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Ask HN: Just ordered my first Mac- what apps should I know about?

42 points by olegious ↗ HN
Getting my new Macbook Air on Wednesday. I'll be using it for RoR and front end coding (not a dev but trying to move away from/add to the "Product Guy" label), VM (will run Ubuntu in a VM).

So far these are the apps I know about:

-Adium to combine all my chat accounts

-Growl for notifications

-iTerm2 seems to be an interesting terminal emulator

-Any Notepad++ equivalents on OSx? (I'll end up using Vim and some Notepad++ equivalent)

-Recommended email clients?

-Recommended media players? (I use VLC on Windows)

-Recommended calendar apps to sync with Google and Exchange calendars?

-CSS editors?

-Anything else that a Mac newbie should be told about?

Thanks.

64 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] thread
mtrn
Quicksilver http://qsapp.com/ - I never opened an application from Finder or Dock again.

From their site:

Quicksilver is a launcher utility app for Mac OS X which gives you the ability to perform common, every-day tasks rapidly and without thought. An introduction to Quicksilver's abilities include:

* Accessing applications, documents, contacts, music and much, much more.

* Browsing your Mac's filesystem elegantly using keywords and 'fuzzy' matching.

* Managing content through drag and drop, or grabbing selected content directly.

* Interacting with installed applications through plugins.

mhenr18
I thought Quicksilver was great until I realised Spotlight does the job just as well for app launching.
jherdman
If you don't like Quicksilver, Alfred is really good too (http://www.alfredapp.com/).

Sublime Text 2 is pretty great (http://www.sublimetext.com/2).

spicyj
Seconding Alfred.

ST2, TextMate, and MacVim are all good – I personally prefer MacVim.

gte910h
Alfred is awesome. You can also write plugins for it!
gks
I say go for Launchbar. The clipboard history is pretty rockin in my opinion.
cwebbdesign
I love Launchbar. Still need to try Alfred out.
RodgerTheGreat
Colloquy[1] is a fantastic IRC client. TextWrangler[2] is one of my favorite text editors. If you're familiar with Linux, you'll want a package manager- popular options are MacPorts[3] or Fink[4]. As far as media players, VLC[5] has a very nice OSX port.

[1] http://colloquy.info/ [2] http://www.barebones.com/products/TextWrangler/ [3] http://www.macports.org/ [4] http://www.finkproject.org/ [5] http://www.videolan.org/

gks
Linkinus is a pretty nice IRC client as well. I believe I got it on sale on the App Store for like $5. I'm sure it's more now though.

I definitely suggest HomeBrew over MacPorts and Fink. I've had much better luck with it.

TextWrangler is a great free editor. I use Sublime Text 2 for anything that I may need some standard editing. For more complex stuff or if I'm doing more than opening a single file, I prefer MacVim.

mhenr18
It depends on what you're editing. If I'm ever writing any C/C++/Objective-C I ALWAYS use XCode even if it's only as a text editor and not a project manager/compiler, due to its fantastic syntax highlighting. TextWrangler's great as a replacement for TextEdit, but it doesn't do syntax highlighting as well as it could.
gks
Agreed. XCode is definitely the best for any Cocoa/Objective-C tool. Though I've heard good things about AppCode lately.

I do some Ruby coding and for that I tend to use MacVim with a few nice plugins.

mtrn
As a developer I very happy, that http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/ exists. It's a package manager (#packages as of today: 2024), like apt or yum - with a very nice command line interface and a great community.

> Homebrew is the easiest and most flexible way to install the UNIX tools Apple didn't include with OS X.

dewitt
The first things I install on any Mac (and goodness knows there have been lot of them):

  - Google Chrome (http://chrome.google.com)
  - iTerm2 (http://www.iterm2.com/)
  - Xcode (http://developer.apple.com/xcode/)
  - Homebrew (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew)
    - For emacs-snapshot, zsh, git, gnupg, etc.
  - Google Drive (https://drive.google.com)
  - Flux (http://stereopsis.com/flux/)
  - TextMate (http://macromates.com/)
  - VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc)
  - Transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/)
Then, things like the Sonos controller, the Rdio and Spotify apps, Adobe Lightroom 4, Photoshop, etc.

But the above are the ones that seem to make it onto every new machine in the first day or two.

Enjoy!

riffraff
stuff I have installed

* rather than vanilla vim, try MacVim

* textmate is popular, though I don't use it

* tunnelblick for vpn management

* video: vlc, but mplayerx and MPlayer OSX Extended are popular options

* TotalTerminal (make terminal show/hide with a keystroke)

* cyberduck (ftp/s3/whatever file transfer client)

* keka as unarchiver

* xchat aqua as alternative irc client

CJefferson
Try standard terminal, I prefer it to item 2.

Home brew or mac ports help install unixy tools. Work on the assumption that whichever you install, at least once a year you will have to completely remove it and reinstall it, as sometimes they get in a mess.

Apple mail is OK, I prefer thunderbird, but it isn't very Macy.

VLC tends to play whatever you chuck at it.

General note - HFS tends to get unhappy (performance-wise) if your drive gets more than about 85% full.

When I first got a mac I was tempted to install lots of hacks to standard apps and the OS. These seem much less popular nowadays, but still try to resist any, at least for a while. Mac OS X is very hard to debug if it starts to misbehave.

finally, never install the .0 version of any new OS :)

tbeseda
Can't recommend Sublime Text 2 enough.

Same with Sparrow for (non power use) GMail.

Currently enjoy Found (over Alfred and Quicksilver) as a Spotlight (native to OS X) replacement -- it's free in the "App Store"

rdrimmie
I'm a big fan of Jumpcut (http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/), a dedicated clipboard manager. Several other tools that include clipboard management have been mentioned but if you don't want the rest of the functionality, this is great for it.

iCal and Mail do a fantastic job syncing with Google and Exchange, so I use those.

Jun8
DVD Ripper is an excellent tool that I use often. If you deal with video you will want to install Handbrake, too (and of course vlc).

Geektool is an excellent tool that makes a lot of stats about your Mac on the desktop, it's infinitely customizable, but has a steep learning curve, maybe to be installed in the second batch.

I hate iCal, although it does integrate different calendars. I think it and Mail tool are some of the poorest designed Mac software (e.g. compared with Outlook) but what are you going to do.

Secrets is another advanced tool, that exposes many hidden setting for the Mac.

moocow01
* iWork - Cheaper than Office and better in my opinion

* Transmit - FTP

* Pixelmator - 90% of Photoshop without the high cost but still with a slick interface

* Cornerstone/Versions - SVN

* Textmate - Code editor

* Wunderlist - Todo list

* Fantastical - Easy way to access and add dates to your mac calendar

* Concentrate - Block HN and other stuff when you need to get things done

(Note: Most of these are not free and are between $10-$80 but well worth it in my opinion)

Karma_Police
I don't really see the point in Growl, and it is now a payed app, so you could skip it, unless your workflow requires you to be notified of something immediately.

Media player: I prefer mplayerx to VLC. mplayerx is on the app store.

Text: macvim and sublime text 2.

ricardobeat
The Growl developers really messed up on this. Growl is now actually something that developers include in their applications, you don't need to install it at all.

You only need to install the app for backwards compatibility with apps that haven't upgraded. Since it was open-source, there is a fork that you can install for free: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/41038/growl-fork

Karma_Police
Well, you may still want it if you want to build some custom scripts that need notification, so the fork is probably your best option.
gks
Apps that I install immediately upon re-installation or a new Mac:

* 1Password - Password facilitator (http://www.agilebits.com, buy the Mac App Store version)

* OmniFocus - GTD/Todo list (http://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus)

* OmniOutliner - Best list makinga pp ever (http://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner)

* OmniGraffle - Great for development purposes (http://www.omnigroup.com/omnigraffle)

* Acorn - Quick image editing (http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn)

* VoodooPad - Personal Wiki (http://www.flyingmeat.com/voodoopad)

* Byword - Markdown editor (http://bywordapp.com/)

* Dropbox - Duh (http://www.dropbox.com)

* Fantastical - Calendar app (http://flexibits.com/)

* Launchbar - Launcher (http://www.obdev.at/products/launchbar/)

* Reeder - Google Reader client (http://reederapp.com/)

* Transmit - SFTP (http://panic.com/transmit/)

* VLC - Video (http://www.videolan.org)

Along with iA Writer, Writeroom, Sublime Text, etc etc... there are a lot of great apps. The above is my favorites.

ricardobeat
This is my current setup. The real essentials are Dropbox, ST2 and Homebrew, but these are all amazing pieces of software:

- Sublime Text 2 editor (even has a vim mode) (http://www.sublimetext.com/2)

- Sparrow, but you might be happy with the native Mail app (http://sparrowmailapp.com/)

- Media: iTunes and Quicktime do a good job, VLC occasionally.

- Handbrake for encoding (http://handbrake.fr)

- Transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/)

- Dropbox (http://getdropbox.com)

- Cloud app: instant, easy uploads (http://getcloudapp.com)

- Twitter's official client (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twitter/id409789998)

- CSS: uh? There is Coda/TopStyle/Espresso, but ST2 is enough

- Github for Mac (http://mac.github.com)

- Versions for SVN (http://versionsapp.com)

- Sequel Pro (http://www.sequelpro.com/)

- Homebrew package manager (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/)

- ImageOptim (http://imageoptim.com/)

- CodeKit or LESS.app for LESS/Coffee compiling (http://incident57.com/codekit/)

- MS Office: yeah (it's much better than the windows version). Just hide the cruft away (MSN etc) after installing.

- Wunderlist to-do app (http://wunderlist.com)

Nice to have / superfluous:

- Mou markdown editor (http://mouapp.com/)

- Cathode: vintage terminal emulator (http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/)

- Lidpop: make noises when you close/open your lid (https://shinyplasticbag.com/lidpop/)

haar 

  Try out ZSH if you want to try something slightly different to Bash
  Package Manager: Homebrew - https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew
  Terminal/Emulator: iTerm2 - http://www.iterm2.com/
  Vim running in iTerm2 via Homebrew
  Chat Client: Adium - http://adium.im/
  MySQL DB GUI: Sequel Pro - http://www.sequelpro.com/
  Mail: Sparrow - http://sparrowmailapp.com/
  Git GUI: GitX (L) - http://gitx.laullon.com/
  Window "manager" : Shiftit - https://github.com/fikovnik/ShiftIt
  General productivity: I love QuickSilver, however it's been crashing
  quite frequently on me since I installed Lion, so I'm giving Alfred a try at the moment.
Note: all of the above are at least free (lite), if not completely free. I was thrown completely in the deep-end with terminal vim and just took to it as part of my "getting used to Mac" steps, which I think benefited me with respect to getting down with the nitty gritty of it and not complaining it was different to my Notepad++ experience prior on Windows.
MehdiEG
Interesting - I haven't actually reviewed my Mac's config in a while - I might pick up a few goodies in those lists myself. For what it's worth, this is what I would automatically install on any new Mac:

- iStat Menus: RAM, network and CPU usage right in your menu bar. Ridiculously useful.

- Video player: VLC

- FTP: CyberDuck. Desperately slow to launch and not a big fan of the UI but it's free, it works and I use FTP rarely enough to never have bothered looking for something better.

- gfxCardStatus - not necessarily a must-have but quite handy to see which app is causing your Mac to switch to the battery-sucking discrete GPU.

- Email: MailPlane (gmail / google apps only). I have to say that I've never found what I would consider to be a great email client for my taste on either Mac or Windows. So these days, I stick with Gmail's web interface (which I'm not a big fan of either but there's no native app that I find any better).

- Text Editor: TextWrangler. I still prefer Notepad++ though (in part because TextWrangler, like so many apps on Mac OS X, is so slow to launch).

- DaisyDisk - for later when you'll inevitably run out of disk space.

- Parallels Desktop for Windows + Remote Desktop Connection to manage Windows servers. I wish there was a better RDP client and a decent SSMS-like SQL Server client.

- Apps that used to be must-have but that I no longer use: HandBrake (DVD ripping), LiquidCD (CD / DVD burning), NetNewsWire (RSS)

That's about it. Random stuff that you might or might not need: Acorn (simple, cheap image editor), CoconutBattery, Hues (standalone color picker), iStumbler (Max OS X's NetStumbler), MacHg (Mercurial client). You can try Sparrow for email too.

That's it - have surprisingly few apps actually.

MehdiEG
BTW, I hope that you upgraded the RAM in the Air to 8GB if you intend to run a VM on it. Trying to work on both Mac OS X and a VM on 4GB is quickly going to get very painful.

TBH, if I was going to buy a new Mac today, I'd go for the new MacBook Pro, purely for being able to have 16GB of RAM. Even with 8GB, my Mac still regularly struggles to keep going when I've got my VM up together with a web browser and XCode (and let's not even talk about Photoshop) on the Mac side.

wonderyak
I just bought a late 2011 15" MBP - stuck 16GB of RAM in it and it is so much smoother.
nerdfiles
I prefer Alfred (http://www.alfredapp.com/) over Quicksilver.

Recommending:

1. https://github.com/Lokaltog/vim-powerline

2. https://github.com/revans/bash-it

3. https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive, https://github.com/tpope/surround

4. The https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree

5. http://bywordapp.com/

6. http://bbt2.drikin.com/

7. http://willmore.eu/software/isolator/

8. https://gist.github.com/2260182 (OS X for Hackers)

9. Cathode (http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/, for shits and giggles)

10. DiffMerge (http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/)

11. Electric Sheep (http://www.electricsheep.org/)

12. Gridwars (http://gridwars.marune.de/)

13. Integrity (http://peacockmedia.co.uk/integrity/)

14. httrack (http://www.httrack.com/)

15. iSoul (http://code.google.com/p/isoul/)

16. LittleIpsum (http://littleipsum.com/)

17. KeyCastr (https://github.com/sdeken/keycastr, more shits)

18. LiveReload (http://livereload.com/)

19. Mactracker (http://mactracker.ca/)

20. Onyx and/or Maintenance (http://www.titanium.free.fr/)

21. MAMP (http://www.mamp.info/)

22. MacVim (http://code.google.com/p/macvim/)

23. Patterns (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/patterns-the-regex-app/id4294...)

24. Mou (http://mouapp.com/)

25. mutt (http://www.mutt.org/)

26. Pixelmator (http://www.pixelmator.com/)

27. ProCSSor (http://procssor.com/)

28. Reeder (http://reederapp.com/)

29. Skim (http://skim-app.sourceforge.net/)

30. Slammer (http://ringce.com/slammer)

31. Q (http://www.kju-app.org/)

32. svnX (http://www.lachoseinteractive.net/en/community/subversion/sv...)

33. SSHTunnel (https://github.com/primalmotion/sshtunnel)

34. localtunnel (http://progrium.com/localtunnel/)

35. The Unarchiver (http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html)

36. Homebrew (...

ricardobeat
Isn't Electric Sheep taxing on bandwidth? Running that + Cathode + Transmission should drain your battery in a couple hours...
nerdfiles
Agreed. I rarely use Cathode. I played with it for a weekend, but the vintage floss is quite distracting and sensationalist. Depending on the settings you use, it can run the GPU like a mad horse. So you're right on that.

Electric Sheep is graphics intensive for sure. One can regulate Electric Sheep by many means, and the app allows for the prevention of downloads. It usually does 40MB/day after downloading the first flock.

billyvg
Janus MacVim distribution - editor

VLC - video player

iTunes - music

Alfred - launcher

Divvy - window management (can create hotkeys for resizing/positioning windows)

Kaleidoscope - great diff tool

I use the default Mail and Calendar apps

msutherl
Things I haven't seen here yet:

1. Backblaze for off-site backups: http://backblaze.com 2. Dash for access docs: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dash-docs-snippets/id45803487... 3. Solarized and ir_black themes for Terminal and all editors: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized / http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/13 (I use ir_black w/ Terminal.app, terminal Vim and the sidebar fork of Macvim: https://github.com/alloy/macvim/wiki/Screenshots) 4. This fork of GitX: http://gitx.laullon.com/ 5. DTerm (pop-up terminal emulator for the occasional 'less README'): http://decimus.net/DTerm 6. XScope (rulers and stuff for UI design): http://xscopeapp.com/ 7. LittleSnapper (tried everything, this is the fastest and cleanest way to collect UI inspiration – Skitch + Evernote would be my second choice): http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/ 8. Found (don't use this much, but it's awesome. Indexes Gmal, Dropbox and Google Drive and lets you search and launch files – a bit like Alfred): https://www.foundapp.com/ 9. DaisyDisk (essential harddrive file visualization): http://www.daisydiskapp.com/

And, another shoutout for Quicksilver – more powerful than Alfred.

msutherl
1. Backblaze for off-site backups: http://backblaze.com

2. Dash for access docs: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dash-docs-snippets/id45803487....

3. Solarized and ir_black themes for Terminal and all editors: http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized / http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/13 (I use ir_black w/ Terminal.app, terminal Vim and the sidebar fork of Macvim: https://github.com/alloy/macvim/wiki/Screenshots)

4. This fork of GitX: http://gitx.laullon.com/

5. DTerm (pop-up terminal emulator for the occasional 'less README'): http://decimus.net/DTerm

6. XScope (rulers and stuff for UI design): http://xscopeapp.com/

7. LittleSnapper (tried everything, this is the fastest and cleanest way to collect UI inspiration – Skitch + Evernote would be my second choice): http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/

8. Found (don't use this much, but it's awesome. Indexes Gmal, Dropbox and Google Drive and lets you search and launch files – a bit like Alfred): https://www.foundapp.com/

9. DaisyDisk (essential harddrive file visualization): http://www.daisydiskapp.com/

benregn
Just out of curiosity, what makes Quicksilver more powerful than Alfred?