As I’ve been tricking out my new acquisition (expect more in the way of review soon…), it occurs to me to ask the following question: what are the first, must-have apps you install on a brand new Mac? Here’s my list:
What’s on your list of first installs?
F11 moves all your windows off the screen so you can quickly glance at your desktop. F10 shows you every open window in an application. F9 shows every open window for every application that isn't hidden or in the dock.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
| # | Blogger | Posts | Cmts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Steven Sande | 51 | 4 |
| 2 | Mike Schramm | 35 | 0 |
| 3 | Dave Caolo | 34 | 1 |
| 4 | Mel Martin | 30 | 0 |
| 5 | TJ Luoma | 22 | 26 |
| 6 | Joachim Bean | 19 | 3 |
| 7 | Erica Sadun | 19 | 2 |
| 8 | Victor Agreda, Jr. | 16 | 7 |
| 9 | Michael Rose | 15 | 15 |
| 10 | Sang Tang | 14 | 1 |
| 11 | Ken Ray | 13 | 2 |
| 12 | Josh Carr | 12 | 22 |
| 13 | David Winograd | 11 | 18 |
| 14 | Brett Terpstra | 10 | 8 |
| 15 | Chris Ullrich | 5 | 1 |
| 16 | John Burke | 4 | 3 |
| 17 | Kent Pribbernow | 4 | 0 |
| 18 | Tim Wasson | 4 | 1 |
| 19 | Megan Lavey | 4 | 8 |
| 20 | Lauren Hirsch | 3 | 0 |
security MobileMe ItunesStore SnowLeopard music photos IpodTouch ipod-touch Apple MacOsX AppStore Bluetooth itunes software keynote mac tips AppReview SteveJobs Google GPS podcast ATT upgrade app-store talkcast video snow-leopard giveaway ipod sales Mac101 Navigation tv features Facebook Windows7 update iphone imac AppleStore macbook iphone3gs AppleTv app twitter SoftwareUpdate iphone3g apps hgg
All contents copyright © 2003-2009, Weblogs, Inc. All rights reserved
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) is a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network. Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Notify AOL
Get a WordPress.com Blog
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Marvo said 11:16PM on 7-20-2005
LaunchBar, Firefox, NetNewsWire Lite, SubEthaEdit
Reply
olaf said 5:52PM on 6-29-2005
I'm all about NewsFire, Nudge, PithHelmet and Acquisition.
Reply
Matthew Wilson said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Quicksilver, Notational Velocity, SSHKeychain, Fugu
Reply
Al Willis said 1:05AM on 7-12-2005
QuickSIlver is the first thing I install on any Mac I'm going to use for longer than 5 minutes.
-- Al
Reply
Taavi Taijala said 2:32AM on 7-20-2005
Newsfire and Lauchbar, the best of the best for RSS and Launching!
Reply
Scott Morrison said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
My top 10:
1. Dragthing,
2. Butler (way better than quicksilver or Launchbar, imho)
3. TextWrangler/SubEthaEdit (I waver now that TW is free)
4. NetNewsWire 2.0 beta (for podcatching as well as RSS feeds),
5. Camino -- prettier than FireFox,
6. Geektool,
7. Tinkertool,
8. MenuMeters,
9. Schubert PDF plugin,
10. RsyncX -- for backups.
Reply
derek said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
quicksilver
adium
newsfire
firefox
azureus
bluephoneelite
cssedit
transmit
Reply
Fazal Majid said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
DoubleCommand (disables CapsLock and makes Home/End work as they should).
TigerLaunch
Marcel Bresink's Hardware Monitor
DiskInventoryX (visually hunt disk hogs)
X11 and a bunch of Unix apps (compiled from source, not Fink), most notably XEmacs.
Reply
Josef Habr said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
i like to keep it light, so i might even not do ten:
Skype, NewsFire, Transmit, RDC, MPlayer, BluePhoneElite, Romeo, then something to tune up finder's preferences (OnyX, TinkerTool, Cocktail) and the best screensaver - Traveler's Clock (i like green Gill Snas 360 pt for secondless clock)
Reply
motech said 6:20PM on 7-10-2005
weatherpop, ms office (soon to be replaced by iwork - sweet app)
vlc - then depending on the user - adobe cs, latest version of ilife, mac the ripper, dvd2one, latest version of stuffit, hhmm what else.
thats all i can think of for now.
most important - weatherpop!
after that and vlc,
apple really covers all the other software i need.
safari does it allll for me :)
so does mail and address book and ical and ichat and iphoto .
o and did anyone try delicious monster, a must have for a movie collector : )
Reply
Rahul Sinha said 8:35AM on 7-20-2005
virtue as a better version of desktop manager
SubEthaEdit is a must
I just love the stuff omnigroup puts out (I am in no way affliated with them), so OmniWeb 5.1, OmniGraffle Professional 3.0, OmniOutliner 3.0
NewsFire as a free alternative to NetNewsWire
MenuMeters
Growl
Definitely Quicksilver and Adium
Reply
thomas patrick dillon said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
desktop manager
Snap Pro X
flickr upload
chicken of the VNC
Toast
Citrix
Bit Torrent
Firefox
Bluephone Elite
DVD Backup
Reply
another_user said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
unrarX
audio hijack
bit torrent
vlc
ilife
real player
camino
Reply
Vlad said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Thanks for this post. I recently aquired a slick ibook and was actually wondering what some good apps would be to install. Unfortunately I have no idea what half of those apps are, but there's always room to learn, isn't there? ;)
Reply
Oliver said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
1. LaunchBar
2. LaunchBar
3. NewsFire
4. X-Tunes
5. MenuMeters
6. Did i mention LaunchBar?
Reply
Jan Peters said 5:23PM on 6-30-2005
Books or Booxter
Comictastic
Handbrake
Locator
Romeo
Reply
Ben said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Erhm
BluePhoneElite
SSHKeychain
Synergy
PureFTPD Manager
NCFtp (I just can't find a decent GUI FTP client)
Darwinports
SubEthaEdit
Adium
Developer tools of course!
SideTrack (evaluating, but I probably will buy that one in the near future)
Reply
Brutal said 7:23PM on 10-26-2005
Quicksilver, AdiumX, Transmit, SubEthaEdit, Saft
Reply
Tyler Weir said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I'll add another vote for QuickSilver which is truly a must have.
VoodooPad[1] is a Wiki an in app, simple and fantastic.
Other than that, most of the major apps have been covered.
[1] http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad.html
Reply
peeweejd said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
divx is amongst the first software to install also.
Reply