Applications I Use on My Mac; Sorted by Category
As a long-time Mac user and Apple fan, I've tweaked my system a decent amount and have a lot of special-purpose apps, although I also use a lot of Apple's built-in software. I was asked by a new Mac user whether there were any "must-have" apps I'd recommend. Not really (besides Office); most of my apps / tweaks are so special-purpose I wouldn't say they were "must-haves", but I thought it might be nice to list them out as a reference; perhaps some of them are useful to others. Another note--most of the paid apps have trials, and I bought them in discounted bundles, in case you're wondering.
Let me know if I got you to try something new, or if you think I'm nuts for using app x when y is so much better...
- Backup:
- Apple's Time Machine (built-in) is a fantastic set-it-and-forget-in backup system. If you're not doing backups (and have non-cloud data) you're courting disaster; I lost all my data in my first year of college due to my backup software deciding it was the time for a wipe and restore of my backup AFTER the drive failed and it was not a fun thing. I use a Time Capsule so all my data is backed up every hour wirelessly, but even if you just buy an external hard drive and plug it in every once and a while, you should do it.
- Dropbox (2GB free) is a magic folder. Anything you put in it appears on all your other computers and on the web. If you're not using it you're probably nuts.
- Organization:
- Apple's Spaces (built-in); a virtual desktop system. Most of the apps I run frequently (Mail, NetNewsWire, iTunes, Eclipse, iCal) work better when given more space; so I generally give them their own virtual desktop. It also helps me multi-task; I can have different spaces for different tasks I'm working on.
- Blank spaces in the Dock--I like to separate the apps on my Dock (which is always visible but with magnification turned off) into categories (media management, internet, schoolwork) and this link tells you how to make blank spacers appear in your Dock.
- Calendar:
- Apple's iCal, connected to a cloud-based calendar (formerly Google Calendar, now HeelMail). It's pretty essential that wherever I view my calendar (my Mac, my Windows netbook, my mobile device, the web interface) I get the same calendar and no manual syncing is required.
- iDeskCal ($11) shows me my life in the upper-left corner of my desktop so that at a glance I always know what's coming up and when it is. Since I use Spaces, I can generally see my desktop or am a shift away to an empty desktop. Similar app I just discovered: Blotter--looks prettier but less useful for me and less flexible. Apparently iDeskCal 3 is coming, I'll wait for it.
- MenuCalendarClock iCal ($20 or basic features for free)--shows me my calendar in my menubar. I recommend even just trying it out for the free feature of being able to see a simple calendar when you click on the time in your menubar.
- WeatherCal ($10) shows me the five-day forecast in my calendar; combined with iDeskCal, it really gives me a view of how the next couple of days are going to be both physically and mentally.
- System monitors:
- LogMeIn (free version)--I use LogMeIn to remote into my computer(s) or my family's computers. All you need to use it is a web browser (I can use it on lab computers), it's cross-platform, easy to use, and free. What more can you ask for?
- MenuMeters (free) lets me keep an eye on my CPU, disk, and network usage from my menubar (as well as memory if I wanted it). I love knowing what's happening in my computer and what's the bottleneck when things bog down.
- Little Snitch ($30) is an outgoing network firewall; meaning that you can see what severs the applications on your computer contact and can filter things in real time. It's pretty interesting, imho.
- HardwareGrowler (free, a Growl extra)--I am probably the only person in the world who likes the little Windows add-new-hardware bubbles. HardwareGrowler lets me know when a new device has been (un)plugged, (un)mounted, I lose or gain network connectivity (and its speed) and generally lets me know how my system is going. Install Growl, follow these instructions to hide its dock icon, and set it to run at startup.
- Multimedia:
- Handbrake (free): The best tool for converting DVDs or video files to H.264 MP4 files playable on a computer or portable device. It's great.
- RipIt ($25): The best tool for ripping DVDs in full quality to your hard drive. Handles some disks Handbrake won't and is dead simple to use.
- Perian (free): Enables QuickTime to play many more types of video files--believe me, before Perian things were quite a bit more complicated.
- Flip4Mac Player (free): Enables QuickTime to play most Windows Media formats. Microsoft used to make their own player, then a third party came along with these components and Microsoft decided to license their solution instead of making their own.
- Synergy (5€) is my favorite iTunes menu-bar controller--it disappears when iTunes is quit, displays Growl notifications when songs change, and will even try to grab album artwork from Amazon.com if it can. Its utility has lessened since my keyboard contains dedicated iTunes keys, but I still like it. I recommend "Xidius' Transparent Bar" as the button set.
- Internet:
- Apple's Mail.app with DockStar ($15)--I'm an old-school email user (YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN) and like checking all my email accounts in a desktop client. I absolutely adore DockStar, because it lets me know at a glance how much and what types of email I have, showing me different badges for different types of mail (I have general UNC email one color, ResNET email another, newsletter email another, facebook/topic reply email another) by adorning Mail's icon in my dock.
- Twitterrific (ad-supported free version, $10)--Twitterrific is my favorite Twitter client, not only due to its very nice interface (recently redesigned) but the fact that it will send me Growl notifications when I get DMs or @s, which I've set to be sticky so they stay up on my screen and I can reply to them when I get back to my computer. Made by a Greensboro company (who actually designed some of the icons for Windows XP, the XBox 360, and Ubuntu)
- 1Password ($32 educational for Mac app) is the premiere password manager software for Macs--store your website passwords, license codes, secure notes, personal info in this app, secure it with a strong password, and use it across all your browsers, and even all your computing devices with the other services. I did get it through a bundle, the cost is a bit steep but it is a great piece of software.
- NetNewsWire (ad supported free version, $15) is my RSS feed reader of choice. I have 194 feeds (many of which are defunct and I need to prune) of websites that I read in my spare time, and NetNewsWire makes it easy to organize and read them (I use the Ollicle Reflex style). I like NetNewsWire over Google Reader (although NNW can sync with Google Reader) because many of my feeds are pretty esoteric and Google Reader centrally checks for news updates with a frequency related to how popular the feed is; I always want to know I'm getting the latest news.
- Assorted:
- Library Books ($3) keeps track of the library books I have out in all my different library systems, lets me know when books come in and warns me when things are due. I've been using the software for a while and the developer has been great at adding new libraries.
- WeatherBug Alert (free) is my weather app of choice--it simply sits in my menubar and lets me know what the temperature is (I turned off all alert functionality). I like it because WeatherBug gets data from local, live stations instead of getting the once-an-hour temperature from the local airport that most/all other apps do. The website is pretty trashy, but the Mac app is fine.
- World Community Grid (free)--what is your computer doing when you're not using it? I leave my laptop on so I can access it remotely and have it filter my mail, and world community grid lets my computer do some number-crunching to help fight cancer and AIDS. Back in middle school I used SETI@home, but this is quite a bit more valuable.
- Honorable Mention (very special purpose apps I have, like and occasionally use):
- Bonjour Browser (free)--Apple does a lot with their zero-configuration network protocol, called Bonjour (zeroconf) and this app shows you all the Bonjour services advertised by items on your network (not just computers, networked printers, etc.) Interesting to look at, I can't say I use it too often, though.
- SMARTUtility ($25) is the best Mac program to tell you whether your hard drive thinks it's failing, and if so, why. Its algorithm is a lot more sensitive than the one found in Apple's Disk Utility. It uses stats from an open-source command-line utility, smartctl.
- fseventer (free) uses a hook into Mac OS X's file system events daemon to show you what changes are happening on your file system in real time. Pretty interesting and can be useful in certain cases.
- DiskWarrior ($100)--an application I hope I never have to use, but has saved my drive's bacon several times (particularly my external drives). Fortunately, I haven't needed to use it for a while, but without doubt this is the best Mac disk repair utility--to paraphrase a review "It may be a one-trick pony, but man, what a trick"--it repairs disk directories like nobody's business.
- Pixelmator ($60; I got it cheaper) is a very nice image editing application for OS X; if you need more than free apps but less than Photoshop this is your app.
- Transmit ($34) is the best FTP(+) transfer utility for the Mac--while there are free apps (Fetch for educational users and Cyberduck) Panic makes great Mac software. If you do a significant amount of web file transfer, you should be using Transmit
- iFlash ($9) is a flash-card app. Very helpful for foreign language vocabulary drills; so much better than physical cards.
- Senuti ($19) is my preferred utility for copying iPod music back to a computer if the main library is no longer available (due to data loss, etc)--I've used it on several iPods and have not had any problems with it, unlike the (free) software I used when I lost my music library, which had some issues restoring the metadata for my songs.
- Transmission (free) is my favorite BitTorrent client--simple and easy to use but feature-rich. Interestingly, I do very little BitTorrenting, there may be a new/better app, say µTorrent Mac.
Let me know if I got you to try something new, or if you think I'm nuts for using app x when y is so much better...