First time mac user

You don't need any special apps to use you mac, the interface is great as is. I have smcFanControl and gfxCardStatus (tells whether integrated or discrete GPU is in use, if you don't have a dGPU it's not useful). But both of those are for curiosity, I don't really use them for anything.

One thing Windows doesn't have is trackpad gestures, be sure to go into settings and look through them all. Expose and multiple full screen apps is very useful, much moreso than fiddling with arranging a bunch of overlapping windows.

Nobody can tell you what apps to use without knowing what you are doing with your computer. There's another subforum for Mac apps, you might look there.

 

App need and choice is highly personal depending on your likes and needs but these sit in my Dock and are in regular daily use:

Kindle
Cloud Commander
Graboid
Grab
Wunderlist
Filezilla
Regex
Keycard

I also have a stack of Safari Extensions installed and Glims

No clues! Have fun, if they are not on the App store then Google will find them, they will show you a reasonable range of the kinds of Apps and functions you can add to your MBP...

 

there really is nothing you must have, just many things that are nice to have

personally the first apps. i'd download are
vlc
dropbox
twitter (tweetbot)
gfxcardstatus
skype
istats (menus)
bittorrent sync
the unarchiver

if you like any other browser than safari (chrome, firefox) the get it too

and then there is the stuff, that you probably won't need in the beginning, but it's a nice to have: bettertouchtool,evernote, omnidisksweeper

 

Don't forgot to download free apps from Mac App Store (MAS):

Pages - Like Microsoft Word if you used on Windows Office
KeyNote - Like Microsoft PowerPoint
Numbers - Same as Excel but not many people use it.
iPhoto - Photo Organizer
iMovie - if you like to make basic video editing much like Movie Maker from Microsoft.

Anyway enjoy your new toy!

 

Windows is an operating system, a track pad is what has gestures. I can assure you windows based trackpads have the same gestures as macs.

 

I have never come across a windows PC that can pinch to zoom, 3 finger drag, etc. The only gesture I ever see in windows computers is scrolling.

 

I'm looking at the gestures right now on my acer v7 and mac air, they are identical. Élan and synaptics track pads all do this, just because you have never seen it doesn't mean it's not there

 

This may be useful:

Helpful Information for Any Mac User​

 

Thanks for the link