Who's Your Favorite Mac Application Developer?

I'd have to go with Bungie before they died. It's somewhat odd to think about, but I really don't use many non-game applications that weren't made by Apple (Finder, TextEdit, Appleworks, Mail, Safari, iTunes, iCal, Calculator, XCode, and Terminal get me through most days).If I had to choose a serious application, it'd be Fire and whoever makes that.

~J

Well, I use Microsoft's software (Office 2004) more than just about anything non-Apple, and you have to admit that there is NO WORD PROCESSOR that can parallel Word for Mac in terms of file format compatiblity, features, reliability, ease of use, and name recognition. OpenOffice doesn't even run on Aqua yet, and AbiWord is still a bit shaky. The one thing AbiWord has that I wish Word had is a Latin spelling dictionary -- and there are probably very few Latinists out there who feel the need to spellcheck their Latin with MS Word. Excel is as good as any other spreadsheet and PowerPoint's native files will work on Windows (unlike Keynote). I've never actually used Entourage but it looks to be better than Outlook. Virtual PC is nothing shameful, either.

Brettrix (http://brettrix.for.macosx.co.nz, if I recall correctly) by Angela Brett and Rob Rix truly does deserve its title of "Swiss Army Cuckoo of Tetrices" -- a better OS X Tetris is yet to be seen by these eyes.

And who can forget Photoshop Elements? Adobe's Mac software is pretty good -- Photoshop Elements 2 lets me do most of the stuff I did on Windows with Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7.

Also there is Ambrosia. Beyond even such fine games as Deimos Rising, you have Wiretap.

Native Instruments, Traktor 2.5 IMHO is essential for non-vinyl Dj'ing, and with Reaktor Session you get excellent synths for a decent price... I like that

T.C. Electronic are cool too, because they give you their powerful Spark ME audio editor for free...

and finally, the team that develops VLC Mediaplayer...

vSpacken

sorry, I take that back (T.C. that is), Spark ME is no longer available...

that kind of sucks, it was a good program

vSpacken

Ambrosia Software has some of the greatest games and utility programs I've ever used for the Mac. They're one of those shareware developers that has been around since the System 7 days at least.

Panic Software (www.panic.com) gets my vote. I think their software is great and the company seems young and fun too - seems to reflect the general mac user base very well..!

Go, Panic, Go.

asif786 said:

Panic Software (www.panic.com) gets my vote. (...) Go, Panic, Go.

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I agree. Audion was my Mp3 player of choice in the pre-OsX days... they abandoned it though, and now it's free... I use it again now... just to pre-sort "new" MP3s so I don't mess up my iTunes library...

vSpacken

Quark!


Just joking...

Quicken from Intuit and FileMaker Pro are the ones that I use most often. Really hate to admit this but Entourage that comes with Office 2004 has been very stable.

Blue Velvet said:

Just joking...

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hahahaha I bet you're not.

I'd go with Tribeworks 'iShell', Ben and Casey's 'Processing', Ambrosia's 'Snapz Pro' and finally Discreet for the awesome Combustion 3.

Besides the obvious of Apple, Filemaker and Nisus (Writer Express 2, great word processor)

I think Adam Iser and Evan Schoenberg and the rest of the Adium gang deserve some serious props here....outside of the apple aps, firefox, and MS Office, Adium is my most used piece.

As Mac developers go, I like the Omni Group and think they're a shining example.

The Delicious Company, from the people who used to work at Omni, also looks like a promising fun bunch.

TheCodingMonkeys for SubEthaEdit
Ranchero Software for NetNewsWire
Adium Team for Adium
Lemke Software for GraphicConverter

Mozilla.org ! (firefox, mozilla, thunderbird, etc...)
Mostly use apple, adobe and the rest of my apps are almost only open-source apps.
And ofcourse I have some games...

I'm my favourite Mac application developer.

Otherwise, I'd have to say Ryan Gordon, Brad Oliver, or The Mozilla Group. They're the best.

I use a lot of applications but I can't say that any of them work particularly well on Mac OS X still. Macromedia and Adobe need to forget their past and make things work.

What happened to Guy Kawasaki?

bousozoku said:

...Macromedia and Adobe need to forget their past and make things work.

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That's an interesting and possibly controversial statement.

Putting Macromedia to one side... what beef do you have with Adobe?
Any apps in particular? And where does the past come into it?

Only curious 'cos Adobe are the people I rely on to get work done...

Blue Velvet said:

That's an interesting and possibly controversial statement.

Putting Macromedia to one side... what beef do you have with Adobe?
Any apps in particular? And where does the past come into it?

Only curious 'cos Adobe are the people I rely on to get work done...

Click to expand...

The frameworks that Adobe use for their applications are far older than those that Macromedia use but both are rooted in the 1980s and are a significant CPU drain compared to techniques for modern Mac OS X software. Apple was unwise to allow the same core of an application to run on Mac OS 8.x, 9.x and X. Even AppleWorks has two separate applications which call various Carbon modules. What works well on one operating system is counterproductive on the other.

Considering that Adobe converted their software to run on Mac OS X, they should have used Carbon Events to allow Mac OS X to use the idle time for other processes rather than using the old event loop. It is apparent from the way their applications use CPU while idle that they have not chosen the more efficient path but only the more expedient one.

Part of the problem with converted applications is MetroWerks' PowerPlant framework, which Macromedia and many, many others use. It has used the old event loop too. However, they redeemed themselves by creating PowerPlant X, which uses Carbon Events. I believe that the patched versions of Macromedia's applications are using PowerPlant X but are simply inefficiently coded.

Sorry to those who have been reading this for the past two years. It's an old, sad story that should have changed by now. I want to say something nice instead.

Here's to Brad and Ryan! They're the good guys.

Cheers, thanks for clearing that up.
God, I learn at least 5 new things a day just hanging out here...

I'd have to say Adobe, because they make Photoshop. The truly most versatile piece of software.

90% of my work is done in PhotoShop. Without it I'd be lost. So I'd have to say Adobe. Now if only I could get my company to drop Quark for InDesign . . .

Col. Panic said:

90% of my work is done in PhotoShop. Without it I'd be lost. So I'd have to say Adobe. Now if only I could get my company to drop Quark for InDesign . . .

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I dont know why, but I've always preferred fireworks to photoshop. I guess it's because I dont do particularly graphics intensive stuff, and I always found photoshop to be more confusing than fireworks.

oh well, everyone to their own