Spoiled for choice? Let me make the choices for you! That means: I would like to recommend Software for Apple OS X. This should be useful to new Mac users. However, giving advice on what piece of software to run is not easy: Obviously, my personal needs dictate my choices. However, many criteria for choosing a piece of software over another depend are quite universal. Some of them are: ease of use (good user interface), functionality, integration into the environment (OS X), compatibility with standards in industry and academia. If you need to find software for a more specific task, I would recommend you give Versiontracker a try. Most Mac software (and updates) appears here!
Why do I make my choices public? I spent a lot of time finding the right software for my purposes. If you trust my judgement, you can save your time and simply try my choices first.
Warning: Bad software gets better, good software gets expensive or buggy (new version may produce errors). Even though I update this page regularly, it may be get out-of-date.
All applications are free to use unless indicated otherwise, many are open-source.
| Application Class | Recommended | Alternatives |
| Web Browser | Safari with PithHelmet to block ads, or Camino | Firefox (Mozilla-like, a little sluggish), Opera and Internet Explorer (standard, backup) |
| Text Editor (Programming, quick documentation) | Aquamacs | BBEdit from Bare Bones (payware) or their free TextWrangler |
| Music | iTunes (+ Butler) | |
| Photos | iPhoto | |
| Presentations | Microsoft Powerpoint (payware) | Apple Keynote (payware, fast machine recommended) |
| Spreadsheet | Microsoft Excel (payware) | |
| RSS Newsfeed Reader | NetNewsWire Lite (or Safari in the upcoming OS X 10.4 "Tiger") | various options available |
| Groupware / Joint Non-scientific Document Authoring | Microsoft Word (payware) | SubEthaEdit is good for simulatenous document authoring. |
| Instant Messaging / Video conferencing / Voice-over-IP | Adium (IM), Skype (VoIP telephony), or iChat (AIM, ICQ, Video/Audio) | Fire has quality issues, Proteus costs money. Dedicated ICQ/MSN/AIM are available, but not necessary. |
| Diagrams, simple technical drawings | OmniGrafflePro (payware - highly recommended) | |
| HTML Authoring | HyperEdit (live previews!) | |
| Scientific Document Authoring | LaTeX with Gerben Wierda's teTeX distribution and TeXShop , plus BibDesk to manage bibliographies. | EndNote instead of BibDesk |
| CVS Client | Concurrent Versions Librarian (CVL , graphical client, very comfortable diff / merge) | |
| Program Launcher / system-wide shortcuts | Butler (used to be Another Launcher) (launches applications with just two or three keystrokes. No need to specify the keystrokes when you install a program.) | LaunchBar (more expensive) |
| Unix Terminal | Apple Terminal.App | iTerm , GLTerm |
| Calendar Application | iCal | Microsoft Entourage (sluggish, payware) |
| eMail client | Apple Mail | Microsoft Entourage is a very good integrated solution (payware) with many functions, but slower than Apple Mail Others exist, such as Eudora . |
| Usenet newsgroup client | Microsoft Entourage | Halime , Microsoft Entourage does a good job as well (payware), even though it's no eye-candy and payware. |
| Address Database | Apple Address Book | Microsoft Entourage (payware) |
| Graphical FTP Client | Fugu (SFTP) and RBrowser | just use the Finder |
| Automated FTP | sitecopy | rsync (couldn't get it to work) |
| DJ-ing | MegaSeg (payware) | Traktor (payware) |
| PGP | EntourageGPG / MacGPG | PGP (payware) |
| Movie Player | Video Lan Client (VLC) and MPlayer OS X | Windows Media Player , Apple Quicktime (none of them handles all formats) |
| Integrated Development Environment | Apple Xcode (free, well integrated with GCC, good for Objective C, Java), or Eclipse (nice editor, nice Java functions, nice UI, cross-platform) | Metroworks CodeWarrior (cross-platform, payware), RealBasic (payware) |
| FTP Client (graphical) | RBrowser Lite , Fugu (for SSH) | many |
| Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing | Poisoned , Bittorrent with Azureus | mlMac (currenly unstable), Acquisition and acqlite (both Cocoa, but only Gnutella Network) |
| Trackpad Enhancement | Raging Menace SideTrack (gets a certain trackpad area to act as scrolling wheel) | |
| Web Log Statistical Analysis | AWStats | analog (crashes, complicated, legacy Mac port) |
| Record short movie clips | iVeZeen | |
| Flight simulation | X-Plane |
