Mac Only Apps

Kemik

Kemik

Kemik

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Hey,

I went to see the new Macbook lines today and something came up when talking to my friend about Macs in general.

How many of you use Mac only applications often? Be honest!

For me, I mainly use Firefox, Adium (Pidgin is alternative), iTunes, iCal, Office via VMWare and Mail. The other odd app I might use is Photoshop, TextMate, Transmit and VisualHub.

This probably sounds like a silly question and I don't want to start a flame war but, do you feel that the mac only applications you use makes up for the large price difference between a Mac and a same-spec Windows machine?

I have no regrets about buying my Macbook Pro, but thinking about it I could actually live perfectly happy with the same programs on XP or Vista. I suppose the thing that makes a Mac, a Mac is the interface, reliability, support and security.
 
Can't think of anything that I use that doesn't have some equivalent in Windows (and I often use both).

On the plus side, the quality of general bits-and-bobs apps from small-time developers is higher on the Mac, IMO.
 
The only Mac only app i use is Aperture 2, the main Windows alternative is Lightroom, which ive also got (both OSX and Windows versions) but i find Aperture more intuitive and polished. :)
 
None really, all of the applications are readily at hand on Windows (Firefox, iTunes etc etc.) I would easily recommend a Mac to anyone though, when was the last time I had to defrag the machine or worry about viruses? Plus it is snappy as hell and looks the bomb!
 
Voodoopad, omnigraffle , skitch, things.

There are of course alternatives to omnigraffle but they're not a good comparison in my opinion.
 
Lets be honest guys, if an application is worth making at all then it will be made for both windows and mac. Whether that comes under the same name is another matter. An FTP client is just that; you may have a favourite but its got to be hard to justify spending extra money on a mac because of. All the applications mentioned have windows equivalents pretty much.

I love my macbook as a whole but I doubt there is anything that i use that I didnt have on my windows machine.
 
Your rationale is correct however you wont find any alternative to skitch or voodoopad on windows. Sure, they're not the most serious of applications but are certainly very useful.
 
I don't know of anything that truly rivals Logic on any other platform, and I've used all of the major alternatives to some extent. I think it's a killer app.

arty
 
I am sure you can always find alternatives to Mac programs, but there are many Mac programs that in my opinion can't be beaten by PC equivalents.

Some of these have been mentioned though...

OmniGraffle
Things
Skitch
CSS Edit
1Password (I know there are many password remembers for PC - but NOTHING comes even remotely close to 1Password).
TimeMachine :D
JobTimer
QuickSilver
Launchbar
NoteBook
NetNewsWire
Scrivener

Just a few I think is not reachable on a PC. Alternatives yet, but not really in the same league....
 
That's actually a very good question :)

Skitch

iPhoto - There is Picasa on Windows which is good, but going back to it from iPhoto just doesn't feel right. iPhoto does everything how I want it to whereas Picasa seems a bit "funny" and weirdly disorganised. Events was worth the price of iLife '08 alone.

iMovie - I don't think i've ever edited a video until I bought iLife '08 and decided to mess around in the new iMovie. Its biggest plus is that it finds all the videos i've taken on a digital camera and are "hidden" in iPhoto.

iSync - I have an N95 8GB, and while the PC Suite for Windows has an incredible array of features it also installs so much background running stuff. iSync makes syncing with the phone a 2-click operation without any background fluff.

Equally though i've yet to find anything for free that comes even close to Paint.NET on Windows. I may have to end up buying Pixelmator.
 
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I don't get the obsession with omnigraffle, I would (and do) use visio in preference every time, just so much easier and quicker for logical and rack diagrams...

Aperture is a good one though.
 
Johnz0r said:
None really, all of the applications are readily at hand on Windows (Firefox, iTunes etc etc.) I would easily recommend a Mac to anyone though, when was the last time I had to defrag the machine or worry about viruses? Plus it is snappy as hell and looks the bomb!
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You should worry about viruses, and I don't know why people think Unix based operating systems don't need to be defragmented. File fragmentation is impossible to prevent, and as long as spinning head based hard disk drives exist, defragmentation will be required to maintain good performance.
 
You do indeed get fragmentation problems on the mac it's not as common but it does happen. When it does strike it can be extremely frustrating to solve simply because it hasn't really been catered to.
Viruses less so but as most mac users don't use antivirus software some targetted hacking could cause problems. The more popular and mainstream you become the more problems arise.

I've had equally (if not more) problems with the mac than on XP (though never really have many on XP anyway). As for software, it's as a few people have mentioned above there is software on both that are quite unique or best in their class that isn't available on the other.
 
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Mac only app, for me, is, strangely enough, Entourage. It's everything Outlook should be and never was. It works right, it's fast, it's fully multitasking, it doesn't lock up read panels when mail is being checked, rules are working, everything is just how office mail client should be. Pity you can not move .pst files between the two without resorting to multiple conversions and crazy butchery of your mail archives.

One thing I dislike about mac programs is how every little utility insists on multiple windows. I love the fact that iTunes or Aperture on mac live and work within constraints of their own single workspace window which you can minimize and maximize with a single click and truly hate how otherwise brilliant programs, like Unison open 5 or 7 windows to do most mundane things and it's literally all over the place and behind everything. This is the one most annoying thing about mac apps for years - where Apple tries to insist on their applications opening and working as one whole unit, Windows style, third party developers are still mesmerized by old mac photoshop design which would spill without rhyme or reason onto your desktop in 20 tiniest elements like a beer and peanuts puke....
 
v0n said:
I love the fact that iTunes or Aperture on mac live and work within constraints of their own single workspace window which you can minimize and maximize with a single click
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You can use Hide (Cmd-H) to hide all of an application's window(s) at once and they'll restore when you come back to the application. IMO the Minimize function is largely redundant in OS X.
 
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