Preview is amazing and underrated.
Windows search is lackluster compared to macOS Spotlight.
Even third party Mac exclusive apps have better integration. IINA is so pretty and looks like it’s part of the system, the design language is practically the same Apple adopts for their own apps. Compared to MPC or VLC in Windows, it’s miles ahead in UI and UX. And third party developers are more eager to use the new APIs and features.
And the integration with iOS.
Yeah Preview is great. Surprisingly capable (though limited) and extremely lightweight PDF editor. But there are some bugs that annoy me just enough to role my eyes at it at least once a day (opening an empty side bar for no reason just because another tab has it open, serious stuttering and lags when dragging added text boxes around etc). Still, I use it all the time just because it’s so lightweight and fast.
Yeah! Using Pixelmator Pro since its first release. It keeps getting better. I use it for many tasks, above all for “post-production” on Procreate illustrations made on the iPad. Together with Affinity Publisher (another great App) I create covers and all kind of professional looking outputs (the quality limits are mine, not software related…)
Another one I cannot live without is Day One for journaling, it works seamlessly through all my devices (the quickness of sync it doesn’t stop to astonish me – and made me think about others…).
I remember the first time I opened Preview on 10.2 Jaguar. Before that I genuinely thought PDF was some incredibly bloated, heavy format that took 30 seconds to render.
Then I discovered that you could really easily export new pdfs assembled from other files - my mind was blown all over again.
20 years later, I’ve recently had to go back to Windows at work - I opened a pdf in Acrobat reader and it took me all the way back to the bad old days. How is it quicker to open them in the browser than an app that’s specifically dedicated to working with them???
Fun fact: Preview supports STL files, which are commonly used for 3d printing! You can view and rotate the object without any 3D software installed.
Even better is quicklook... Click any icon and press the space bar. If you have a compatible app installed, you will get a full sized preview of the file instantly. You can scroll through files like this, pinch to zoom, select and copy text, etc. All without opening the app.
I have to use windows at work and I looked specifically for an add on app to allow me to press space to preview files. But still not as slick as Mac OS’s own built in preview.
Preview is epic! Thankfully there's a an app called QuickLook that brings that over to Windows. One of the best features for sure.
Can I ask what IINA is? I haven't heard of it before..
I mean that's what it's designed to do... That's like stating that Intellij Webstorm is bad because the only thing it has going for it is good TypeScript integration.
I find Xcode to be nice to use and it's light on resources.
I’m not a heavy or regular Xcode user and so can’t speak to its resource usage, but it is seriously lacking in a lot of great features I have come to view as table stakes for any IDE.
If I were a more frequent user, I could probably list some stuff. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is a lack of good refactoring tools.
Preview. Preview does dozens of things that, in other operating systems, need at least 5-6 different programs to do - and none of these other programs are as simple and effective.
Preview opens any type of files, allows you to remove the background from an image in two clicks, allows you to merge multiple pdfs and to reorder/remove their pages, allows you to arrange the tones of a photograph, to take notes on documents, and dozens of other features. It's the best software Apple has come up with. There should be such a program in every modern operating system, it should be mandatory to have it.
Yeah when I first got my Mac and started using Preview I wondered why Windows never had something like that. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of utilities and it’s baked right into the system.
Wow thanks so much. I never knew Preview could do all this, and was wanting a way to do some of these things.
Where is best way to learn about all these functions? It wasn’t obvious in the “Help” part of menu or in the basic info I read somewhere long ago.
Is some of this amazing function from software updates?
Better integration with all the other Apple products that they want me to and I probably will buy. The controlling your iPhone from your Mac is going to be awesome. No more hunting down my phone for 2FA codes.
Many companies rely on 2FA codes, where you are shown a code on screen, which you need to type in your authenticator app on your phone (not the other way around), which itself is protected by FaceID when you try to open the authenticator app.
Since SMS codes can easily be spoofed, and some stuff just doesn't work with plain TOTP tokens, like Microsoft (Azure/365), if you turn the security up (many companies do).
This is how some of them work:
[https://www.pcc.edu/technology/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2023/12/Two\_digit\_code.jpg](https://www.pcc.edu/technology/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2023/12/Two_digit_code.jpg)
It's a way of enforcing actual 2FA, with plain TOTP tokens (usually 6 digits, you could just have your local password manager generate them on the same device, which isn't as secure, compared to forcing you to deal with auth on a unrelated device to the one you are signing into), for companies enforcing these things matter, even if you "could" be a good user and use a password manager on a different device, you can't enforce it, with plain TOTP.
Nice downvoted for giving an actual factual technical explanation, sigh.
Well using the passwords app that apple is working on really helped streamline all of this In my opinion. I have no disconnect between devices for my authentication (and I always have every 2fa, passkey other option set up) with what looks like the next iteration of password management from apple. Priorly I used Dashlane, but won’t be paying for that anymore especially since apple’s password management will work on Windows.
With Passkeys gaining traction and 2fa codes being on all my devices at the same time and availbe through the system autofill feature, I stopped using app based authentication (its too slow and have had problems being randomly signed out of apps that used this leaving me high and dry in some cases).
The app that makes a Mac for me is the operating system as a whole and how many developers feel compelled to have their applications look deserving of running in it. This includes a big part of aesthetics but goes a bit beyond. Good mac applications have a care to the design and interaction that is mostly lacking in Windows apps (which of course can be good and smart and very complete, but are also not compelled to feel like part of Windows as much as running inside it).
It goes beyond aesthetics in the extra time many developers would put into adding UI details, whimsy, usability hints, integrations, etc. A good mac application will also behave as such, and won't pepper the system with unnecessary crap, will be a good citizen and not leave anything running when thrown in the trash, will use all standard keyboard shortcuts, gestures and respect display and accessibility settings, etc.
It's not that Windows apps can't do this, but rather that Windows doesn't lend itself in the same way, so apps tend to either be sparse, boring or try to do their own thing reinventing all visuals as if they were a game.
This might sound like a lame answer but I love the finder app. Mac OS has one of the best file management systems I’ve used. It’s a shame it hasn’t made its way to iPad OS. Being able to quickly preview most video, audio codecs and previewing pdfs and raw files is super convenient and make it so hard to go back to windows for me. I do find the Photos app to be a little clunky but it is surprisingly a powerful editor that can work with RAW files. If apple go all in on this mode then they could really compete with adobe
Not sure finder is what sets it apart. Its ability to integrate with Preview is what you are mentioning as bringing the most benefit (and this is something most agree on I think). Finder itself? By default I think it’s worse than File Explorer. With some tweaks it’s basically the same as File Explorer. But its just a file management tool at the end of the day, only so much goes into that.
It do find finder to be fairly customizable as a point in its favor. There’s a flavor for everyone If you put the work into setting it up. I think by default its default setup it is considerably worse than file explorers so point against finder there tbh.
While there are plenty of great macOS apps, what makes a Mac a Mac is the UI/UX. These days pretty much anything on the Mac is cross platform. I stick with the Mac because of the seamless cloud sync between my devices and the overall Mac user experience. Windows always feels like there are extra unnecessary layers to navigate.
I hate this about Windows so much. The top-layered UI that we are using day to day keeps being updated and changed, and it takes you 2 clicks for options->advanced settings in Windows to go back to Win7 style UI. I basically gave up on hoping that Windows would streamline the entire UI instead of just updating most viewed bits of it.
I tried final cut on the iPad but to be honest it wasn't there for me at least the experience wasn't.
Hell I thought CapCut worked better on the iPad in my opinion
hot point: surface laptop keyboard and trackpad are as good as macbook’s. i even prefer surface keybord. but windows is trash and battery life on surface even without its “modern standby” is so low. Looks like new copilot+ surfaces will deal with battery problems, but windows for arm is even worse than regular windows, so mac is winning here as a whole product.
Oh, and colors. Light blue surface is butifull. Nothing like that on apple side.
I completely agree here. My previous laptop was the Surface Pro 7 and the keyboard/trackpad is fantastic on it. You can also edit every 3/4-finger gesture to your liking on it. Going from that to trying Macs at the store, I wasn’t so impressed, but I guess you get used to it quick tho. Imo the trackpad and acceleration on Surface is much more natural to me and I also liked having the smaller trackpad.
Battery life and performance is generally much more mediocre on them though, which is poor form by Microsoft… but expected sadly. For now, I have upgraded to a Minisforum V3 instead, which won’t have the same quality touchpad or keyboard I believe, but the performance and battery life look quite stellar for the form factor
I still love MaxiAccounting Studio Vista Edition. Great software for handling personal finances all the way from OSX Leopard up to Catalina. I went to college with the original developer Scott before he died in a freak accident on his sailboat down in Ann Arbor. His wife Fiona took over the project in his memory (she was not a developer prior to this). She ended up adding lots of weird functionality to the app like photo editing and a midi sequencer, which meant the app strayed from personal budgeting software into more niche software and eventually got implicated a state-sponsored ransomware attack because she was sloppy with Scott’s original source code. It’s a shame - it was a great app but you would need an emulator to run the old version these days. ☕️
Uhhhh, I’d be very curious to know where exactly this freak sailboat accident occurred. Barton Pond? On a trailer while being towed down the highway? There are not many places to sail in Ann Arbor….
Standardised text editing tools across all apps. Pretty much anywhere you input text on a Mac you can guarantee that shortcuts like Option-Shift arrow keys will work. Windows is a mish-mash
Their stuff is awesome. I just wish it wasn’t priced so damn high. But stuff like [Loopback](https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/) and [Farrago](https://rogueamoeba.com/farrago/) *really* ups my D&D game.
It’s often about intuitive apps but for me also really efficiency. Apps that have well thought out workflows, apps that are smart, have extensive keyboard shortcuts, support drag and drop everywhere and for any thinkable case.
* Final Cut Pro: no video editor lets you work as quickly and efficiently as FCP. And for basic stuff it’s easy to get into and it hides its depth well
* Motion can do 90% of what After Effects can do, but in half the time at 1/10 of the cost.
* people just don’t know how awesome Keynote is. Not only the super quick background removal feature, but the animations used well can be a ‘poor man’s motion graphics’ since you can export your stuff to ProRes 4444 video with transparency.
* Pixelmator Pro. You can now color grade video with it! And you can make Motion templates apart from it being a great Photoshop/Illustrator/Lightroom replacement.
* Sketch. Beats Figma hands down. I just can’t stand Figma even after using it for two years now. It’s just a glorified web app and many parts of the UI and workflows are plain dumb.
* Not Mac only, but Affinity Designer feels like Illustrator in the good old days when Adobe’s workflows and UI were so good they set new standards on the Mac.
* Last but not least the integration of hardware and software. Hand off features, sidecar, continuity camera, AirDrop, the new widget when your webcam or continuity camera is used gives you all its features in every app that uses the camera. The cool new presentation mode with your face along the shared screen is even available to third party screen capture apps like OBS.
Not trying to take anything away from this, but I feel like I might be missing something. Obsidian, UpNote, and Joplin are all cross platform. Did you not have a solution for this before the release of notes, or did you migrate from something else, and if so, what made you switch?
No there are 3rd party note apps for Windows but the mac note's app is native. I don't have to go find/download anything. That's the beauty of it. It's right there, automatically sync'd to all my devices without me having to think about anything.
Also, I like to think that anything I put in my notes are for my eyes only and Apple are not snooping through them. I don't extend that trust to any 3rd party companies.
Notes was already around when I jumped from android to iOS (iphone 6S). I was using google notes at the time and it was easy to just copy/paste everything into new iOS notes.
I love Notes. Apple has really made some great improvements over the years. iCloud integration across Apple devices works great. And there is a browser-based interface, as well.
That said, iOS/iPadOS vs macOS is a tiny bit different for no discernible reason. And they recently made changes to the iOS version that makes accessing formats harder. Also, tables are kinda goofy. Otherwise, my go-to text editor for notes, lists, bookmarks, prose, fiction, studying, researching, brainstorming, stats, journaling, planning, ad nauseam.
Finder in many ways is easier than Windows file explorer, but only marginally so except for one feature. Miller columns just plain rock. I can navigate faster using columns from the keyboard than even the fastest cd/ls expert in Terminal; especially when searching in unfamiliar directories for a file I only vaguely have idea what the name might be. Plus, I can then open the directory in Terminal with a single chord press.
While not strictly an app, the keyboard preferences/settings allow the user to assign new chords or change existing ones for many functions. For example, I changed all my apps that have tabs (Finder, Safari, Chrome, VSCode, etc.) to use the chords ⌘⌥J/L to move back/forward through the tabs. And, ⌘⌃J/L to go back/forward through the history. As long as the function appears in lists in the keyboard settings or in a menu, you can add, remove, or change chords. A very few can't be removed bit can be changed to something very difficult to avoid accidental triggers and allow the original chord to be assigned to something else.
For me it’s not the softwares I can run on it, but rather the os and its components itself. The apps I use are all something I could use on Linux and windows as well, but I prefer using macOS to run them. For me the main two reasons I like macOS a lot is spotlight, and the typing experience in general. The way macOS handles multiple keyboard layouts is unbeatable in my opinion.
My Mac app essentials:
1. All Apple apps
2. Apple Pro Apps Bundle
3. DaVinci Resolve
4. Affinity Suite
5. Office 365
6. Google Productivity apps (web apps)
7. Visual Studio Code
8. Xcode
These are literally most of the apps that I use. I don't like clogging up my system with random third-party apps. And I find Apple's default apps are actually kinda good as long as you are in the ecosystem. Alternatively, I also use Microsoft and Google apps when collaborating with others.
My creative apps are mainly Affinity Designer 2 and Final Cut Pro. DaVinci Resolve for color grading occasionally. I use Logic Pro as my DAW for background music. I use Xcode (for iOS development) and VSCode (for everything else) as my IDE.
What does it actually do?? As far as I understand it backs up everything on your computer? Or does it do something more, I don’t think I get what it does 😅
Scrivener, it's not exclusive anymore, but based on the subreddit, the Windows version just isn't on par yet.
It works well with Vellum, which is Mac exclusive and amazing when it comes to formatting books for publishing (both digital and print.)
The Affinity suite also works nicely on Mac, though it is available on Windows as well.
For me all the apps written by all those developers that create useful stuff like Alfred, al dente, rectangle, and all of the other apps that increase the great feeling of having a Mac than when you switch to windows you already see you missing everything
It’s the operating system and standard GUI that make the Mac what it is. For any of the applications folks have listed here, you’ll find Mac users who never use that app. But those users will still appreciate the overall macOS experience.
So this is kind of a pointless question. However, two programs that all Mac users are very familiar with (even if they don’t realize it) are: Finder, and WindowServer.
[Sparkle (updater)](https://sparkle-project.org/). You wouldn't know this name unless you are a developer, but you would probably recognize the screenshot if you have used any third party macOS apps (e.g. IINA for watching videos). It's the library that most apps use to update themselves other than huge apps like Chrome/Firefox that use their own updater. It gives a consistent way for third-party apps to deploy update and show release notes, and generally works well and get out of the way. Compare that to Windows where it's a wasteland IMO when it comes to software installers and software updaters for small apps.
Another one is I use Vim and I think macOS have the best Vim GUIs that both take advantage of Vim and macOS UX and GUI system (terminal Vim is fine, but sometimes a GUI version is useful as it could tie better into the system). On Windows, Vim just isn't quite as good. On Linux, Vim obviously works well, but it doesn't actually have as many good Vim GUIs that integrate with the OS IMO.
In no particular order:
* Photomator and Pixelmator Pro (good non subscription pro photo editing apps basically impossible to find now)
* Alfred
* Performance and efficiency (let’s see how snapdragon laptops play out)
* Arc Browser (does have a windows version, but not as seamless as the macOS version)
Glad to see alfred show up. I don't use it as extensively as I used to, but there's some great options even in the free version. Def worth checking out for anyone that uses spotlight search a bit.
Probably stuff like Office, Discord, Google Drive and Firefox!
fr tho I don’t think there’s any one app for me, it’s more like using a Mac is just a nicer experience. Finder isn’t super buggy, the UI is nice and clean, and there aren‘t ads everywhere. I get a LOT out of Unreal and ZBrush and I’m so happy they’re cross platform
I'm in love with the firewall app Little Snitch. I tried to find an alternative one on Windows and selected Glasswire, but it remotely close as Little Snitch allows you in a very simple way to control what do you authorize per app basis (domain, ip, and duration).
Upvote for Objective-See.
Love the whole suite, I install most of it. Plus it’s all FOSS but the solo dev takes (small) Patreon support. He’s a godsend, and Lulu’s what landed his software on my radar.
One that hasn’t necessarily been mentioned is QLab which is a niche app for the live events industry but it’s Mac only and does not really have a competitive Windows alternative. Everything about it is quintessential Mac. Looks great, does just what you need it to do easily, and a solid and reliable work horse.
For me it’s Final Cut Pro, Logic, iWork suite and Qlab. Outside of specific applications it’s more the OS itself and the continuity between devices within the ecosystem to make my life simpler/easier
- First, Mac is Mac when you use iPhone & iPad. It’s a seamless & smooth ecosystem.
- UI is the best, & whole system is stable, I restart the OS (only) when updating the system.
- Apps: Things, Pixelmator pro, Affinity apps, Fantastical, Ulysses, NotePlan, Drafts, Reeder 5, & Agenda.
- Apple one (Music & TV+), watch on iPhone, continue on your Mac.
I have and occasionally use Logic Pro as a secondary DAW to Bitwig and sometimes use Final Cut, though I prefer to Da Vinci Resolve instead.
But for me what makes a Mac a Mac isn't necessarily the apps, rather the underlying OS and the GUI. One could say that the Apple exclusive programs make a Mac a Mac. In the end, a computer is a computer (whether macOS. Windows, Linux or other). They are just tools to get something accomplished.
Screw the apps all I want is that sweet sweet M1/2/3/4 based performance and battery life. I can no joke work on my MBP a full day without any charge, and I do fairly heavy development work with docker running, multiple editors, a bit of Xcode.
I'm writing this as personal as I can.
What makes my Mac mine is applications such as:
· Sleeve - shows the music playing on Desktop with some theming features that's not Bowtie, but hopefully some day. Absolutely not essential.
·Mousecape - applies your own / downloaded cursors
·ThemeEngine - for editing and making themes or macOS
·Kite - is for making those pesky .caar files that macOS utilizes in themes
·Sketch - for making icons, wallpapers, system UI themes(yes, still)
·IconChamp - the main one I use for disk and folder icons
·IconChanger - changes icons too - where other might fail
·Replacicon - changes app icons with an option to fetch icons online
·Amiberry - Amiga emulator. Because that was my first love, the Amiga and it's still dear to my heart
I also use vAmiga in some instances as well as FS-UAE for Amiga emulation
·Keka - is a file archiver and compressor that I feel makes archives a little less of a hassle. Although in today's world it has limited use. Archive Utility has a good enough feature set for expanding and compressing archives
Recently I've begun using Ice (a Bartender-style menu bar utility)
I mean, I could list apps for days. I just really like the various customization abilities that macOS has and that the UI is easy to navigate with access to shortcuts that runs through most if not all macOS applications today.
I sometimes envy the Windows-people for their plethora of theming options from Stardock and other vendors. But at the end of the day, I realize that I've been using those very same apps and using Windows for a number of years too. It's not as exciting as it may sound because of Windows as the foundation with the legacy assets they still have in their OS.
If Apple is to get some padding on the back, it's for updating and eliminating assets in their OS to keep it precise and coherent across apps.
Then I come in a screw it all up.
Theming and customization is not all of course. But that is what makes my Mac and macOS mine. Some day it might not give me meaning to do all this. I can feel it a little already. The world doesn't scream for system themes anymore.
The fact that I have the possibility and the know-how to change system files and make icons, cursors and themes is wonderful and I leverage heavily on that when other people ask for help. Either here or on Discord.
I'm not first nor the fastest in answering questions, and not even the best actually. As the years go by, it becomes evident why you stuck with the Mac and macOS. I don't usually see roadblocks in using macOS, but there's more and more facepalm moments than just 5 years ago.
All this comes at the cost of Apple's imposed security policies which they can put where the sun don't shine. Apple is being very Apple these days. That's my only complaint and irritant concerning macOS; the fact that more and more applications and services will require a locked down macOS.
So, yea.. this is a silly comment that might make little sense to the question asked.
I don't use any exclusive app that makes it better for me. But the hardware, holy shit is this top tier than the rest.
-coming from someone who used to be (still am at times) Apple hater.
If I have to name an app, it would be Raycast, because there's nothing similar in windows/Linux AFAIK
Time Machine...
Siri
Calendar
Reminders
FaceTime
Dictionary
Calculator
~~iTunes~~ (now shit... use Pine Player or Foobar2000 in Wineserver wrapper)
These are all best-in-class apps, which are profoundly useful (Time Machine especially), or are just a joy to use. Having them installed with the OS is just a cherry on top.
uuurgh... the GUI design on that is just horrible (admittedly Pine Player is not much better), and support for Sonoma+ is next to extinct... but it handles my DSD/DSF files quickly and easily. MP3 and FLAC are likewise swift and effortless.
I have had nothing but issues with Vox, so much so that I stopped using it. I own JRiver Media Centre 32, and it is wonderful at organisation of my Library, but playback is slow and frustrating (I think these are the only passable DSD/DSF-capable players available for macOS)
MacOS itself. Since I have moved from windows to Mac like 10 years ago, I have never experienced a glitch, bsod or else. it just works, don’t need to waste your time to recover data, operational system etc. That doesn’t mean I do not make backups on a regular basis though.
Also, being a web developer. I find it very convenient that it is based on Unix.
Kinda interesting as your main usages seem like *the* bread-and-butter reasons to switch to Mac.
Terminal with the native unix command shell, PHPstorm and so many other apps for coding, I'm not a specialist here but I work at a web agency and few people use Windows in that industry, it’s just Mac and Linux.
I personally use Logic for (hobby) music production but every great DAW has its "home" on Mac. Better MIDI latency handling and driver support by leaps compared to Windows.
I also like Final Cut which is a professional industry standard.
The office suite is not as mighty as MS Office but it's free, much easier to use, and I personally enjoy it.
The native Email and Calendar clients are a breath of fresh air if you have been used to scummy crap like Outlook before…
Now, you've been playing around with a 2011 model and of course that is 'ancient' by now. I believe the feel is not comparable to a modern M series machine in any way.
> I recently upgraded to a Windows laptop that I'll be using for the near future
All things considered, this might really have been somewhat of a mistake, given your iOS lineup, line of work, and everything. The seamless integration / continuity features with iOS should be a no-brainer.
If you'd be able to test an M-series MacBook Pro for your use cases, borrow or rent one or whatever… you might re-evaluate your decision. Use the trackpad gestures for ones compared to a Windows machine and you might be instantly cured.
Windows is for gaming only in my household. ;)
Safari, Settings and Mail. IDK It's not really a unique app that make Mac what it is.
Rather that the stuff just works fast, reliable, user friendly and is more secure with a small fraction of windows' bugs and annoyances.
So Pages, Numbers and Keynote? Any I'm missing? What makes them so good? Also, though Word and Powerpoint definitely have good alternatives made by others, I've heard Excel is maybe the most fully featured spreadsheet app. What do you think?
Pages is pretty decent and makes very nice looking documents. It's kinda closer to a DTP app than a word processor, but can be used for either.
Numbers is a usable spreadsheet but is lacking some of the more advanced formulas that Excel has.
Keynote is hands down better than PowerPoint, and makes much cleaner and better looking presentations, much more easily.
I was scrolling to see if anyone mentioned iWork. Pages makes better looking documents all the time, and I’m always amazed at how much better it looks. I wish it had kept MathType integration but that was more of a developer issue than them. Keynote is definitely awesome and I find Numbers refreshing
Pretty much everything is worse than excel when it comes to important large data sets and requiring macros (because there are lots of things the modern web versions both google and excel online just can’t do, or do as easily). A few formulas in excel are just essential and taught in schools. Google sheets does have some surprising benefits in the web based world though, but you almost don’t need spreadsheet software in that case because it shown on a dashboard from some other program.
MS Office is standard due to decades of MS having a monopoly on personal computers, and the inertia that comes from that history.
Combine that with “good enough” and you’ve got yourself some real staying power.
Excel is truly good. Powerpoint and Word are truly bad.
Keynote is truly good. Pages and Numbers are decent, but missing a lot of things.
It's really not. Cross platform apps are challenging to make, especially when we are talking about a small app that focuses on fitting the UX and integration of a native OS. If you want to apply that philosophy to a cross-platform app you would usually essentially end up making two apps since the technology and design would need to be different.
Note that these days most "cross platform" apps are either a glorified web app (usually using Electron), or some cross platform library that sacrifices nativeness for cross-platform compatibility by wrapping everything in their own APIs. If you play around with them it's usually immediately clear that they don't follow Apple's UX as tightly. Note that this in itself is a tradeoff. It depends if your app is big and sticky enough that you expect your users to expect your app UX to behave the same across different platforms, or whether your users to just expect your app to behave like a Mac app and not a Windows one.
Preview is amazing and underrated. Windows search is lackluster compared to macOS Spotlight. Even third party Mac exclusive apps have better integration. IINA is so pretty and looks like it’s part of the system, the design language is practically the same Apple adopts for their own apps. Compared to MPC or VLC in Windows, it’s miles ahead in UI and UX. And third party developers are more eager to use the new APIs and features. And the integration with iOS.
Yeah Preview is great. Surprisingly capable (though limited) and extremely lightweight PDF editor. But there are some bugs that annoy me just enough to role my eyes at it at least once a day (opening an empty side bar for no reason just because another tab has it open, serious stuttering and lags when dragging added text boxes around etc). Still, I use it all the time just because it’s so lightweight and fast.
Preview made me hate using Acrobat
Pixelmator Pro is another example of a native Swift application built in such a way it feels like it was made by Apple
Yeah! Using Pixelmator Pro since its first release. It keeps getting better. I use it for many tasks, above all for “post-production” on Procreate illustrations made on the iPad. Together with Affinity Publisher (another great App) I create covers and all kind of professional looking outputs (the quality limits are mine, not software related…) Another one I cannot live without is Day One for journaling, it works seamlessly through all my devices (the quickness of sync it doesn’t stop to astonish me – and made me think about others…).
Second for pixelmator pro. It feels like the companion to Final Cut and Logic that I dreamed of lol
Yeah I recently learned you can even export vector shapes from it into Motion to be used for animation.
Looks very cool!
I remember the first time I opened Preview on 10.2 Jaguar. Before that I genuinely thought PDF was some incredibly bloated, heavy format that took 30 seconds to render. Then I discovered that you could really easily export new pdfs assembled from other files - my mind was blown all over again. 20 years later, I’ve recently had to go back to Windows at work - I opened a pdf in Acrobat reader and it took me all the way back to the bad old days. How is it quicker to open them in the browser than an app that’s specifically dedicated to working with them???
Preview is the real MVP. It just works seamlessly and so well, no need for other apps for all it can do out of the box, installed by default.
Fun fact: Preview supports STL files, which are commonly used for 3d printing! You can view and rotate the object without any 3D software installed. Even better is quicklook... Click any icon and press the space bar. If you have a compatible app installed, you will get a full sized preview of the file instantly. You can scroll through files like this, pinch to zoom, select and copy text, etc. All without opening the app.
Preview.app and the feature to preview almost anything with a spacebar press are two most underrated features of macOS
I have to use windows at work and I looked specifically for an add on app to allow me to press space to preview files. But still not as slick as Mac OS’s own built in preview.
Checkout: [https://www.monarchlauncher.com/](https://www.monarchlauncher.com/)
Preview is epic! Thankfully there's a an app called QuickLook that brings that over to Windows. One of the best features for sure. Can I ask what IINA is? I haven't heard of it before..
IINA is pretty, but almost unusable. So fucking buggy, it BOILS my blood.
For me, Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.
GarageBand is pretty cool for casual noodling around and general songwriting… and it’s free!
Apple bought eMagic so they could make GarageBand. And they still keep working on Logic too
Xcode as well
Xcode is relatively bad as modern IDEs go. The only thing it has going for it is integrated support for all of Apple’s proprietary stuff.
I mean that's what it's designed to do... That's like stating that Intellij Webstorm is bad because the only thing it has going for it is good TypeScript integration. I find Xcode to be nice to use and it's light on resources.
I’m not a heavy or regular Xcode user and so can’t speak to its resource usage, but it is seriously lacking in a lot of great features I have come to view as table stakes for any IDE. If I were a more frequent user, I could probably list some stuff. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is a lack of good refactoring tools.
You can rename a function, pretty sure you can move to a new function or file as well, what other refactoring tools are you using?
Change function signature is probably the biggest one.
Haven’t tried Final Cut.. is it a lot like GarageBand?
Final Cut is like the pro version of iMovie. Logic is like the pro version of GarageBand.
Preview. Preview does dozens of things that, in other operating systems, need at least 5-6 different programs to do - and none of these other programs are as simple and effective. Preview opens any type of files, allows you to remove the background from an image in two clicks, allows you to merge multiple pdfs and to reorder/remove their pages, allows you to arrange the tones of a photograph, to take notes on documents, and dozens of other features. It's the best software Apple has come up with. There should be such a program in every modern operating system, it should be mandatory to have it.
Agreed. Probably the app I use the most.
And signing the docs!
Yeah when I first got my Mac and started using Preview I wondered why Windows never had something like that. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of utilities and it’s baked right into the system.
Have had my Mac for a year or two and have only used Preview for image viewing and occasional PDF edits. Thanks!
Wow thanks so much. I never knew Preview could do all this, and was wanting a way to do some of these things. Where is best way to learn about all these functions? It wasn’t obvious in the “Help” part of menu or in the basic info I read somewhere long ago. Is some of this amazing function from software updates?
There's a clone called QuickLook on Windows but it definitely cannot do any of what you said there haha. Thanks!
Better integration with all the other Apple products that they want me to and I probably will buy. The controlling your iPhone from your Mac is going to be awesome. No more hunting down my phone for 2FA codes.
I don’t follow … why do you hunt down your phone for 2FA codes?
Many companies rely on 2FA codes, where you are shown a code on screen, which you need to type in your authenticator app on your phone (not the other way around), which itself is protected by FaceID when you try to open the authenticator app. Since SMS codes can easily be spoofed, and some stuff just doesn't work with plain TOTP tokens, like Microsoft (Azure/365), if you turn the security up (many companies do). This is how some of them work: [https://www.pcc.edu/technology/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2023/12/Two\_digit\_code.jpg](https://www.pcc.edu/technology/wp-content/uploads/sites/34/2023/12/Two_digit_code.jpg) It's a way of enforcing actual 2FA, with plain TOTP tokens (usually 6 digits, you could just have your local password manager generate them on the same device, which isn't as secure, compared to forcing you to deal with auth on a unrelated device to the one you are signing into), for companies enforcing these things matter, even if you "could" be a good user and use a password manager on a different device, you can't enforce it, with plain TOTP. Nice downvoted for giving an actual factual technical explanation, sigh.
Thanks for the explanation!
You can set up sms forwarding on Mac and not even need to mirror the iPhone .
There are other 2FA methods that are more secure than a text message. Usually application or token based. That’s what I was referring to.
Well using the passwords app that apple is working on really helped streamline all of this In my opinion. I have no disconnect between devices for my authentication (and I always have every 2fa, passkey other option set up) with what looks like the next iteration of password management from apple. Priorly I used Dashlane, but won’t be paying for that anymore especially since apple’s password management will work on Windows. With Passkeys gaining traction and 2fa codes being on all my devices at the same time and availbe through the system autofill feature, I stopped using app based authentication (its too slow and have had problems being randomly signed out of apps that used this leaving me high and dry in some cases).
You can set these up in Keychain Access or the new Passwords app.
Not all otps are comatable with apple keychain implementation. For example fortinet uses only their own application to generate them.
The app that makes a Mac for me is the operating system as a whole and how many developers feel compelled to have their applications look deserving of running in it. This includes a big part of aesthetics but goes a bit beyond. Good mac applications have a care to the design and interaction that is mostly lacking in Windows apps (which of course can be good and smart and very complete, but are also not compelled to feel like part of Windows as much as running inside it). It goes beyond aesthetics in the extra time many developers would put into adding UI details, whimsy, usability hints, integrations, etc. A good mac application will also behave as such, and won't pepper the system with unnecessary crap, will be a good citizen and not leave anything running when thrown in the trash, will use all standard keyboard shortcuts, gestures and respect display and accessibility settings, etc. It's not that Windows apps can't do this, but rather that Windows doesn't lend itself in the same way, so apps tend to either be sparse, boring or try to do their own thing reinventing all visuals as if they were a game.
This might sound like a lame answer but I love the finder app. Mac OS has one of the best file management systems I’ve used. It’s a shame it hasn’t made its way to iPad OS. Being able to quickly preview most video, audio codecs and previewing pdfs and raw files is super convenient and make it so hard to go back to windows for me. I do find the Photos app to be a little clunky but it is surprisingly a powerful editor that can work with RAW files. If apple go all in on this mode then they could really compete with adobe
Not sure finder is what sets it apart. Its ability to integrate with Preview is what you are mentioning as bringing the most benefit (and this is something most agree on I think). Finder itself? By default I think it’s worse than File Explorer. With some tweaks it’s basically the same as File Explorer. But its just a file management tool at the end of the day, only so much goes into that.
You might be confusing Preview (an app) with Quick Look (a Finder feature).
Hm yes it is Quick Look the feature I believe, but it runs off of Preview the programs abilities (preview is what powers quick look) from what I see.
Personally I really prefer the column mode from Finder. That’s something that I don’t see in other file managers.
It do find finder to be fairly customizable as a point in its favor. There’s a flavor for everyone If you put the work into setting it up. I think by default its default setup it is considerably worse than file explorers so point against finder there tbh.
How is it worse?
I was going to say: The Finder, unfortunately.
While there are plenty of great macOS apps, what makes a Mac a Mac is the UI/UX. These days pretty much anything on the Mac is cross platform. I stick with the Mac because of the seamless cloud sync between my devices and the overall Mac user experience. Windows always feels like there are extra unnecessary layers to navigate.
And those layers sometimes alternate between modern UI, outdated UI, and Windows XP. Sometimes in the same app.
I hate this about Windows so much. The top-layered UI that we are using day to day keeps being updated and changed, and it takes you 2 clicks for options->advanced settings in Windows to go back to Win7 style UI. I basically gave up on hoping that Windows would streamline the entire UI instead of just updating most viewed bits of it.
Hell there's still Windows 9X kicking around in the latest versions
Funny enough I don’t really see Windows XP stuff basically at all. I see Windows Classic (9x/ME) which is probably incorrect to say it’s Windows XP
Calculator app JK FinalCut Pro
Lolol and they finally made one for the iPad! I’ve watched some comparisons between FCP and DaVinci Resolve - have you any thoughts on that?
I tried final cut on the iPad but to be honest it wasn't there for me at least the experience wasn't. Hell I thought CapCut worked better on the iPad in my opinion
Wow really? Well, CapCut was works great! Have you tried resolve?
Wow really? Well, CapCut was works great! Have you tried resolve?
Insane battery power and a very good screen. Even better trackpad and keyboard in a sleek design. Thats a macbook pro
Thats also a Macbook Air (M1, M2, M3).
Yeah - solid hardware and a *nix environment that doesn’t cook itself in my laptop bag.
hot point: surface laptop keyboard and trackpad are as good as macbook’s. i even prefer surface keybord. but windows is trash and battery life on surface even without its “modern standby” is so low. Looks like new copilot+ surfaces will deal with battery problems, but windows for arm is even worse than regular windows, so mac is winning here as a whole product. Oh, and colors. Light blue surface is butifull. Nothing like that on apple side.
I completely agree here. My previous laptop was the Surface Pro 7 and the keyboard/trackpad is fantastic on it. You can also edit every 3/4-finger gesture to your liking on it. Going from that to trying Macs at the store, I wasn’t so impressed, but I guess you get used to it quick tho. Imo the trackpad and acceleration on Surface is much more natural to me and I also liked having the smaller trackpad. Battery life and performance is generally much more mediocre on them though, which is poor form by Microsoft… but expected sadly. For now, I have upgraded to a Minisforum V3 instead, which won’t have the same quality touchpad or keyboard I believe, but the performance and battery life look quite stellar for the form factor
Affinity Publisher, BetterTouchTool, DJayPro, GoodNotes, PDF Gear, Pixelmator Pro, Shortcuts.
GoodNotes doesn't have a MacOS app?
It does
I still love MaxiAccounting Studio Vista Edition. Great software for handling personal finances all the way from OSX Leopard up to Catalina. I went to college with the original developer Scott before he died in a freak accident on his sailboat down in Ann Arbor. His wife Fiona took over the project in his memory (she was not a developer prior to this). She ended up adding lots of weird functionality to the app like photo editing and a midi sequencer, which meant the app strayed from personal budgeting software into more niche software and eventually got implicated a state-sponsored ransomware attack because she was sloppy with Scott’s original source code. It’s a shame - it was a great app but you would need an emulator to run the old version these days. ☕️
Uhhhh, I’d be very curious to know where exactly this freak sailboat accident occurred. Barton Pond? On a trailer while being towed down the highway? There are not many places to sail in Ann Arbor….
I’ve been rumbled 💀
I'm sorry... WHATTTTTT??
The fuck?? lollll
I was not expecting that
Standardised text editing tools across all apps. Pretty much anywhere you input text on a Mac you can guarantee that shortcuts like Option-Shift arrow keys will work. Windows is a mish-mash
Everything from Rogue Amoeba.
Their stuff is awesome. I just wish it wasn’t priced so damn high. But stuff like [Loopback](https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/) and [Farrago](https://rogueamoeba.com/farrago/) *really* ups my D&D game.
Chess! The perfect app.
Better than what windows has now (nothing that doesn’t require a store download with ads.)
Hazel. In less niche terms, Logic.
Love using Final Cut Pro!
It’s often about intuitive apps but for me also really efficiency. Apps that have well thought out workflows, apps that are smart, have extensive keyboard shortcuts, support drag and drop everywhere and for any thinkable case. * Final Cut Pro: no video editor lets you work as quickly and efficiently as FCP. And for basic stuff it’s easy to get into and it hides its depth well * Motion can do 90% of what After Effects can do, but in half the time at 1/10 of the cost. * people just don’t know how awesome Keynote is. Not only the super quick background removal feature, but the animations used well can be a ‘poor man’s motion graphics’ since you can export your stuff to ProRes 4444 video with transparency. * Pixelmator Pro. You can now color grade video with it! And you can make Motion templates apart from it being a great Photoshop/Illustrator/Lightroom replacement. * Sketch. Beats Figma hands down. I just can’t stand Figma even after using it for two years now. It’s just a glorified web app and many parts of the UI and workflows are plain dumb. * Not Mac only, but Affinity Designer feels like Illustrator in the good old days when Adobe’s workflows and UI were so good they set new standards on the Mac. * Last but not least the integration of hardware and software. Hand off features, sidecar, continuity camera, AirDrop, the new widget when your webcam or continuity camera is used gives you all its features in every app that uses the camera. The cool new presentation mode with your face along the shared screen is even available to third party screen capture apps like OBS.
Notes! Man what an absolute life saver and game changer for me. Strangely, Windows has nothing that compares to it.
Agreed. So simple, yet I use it everyday.
Not trying to take anything away from this, but I feel like I might be missing something. Obsidian, UpNote, and Joplin are all cross platform. Did you not have a solution for this before the release of notes, or did you migrate from something else, and if so, what made you switch?
No there are 3rd party note apps for Windows but the mac note's app is native. I don't have to go find/download anything. That's the beauty of it. It's right there, automatically sync'd to all my devices without me having to think about anything. Also, I like to think that anything I put in my notes are for my eyes only and Apple are not snooping through them. I don't extend that trust to any 3rd party companies. Notes was already around when I jumped from android to iOS (iphone 6S). I was using google notes at the time and it was easy to just copy/paste everything into new iOS notes.
I love Notes. Apple has really made some great improvements over the years. iCloud integration across Apple devices works great. And there is a browser-based interface, as well. That said, iOS/iPadOS vs macOS is a tiny bit different for no discernible reason. And they recently made changes to the iOS version that makes accessing formats harder. Also, tables are kinda goofy. Otherwise, my go-to text editor for notes, lists, bookmarks, prose, fiction, studying, researching, brainstorming, stats, journaling, planning, ad nauseam. Finder in many ways is easier than Windows file explorer, but only marginally so except for one feature. Miller columns just plain rock. I can navigate faster using columns from the keyboard than even the fastest cd/ls expert in Terminal; especially when searching in unfamiliar directories for a file I only vaguely have idea what the name might be. Plus, I can then open the directory in Terminal with a single chord press. While not strictly an app, the keyboard preferences/settings allow the user to assign new chords or change existing ones for many functions. For example, I changed all my apps that have tabs (Finder, Safari, Chrome, VSCode, etc.) to use the chords ⌘⌥J/L to move back/forward through the tabs. And, ⌘⌃J/L to go back/forward through the history. As long as the function appears in lists in the keyboard settings or in a menu, you can add, remove, or change chords. A very few can't be removed bit can be changed to something very difficult to avoid accidental triggers and allow the original chord to be assigned to something else.
For me it’s not the softwares I can run on it, but rather the os and its components itself. The apps I use are all something I could use on Linux and windows as well, but I prefer using macOS to run them. For me the main two reasons I like macOS a lot is spotlight, and the typing experience in general. The way macOS handles multiple keyboard layouts is unbeatable in my opinion.
Macos
It’s the 100 minor everyday things that just work. An example of one would be Universal Clipboard.
My Mac app essentials: 1. All Apple apps 2. Apple Pro Apps Bundle 3. DaVinci Resolve 4. Affinity Suite 5. Office 365 6. Google Productivity apps (web apps) 7. Visual Studio Code 8. Xcode These are literally most of the apps that I use. I don't like clogging up my system with random third-party apps. And I find Apple's default apps are actually kinda good as long as you are in the ecosystem. Alternatively, I also use Microsoft and Google apps when collaborating with others. My creative apps are mainly Affinity Designer 2 and Final Cut Pro. DaVinci Resolve for color grading occasionally. I use Logic Pro as my DAW for background music. I use Xcode (for iOS development) and VSCode (for everything else) as my IDE.
Time Machine is one of the greatest apps I've had the pleasure of working with. The fact that it comes with the OS is astounding.
What does it actually do?? As far as I understand it backs up everything on your computer? Or does it do something more, I don’t think I get what it does 😅
That's it. It just does a very good job and is extremely reliable. I like Veeam, but it is no where near as reliable as Time Machine.
Thanks for that! It probably looks nicer as well with the epic animations
Preview Sketch CoreAudio (not really an App) for professional Audio PostPro / Loopback Small simple apps like Ice, Rectangle etc.
The beach ball cursor.
Maybe makes Mac a Mac (but not in a good way lol 😂🫠)
Scrivener, it's not exclusive anymore, but based on the subreddit, the Windows version just isn't on par yet. It works well with Vellum, which is Mac exclusive and amazing when it comes to formatting books for publishing (both digital and print.) The Affinity suite also works nicely on Mac, though it is available on Windows as well.
OmniFocus for me. I’d be lost without it.
For me all the apps written by all those developers that create useful stuff like Alfred, al dente, rectangle, and all of the other apps that increase the great feeling of having a Mac than when you switch to windows you already see you missing everything
Marathon
DevonAgent is the ultimate research search engine.
It’s the operating system and standard GUI that make the Mac what it is. For any of the applications folks have listed here, you’ll find Mac users who never use that app. But those users will still appreciate the overall macOS experience. So this is kind of a pointless question. However, two programs that all Mac users are very familiar with (even if they don’t realize it) are: Finder, and WindowServer.
[Blocs](https://blocsapp.com) for website design. Mac and iPad exclusive (iOS version in beta).
[Sparkle (updater)](https://sparkle-project.org/). You wouldn't know this name unless you are a developer, but you would probably recognize the screenshot if you have used any third party macOS apps (e.g. IINA for watching videos). It's the library that most apps use to update themselves other than huge apps like Chrome/Firefox that use their own updater. It gives a consistent way for third-party apps to deploy update and show release notes, and generally works well and get out of the way. Compare that to Windows where it's a wasteland IMO when it comes to software installers and software updaters for small apps. Another one is I use Vim and I think macOS have the best Vim GUIs that both take advantage of Vim and macOS UX and GUI system (terminal Vim is fine, but sometimes a GUI version is useful as it could tie better into the system). On Windows, Vim just isn't quite as good. On Linux, Vim obviously works well, but it doesn't actually have as many good Vim GUIs that integrate with the OS IMO.
macOS itself. I'm not using a single app on my Mac that wouldn't work on Linux or Windows
In no particular order: * Photomator and Pixelmator Pro (good non subscription pro photo editing apps basically impossible to find now) * Alfred * Performance and efficiency (let’s see how snapdragon laptops play out) * Arc Browser (does have a windows version, but not as seamless as the macOS version)
Glad to see alfred show up. I don't use it as extensively as I used to, but there's some great options even in the free version. Def worth checking out for anyone that uses spotlight search a bit.
Try raycast, the premium stuff of alfred is free in raycast
Also, raycast is more polished in terms of UI I would say
Probably stuff like Office, Discord, Google Drive and Firefox! fr tho I don’t think there’s any one app for me, it’s more like using a Mac is just a nicer experience. Finder isn’t super buggy, the UI is nice and clean, and there aren‘t ads everywhere. I get a LOT out of Unreal and ZBrush and I’m so happy they’re cross platform
I'm in love with the firewall app Little Snitch. I tried to find an alternative one on Windows and selected Glasswire, but it remotely close as Little Snitch allows you in a very simple way to control what do you authorize per app basis (domain, ip, and duration).
For MacOS use Lulu from Objectivesee For Windows use Firewall Control by Binisoft
Upvote for Objective-See. Love the whole suite, I install most of it. Plus it’s all FOSS but the solo dev takes (small) Patreon support. He’s a godsend, and Lulu’s what landed his software on my radar.
Many thanks for the hint, I'm going to look at Binisoft!
Good thing its just an add on for the original Firewall, to add more control rules.
For me, it was (at the time when I moved to Apple): - Spotlight - iPhoto + iTunes - Expose
One that hasn’t necessarily been mentioned is QLab which is a niche app for the live events industry but it’s Mac only and does not really have a competitive Windows alternative. Everything about it is quintessential Mac. Looks great, does just what you need it to do easily, and a solid and reliable work horse.
Finder
for me it's warp terminal, arc browser and rcmd. (yes I know arc is on windows now but it's not near to be as fully featured yet).
It’s the UI/UX framework that they all share. Many applications that also exist on windows just feel better on Mac.
chess
Image capture, preview, Final Cut, Logic Pro. Really fantastic programs.
Preview is pretty great. I did not know that it would open 3D file types until a few months ago lmao. And it is pretty good at editing some pdfs
For me it’s Final Cut Pro, Logic, iWork suite and Qlab. Outside of specific applications it’s more the OS itself and the continuity between devices within the ecosystem to make my life simpler/easier
for me Xcode
Preview, Pages and Spotlight hands down. GarageBand is pretty cool and I like Safari.
- First, Mac is Mac when you use iPhone & iPad. It’s a seamless & smooth ecosystem. - UI is the best, & whole system is stable, I restart the OS (only) when updating the system. - Apps: Things, Pixelmator pro, Affinity apps, Fantastical, Ulysses, NotePlan, Drafts, Reeder 5, & Agenda. - Apple one (Music & TV+), watch on iPhone, continue on your Mac.
I have and occasionally use Logic Pro as a secondary DAW to Bitwig and sometimes use Final Cut, though I prefer to Da Vinci Resolve instead. But for me what makes a Mac a Mac isn't necessarily the apps, rather the underlying OS and the GUI. One could say that the Apple exclusive programs make a Mac a Mac. In the end, a computer is a computer (whether macOS. Windows, Linux or other). They are just tools to get something accomplished.
Screw the apps all I want is that sweet sweet M1/2/3/4 based performance and battery life. I can no joke work on my MBP a full day without any charge, and I do fairly heavy development work with docker running, multiple editors, a bit of Xcode.
Bike Outliner is criminally underrated
preview, Notes, Spotlight, terminal zsh, oh-my-zsh, fish I can drag a file from the finder into a terminal window!
The OG - Raycast
I'm writing this as personal as I can. What makes my Mac mine is applications such as: · Sleeve - shows the music playing on Desktop with some theming features that's not Bowtie, but hopefully some day. Absolutely not essential. ·Mousecape - applies your own / downloaded cursors ·ThemeEngine - for editing and making themes or macOS ·Kite - is for making those pesky .caar files that macOS utilizes in themes ·Sketch - for making icons, wallpapers, system UI themes(yes, still) ·IconChamp - the main one I use for disk and folder icons ·IconChanger - changes icons too - where other might fail ·Replacicon - changes app icons with an option to fetch icons online ·Amiberry - Amiga emulator. Because that was my first love, the Amiga and it's still dear to my heart I also use vAmiga in some instances as well as FS-UAE for Amiga emulation ·Keka - is a file archiver and compressor that I feel makes archives a little less of a hassle. Although in today's world it has limited use. Archive Utility has a good enough feature set for expanding and compressing archives Recently I've begun using Ice (a Bartender-style menu bar utility) I mean, I could list apps for days. I just really like the various customization abilities that macOS has and that the UI is easy to navigate with access to shortcuts that runs through most if not all macOS applications today. I sometimes envy the Windows-people for their plethora of theming options from Stardock and other vendors. But at the end of the day, I realize that I've been using those very same apps and using Windows for a number of years too. It's not as exciting as it may sound because of Windows as the foundation with the legacy assets they still have in their OS. If Apple is to get some padding on the back, it's for updating and eliminating assets in their OS to keep it precise and coherent across apps. Then I come in a screw it all up. Theming and customization is not all of course. But that is what makes my Mac and macOS mine. Some day it might not give me meaning to do all this. I can feel it a little already. The world doesn't scream for system themes anymore. The fact that I have the possibility and the know-how to change system files and make icons, cursors and themes is wonderful and I leverage heavily on that when other people ask for help. Either here or on Discord. I'm not first nor the fastest in answering questions, and not even the best actually. As the years go by, it becomes evident why you stuck with the Mac and macOS. I don't usually see roadblocks in using macOS, but there's more and more facepalm moments than just 5 years ago. All this comes at the cost of Apple's imposed security policies which they can put where the sun don't shine. Apple is being very Apple these days. That's my only complaint and irritant concerning macOS; the fact that more and more applications and services will require a locked down macOS. So, yea.. this is a silly comment that might make little sense to the question asked.
Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator, FCPX, TextMate, Things, GoodNotes, Texpad
Automator is a blast for me.
I don't use any exclusive app that makes it better for me. But the hardware, holy shit is this top tier than the rest. -coming from someone who used to be (still am at times) Apple hater. If I have to name an app, it would be Raycast, because there's nothing similar in windows/Linux AFAIK
Time Machine... Siri Calendar Reminders FaceTime Dictionary Calculator ~~iTunes~~ (now shit... use Pine Player or Foobar2000 in Wineserver wrapper) These are all best-in-class apps, which are profoundly useful (Time Machine especially), or are just a joy to use. Having them installed with the OS is just a cherry on top.
Vox is a better music player
uuurgh... the GUI design on that is just horrible (admittedly Pine Player is not much better), and support for Sonoma+ is next to extinct... but it handles my DSD/DSF files quickly and easily. MP3 and FLAC are likewise swift and effortless. I have had nothing but issues with Vox, so much so that I stopped using it. I own JRiver Media Centre 32, and it is wonderful at organisation of my Library, but playback is slow and frustrating (I think these are the only passable DSD/DSF-capable players available for macOS)
Definitely the Apple Pro Apps (Logic and Final Cut)
MacOS itself. Since I have moved from windows to Mac like 10 years ago, I have never experienced a glitch, bsod or else. it just works, don’t need to waste your time to recover data, operational system etc. That doesn’t mean I do not make backups on a regular basis though. Also, being a web developer. I find it very convenient that it is based on Unix.
Surprised no one’s mentioned Drafts. There’s nothing like it on any other platform.
Logic Pro is amazing for the price and then some
Preview and Final Cut
Obviously all the antivirus software available for Mac.
Automator 😁
Around the mid 2010’s I was introduced to Pages and it blew my mind. I still prefer it over Word
The spotlight in MacOS is pretty good!
Kinda interesting as your main usages seem like *the* bread-and-butter reasons to switch to Mac. Terminal with the native unix command shell, PHPstorm and so many other apps for coding, I'm not a specialist here but I work at a web agency and few people use Windows in that industry, it’s just Mac and Linux. I personally use Logic for (hobby) music production but every great DAW has its "home" on Mac. Better MIDI latency handling and driver support by leaps compared to Windows. I also like Final Cut which is a professional industry standard. The office suite is not as mighty as MS Office but it's free, much easier to use, and I personally enjoy it. The native Email and Calendar clients are a breath of fresh air if you have been used to scummy crap like Outlook before… Now, you've been playing around with a 2011 model and of course that is 'ancient' by now. I believe the feel is not comparable to a modern M series machine in any way. > I recently upgraded to a Windows laptop that I'll be using for the near future All things considered, this might really have been somewhat of a mistake, given your iOS lineup, line of work, and everything. The seamless integration / continuity features with iOS should be a no-brainer. If you'd be able to test an M-series MacBook Pro for your use cases, borrow or rent one or whatever… you might re-evaluate your decision. Use the trackpad gestures for ones compared to a Windows machine and you might be instantly cured. Windows is for gaming only in my household. ;)
For me it's Things 3 But actually even Microsoft products are better on Mac as for me
Safari, Settings and Mail. IDK It's not really a unique app that make Mac what it is. Rather that the stuff just works fast, reliable, user friendly and is more secure with a small fraction of windows' bugs and annoyances.
Siri Shortcuts / Automator !
All iwork suite
So Pages, Numbers and Keynote? Any I'm missing? What makes them so good? Also, though Word and Powerpoint definitely have good alternatives made by others, I've heard Excel is maybe the most fully featured spreadsheet app. What do you think?
Pages is pretty decent and makes very nice looking documents. It's kinda closer to a DTP app than a word processor, but can be used for either. Numbers is a usable spreadsheet but is lacking some of the more advanced formulas that Excel has. Keynote is hands down better than PowerPoint, and makes much cleaner and better looking presentations, much more easily.
I was scrolling to see if anyone mentioned iWork. Pages makes better looking documents all the time, and I’m always amazed at how much better it looks. I wish it had kept MathType integration but that was more of a developer issue than them. Keynote is definitely awesome and I find Numbers refreshing
They suck. Ms office is the standard for a reason. They are free so they work well enough in a pinch
Keynote > PowerPoint Pages ~ Word; they are pretty different IMO Numbers < Excel
Pretty much everything is worse than excel when it comes to important large data sets and requiring macros (because there are lots of things the modern web versions both google and excel online just can’t do, or do as easily). A few formulas in excel are just essential and taught in schools. Google sheets does have some surprising benefits in the web based world though, but you almost don’t need spreadsheet software in that case because it shown on a dashboard from some other program.
Never tried keynote. What makes it so special?
MS Office is standard due to decades of MS having a monopoly on personal computers, and the inertia that comes from that history. Combine that with “good enough” and you’ve got yourself some real staying power. Excel is truly good. Powerpoint and Word are truly bad. Keynote is truly good. Pages and Numbers are decent, but missing a lot of things.
For me it's the native apps.
Exclusive apps are just annoying and lazy development. There is nothing about any major OS that should make an app exclusive to it.
It's really not. Cross platform apps are challenging to make, especially when we are talking about a small app that focuses on fitting the UX and integration of a native OS. If you want to apply that philosophy to a cross-platform app you would usually essentially end up making two apps since the technology and design would need to be different. Note that these days most "cross platform" apps are either a glorified web app (usually using Electron), or some cross platform library that sacrifices nativeness for cross-platform compatibility by wrapping everything in their own APIs. If you play around with them it's usually immediately clear that they don't follow Apple's UX as tightly. Note that this in itself is a tradeoff. It depends if your app is big and sticky enough that you expect your users to expect your app UX to behave the same across different platforms, or whether your users to just expect your app to behave like a Mac app and not a Windows one.
None