Mac Apps

October 19, 2006 | Justin

Since switching to Mac over a month ago I have been immersed into the Mac culture and have determined that just about everything having to do with Mac has to do with creativity — specifically when it comes to applications. Creative and funky applications that are simple yet very effective are prevalent for OSX — far more then for Windows. I want to share a few of them with you because, according to recent statistics, 6.1% of y’all are using a Mac.

Tangerine
Tangerine (free beta) is a smart little app that scans your iTunes library and determines the beats per minute as well as the beat intensity of each song. Why? Well it can then create playlists based on the intensity of each song. Want a playlist that starts out slow and then gets real fast passed halfway through and then slows down again? Well you can easily create that using Tangerine.

Delicious Library
This app ($40) is a catalogue for your DVDs, CDs, books and video games. There are plenty of competitors on the market but the beauty of Delicious Library is that you can use the built in iSight camera in all the modern Mac’s to scan the barcode of the item you’re adding to the library. Because of this brilliant feature, I was able to enter my 200+ DVD library in about a half hour. The app also keeps track of all your stuff and allows integration into Address Book and iCal so you know when you start pestering your friends to return that copy of Eurotrip.

Vienna
Vienna (free) is probably the best RSS news reader I’ve ever used. It’s extremely simple, displaying RSS feeds in a column with a pane for headlines and another for the actual article — much the way a email reader is set up. The program is quick, automatically checks for new articles, notifies of updates and uses GROWL. What I like most about Vienna is that it displays feeds using HTML so pictures, links and videos all show up in the application without having to launch a web browser. Did I mention it was free?

Adium
Adium (free) is what every instant messaging application should be. Like Trillian for Windows, Adium connects to all the major IM clients but adds features the standard clients don’t. My favorites all revolve around the extensive collection of Xtra’s that Joe Developer has made as plugins. You can change everything having to do with the program from the typical contact list and message window skins to more unique thinks like the animated dock icon and, my favorite, randomized away messages.

There you have it, a few of my favorite third-party Mac apps. They’re all unique and creative and serve a well defined purpose. Did I miss anything?

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Apple, software