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What are the must have apps for a MacBook Pro you couldn't do without?

Brad9753

Brad9753

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 7, 2012
75
13
Brisol, UK
I am waiting for the retina pro to become available in the high street at the moment. In the mean time I was wondering what the essential apps are. This will be my first apple product other then my phone.
For one thing, I have seen people mention a lot about laptop temperature. Is this a built in feature or an app? If so what are the better ones? Also ones that monitor usage of ram and resources would be good, and any other apps you could not live without, I am after productivity ones rather then games etc though.
 
Brad9753 said:
I am waiting for the retina pro to become available in the high street at the moment. In the mean time I was wondering what the essential apps are. This will be my first ape product other then my phone.
For one thing, I have seen people mention a lot about laptop temperature. Is this a built in feature or an app? If so what are the better ones? Also ones that monitor usage of ram and resources would be good. And any other apps you could not live without, I am after productivity ones rather then games etc though.
Click to expand...
iStat Pro will give you accurate reading of temps, fan speeds, battery condition, etc. As far as other apps, this should get you started, with links for app recommendations:

Helpful Information for Any Mac User
Portables Fast Start: The New User's Guide to Apple Notebooks
 
Im a big fan of dropbox to completely eliminate the need for a flash drive. Thats really the only one I couldn't live without. That and CS6 :D

Oh almost forgot about spotify!! Awesome music app and no more wasting half your hard drive on a music library.
 
iStats, as previously mentioned is really useful. Nice to know which apps are hogging your CPU.

Jitouch. How did I ever live without it. Adds in a whole bunch of multi-touch gestures such as switching between tabs, closing windows, etc.

Note: I technically don't own a MBP (yet), but...close enough.
 
These are all the free apps I love:
Alfred
Wunderlist
Spotflux
Evernote
As valleydesign said, Dropbox
Cloudapp Basically lets you upload files just by right clicking on the file and selecting 'upload with Cloud app' and then give a link to your friend.

Paid:
iWork suite/Microsoft Office- I prefer iWork (Pages, keynote and numbers).
Ommwriter is very good for writing anything because it gets rid of distractions and plays soothing music
Mindnode is great if you want to do mind maps.

They're just a few I can't live out, others like RapidWeaver/CS6 depend on your personal needs :)
 
The Unarchiver
Dropbox
Handbrake
Aperture
Microsoft Office/iWork (I also prefer iWork)
Calibre (for e-book management)
Parallels 7 (fo those few Windows programs that still have no OSX equivalent)
AppCleaner
 
Thank you very much for all the contributions in this thread. I bought a new MBP 13" on Saturday (my first ever Mac) and so all of these recommendations will come in very handy.
 
I'm still working with people in a predominantly Windoz environment so would be lost without Office and the Omnigroup products that provide Project & Visio replacements for the Mac. Still need Windoz for a few things so probably add Parallels to the list.

Also like iCompta as a personal money manager and Dropbox for file sharing (although also have a Skydrive account which I use more as a backup cloud service as it gave me 25GB)
 
VMWare Fusion, since I have to make a living from the machine and can't just sit there using Safari & iTunes while hanging out in the coffee shop all day. ;)
 
Path Finder - Finder replacement
LiteSwitch X - Task switcher replacement
Divvy - Windows management

Sparrow
Alfred
Dropbox
Skydrive
Evernote
Fantastical
Viscocity
Little Snitch
VMWare Fusion
 
Pompiliu said:
:cool:uTorrent;)
Click to expand...

I thought transmission was the recommended one for OS X? That's what I've been using, and it works well.

Also for the list:

Cobook (address book replacement)
Disk Inventory X (not on app store, but free)
 
If you need to use any Windows applications or plan to install Windows via Bootcamp, I'm loving Parallels. I can access my bootcamp partition, run windows applications, etc.

I also like Keynote, Pages, & Numbers.
 
SMacDuff said:
AppCleaner
Click to expand...
In most cases, app removal software doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this and this. If you just want to delete the app, drag the .app file to the trash. No other software needed. If you want to completely remove all associated files/folders, no removal apps will do the job.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
Zwikker said:
And also ccleaner is a great app too!
Click to expand...
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. Some 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. Some of these apps delete caches, which 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.

 
Chrome, Diablo 3, Echofon, Linkinus, League of Legends, Skype, Messages and StarCraft 2.
 
I just had to answer this question myself as I upgraded to an SSD and started from scratch. Given that space was a premium I only re-installed my really used programs (I had been accumulating 4 years of junk on my computer).

Here are the non-apple programs that I use in order of benefit:
Google Chrome (maybe to be replaced by Safari in 10.8)
Reeder (my favorite app ever)
Wunderlist (soon to be replaced in 10.8 by Reminders)
Notational Velocity (soon to be replaced in 10.8 by Notes)
Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint for Mac 2011
Aperture and Photoshop
Dropbox
VMware Fusion running Office for Windows
Menuweather

Utilities not in my dock that I really like (and use):
Daisy Disk
AppZapper
Coconut Battery

Edit: I forgot about my two system preference add ons - printopia and bettertouchtool
 
Last edited:
I received the app for free as part of a bundle and like the way it works although I agree it's probably not the BEST way to delete a program.
 
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