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10 Mac Apps You Should Be Using, But Probably Aren't

cheapmacapps.com — Here is a list of 10 OS X applications that are useful and not widely known. My guess is that you have heard of 1 or 2 of them, but the majority of these apps should be unkown to the average Mac user.

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  • justnick, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20more like 2. Virtue Desktops, OmniGraffle. And Omni is a stretch for some. This list is nothing new or anything most people, even mac users would use. Plus some of the prices for those are outrageous. This is what websites put out when they have nothing else to write. Lame.
  • ebescan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Lots of good stuff here, especially the free stuff. How many people actually use Plaxo?
    • rhesuspieces00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I do. Its alright. The integration with Address book leaves much to be desired.
    • Bhima, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Does plaxo wind up giving information to spammers?
  • dmoney06, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I had heard of them all except for plaxo.

    What I don't understand is why I 'should' be using some of these. You don't need rapidweaver if you don't design a website, yep is iffy, plaxo is useless (for me anyways). Then there is stellarium.....Why should I use this? Other than learning the names of constellations, its pretty useless.
    • MrUnderbridge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5What, you don't want to spend $20 for a damned clipboard app?
    • TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was using iClip for free for a while. Thought it might be useful, but I ended up getting rid of it because it was constantly in my way.
    • nandabanaotakun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quicksilver does clipboards, too. And anything else you want.
  • chrismcelligott, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Don't use any of them... Not that they suck I just don't have a need.
  • vudicarus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5i tried out the appzapper demo, and (correct me if i'm wrong) but all it seemed to do was find any file that shared the same name as the app. a little more convenient than a manual find, but is it really worth the price?

    besides. there's tons and tons of great mac shareware apps whether well known or not. dmoney06 is right. why "should" i be using the listed.
    • Bhima, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I don't think you're wrong... I deleted some Usenet reader with it and it left the (rather huge) message database behind.
    • greatcaffeine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah, Appzapper seems like overkill since we have Spotlight... that cleans everything up, no problem.
    • Obvioustroll, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That depends on the skill of the user and whether the app names it's files in a way that spotlight will notice.

      It's easy to leave junk laying around after deleting an app, particularly file in Library/Application Support/ directory and Library/Preferences
    • VesperDEM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2AppZapper may be overkill, but it saves a bunch of time. I'm sure if I were to use Unix commands, I would be able to find the files that AppZapper finds when I drag an application into it. However, how many other files would I find that were close to the name.

      I just did a simple test with Spotlight. I drug an app into AppZapper, and it responded with 4 files. The app file, an app support file, a pref file and the .DMG file I used to install it. I type the name of the app into Spotlight and get over 2000 hits. I used the 'locate' command in Unix and found about 400 items. In the case of 'locate', it didn't even find any of the files that AppZapper found.

      As Obvioustroll stated, Spotlight doesn't search in all the places necessary for it to find the files that AppZapper finds.

      So if you know where all the files an App will create when used are, then sure, AppZapper is overkill, but for the many many users that don't know much about computers and know very little if anything about Unix, AppZapper is well worth the $12.95 they ask.
  • zzzzbest, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2Flagged as spam.
  • leomyhero, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Get a readable color scheme and maybe I'll look at the post, until then...no Digg
    • Skeuomorph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Illegible = un-Maclike, so author must not be an expert. ;-)
    • blogkitten, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Bad site design makes the baby Jesus cry.
  • shafiq, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2http://www.duggmirror.com
  • mindsnare, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3down already, mirror?


    my bad it's back

    my bad there's a mirror at the top, I'm an idiot
  • thespace, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Awesome List, I'm really impressed.
  • Bibimbap, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Could the title be more condescending?

    Either way there's one app that's not on this list that actually makes OSX a usable interface:

    http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/
  • jasquigl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Pros - The functionality of .Mac (and more) for free
    Cons - It doesn't provide full .Mac functionality, but it's not supposed to"

    Errr, Plaxo is so good because it has more functionality than .Mac but is bad because it doesn't have the functionality of .Mac?
  • wastern, on 10/12/2007, -10/+21) I own it
    2) I own it
    3) I use it on an off, but Spaces will kick it's ass
    4) I own it
    5) Not an app
    6) Saw it when it came out, thought it looked stupid and cumbersome
    7) Came with my old Powerbook, never had a need for it
    8) I own it via MDA......its retarded
    9) Its an everyone app
    10) I had the beta from day 1


    So much for your "you only have heard of one of these" theory.
    • mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Thanks. We were all wondering which apps specifically you had and which you didn't. Very helpful.
  • vinylking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0If I could see the link, that would be cool.
  • SleepJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I bet he used "RapidWeaver" to create that site that fails miserably in Firefox and Camino. Lovely product.
  • osusilas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How did Quicksilver not make the list?
  • Rageous, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Only one or two? lol. I've used every single one of these. Note the past tense. Here's my rundown:

    1. RapidWeaver -- It's functional, feature-filled, and slightly more desireable than iWeb or Sandvox, though depending on your application and skill level, that's debatable. But on the whole, I stopped using RapidWeaver because of sheer price (EVERYTHING costs money, even plugins and additional themes), and because it's really not designed for stuff like blogs, which it handles sloppily. It's good, but not good enough to charge what they do. I enjoy the modular building blocks though.

    2. iClip -- This is John Casasanta's app. In all fairness he's done a superb job with the integration of this and I did get it for free, but my workflow never adapted to it. Some people will find this extremely useful, others like me ask "What's the point?" It's also annoying to have it accidentally pop up when my mouse wanders too far to the right of the screen.

    3. Virtue -- I played with this about two years ago when trying the idea of multiple desktops, and liked it much better than Desktop Manager. But in the long haul I really don't use it. I like the Spaces idea, but I remain skeptical of how many people will actually use it.

    4. AppZapper -- Hat tip to developer Austin Sarner because this app KICKS ASS. I completely swear by it. He's also got Disco on the way, a CD/DVD burning app the most seamless UI I've ever seen on Mac OS X. Check discoapp.com for the skinny.

    5. Plaxo -- Not an app, as Wastern pointed out. No, I don't use it.

    6. Yep -- iPhoto wasn't initially designed to handle PDFs of any kind, so the tagging system is completely out of whack even with this plugin. I can't recall the name (can someone help me here?) of a dedicated app that came out 4-5 months ago, and actually *was* designed to handle scanned documents of all kinds.

    7. OmniGraffle -- It's awesome and easy to use for corporate chart makers (why doesn't Omni get a feature in the Get-A-Mac ads!), but that's the thing... average freelancers like me have no use for it. I downloaded it and played with it as a curiosity, and that was about it.

    8. Pzizz -- A complete waste. How can they charge money for this?

    9. Stellarium -- It's cute, just not my thing. Fun though.

    10. Xtorrent -- Why'd you put this over Acqusition? Since it's pretty much a beta app also made by Dave Watanabe and much less refined than it's counterpart. Xtorrent has issues, namely that Dave built it on the LibTransmission framework, which creates huge messes when reporting to private trackers. We've had the discussion, he's unwilling to help solve the problem, which in my eyes makes the program pretty much worthless to pro bittorrent users. Which is a shame, because it's a gorgeous UI, Jasper Hauser's icon kicks ass and I did help beta test it for a bit.
  • whackaxe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2oh noes, my mac experience is dimmed by the fact i'm not looking at the stars?

    I'm also in the mood to coin an acronym: Yet Another Top Ten Mac Apps List, or YATTMAL
  • donte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Whoopie... another list of Mac apps you MUST have. Not really a dup persay, but these mac app lists are the new "css rounded corners" articles. The first few were interesting and helpful... but the 15th article on the same topic just makes you want to ram an ice pick into your skull.
  • uvscwolverine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was rather amused by Pzizz's website. It's a blatant ripoff of Apple's site.
  • Karmavs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I bought my first mac (black macbook) less than a month ago,

    I've heard of (and used) all of these except for stellarium and plaxo - and currently have appzapper, virtuedesktops, pzizz, and iClip

    Why do i doubt that the average user wouldn't have seen all of these before
  • umdigger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why should I be using a planetarium software. I don't think an average mac user needs that.

    I'm getting tired of seeing "top apps for Mac" every week. I have used a few of those on the list and they do nothing special for me that other programs don't do as well.
  • Nullo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Made this list of "Indispensable MacOS X Software" some time ago....Maybe some of you will find it usefull: http://madsenblog.dk/?page_id=11
  • dombi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well... iClip is nice, but if you are serious about your Clipboard management you will probably need shadowClipboard 3. It does a whole lot more than iClip, cheaper and it has a really nice interface.

    I have been using it for a while now and I really can't live without it.
    http://www.stupidfish23.com/shadowclipboard/

    You can also find a really nice feature comparison chart here:
    http://www.stupidfish23.com/shadowclipboard/why.php
  • ruffus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I was almost buying this until I got to the "power-nap" and "planetarium" apps...wtf?
  • diceone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Stellarium will really help me with my project for my Astronomy class this semester. Thanks!
    • guytoronto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most of those apps are niche products. Not really that useful.

      Here are 10 non-standard apps that I can't live without.
      (Non-standard means not your typical MS Office, Adobe Photoshop type programs)

      1. VirtueDesktops (on that guy's list)
      2. MenuMeters (a life saver, let's you see network activity, RAM usage, HD usage, etc in the menu bar)
      3. Adium (for consolidating my 6 IM accounts)
      4. VLC (for playing all video files)
      5. GraphicConverter (for quick and easy manipulation of graphics without having to launch Photoshop)
      6. Handbrake (for ripping DVDs to a single movie file)
      7. iWork / Pages (inexpensive page layout)
      8. Parallels / Windows XP (for running apps that just don't exist / work on the Mac)
      9. You Control: iTunes (adds iTunes control to my menu bar)
      10. Audacity (for audio file manipulation)
  • Zabimaru_00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Doesn't pretty much everyone who torrents on a mac use xtorrent or tomato
    • nandabanaotakun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Azureus works on intel and is better than Transmission.
      (So the answer to your question is no).
  • jvicinanza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Rapidweaver - nice app, fun to use but limited as your needs grow
    Appzapper - One word.. Rocks
    iClip - Nice idea but I never seem to find a use for it in real life. Also is a little invasive on the desktop.
    Virtue Desktops - Again a nice app but I cant find any real life use for it. Of course this app is a graphical mechanism to deliver standard UNIX functionality. I believe we will see this in OSX 10.5?
    Plaxo - No comment ive never use it. Isnt Plaxo similar to Linked in?
    Yep - I use it. Nice app... very nice app but most of my docs are stored in Excel or Word format. Add further formats to Yep (in addition to PDF) and this app will really Rock.
    Omnigraffle - Ive never used this app.
    Pzizz - Again never used it but ill check it out soon... looks interesting
    Stellarium - Never used it but it looks cool... will check it out
    Xtorrent - Ive never had much luck with Bittorrent... ill have to check out this app.

    Anyway... I think the author of the artical could have chosen better apps than many of those above... think.. Superduper, Newsnetwire, Macjanitor, VLC and many more.
  • Crusty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Mac users wouldn't know about these? Most of the apps in the list an experienced Mac user would have already known about, but probably wouldn't be using for a reason. Pretty useless list overall. OmniGraffle and AppZapper are the two most useful in the list, IMO.

    Another, much better, clipboard alternative is Jumpcut (http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/). Simple, easy to use, and free.
    • abccba57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quicksilver also has its own clipboard history tool, just hit [Apple]-L after [Control]-[Space] or whatever is assigned to bring up Quicksilver.
  • karthiksetty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I have heard of 9 out of the 10 apps, maybe I am not average!
  • berbie, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0For people doing long distance sports like running, biking or hiking there's also a MacOS X freeware to plan routes and journalize workouts. TrailRunner integrates well with the Nike + iPod Sports Kit and with GPS devices like the Garmin ForeRunner or Garmin Edge. http://www.trailrunnerx.com
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