is not needed)
Alfred- Application launcher. .. plus it can do other cool things
Quicksilver - Another application launcher... can do other neat things
GrabBox - If you take screen shots it automatically puts them in dropbox and renames and copies the link.
Colloquy - IRC client
Macfuse NTFS - LEts you write to NTFS drives. (this is free. you cna also go with the paid alternative made by Paragon)
Fraise- Nice text editor that has syntax highlighting, line numbers etc.
Transmit - Very nice FTP c;lient
Cyberduck - Nice free FTP client
VLC -.. you know plays movies and junk
MplayerX- Like VLC but looks nicer
Perian - makes Quicktime play anything
Flip for mac - lets you play wmv in quicktime
Growl- Very nice system notifications (I think most programs install this nay ways)
UnrarX - lets you un rar files, unrar passworded files etc.
Springy - Closest thing to winrar to OSX.
7Zx - 7zip for OSX

arshlevon

it's really sad you have to make a disclaimer like that, but you know if you didn't thats exactly what would happen.

if your transitioning from a PC, and still have software you like on windows or want to beable to access files easily on a PC, i like VM ware fusion, parallels use to be better but the new VMware rocks, i can run OSX and windows at the same time, use 3d studio max on windows and maya on osx, its pretty nice.

http://store.vmware.com/store/vmware/pd/productID.165310200/Currency.USD/?src=PaidSearch_Google_PersonalDesktop_Fusion_NORAM_BLANKET_EN_Brand&resid=Tdl5vgoBAlgAABJeqCkAAAAq&rests=1306098110145

glynnsmith

A somewhat shameless self-promotion - http://dropinapp.com/

Adds a bunch of features for keeping track of your Dropbox. Really handy.

We launched it about 2 days ago. I did all the design stuff for it

Rick Stirling

Apart from the big apps like Lightroom, Silo, Zbrush and Photoshop the only non-stock software that I run is:

* Dropbox
* Chrome
* VLC for those few moviefiles that Quicktime doesn't like
* Handbrake for ripping my DVDs to my media server
* Cyberduck for FTP
* UnrarX for Rar files

I've dropped Quicksilver for the standard Spotlight.

Kwramm

Here's my favs beside the obvious ones (Firefox, Chrome, yadda yadda)

RCdefaultApp - changes the default app for opening files with a certain extension
Bean - super light weight Word like text editor. When you don't need all the office bloat
MplayerX - a bit more leight weight and stable than VLC
Perian - codec for Quicktime to play almost everything
Startup Sound Pref Pane - no more annoying BLAMMMM sound when you turn on your mac (i love having this on my macbook...especially on the plane when everyone else is asleep)
XSlimmer - slim down your apps and save space - removes unused languages and platform support (e.g you don't need powerpc binaries on your intel mac)
Witch - make Alt-Tab more windows like - i.e. show all open windows instead of just open apps.
The Unarchiver - I replaced UnrarX with this because it handles more formats (7z, rar)
Bootchamp - quickly boot into bootcamp via a menu-bar icon
Crossover - less bloat than a full fledged VM. I only need this for retarded MSIE only internet banking.
Macintosh Explorer - like the windows explorer. let's you manage your files in a windows style way.
coconut Wifi - offers more wifi info in the menu bar than the default apple wifi icon. Good if you have a mac laptop and look for public wifi.
Flux - changes the color temperature of the display to make it nicer to look at in dark environments. Good for reading / web browsing. Don't use for any art related work though.
Boxer - it's just DOSbox, but with a very comfortable Mac like interface and automated game import and launcher. super!
MacFuse - NTFS access. I use it too. very nice
Growl - just get it. it's great!

Microsoft Messenger - is included with the latest office, looks like the one on Windows. Maybe there's a stand alone version.

Fraise - nice text editor but quite old
Smultron - successor of fraise but not as good as e.g. SciTE on windows
Editra - best mac text editor I found. But is still a bit rough on the edges
(I'm really considering writing my own Scite clone )

Stuff I'm missing on the Mac:
- a good text editor like Notepad++, SciTE
- a good picture viewer like xnView (don't mention xnView MP. it's horribly incomplete and everything else just sucks or turns out to be a full picture library a la Lightroom)

hawken

If you're ever in the mood for paid software;

Cinema4d - capable modelling software, although some people swear by it, others dislike it.
Coda - hands down the best code editor.
Xcode - if you ever fancy coding something in Objective C for Mac or iOS
Fontlab studio - making fonts
Pages, numbers - OSX's cheap and very user friendly version of Office.

free stuff

Mamp - for running an apache server locally
Net news wire - RSS reader
Audacity - audio editor
Unity

emulation

http://www.pure-mac.com/emu.html

other:

http://www.pure-mac.com/

Kwramm

Coda looks cool ... is the output window when you run e.g. python code on the side or below the editor? because almost every editor I tried so far seems to have the output below (with no option to change that!!!), which sucks on widescreen displays. especially the one on the macbook air.

bgoodsell

I'd recommend dockgone which is a paid app, but gets rid of the dock until you need it. Its great for doing that full screen work. Also, Caffeine is a great app to disable macs sleep mode on the fly.

Other than that, crazybump came out for mac a while ago so you have that program to add if its part of your workflow.

Kwramm

dockgone looks nice, especially since you can put it on a hotkey. Also look useful for dealing with crossover full screen apps. For some reason crossover always drew stuff behind the dock.

VPrime

hawken wrote: »

If you're ever in the mood for paid software;

Cinema4d - capable modelling software, although some people swear by it, others dislike it.
Coda - hands down the best code editor.
Xcode - if you ever fancy coding something in Objective C for Mac or iOS
Fontlab studio - making fonts
Pages, numbers - OSX's cheap and very user friendly version of Office.

free stuff

Mamp - for running an apache server locally
Net news wire - RSS reader
Audacity - audio editor
Unity

emulation

http://www.pure-mac.com/emu.html

other:

http://www.pure-mac.com/

For xcodee, you can get it free.. It is located on the OSX install disc. Though it is version 3. If you want Xcode 4 you have to pay 5 dollars for it through the mac app store...
Maybe it will be included with lion....

I like coda, but for me it has too many features. I have yet to find notepad++ equivalent for Mac.... One day I will get around to writing my own

Kwramm

VPrime wrote: »

I like coda, but for me it has too many features. I have yet to find notepad++ equivalent for Mac.... One day I will get around to writing my own

hehe. I just compiled my little QScintilla based editor I wrote for learning purposes on OS X. Added some tabs and load and save functions. But I cannot launch my python scripts yet, like in SciTe...well if I have some time I might add that and share it....also I need to figure out how to tell Qt Creator to create x86 binaries.

oXYnary

What about WINE?
http://wineskin.doh123.com/Information.html

passerby

oXYnary wrote: »

What about WINE?
http://wineskin.doh123.com/Information.html

it's no worth the trouble, things never end up working perfect on it and there is a lot of dicking around just to get things to work on it.

Mistry10

http://culturedcode.com/things/
http://culturedcode.com/things/screencast.html
If you ever listened or read anything about David Allen and his workflow to "the inbox"
you'll love this !
Its a to-do list on crack

r_fletch_r

Wing
If you dig python coding this is awesome. The code intelligence is a life saver.

Tom Ellis

All this talk of hiding the dock...

can't you do it with a shortcut?

Ctrl+Option+D

Or something similar, I'm at work now and not on a Mac so I can't test it.

kolbyjukes

Kwramm wrote: »

- a good picture viewer like xnView (don't mention xnView MP. it's horribly incomplete and everything else just sucks or turns out to be a full picture library a la Lightroom)

Try Xee, closest I've found to xnView:

http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/xee

Mac apps I swear by:

Scrivener: a great creative writing application
Sparrow: a minimalist gmail client
iVl: converts video into itunes/appletv/iphone format, adds metadata and imports the video into itunes. All in one click.

Kwramm

thanks Kolby. I saw they updated Xee - my internet at home, where my mac is, is down so I cannot check - but did they add proper up/down scaling in this release? I liked Xee except for the awful bilinear image scaling...

thomasp

'scuse me if any of these have been named already:

letterbox plugin for mail.app - displays inbox and mail content side by side, nice for widescreen users
cog - simple music player, totally unlike itunes...
movist - movie player based on vlc (?) with pretty much same compatibility but less UI clutter and more performance
smultron - decent text editor
carbon copy cloner - for making backups, including bootable system disks

thomasp

oh and...

little snitch - firewall to keep your installed programs from accessing the 'net behind your back. payware tho