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iPhone7ate9

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 22, 2014
720
0
Or things to do with the Mac?

Now that I have one I'm not sure where to start. Thanks!
 

Celerondon

macrumors 6502a
Oct 17, 2013
683
125
Southern Cal
Which - Mac model - RAM? - CPU? - Ghz?

Or things to do with the Mac?

Now that I have one I'm not sure where to start. Thanks!

What are you going to use it for? Such a wide range of apps, but depends on your needs.

I think that jeremysteel was correct. It has been months since you asked but your query only collected a few responses. These Macrumors forums are full of opinions. If you asked a more specific question you would have drowned in answers by now.

Are you interested in music, video production, photography, or using your computer with your home entertainment system? Do you want to share files or hard drives between Windows machines and your Mac? Do you want to run Windows or Microsoft Office on your Mac?

Many of these tools are free or shareware. Some of the best ones come free with every new Mac. Although all will run on a 4 Gb OS X machine, some like Google Earth, perform better with more resources.

iMovie - Easy learning curve / Videos can be formatted for specific devices or platforms.
Seashore - Powerful yet simple video editor / layers / effects
iDVD - Because it still works great
Serious Photography Tools (Lightroom, Photoshop, Digital Photo Professional)
Audacity - Great sound editor
iTunes - Works with iPhones, iPads, iMovie, and iDVD
Google Earth - Because you can
Handbrake - Video tasks often require video conversion / This is the go-to video transcoder
Paragon NTFS for Mac® 12 - To read AND WRITE Windows NTFS volumes with ease
Time Machine - Because you should :apple:
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,541
1,653
Redondo Beach, California
Or things to do with the Mac?
...

Some of the reasons to buy a Mac are that it runs these:

1) Final Cut Pro X. This is a great video editor, even if it is not like the old one Apple used to sell. It really has improved.

2) Logic. Good for music production and audio work

Then the Apps it comes with if you bought a NEW Mac. Of those I live by "Pages" and "Keynote". I have them up on the screen full time. I think I am much more productive with those then with Microsoft Office
 

sunfire7

macrumors member
Oct 23, 2012
74
10
In addition to what is already said:

1password - One password to rule them all
Caffeine - Avoid your mac to sleep/turn off screen
The unarchiver - Great to handle zip, rar etc files
Disk Doctor - to clear cache and temp files every once in a while
VLC - Great Video Player
WakeOnLan - Tool to WOL your machines
Amadeus Pro - Powerful audio editor
uTorrent/Jdownloader - To download stuff
WMware Fusion - full windows OS in a swipe
JRiver Media Center 19/20 - Profesional Audio player, handles large libraries
Microsoft Remote desktop - self explain
Parcel - Keep track of your deliveries
 

Ulenspiegel

macrumors 68040
Nov 8, 2014
3,212
2,486
Land of Flanders and Elsewhere
What I consider to be "must have" Mac apps:

Firefox and/or Chrome.
Microsoft Office 2011 or OpenOffice or LibreOffice.
Additional dictionaries for Dictionary.
Keeper.
AppCleaner.
Nikon ViewNX2 and/or PhotoScape X.
Burn.
ClamXav.
Dick Doctor.
Handbreak and SmartConverter.
TheUnarchiver.
VLC.
Who's On My WiFi.
 

roadbloc

macrumors G3
Aug 24, 2009
8,784
215
UK
Firefox, Spotify, Adium, Skype, Transmission, Stuffit Expander, Steam, DOSBox, ScummVM are just a few off the top of my head.

Microsoft Office is obviously a must have too.

Depends what you're wanting to do really. :)
 

see.solve.

macrumors newbie
Oct 13, 2012
20
0
Recommend
CoRD instead of MS Remote Desktop.
Transmission for torrents.

Dittos for
The Unarchiver
Caffeine
VLC

Don't recommend
Stuffit Expander. (I didn't know anyone used that anymore.)
 

Republius

macrumors member
Oct 14, 2014
71
0
What I consider to be "must have" Mac apps:

Firefox and/or Chrome.
Microsoft Office 2011 or OpenOffice or LibreOffice.
Additional dictionaries for Dictionary.
Keeper.
AppCleaner.
Nikon ViewNX2 and/or PhotoScape X.
Burn.
ClamXav.
Dick Doctor.
Handbreak and SmartConverter.
TheUnarchiver.
VLC.
Who's On My WiFi.

I need to address this issue with my new MacBook Pro Retina in switching from a Windows laptop.

Won't downloading Adobe Reader be mandatory in order to be able to read and create PDF documents?

What other downloads might be absolutely necessary for a user whose focus is Internet, e-mail, word processing, and video streaming?

Thanks.
 

snorkelman

Cancelled
Oct 25, 2010
666
155
Won't downloading Adobe Reader be mandatory in order to be able to read and create PDF documents?

PDFs can be read with preview, and any app that can print will have option of printing as a pdf. You can also combine pdfs together by pasting from a file and rejiggle the order of PDF pages. For a lot of folks thats all the PDf capabilities they need.

On Mavericks theres some basic annotation features in Preview, those still exist in Yosemite but some folks find they're a bit more restricted/screwed up versus the way previous versions did it - things like where text areas get created and how the text area shifts when multiple lines of text are entered
 

peapody

macrumors 68040
Oct 7, 2007
3,176
139
San Francisco, CA
Mine are:

Office
iPhoto
iTunes
Battery Guard (available from Appstore. Coconut battery I don't believe is. I like the interface of the battery guard- sits in menu bar).
Dropbox - cloud storage
Evernote - note taking
Alfred - quick launcher
Daisy Disk - disk usage at a glance
istat - I don't use this much anymore though
Memory clean - cleans up memory; sits in menu bar
pixelmator - photoshop replacement
Adium - instant messaging
unarchiver




I used to download chrome and firefox anytime i got a new computer - but safari has really been good to me - fast, pleasant UI and syncs with my phone nicely. Other than that I don't keep a lot of apps on my machines.
 

Ulenspiegel

macrumors 68040
Nov 8, 2014
3,212
2,486
Land of Flanders and Elsewhere
I need to address this issue with my new MacBook Pro Retina in switching from a Windows laptop.

Won't downloading Adobe Reader be mandatory in order to be able to read and create PDF documents?

What other downloads might be absolutely necessary for a user whose focus is Internet, e-mail, word processing, and video streaming?

Thanks.

1. You dont have to install anything to read .pdf files on your Mac.
2. Word processing and .pdf file creating: I have tried a lot of apps as it is also one of my priorities, but none satisfied my needs coming from Windows environment. The only solution, to my mind and experinece is Microsoft Office Mac 2011 (Home and Office) (Price: 139.99$). Buy it. It simply works for all your needs.
3. I am satisfied with the stock e-mail client of Mac. It handles three of my accounts, sends notification when an e-mail arrives etc. That is all what I need. If you want something more, then you can try Airmail (MacAppStore). Price: 9.99$
4. Video streaming: StreamToMe (MacAppSore). It is free.
 
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