3rd party Mac apps that I like better than any of their counterparts on any OS are:
- iTerm2 - it works right, it feels responsive. I don't have to futz with it but can
- Pixelmator Pro - it's what Photoshop used to be to me 20 years ago
- Omnigraffle - When I need to hand-layout a diagram it's my favorite ever
- Postico - It's weird that I like a single DB UI. But it's nice over just pqsl sometimes.
I have some handy utilities I like:
- The UnArchiver
- Flycut
- SwiftBar
- Disk Inventory X
- Amphetamine
- Skitch
- Magnet
I use Office 360 begrudgingly. But I do like it better on macos than Windows.
The rest of my GUI stuff is largely cross platform (and some electron)
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Notable
- Signal
- KiCAD
- Wireshark
- VirtualBox
- IntelliJ (I use less and less)
- Spotify
The killer app for me in a lot of ways is just Homebrew. I live in the terminal. I love having up-to-date dev tools. I hate maintaining it. Even with Linux it can be a pain to hit the sweet spot between up-to-date and DIY. I'm happy running a FreeBSD server, but I want my workstation to not require a lot of planning. I also love that I can install/update native apps from it. I always use it before I hit the App Store.
I've ditched making VSCode and IntelliJ like vim and made neovim like VSCode. It's glorious. I use git and text for almost everything I do, unless I can't or when a picture helps.
And I don't play games on my laptop anymore. Really just Minecraft on my tablet. Sometimes I let my kids play with me :)
> Postico - It's weird that I like a single DB UI. But it's nice over just pqsl sometimes
You might want to check out pgcli sometimes if you find yourself using pgql on occasions. It does the same but includes various quality of life features such as tab-completion, syntax highlighting and improved table views
autocomplete has worked for a long time with extensions like deoplete. Syntastic pulled in all the normal syntax and style checkers.
But the most recent major neovim release has lsp support + treesitter. Some Linux distros don’t ship it yet, but Arch and Homebrew on my Mac are up to date.
There are lots of examples out there for the configuration. I don’t think that mine’s great enough to share.
> iTerm2 is perhaps the best terminal app on any platform
I'm curious (since I very rarely use MacOS) what makes it better than say: Alacritty, kitty, or even something basic like xfce4-terminal?
In terms of responsiveness I can't think of something better than alacritty/kitty.
In terms of everyday basic features something like xfce4-terminal seems to cover everything. Does iTerm2 have features that make everyday usage more pleasant?
We believe implementing platform-specific APIs for each platform, e.g. Objective-C APIs for Mac leads to a better user experience but it is much more challenging to maintain. We're currently building a cross-platform UI framework with that philosophy. Hopefully it will make Mac development easier. Learn more here [1]
* Omnigroup's suite of apps for macOS and iOS
* Craft
* Drafts
* Fantastical
* Hook
* Marked
* Mela
* Rectangle
* Scrivener
* Postbox
[1]: https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omni-roadmap-2022
[2]: https://www.craft.do
[3]: https://getdrafts.com
[4]: https://flexibits.com/fantastical
[5]: https://hookproductivity.com
[6]: https://marked2app.com
[7]: https://mela.recipes
[8]: https://rectangleapp.com
[9]: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
[10]: https://www.postbox-inc.com
[11]: https://www.macstories.net
[12]: https://sixcolors.com
The most useful apps still come from the indie developers; it's just not as high profile as it once was. It's become more artisanal.
If you read MacStories [11], Six Colors [12] and other indie Mac websites, you'd see lots of innovative Mac and iOS apps.