Top ten: Favorite Mac applications

January 14th, 2007 by mike downey Leave a reply »

I decided that it would be fun to do a “Top Ten” list for every day this week. Please post your favorites in the comments.

Top 10 favorite mac applications

10. NetNewsWire
9. Transmit
8. Adobe Fireworks
7. Apple Mail
6. Firefox
5. Adium
4. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
3. Apple Keynote
2. Quicksilver
1. Parallels

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12 comments

  1. Scott Morgan says:

    I think you hit the nail on the head Mike, but if I were to add anything I would probably add:

    SEPY (love hate relationship)
    XTorrent (did I say that out loud??)
    MiniGolf Mania (great time waster)
    FileList (batch-renamer)
    TextMate
    Photoshop (who can live without it)
    Illustrator (I’m a Flash Developer, I use it a lot, my designers make me)
    and Parallels + Flex Builder + Cold Fusion == Geek Love and Special Sauce!!

  2. Sean Tierney says:

    Mike,
    a couple that seem conspicuously missing-
    -History Hound – emulates the “helmet cam” type functionality of Google Desktop for the Mac

    -TextMate – best text editor

    -Last FM – a nice alternative to Pandora, runs as a client app rather than browser-based

    -iShowU – the camtasia of the Mac- a must if you have to do screen capture tutorials for people

    -Site Sucker – the HTtrack for Mac

    -Audio Hijack Pro – great for recording and archiving important skype calls

    -Disk Inventory X – the Sequoia View for the Mac

    -Flickr Uploader – key if you use flickr much

    -Gimp – good if you can’t afford photoshop (obviously i understand why you can’t promote this one ;-)

    -Freemind – decent free mindmapping utility

    your list is right on- it’s just about 10 too short ;-)

    sean

  3. Serge says:

    10. iSync
    (To sync my calendar and addressbook with my cellphone)
    9. Addressbook
    (Small lightweight simple to use and easy to sync across different machines and my cell phone)
    8. iCal
    (Small lightweight simple to use and easy to sync across different machines and my cell phone)
    7. MAMP
    (Makes running Apache Php Mysql a breeze)
    6. SoundConverter
    (Small lightweight program to quickly convert audio files to another format and made in Belgium :-))
    5. Studiometry
    (Keeps my freelance life organized. Tells me every morning which clients are too late with their payments etc)
    4. Apple Soundtrack Pro
    (For all my audio editing)
    3. Proteus
    (Found it to be more solid than Adium)
    2. Apple Keynote
    (Far better than PowerPoint. And it looks a lot nicer too)
    1. Parallels
    (Even tho my main machine is still a PowerMac, I run Parallels on my Mini and absolutely love it)

  4. Hi Mike.
    This is fun!
    Here is my list..
    10:Parallels(one day left for my first personal Intel-Mac)
    9:Safari
    8:Ableton Live
    7:Ps CS3 BETA(i love the new interface)
    6:NetNewsWire
    5:Apple Motion
    4:After Effects
    3:Dreamweaver
    2:Macromedia&Adobe Flash
    1:Flex

  5. storm says:

    Eclipse + FDT
    Flash 8
    Fex 2
    NewsFire
    Adium
    Parallels
    Transmit
    Smultron
    Skype
    PS CS3 beta
    and Safari, of course.

  6. pbaird says:

    Some absolute musts for turning any visual design into Flex App:

    - Free Ruler (for layouts and dimensions)
    - DigitalColor Meter (apple-shift-c to copy the hex value of any pixel anywhere)
    - Fireworks (of course)

  7. 10. Remote Desktop Connection
    9. TextWrangler
    8. iTunes
    7. Transmit
    6. Adium
    5. Xcode
    4. Terminal
    3. CS3 creative suite
    2. Garage Band
    1. Flash

  8. Dru says:

    Trying to avoid the “obvious” picks like Flash and Photoshop. Those are a given. The following are my must-haves for productivity enhancement or otherwise desert-island software picks.

    Sloppy (bandwidth throttler)
    WhatSize (measures folder and file size)
    MenuMeters (system stats in your menu bar)
    VirtueDesktops
    NuFile (new documents with right-click)
    FilePathToClip & FileHeirToClip (copy paths and contents with right-click)
    FileMerge (part of Apple’s Dev Tools)
    FileList (renaming utility)
    TextMate
    QuickSilver

    All of these are free except for TextmMate

  9. Dustin Senos says:

    10. Last.fm (I’m a stats freak)
    9. Itunes
    8. Omni Graffle
    7. Firefox
    6. Adium
    5. Transmit 3
    4. Photoshop
    3. Flash
    2. Quicksilver
    1. TextMate

  10. Moca says:

    This list could not have come at a better time. Thanks Mike, I just bought a new MacBookPro and am trying to see if it is possible to 100% swtich…

    The list helped me fill the blanks for related win apps but I do not know what to do when it comes to fonts!

    How can I have my Adode Fontofolio Collection to work on the mac? Besides testing, Fonts management seems to be the only reason why I will have to keep my windos machine pretty close. If I cannot open my older design files with the correct font I’ll be in bad shape.

    A couple of additions to the lists:
    CocoThumbX for batch thumbnails
    1Password (Password manager, I am still trygin but looks like a good replacement for RoboForm)

    What about a nice little FLV standalone player for the mac?

  11. 10. NetNewsWire
    9. TextMate
    8. BIllings
    7. SpamSieve
    6. Xtorrent
    5. Mail.app
    4. 1Passwd
    3. BBedit
    2. Flash
    1. Safari

  12. Daniel says:

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