What percentage of your apps do you really USE?

[one1]

I'll explain where I'm going with this. I bought EYETV and the HDHomerunner dual tv tuner (the real box, not the USB stick). I bet I have used it ten times in 6 months. I have the Master Collection of CS3, but usually only use elements 6 unless I need to do something for my iPhone then I have to use fireworks to work on .png's. I have both Microsoft Office 08 and iWork '08, but use neither...... ever. I have Toast 9 Titanium, but I usually end up just creating a burn folder in finder and burning it. I bought both Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, but I find myself using the smaller free apps for ease of use and quick edits. I'm leaving out at least $9,000.00 worth of apps that there's no use in listing, but I realize I don't use them either. Even apps you'd think I would get use out of like Filemaker Pro 9.... I usually just open text edit.

I just realized that I don't really get my use out of my apps. Mail, Safari, LightRoom 2, Cyberduck, and iTunes are really the only apps that I use out of the thousands of dollars I've spent over the years collecting apps.

I figured I'd ask to see what percentage of apps others have that they actually USE. Do you find yourself just running from iTunes to Mail to Safari over and over again, firing up Photoshop occasionally?

If you are a film or photo editor for business obviously you use these so exclude professional use from your answer.

 

[EV0LUTION]

I have 145 and use 5 or 6 of them everyday

 

[GoCubsGo]

I use the majority of the 90% of the time. Items that just sit until needed are things like App Zapper, iMovie, Photo booth. Technically speaking, I think I use most apps that I have bought enough to warrant the purchase. Sounds to me like you purchase apps to have them ... expensive ones at that. Why not fully remove and try to sell?

I did think this was about the iPhone. For that, I'd say 15% ... I download all these free apps and never use them.

 

[AlexH]

I've bought about 12-15 apps in the past year or two, and I use about 8-10 of them just about every day. If I buy it, I usually need or want to use it.

The one exception has been Aperture. I bought a copy (Academic copy), but started using and loving Lightroom.

 

[chilipie]

I use Mail, Safari, Adium, iTunes and iCal on a daily basis. Everything else tends to get used in groups eg. Photoshop, TextMate, Firefox, Transmit and CocoaMySQL for web dev work, FCP, Soundtrack, Color and After Effects for video, iWork suite for college stuff etc. Then there are things like Fission, Toast, Parallels and Terminal that only get used once in a while, but are very useful when I do need them.

 

[Diaresi]

Safari, iTunes, Quicktime, Mail, Adium, Skype, iCal, Address Book, TextEdit, Preview. That's going from left to right on my Dock, and these are all set to autorun on login. I do have iPhoto, Disk Utility & Activity Monitor after those mind you incase they're needed.

As for software I barely use:

ClamXAV
Cyberduck
Firefox
Garageband
iChat
iDVD
iWeb
iWork '08
Microsoft Messenger
Microsoft Office 2008
OpenOffice 3.0
Quinn
VLC

The 3 Office suites are because:
Office 2008 - Compatibility/specific features like error bars
iWork '08 - What i'd use to make something that looks good and/or easily
OpenOffice - ODF support as well as being the only office suite that offers the ability to truly work cross-platform

I don't generally have call to use any of them, but that's more because of my degree.

 

[mysterytramp]

Do you find yourself just running from iTunes to Mail to Safari over and over again, firing up Photoshop occasionally?

I don't have Photoshop but the rest of that sentence works for me. I have about 100 apps; I paid for two. The rest are freeware or came with the Mac. Before OS X, I spent lots of money on software. I just don't see the point anymore. If it can't be done with freeware, I probably just won't do it.

mt