Essential Applications for Apple Users.

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I am soon to be a Mac owner - wondering what are the essential and ideal applications (this may seem obvious to you guys but not me as I grew up on Windows) that you would suggest for a Soon-To-Be Apple Mac User?



(I.e. for Windows I'd suggest Office and Photoshop as crucial)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    kenaustuskenaustus Posts: 924member
    Depends on what you want to do with the Mac. Office is available and I use Photoshop Elements 3 to work on old photos.



    My experience as a "switcher"? I do a lot more on the Mac that I ever thought about doing on a PC. It's a lot more enjoyable and things just work. I have 5,000+ photos in iPhoto and all of my CDs in iTunes and on the iPod. Played with movies, but have a way to go in that area.



    There is a good list of free or very cheap apps on Apple's site and I use



    http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps/



    to check for free/shareware. It's an ad free site with 14,600+ OS X apps.



    I've gotten a lot of apps to try and kept many. Check Off and NotePad are easy ones to recommend. WorldTimes and CurrenciesConverter if you are you're the international type - plus Google Earth.



    I found that griffintechnology.com is a good place to look for the bits & pieces that can go with a Mac. The iMic is good for converting LP's & cassettes and I use their iCurve for the PowerBook.



    Mostly just look through the Made4Mac section of Apple's site for some new ideas and have fun.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    Cost is no object as this will be paid for by Corporate therefore I can pick and choose whatever software I like and need no explain myself - this in mind, what else would you and the community recommend?



    The system will be used for the utmost basic of tasks - Word Processing, Web Surfing and Occasional Photo Editing by a non-expert.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Well I'd love to have these on my Mac





    iWork 06- WP/Page Layout/Presentation



    Omni Bundle- Omnigraffle, Omnioutliner, Omniweb, Disk SWPR



    Photoshop Elements 4- Just came out. Will be UB soon enuff



    FontXplorer X- Free Linotype Font Management tool



    Sticky Brain/Yojimbo/Noteshare/Devonthink- repositories for everything.



    Newsfire RSS reader- Looks cool



    Video LAN Client(VLC)- I LOVE this..plays damn near everything



    Soho Organizer- New contact management bundle. Some teething problems but promising.
  • Reply 4 of 17
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kmhtkmhtkmht

    Cost is no object as ....



    Cost is not the point. The wonderful thing about the Mac is that the computer ships with a collection of software that is quite capable. The Developer Tools provide the best programming environment of just about any platform and it is free! On Windows, you get Visual BASIC and you have to pay for it. Need to produce PDFs? Print them from any MacOS X application. Check out VersionTracker.com and MacUpdate.com. You will find great commercial titles there. You will also find shareware and freeware titles that equal or beat the commercial titles in quality. One such title is the MPlayer-based, QuickTime-compatible media player, Cellulo 2.0.1. This rock-solid donationware app is as polished as any media player on any platform.



    One of the things that you will discover about MacOS X is that you have very few "either/or" decisions. Which browser do choose? Don't choose, use them all--simultaneously! Which media player? Unless you need WMP 10, you can use the Quicktime Player, WMP 9, VLC, two versions of MPlayerOS X, Cellulo, iTunes, and others.



    Need to do some real work? Again search VersionTracker and MacUpdate for the app that you need. Don't restrict yourself to Mac ports of Windows titles. There are lot of Mac-only titles that will likely do everything that you need. But, no amount of talking can do justice to the Mac experience. You have to immerse yourself in it.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    Apple users really are convinced.



    I am soon about to embark on this very such journey - I have become fluent and know Windows so well that it feels weird to be learning another one - I don't really play games anymore so I think this will be a huge productivity boost.



    This should be fun!
  • Reply 6 of 17
    iLife (which comes with the Mac) is fantastic



    Add:

    Photoshop Elements

    Apple's iWork (Pages is great for layout; you might even make a presentation)

    Omnigraffle





    There's a different way of doing things:



    ConceptDraw MindMap

    VoodooPad (a notepad that's a wiki)

    Curio



    I have one game on my PB 15" which goes to work every day:



    GNU's Goban
  • Reply 7 of 17
    mrsinmrsin Posts: 163member
    Mr.Me, great post and thanks for sharing!



    I would recommend AppZapper, like me, I would assume you will be downloading and 'evaluating' a lot of software over time. Some of those applications, you will decide you won't need or use and delete them by dragging the program icon to the trash. The problem with this is, there are generally supporting files that get placed in various locations on your system - library, Preference Panes and what not - when you drag the program icon to the trash, you 'think' you've deleted the program, and for all intents and purposes, you have - however, if the program had supporting files - they are still taking up space and possibly using system resources unnecessarily . AppZapper is an inexpensive - $12.95 utility that helps ensure all the supporting files get trashed as well. So, instead of dragging the program icon that you wish to delete to the trash, drag it to AppZapper and let it do it's thing ! You can get it here: AppZapper 1.2
  • Reply 8 of 17
    Quicksilver



    It's free, it's amazing and you don't want to use your Mac without it any more once you've used it.



    Btw, did I mention it's free
  • Reply 9 of 17
    mrsinmrsin Posts: 163member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by macanoid?

    Quicksilver



    It's free, it's amazing and you don't want to use your Mac without it any more once you've used it.



    Btw, did I mention it's free




    I totally agree! Quicksilver is my current favorite - in a word, awesome! I paid for Launchbar, but decided to try Quicksilver since it is 'free,' and was immediately impressed, but your mileage may vary? In this arena are Spotlight, Butler, Launchbar and Quicksilver - and 'my' vote goes to Quicksilver 8).
  • Reply 10 of 17
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mr. Me



    One of the things that you will discover about MacOS X is that you have very few "either/or" decisions. Which browser do choose? Don't choose, use them all--simultaneously! Which media player? Unless you need WMP 10, you can use the Quicktime Player, WMP 9, VLC, two versions of MPlayerOS X, Cellulo, iTunes, and others.[/B]



    I guess OS X is the only OS that can run two browsers at the same time. Gee, I'm convinced!
  • Reply 11 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MrSin

    I totally agree! Quicksilver is my current favorite - in a word, awesome! I paid for Launchbar, but decided to try Quicksilver since it is 'free,' and was immediately impressed, but your mileage may vary? In this arena are Spotlight, Butler, Launchbar and Quicksilver - and 'my' vote goes to Quicksilver 8).



    Haha i went to download Quicksilver and i then i was like "o crap i gotta be careful, it could have a virus" and then realized that i had switched to a virus free system a month ago...
  • Reply 12 of 17
    For my needs, Appleworks and the Omni software work pretty good.
  • Reply 13 of 17
    eckingecking Posts: 1,588member
    Office and photoshop are both on the mac.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    I've just added a few:



    Locker. A widget that protects you data by going to the user log in screen.



    EasyEnvelopes. Another widget for printing envelopes and it even puts the Post Office barcode on it.



    Overflow. Sort of like Quicksilver, but apps only. Got it before downloading Quicksilver and like the ability to place apps by their type.



    Folding@Home. I leave the iMac on all night so why not. I might actually benefit some day if I live so long.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    Yesterday I found Delicious Library. This is a cool little app that organizes your books, CDs and videos. It uses your iSight to scan the barcodes and automatically adds the information about the book, CD and video.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    I found DL to be cool too, but it's a bit too expensive to buy considering all my cd's are in iTunes and if I lend someone say a book, I wouldn't forget! It's really not as practical as I first thought! It definitely has some cool factor to it though.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    mike555mike555 Posts: 10member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kmhtkmhtkmht

    I am soon to be a Mac owner - wondering what are the essential and ideal applications (this may seem obvious to you guys but not me as I grew up on Windows) that you would suggest for a Soon-To-Be Apple Mac User?



    (I.e. for Windows I'd suggest Office and Photoshop as crucial)




    == get a word processer, then pick from these freeware programs;





    KeyManager -- http://www.cafeinasoft.com/eng/produ...ymanager.shtml

    ArtRage --- http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html -- paint program

    Bank Book --- http://www.smoonstore.com/silverstreaksoftware/ -- simple accounting

    Clipper --- http://cole.nitroy.com/projects.html --- pasteboard utility

    mPlayer --- http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/ -- media player

    Pixen -- http://www.opensword.org/Pixen/ --- icon maker

    SnapnDrag --- http://www.yellowmug.com/snapndrag/ --- screen shot tool

    JreePad --- http://jreepad.sourceforge.net/ -- java treepad

    BurnX free --- http://www.hernansoft.com/products.html

    iBackup --- http://www.grapefruit.ch/iBackup/ -- backup

    MacJanitor --- http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_...acjanitor.html -- disc utility

    CombinePDF's -- http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/Fr...binePDFs.shtml

    Seashore --- http://seashore.sourceforge.net/ --- gimp like paint program

    Audacity --- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ---audio editor

    ClamXav --- http://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav/ -- free anti-virus

    journler --- http://journler.phildow.net/ -- journal

    countdown -- http://www.fromconcentratesoftware.com/ -- count down timer

    Little Snitch --- http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html (limited)

    Dnotes -- http://www.geocities.com/diabolos56/cocoa/index.html -- note pad

    Firefox -- http://www.mozilla.org/download.html -- great browser

    Thunderbird -- http://www.mozilla.org/download.html -- great mail program

    Neo Office -- http://www.planamesa.com/ -- java office suite

    platypus downloader -- http://www.tucows.com/preview/213591 -- downloader

    small image -- http://www.iconus.ch/fabien/smallimage2/ -- make images smaller

    smultron -- http://smultron.sourceforge.net/ -- text and code editor

    stuffit expander -- http://www.apple.com/downloads/macos...texpander.html

    Tofu -- http://homepage.mac.com/asagoo/tofu/index.html - text reader

    Ogg Drop -- http://www.nouturn.com/oggdrop/more.php .ogg coder/decoder

    NVU -- http://www.nvu.com/ --- wysiwyg html editor

    MenuCalendar -- http://www.objectpark.net/mcc.htm

    IceCoffee -- http://web.sabi.net/nriley/software/ -open URL's by clicking
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