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MUST HAVE APPS for New MAC User

C

Coffee Minutes

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 6, 2012
51
0
I'm a long time PC user and just ordered a 13" MBA 128/8GB. Very excited to see how it performs day to day. I'm gonna give the OSX environment a try and see how it feels.

Although it hasn't arrived yet, I'm wondering what would be good APPS to download from the iTunes store. Both free and paid apps.

One thing I will need is MS Office for MAC. I have a lot of these type of files.

What are some handy or recommended APPS to download in general for a new or experienced user.

Thanks!
 
Give us an idea about what other apps beyond MS Office you used on your PC. There are a lot of apps available but we need to narrow it down to relevant apps for what you like.
 
 
I use several apps everyday and to me those are the most useful:

OmniFocus, the BEST task app ever. Yes, it is pricey and has a learning curve, but once you get it it makes your life easier. I also use it on my iPhone and iPad and never have a sync issue. When an app works this well and makes your life easier I don't mind paying the costs. Sometimes you do have to pay more for top quality and OmniFocus is well worth the price.

BusyCal, basically iCal on Steroids and far better than iCal, although iCal is prettier to look at. I think when they remove the reminders from iCal into it's own app the iCal will be very nice to look at. iCal is bad at task management.

Day One; great journaling app and with iCloud support works great with the iOS version of Day One

Quicken for Mac: It's gotten a lot of bad press because it supposedly doesn't do a lot of high end stuff, but for me it works great and does exactly what I need it to do with a clean and easy to use interface.

Splash ID; helps me keep track of all my passwords and since it syncs with an iOS version works great. There may be better ones out there but I have been using Splash ID on smartphones for years (Palm, WindowsPhone and iPhone) so when the Mac app came out I went with it.

MS Office for Mac: Excel, word, Powerpoint and Outlook. I got them through a special offer from my employer and it works great since I have easy compatibility with things I need to do for work. I wish Outlook was a little better because I loved Outlook on Windows, and the Mac version just isn't as good, but I do maintain my calendars on there as well as tasks in the hopes that someday it will improve. Outlook also has a neat little applet called My Day that can give you a summary of your days appointments and tasks. As for Excel, Word and Powerpoint, well they are great and have not had any problems with them or with compatibility with the Windows versions I use at work.

FantastiCal. This is a great little app for adding events and tasks to iCal or you can even use it to add tasks with Outlook. You just use plain english and it fills in the appointment info and syncs to iCal/BusyCal or Outlook I just wish you could use it for both. (maybe you can and I have yet to figure that out, LOL)

iWork, This is the Apple suite like Office. these apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) are so much more intuitive and easier to use than Office, I use these though mainly for personal stuff, leaving Office to to the work related stuff. If the compatibility with Office were better I would use iWork ands down.

MenuTab Pro, Love this app, keeps Facebook right there and alerts me when I have messages, friend requests or comments without having to open Safari and go to Facebook.

PopClip, Just discovered this little gem of an app. Gives you the copy/paste features like in iOS. Was skeptical at first, but after a few tries love it better than the keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste.
 
A short list of essential apps for me would be:

Evernote for notes/syncing
Dropbox for backup and file sharing
Filezilla for FTP
Skype for keeping in touch
Adium for IM
Handbrake for video
VLC for video
Flip4Mac for video playback of .wmv
Pixelmator for graphics
 
1Password
Launchbar/Alfred
BusyCal
Fantastical
MS Office
Keynote (iWork)

These are essential for me...
 
Here are the ones I use regularly:

Microsoft Office
Thunderbird
Evernote
Dropbox
Devon Think Pro
Papers
Caffeine
Alfred
iPhoto
Scrivener
Curio Core
Skype
SmallTask
 
I can only say, BetterTouchTool (BTT).
An app where you can make your own gestures on the trackpad. It doesn't take that much time to make the gestures but it is soooo handy!

Definitely a must have!
 
Xee - great image viewer.
SuperDuper - Best backup app imo
VLC - For Watching Movies
Perian - Plugin for Quicktime Player
Flip4Mac - Plugin for WMV files
Twitterrific - Great Twitter Client
Wifi Scanner - Great for WiFi info
Onyx - Best OSX maintenance app
iStat Menus - This app is a must have for any mac user imo
InsomniaX - Stops your Laptop from sleeping when you close the lid
Candybar - Great customization app.
Dateline - Great desktop Calendar app
Bettertouchtool - Trackpad and Magic Mouse gesture customization app.
 
On my Macs these 4 are must have:
Launchbar or Alfred or Quicksilver
Dropbox
Textexpander
1Password

Coupled with OS X apps like iChat, Mail, Address Book, iPhoto (iLife app included with new Mac), and iCal, these are a good starter set:
Reeder
iWork or Office for Mac
Evernote
Skitch
VLC
Skype
 
What APP is good for calibrating the panel colors.

Someone mentioned elsewhere SypderPro? or something.

Would just like to use something better than the default calibrator in the OS.



(Thanks for all the above APPS rec. replies!)
 
Caffeine - If you decide you don't want your computer to sleep

Cinch - Window snapping similar to Windows 7

1Password - Let you create more secure passwords for accounts and remembers them using a master password - allowing simple logging in even with really complex passwords

Dropbox - Cloud storage

iStat Menus - View CPU, Temp, Free RAM, etc. in menu bar

Parallels - Running Windows and Linux VMs
 
I recommend you download iStat Pro if you want to be able to see how is your computer behaving. SMCfancontrol and Clean My Mac or Onyx will also come in handy to keep your Mac clean of caches and trashes. They'll also help you uninstall completely an app you don't want to have.

One thing I've noticed a lot in Mac owners is that they don't take full advantage of many features in OS X. For example corners. This will help you with a lot for things like exposé or looking at your desktop. Also learn to use the multitouch gestures. They may come very handy and will save you tons of time. Give your dock some costumization and clean the .dmg files. All of this are tips that you may discover from time to time, but they can become real time savers and make your use a lot smoother and quicker through the OS.
 
ivoruest said:
Clean My Mac
Click to expand...
I would not recommend CleanMyMac, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.

You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.

 
GGJstudios said:
I would not recommend CleanMyMac, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.

You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.

Click to expand...

Well, thanks, very much indeed. I used to run Clean My Mac a lot to keep it "Clean". I will not use it as before from now on. I did experience some files missing that I did't erased. May be because of this. Every day you learn something new.
 
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