The 46 Mac Apps I Actually Use and Why

Ooo, good point. I’m not sure if there’s an article here, but the Chrome extensions that I really depend on are:

  • 1Password: For autofilling passwords, of course
  • CopyTables: This extension is brilliant for extracting data from tables
  • Grammarly: I rely on it for proofreading of all TidBITS and TCN articles
  • Wikiwand: Does a nice job of reformatting Wikipedia pages to be easier to read; someone

Currently testing:

Others I use occasionally:

  • BuiltWith Technology Profiler: For TCN, it’s helpful to figure out what clients use on their sites
  • ClearURLs: Removes tracking codes from URLs so they don’t end up in TidBITS. No longer necessary in my new world order.
  • Clip to DEVONthink: For snagging tech specs for Apple products
  • Google Translate: Just in case I hit a page in another language. I was just trading email with my old friend Akif Eyler, author of the Easy View app for viewing setext files like TidBITS from the early 1990s, and he pointed me to this page in Turkish.
  • Library Extension: For revealing books that I can get from a public library
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OK, thanks. I’ll try that. In LaunchBar I have always used the very explicit ⌘A to Assign Abbreviation.

As a retired scientist (physics), I have a somewhat different set of must-have Mac apps. I have written a physics textbook and am working on another one. I also do some occasional development of physics demos using Xcode. I originally developed for iOS but, now that Apple has dumped Intel, I am developing for the Mac again, the Apple platform of greatest interest to me.

So far as everyday apps are concerned, I am happy with the stock Apple apps for the Mac:

Safari - great browser (also have Firefox for the rare occasion when I need it).

Mail - meets all my current email needs.

Keychain - works well for me (I avoid subscription apps or ones based on electron on principle and don’t use any non-Apple platforms. I cringe when I use electron-based Zoom which uses up so much of the Mac’s resources, but I have little choice).

iCloud Drive - indispensable for me. I used Dropbox until I found that its was using 2 GB of RAM with 1100 threads for some routine activities. I try to keep poor platform citizens off my computer and have been very happy with iCloud.

Xcode - development. Huge (and updates take forever) but necessary if using the macOS/iOS GUI is important. I never got the hang of autolayout.

My “scientific” apps, mainly for publication, are:

TeXshop - a superb free TeX and LaTeX app with excellent support. Makes beautiful documents with a bit of mathematical content.

ViaCAD - a superb clone of the award-winning Vellum CAD app (from the previous century) with an excellent user interface and a great price compared to the Aslhar (Vellum) products. I use it for making diagrams for publishing.

LaTeXiT - a free and indispensable app for short LaTeX items which I use for graph labels.

DataGraph - a very good graphing app which makes publication quality graphs (I formerly used Igor Pro, but the developers seem about to abandon the Mac platform. It is also very expensive.)

OmniGraffle - Used mainly to produce a PDF page with PDF components inside which can be easily moved around and resized.

Homebrew - source for compilers and apps like Octave for doing scientific calculations. Octave does most of what MatLab does but is free.

That’s about it. Sorry for the longish list…

Warren Nagourney

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The publisher of the American Heritage Dictionary changed developers for the iOS app awhile back. I discovered this when iOS 9, I think, broke the app, and I went looking for an update. At the time, the new/current developer didn’t honor purchases of the previous app, so if I wanted AHD5, I would have had to pay for it again. Is it possible you’re in the same situation now I was in?

I think a few years ago, the current iOS app was updated to recognize the purchase of AHD5 from the previous developer, and it was supposed to detect the old app and automatically give access to the full dictionary without having to pay again. In my case, it didn’t work, so I contacted the developer. I was surprised to actually get a prompt reply with a code for an in-app purchase. That code didn’t work, but we eventually got it straightened out.

Years back, I used test pre-release versions of OS X, which involved a lot of clean installs, so I streamlined the process of setting up a new system.

It’s interesting to see what app other physics/science-oriented people are using.

The first two app that get installed are 1Password and LaunchBar. I need 1Password so I can log into web sites, get my license codes, etc., and I’m so used to my shortcuts in LaunchBar that it’s kind of difficult to use the computer without it.

If I were pressed for time, these apps would be installed first:

  • Apple apps – Pages, Numbers, Keynote
  • Arq – for backups to Backblaze B2 storage
  • Graphic – for making simple drawings
  • MacTeX – mostly LaTeXiT

Next priority would include the apps and extensions I could live without but whose absence I would quickly notice:

  • 1Blocker
  • 1Password browser extensions for Brave and Firefox
  • StopTheMadness
  • Vinegar – makes YouTube a lot less annoying
  • Default Folder X
  • BBEdit (free version, I use this for simpler text stuff)
  • Emacs (for more complicated text manipulations)

The rest include:

  • Adobe Acrobat (b/c it’s paid for by the school)
  • Affinity Designer 2 (for when Graphic finally dies)
  • AppCleaner
  • Brave and Firefox (Safari’s my main browser, but I like to have alternatives)
  • DEVONthink 3
  • Geogebra Classic 5 (useful for showing some math stuff in class)
  • iCompta 6 (financial software)
  • Mathematica
  • Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive (b/c they’re paid for by the school)
  • Paprika Recipe Manager
  • Transmit
  • VLC
  • Zoom
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No list, but I note that if you are paying for Microsoft Office anyway, it comes with the excellent OneNote, which stores notes in many formats in a hierarchical system. Also syncs well with mobile devices.

I may have missed these in the lists, but …
Personal VPN for protection when at a cafe
Silverfast for scanning
SMART Reporter to check my hard drive
Flycut Flycut Flycut to remember recent clipboard contents and select when desired

Re Napkin app … having no knowledge of how it works (just Adam’s description) I thought that perhaps Freeform (Apple’s new app) could achieve the results Napkin users desire?

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“… I still rely on BBEdit regularly to manipulate text files, take ephemeral notes, and store random text files.”

… nothing beats BBEdit’s taming of regular expressions!

I just went through my apps and added to the list with some descriptions - just realised there were quite a few apps that I relied on every day but take for granted!

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Me too! We’re dying from suspense here! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

It would have been helpful to say in the article somewhere that the answer is yet to come.

The implication I got from the article was that the app was going to be part of the list.

Whew! I thought it was just me that wasn’t smart enough to figure out the teased A#1 app :wink:

StopTheMadness now offers “web rules,” which associate a URL with any installed browser, which can replace some of Choosy’s function

Good thinking, and indeed Freeform works well for arranging screenshots and aligning them and adding annotations and all that. But it can’t export just the image content as a PNG as far as I can see. There’s an Export as PDF command, but I need a PNG or JPEG.

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All will be revealed! 7000 words written, editing in progress.

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I don’t think XLD was mentioned, but it is a great app if you need to convert audio files to different formats easily and it also has batch capabilities. Its AccurateRip database helps ensure that your results are error free when doing CD rips.

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While I don’t use (or even heard of) most of the apps you mention, here are my own comments on some I’m familiar with:

Mimestream - extremely nice and responsive developer. But I never really got into how it handles images and marking up images and some other things like how conversation threads are displayed, and the ability to move emails between accounts. So I ended up sticking with standard Mail and use MsgFiler for filing in folders. I haven’t used it in some time now, so maybe things have improved?

1Password - I still use PasswordWallet on my devices. It seems sufficient, though sometimes a manual sync, via DropBox is needed. The developer is responsive. And there isn’t an annual subscription.

Google Drive for Desktop - I’ve moved away from Google Drive in favor of Microsoft OneDrive and my inexpensive (just $69/year) Office365 subscription. At first I did this because I was mad at Google for taking away our free Legacy Gmail Suite accounts - and for the ones they had left blocked us from adding more paid Google Drive space! Now I find I just like Microsoft’s apps more. Plus Microsoft actually has customer service to help with stuff, like doing things in Excel. It’s almost impossible to get Google support for anything.

Dropbox - I love it. It’s been the most reliable storage and file sharing system for me for years. I agree with where you wrote, “Dropbox’s constant need to go beyond its core storage function muddied the waters for me…” and I’ve tried some of their other services and just stick with storage.

BBEdit - the best. The developers are responsive, and the software is great.

Firefox - so nice I wish it was still in the lead. I use it for testing mostly though. I feel like I need to use Chrome mostly because everybody else does. By the way, Microsoft Edge on the Mac is quite nice, and you can import your stuff from Chrome and Firefox, and play with their AI apps.

Zoom - I use it of course. But recently discovered RingCentral. It looks like a Zoom clone! I’d like to understand more about that back store. The nice thing about RingCentral is that you can have video conferences for up to 100 people for free without the 40 minute time restriction of Zoom. That would have come in handy this past week while I was on a plane during a regularly scheduled volunteer group meeting and I couldn’t temporarily hand my credentials over to another host.

Microsoft 365 - I mentioned this above, and I do like it and appreciate the support, etc.

Backblaze - I highly recommend it. I have 3 backups: Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner (which I’m surprised you didn’t mention), and Backblaze.

Microsoft Edge - I mentioned this above.

And why about CyberDuck - great for FTP!

Points to @medievalist for guessing correctly!

I can’t speak to issues surrounding being visually disabled.

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My simplistic approach would be to Export as PDF to a temp folder and open in Preview and export as PNG.
A more complex approach could be to make an Automator.app (or Shortcuts) workflow and use a “hot folder” approach to auto convert PDFs into a suitable PNG file.
Note: Using Export as PDF will give a small white margin (200 pixels) around the extremities of the objects (or text frames) on the whiteboard that may need to be trimmed.
Using the Print command and choose the option for PDF (Open in Preview option) as PDF uses the printer driver to determine a page size (i.e. Letter, A4, A3) which could result in a lot more white space.

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