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A new Best Mac apps thread

YEEZY said:
So the best music apps would be either Bowtie or TunesArt? I gotta check out all of these when I get home. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

No problem; just to clarify, I haven't used TunesArt yet, but I do have and love Bowtie. Bowtie has custom themes as well so you can switch the graphic up of what it looks like on the desktop (acts as part of the desktop so it doesn't cover anything up).

You can also use keyboard commands to do things like change the rating, skip/return or simply click on the item.
 
Mac and Free

- Smultron/Fraise (text editor, current ver no longer free)
- Vox (simple, easy-to-use, low-CPU MP3 player)
- Evom (free video converter)
- Hexfiend (excellent hex editor)
- Sophos Antivirus
- Diskwave (track folder sizes, etc)

Mac, not Free

- Transmit (incredibly good FTP app)
- Scrivner (excellent writer's word processor)
- TotalFinder (a nice Finder extension)
- Lexicon (a nice flash-card app)
- BetterZip (zip and other archive file format utility)

Cross-platform

- Keepass (cross-platform opensrc 1Password-like apps)
- Truecrypt (create encrypted volumes/archives)
- Audacity (capable audio recording app)
 
ShelfMenu - sits on the menu bar and stores whatever you put into it from the clipboard.
Quick and easy for taking web clippings and notes.

Scrivener - for when I'm thinking about what I'm writing and need to use references

Iawriter - my new favourite distraction free writing app for when I'm on a mission.

Writeroom - Another distraction free app but with rtf, good for editing and formatting the disasters that I've created with Iawriter.
 
Young Spade said:
Have you used Bowtie yet? If so, is it better than that? I currently use Bowtie myself and love it.
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I did use Bowtie while waiting for TunesArt being updated for Tiger...I mean Lion! And while I don't have anything against Bowtie I prefer the overlay controls of Tunesart - you hover over the album cover to pause or skip a track, and you have preference pane to the size of the floating album cover window. TunesArt is clearly the successor for TotalTunesControl for me. :)
 
Thanks for this thread very helpful. Im getting my new mac today in the mail so im excited my first mac. :D
 
danhoo said:
Mac and Free

- Smultron/Fraise (text editor, current ver no longer free)
- Vox (simple, easy-to-use, low-CPU MP3 player)
- Evom (free video converter)
- Hexfiend (excellent hex editor)
- Sophos Antivirus
- Diskwave (track folder sizes, etc)

Mac, not Free

- Transmit (incredibly good FTP app)
- Scrivner (excellent writer's word processor)
- TotalFinder (a nice Finder extension)
- Lexicon (a nice flash-card app)
- BetterZip (zip and other archive file format utility)

Cross-platform

- Keepass (cross-platform opensrc 1Password-like apps)
- Truecrypt (create encrypted volumes/archives)
- Audacity (capable audio recording app)
Click to expand...


If you are thinking of running SOPHOS, read this and this.
 
These are my top apps:

Evernote (note taking)
Sparrow (email client, better than Mail app for Gmail IMHO)
1Password

And just throwing this in the mix:

Delivery Status (widget, lets you track all shipments from UPS, Fedex, USPS, Amazon etc. So you don't have to check your email or get on a website)
 
butters149 said:
Is 1password that good? I see a lot of people using it
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You do see a lot of 1PW fans here. I tried it and did not see the big attraction over what OS X Keychain does for free, at least for my purposes. You can DL a fully functional demo of 1PW to see if it floats your boat.

I tried it under Snow Leopard and part of my concern with 1PW was entrusting all my passwords to an app that can be broken by OS X updates, and sure enough 1PW was all jacked up by the Lion upgrade. From what I read, nobody lost data, but it was still a mess until the devs got it sorted out.
 
butters149 said:
Is 1password that good? I see a lot of people using it
Click to expand...

It's good especially if you have lots of security related information, the interface is great, compatible with almost all browser for website logins, a really beautiful and crafted piece of software.

That said, I only need the website logins, and for that I use LastPass because it's free and gets the job done brilliantly.
 
The only thing that didn't work after the Lion upgrade with 1Password was the integration with Safari. Other than that it has worked perfectly.
 
My List

1Password - Password manager
Chrome - I use Safari almost exclusively for standard web-browsing but I use Chromes built in Flash player whenever I need to see flash content on the web so that it is not installed on my machine.
Alfred - I previously used (and loved) quicksilver, but Alfred has better support even though quicksilver has (a lot) more features
Break Time - Easy reminder to look away from my screeen
Numbers - Intuitive, nice looking, spreadsheet
Reeder - RSS Reader (Google Reader integration)
Scrivener - Just check it out (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php), well worth the price.
Xcode 4 - Apple's development IDE
Aperture - Easyily manage and lightly edit photos
MacJournal - Easy journal/note management
Terminal - Apple's terminal emulator, with tabs and custom themes its all I want (though I hate Lion's auto resume feature in this app)


Out of these the very first thing I install is Alfred (or quicksilver previously) I just can't live without the application launcher.
 
dzigg said:
It's good especially if you have lots of security related information, the interface is great, compatible with almost all browser for website logins, a really beautiful and crafted piece of software.

That said, I only need the website logins, and for that I use LastPass because it's free and gets the job done brilliantly.
Click to expand...

To add to what dzigg said, you also have syncing with iphone/ipad which was a plus for me.
 
Shovebox
Textexpander
Quicksilver
Caffeine
Handbrake
Things
VLC
uTorrent
Adium
Little Snitch
Lightroom
Menumeters

Those are most of my favorites, although I've probably forgotten some.
 
Wow, can't believe this is 2 years old already...here's an updated list:

Everyday use
1Password - synced with Dropbox allows me to have my passwords at home and on the go. BEST password manager out there.

Growl - great notification system - Apple should include it in the OS by default.

VLC/Perian/Flip4Mac - Best video player with codecs for all popular video formats.

Transmission - Extremely easy to use BITTorrent client.

Spaces/"Mission Control" - Love the virtual desktops, hate (but can work with) the way they did it in Lion. Still willing to purchase a 3rd party Spaces replacement.

Firefox - Still my favorite browser with great plugins.

Occasional use
Photoshop CS 5
Flow - Nice lightweight FTP client for when I don't need Transmit
Unison - Best USENET reader I've used
 
My Favorite Apps

Here is a list of the favorite Apps I use almost daily

OmniFocus - task Manager
Day One - Journal Diary
BusyCal- The best calendar app out there. what iCal should have been
Quicken Essentials for Mac - Personal Finances
Bento - Database Management
Excel 2011 - Microsoft Office: Mac Spreadsheet
Word 2011 - Microsoft Office: Mac Word Processor
Caffeine - Keeps my Mac from fallen asleep
 
d0ster said:
Sparrow (email client, better than Mail app for Gmail IMHO)
Click to expand...

Why ist that? I am rather new to Mac and found that Apple Mail has greatly improved over the last few years. It even integrates well into my Gmail account no, complete with starred messages and threading.

What does Sparrow do better than Mail.app in your opinion?

Anyway, here is my top list:

1. Mendeley Desktop (for bibliography management, http://www.mendeley.com/get-mendeley/)
2. Geektool (to put stuff on my desktop, http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/geektool/)
3. Skitch (to share screenshots with the world, http://skitch.com/)
4. Word 2011 (yes, I do like it, especially the new publishing mode)
5. Firefox (with several add-ons, quintessential for browsing. Would love to use Safari but it does not support right-click gestures.)
 
Cantello said:
Why ist that? I am rather new to Mac and found that Apple Mail has greatly improved over the last few years. It even integrates well into my Gmail account no, complete with starred messages and threading.

What does Sparrow do better than Mail.app in your opinion?
Click to expand...

I used to use third party mail client applications in the past, however I have stopped as I don't really need to use it.

From my experiences though, I have found that the third party programs offer a few key features of which the the stock application does not. If you don't find any problems or limitations with the stock, more than likely it's best for you :)
 
ivorymoonbeam said:
Need recommendation for good, free screen capture and anti-malware.
Click to expand...
You don't need any antivirus software to protect Mac OS X from malware. No viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any, since it was released 10 years ago. The handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
You can do screen captures without additional software.
Shift-Command-3 captures the whole screen
Shift-Command-4 captures an area of the screen
Shift-Command-4 then the space bar captures whatever window you click on.​
From: Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
From: Helpful Information for Any Mac User
 
ivorymoonbeam said:
Haven't seen anyone mention Jing; and is IShowU the same?
Click to expand...

Never heard of Jing, so looked it up. iShowU looks much more flexible and you aren't paying for it every year. I've been using iShowU for several years now to record software demonstrations up to an hour long.

iShowU is for video capturing. You can do the same (but much more limited) with QuickTime X which comes with Lion. Jing also captures stills, but as has been pointed out, that capability is already in OS X.

Also consider Skitch, currently free on the App Store, for more advanced screen captures.
 
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