What do you install on your new MacBook Air?

That is so dependent on what you will be using it for. You should think about what you want to use your MacBook Air for and then ask about applications that can do what you want.

 

Chrome
Dropbox
Kindle
VLC

 

Dropbox
MS Office
Adobe CS6
Textwrangler
Handbrake
Google Chrome
WiFi Explorer
Viscosity
VLC Media player

I used to install Perian, but it seems to be abandonware now.

Then I dump Photo Booth and garage Band from the dock, and put Terminal on there instead.

 

office
iwork
dropbox
and........wait..........wait........clear day weather app.

 

Pandora Radio
iWork
Olive Tree Bible
Skype
And waiting now for iBooks

 

iWork
FCP
LR 4
Dropbox
Twitter
Facebook
Photo editing apps


I want aperture
I mainly use my Mac for photo editing.

 

I rolled my own actually, using OpenVPN and a linux Virtual Private Server. Though I hear WiTopia is pretty good.

 

Aperture
NI Komplete
Ableton Live
MS Office for school
Pixelmator
Chrome

 

iWork
Dropbox
Chrome
Candybar
Papers
Prism
SPSS
Matlab
Photoshop
kindle
SnapNDrag
Spotify

 

MS Office
Adobe Flash

and then..

a bunch of crazy engineering software; just the normal stuff for a mechanical engineer student.

 

iWork (I have office too but I do a lot of work on Keynote and Pages)
Dropbox (essential; recently also added 60gb of Copy)
Airmail (my new email solution after Sparrow)
Motion
FCPX
Lightroom (my go to app for managing and post processing; im into photography)
Illustrator
Xtrafinder (this will probably be gone when Mavericks arrives)
Photoshop
Alfred (my app launcher, amongst the many things it does)
Bartender (keeps it neat)

 

Isn't that installed by default these days ?

 

No. I mean graphpad Prism. For statistics.

 

I find Caffeine is an excellent little menubar helper that toggles between normal energy saver sleep settings and 'always on' - useful if giving keynote or powerpoint presentations.

My standard installers for any new mac are:

Dropbox
Skype
VLC
Transmission
Office
Keynote
Chrome
Flash
Caffeine
CCcleaner
Parallels
Little snitch

 

iWork
Pixelmator
Flash Player

Only the first two are really necessary.

 

I'm ok with using VLC for my video files, but what I liked about Perian is that those video files would be available in Quicklook. I'd love to find a replacement so that I can Quicklook my videos again.

The three I install first:
1Password + Safari plugin
Evernote
Dropbox

 

Most definitely. Cheaper, easier to use, and uses all the core services of OS X.

 

- Scrivener (always my first and most used installed programme)
- Skim (Free PDF editor that meets my needs better than Preview)
- iClipboard (I couldn't do without this now I think!)
- Chrome (I don't like it but I have to have flash support sometimes)
- Default Folder X (Really, really useful little plug-in)
- Total Finder (Love the tabbed functionality of this one)
- Folder Brander (I like to make my folder icons more informative)
- Cubby (For backups)


I install lots of other stuff too that I use a lot, but these are the first.

 

- Chrome
- Dropbox
- Xcode
- Xtrafinder (awesome Finder add-on: http://www.trankynam.com/xtrafinder/) - will probably be obsolete with Mavericks, though, I'm not sure.
- SourceTree

 

ABBY FineReader Express
Adobe Digital Editions
Boom
ClipGrab
Frostwire
Handbrake
iWork
iExtractMP3
MacXVideo Converter
MPlayerX
Jumsoft Clipart
Speech Pack
Wuala

 

Basics

iWork
Chrome+Drive
Spotify
Xcode
Skype
Adobe Flash
Safari extensions - ClickToFlash and AdBlock