Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software
My favorite Mac apps: Christina's Picks
Picking just three favorite Mac applications was harder than I thought it would be. I decided to forgo anything that was either built-in or part of a major productivity or creative suite and just focus on applications that make my Mac computing experience unique and complete.
Coda
Even before this week's 1.5 update, Coda had a permanent spot on my "favorite app" list. For me, when it comes to developing or maintaining a web project, Coda is just the best. Sure, TextMate (which I'm using to type this post) might be superior if you're looking for just a source-code editor. CSSEdit might be a better CSS editor, Panic's own Transmit is a more robust FTP client. Coda is still the best all-around web development app for my workflow. It lets me access all the files for a project, locally or on a server, make the changes or additions I want to make, preview how it will look in Safari (or with one click, open it in Firefox, Opera, Camino or OmniWeb) and immediately execute any changes. And now I can use it as a Subversion client too. Even better, it is a distinctly "Mac" application. Every UI detail reminds me why I love the Mac and why OS X is the best platform for software around.
Aperture 2
While Lightroom 2 is really, really nice (and I prefer it for some types of retouches), Aperture 2 is simply my favorite photo editing and photo management tool. I'm not a professional photographer, I don't even have a high-end DSLR -- just a tiny 8 megapixel Nikon that fits in my purse or the back-pocket of my jeans -- but I still want my photographs to look their best. iPhoto is great, but I need more precision. Aperture 2 lets me fine-tune my images, whether from my digital camera or scanned in from some of my older SLRs, crop them, adjust noise levels and color and just generally make everything prettier. The Photo Book I made for my mom for Mother's Day this year, using Aperture 2, was amazing and brought tears and smiles to both of my parents' faces. Their reaction was worth far more than the price of the software.
MarsEdit
Although I can't really use it for most of my WIN blogging, MarsEdit is the tool I use to publish to any of my other sites. My personal site runs on WordPress, and while I love the software, I detest its write interface. I know plenty of people like it, I just don't like composing everything in a web form. MarsEdit's Preview mode is a great way to see how something will look before it's published, whether I use HTML or Markdown or Textile. If I need to edit an old entry, I don't have to worry about sifting through the "visual" or "code" view, inadvertently breaking something if I change a URL. Integrating media from Flickr or uploading new images is seamless. MarsEdit just makes my life easier.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jonathan said 10:00AM on 8-28-2008
Thanks - that's a really useful little list. I'm enjoying finding out about Coda.
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J said 10:00AM on 8-28-2008
Great post Christina.
You'll really upset all the misogynists though who have been picking on Erica for supposedly mistakenly posting about Mac apps rather than iPhone apps. Either you both missed the point, or Erica isn't as stupid as they like to think.
Aperture 2 FTW.
Most used and liked FF3, Mail.app, iTunes
Most used and hated, Office 08. So frustrating.
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Christina Warren said 10:06AM on 8-28-2008
Yeah, we're doing both iPhone/iPod Touch and Mac lists. We just started posting some of the iPhone stuff first.
I think my most used list is the same as yours, just switch FF3 with Safari. Heh. And I'm with you, Office 2008 is frustrating. I need it for Excel, and it IS faster since the last update, but it's like "so close, yet so far."
Ed said 11:22AM on 8-28-2008
So why wasn't that made clear.
And J - someone criticises ES and suddenly they must be a misogynist? That idiotic comment says far more about you than the people you're whining about.
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VanillaSpice said 12:37AM on 8-29-2008
Why should it have been "made clear" ? How could TUAW know that many silly people were going to assume something totally incorrect and then berate Erica on the basis of that misassumption?
The misogyny that J refers to will become apparent if you look at the history of comments on Erica's posts. She has suffered abuse for years; the nature of which and the supposed justifications for it, never appeared on posts by male writers.
I agree it is hard to see just on that one post alone, but J knows what they're talking about - this isn't the first time someone has used that word in describing responses to Erica.
ecobore said 7:40PM on 8-28-2008
Oh yes Christina, I am a pro photographer and frankly Aperture 2 has improved my digital life to such a degree that I ENJOY doing the sorting and retouching etc. which I really couldn't stand before. It is a GREAT app!
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Kelmon said 3:02AM on 8-29-2008
My only issue with Coda is the insistence that you upload your site via FTP/SFTP. The intranet site that I run at work is simply an SMB share mounted in the Finder so when it comes to uploading my files from Coda I need to do it manually.
I couldn't agree more about Aperture 2. It's a wonderful application that makes post-capture just so much faster and enjoyable.
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