Top 18 Apps For Mac
Pbusell Watch Out In Design! I've been a happy Quark Xpress user since version 3.0, but this new version (18) is knocking my socks off. I love the sleek new interface, with descriptive font listing. I am working on various customers' work at the same time, so need to keep lots of fonts open.
What a lifesaver to scroll the list visually now. And the new opentype features are very helpful.
Also, so happy to be able to open up those pesky InDesign files in Quark and edit comfortably. Can't wait to get some color fonts and try those out! I am mainly a print designer, so I haven't yet delved into the digital publishing abilities, but I'm sure they are as useful as those for print. Overall, would recommend Quark Xpress to any desktop publisher looking for an intuitive, sleek and powerful application. Developer Response Thank you for your positive feedback and great to hear that you like QuarkXPress!
Pbusell Watch Out In Design! I've been a happy Quark Xpress user since version 3.0, but this new version (18) is knocking my socks off. I love the sleek new interface, with descriptive font listing. I am working on various customers' work at the same time, so need to keep lots of fonts open.
What a lifesaver to scroll the list visually now. And the new opentype features are very helpful. Also, so happy to be able to open up those pesky InDesign files in Quark and edit comfortably. Can't wait to get some color fonts and try those out! I am mainly a print designer, so I haven't yet delved into the digital publishing abilities, but I'm sure they are as useful as those for print.
Overall, would recommend Quark Xpress to any desktop publisher looking for an intuitive, sleek and powerful application. Developer Response Thank you for your positive feedback and great to hear that you like QuarkXPress! Kurt Lang Superb page layout app for those ready to move on from toys such as Pages. Are you ready to move on to a real page layout app that. Produces documents your printing service can directly open?.
Doesn't convert your CMYK images to RGB (Pages)?. Doesn't introduce new versions that REMOVE features (Pages)?. Is a true, professional app that doesn't make you pay a monthly subscription fee (InDesign)?
Then look no further. QuarkXPress 2018 Pro is what you've been waiting for. Currently less than half the cost of a first time license for the desktop version of QuarkXPress 2018 for what is almost the identical app. And those few features currently not available for the Pro, App Store version, are in the works.
Yes, there are cheaper alternatives, such as Swift. But they're cheap for a reason. They don't do much more than the basics of page layout. You're buying what amounts to another version of Pages.
If you're waiting for Affinity's Publisher (currently in beta) - don't. At least, not if you normally deal with the real printing world. If their Photo app is any indication of what you'd get, that's why. Photo does much of what Photoshop can.
However, other than being able to export a flattened TIFF or JPEG of your image, it only writes proprietary files that literally no other app can open. Assuming Publisher's native files will also be proprietary, your printer will not be happy when you send them a file from yet another wannabe app. Affinity will likely get around that by being able to export a PDF of your pages, and that's what you would send the printer rather than the document. That's something, but what if you have last minute changes, and the person who created the document is sick, or on vacation? You can't just call your printer and have them open the document to make the changes there. Then you may miss your press schedule.
Microsoft Word? It's a joke to even consider it for page layout. It has a web layout function that acts similarly to a page layout app, but produces a document that is useful only to itself. It can't create spreads. It has no idea what bleed is.
And yet, people send these almost useless documents to their printer and expect them to simply work. Well, they do. But not until the printer spends time making it usable on their end. These are just a few of the reasons printers practically beg clients to use Quark or InDesign.
They get your documents and they work. Some time back, Adobe tried App Store versions of Photoshop and Premiere. They were dismal and were pulled after only about a year. QuarkXPress 2018 Pro isn't just an App Store app done right, it's every bit as good as the desktop version (minus the few features not quite ready to add to it).
And in case you're wondering, no, it's NOT QuarkXPress Light. When you open this app, the interface is indistinguishable from the desktop version. Any file you create in QuarkXPress 2018 Pro can be opened in the 2018 desktop version and visa versa. With again, the only current catch being if someone created a 2018 desktop document using a feature not yet in the App Store's Pro version. Once those have been incorporated, they'll be fully compatible. If you want to see what's missing in the Pro version, search for Quark's comparison page. There's very little QuarkXpress 2018 Pro can't do next to it's 2018 desktop counterpart.
Join the world of REAL desktop publishing apps. Developer Response Thank you very much for your elaborated feedback and great to hear that you like QuarkXPress! Kurt Lang Superb page layout app for those ready to move on from toys such as Pages. Are you ready to move on to a real page layout app that.
Produces documents your printing service can directly open?. Doesn't convert your CMYK images to RGB (Pages)?. Doesn't introduce new versions that REMOVE features (Pages)?. Is a true, professional app that doesn't make you pay a monthly subscription fee (InDesign)? Then look no further. QuarkXPress 2018 Pro is what you've been waiting for.
Currently less than half the cost of a first time license for the desktop version of QuarkXPress 2018 for what is almost the identical app. And those few features currently not available for the Pro, App Store version, are in the works. Yes, there are cheaper alternatives, such as Swift.
But they're cheap for a reason. They don't do much more than the basics of page layout. You're buying what amounts to another version of Pages. If you're waiting for Affinity's Publisher (currently in beta) - don't. At least, not if you normally deal with the real printing world. If their Photo app is any indication of what you'd get, that's why.
Photo does much of what Photoshop can. However, other than being able to export a flattened TIFF or JPEG of your image, it only writes proprietary files that literally no other app can open.
Assuming Publisher's native files will also be proprietary, your printer will not be happy when you send them a file from yet another wannabe app. Affinity will likely get around that by being able to export a PDF of your pages, and that's what you would send the printer rather than the document. That's something, but what if you have last minute changes, and the person who created the document is sick, or on vacation?
You can't just call your printer and have them open the document to make the changes there. Then you may miss your press schedule. Microsoft Word? It's a joke to even consider it for page layout. It has a web layout function that acts similarly to a page layout app, but produces a document that is useful only to itself. It can't create spreads. It has no idea what bleed is.
And yet, people send these almost useless documents to their printer and expect them to simply work. Well, they do. But not until the printer spends time making it usable on their end. These are just a few of the reasons printers practically beg clients to use Quark or InDesign. They get your documents and they work.
Some time back, Adobe tried App Store versions of Photoshop and Premiere. They were dismal and were pulled after only about a year. QuarkXPress 2018 Pro isn't just an App Store app done right, it's every bit as good as the desktop version (minus the few features not quite ready to add to it). And in case you're wondering, no, it's NOT QuarkXPress Light. When you open this app, the interface is indistinguishable from the desktop version. Any file you create in QuarkXPress 2018 Pro can be opened in the 2018 desktop version and visa versa. With again, the only current catch being if someone created a 2018 desktop document using a feature not yet in the App Store's Pro version.
Once those have been incorporated, they'll be fully compatible. If you want to see what's missing in the Pro version, search for Quark's comparison page. There's very little QuarkXpress 2018 Pro can't do next to it's 2018 desktop counterpart. Join the world of REAL desktop publishing apps. Developer Response Thank you very much for your elaborated feedback and great to hear that you like QuarkXPress!
AndrewCSS No Javascript, read the bottom of the description. So I had already bought it, and now I read that you can not use Javascript guys, meaning that you will not be able to stand out if you have practiced and aquired your JS code. Let down, for sure. Yes I should have read the whole thing, but was busy watching videos of the program, and that was never mentioned. Developer Response Thank you for your feedback and sorry that we disappointed you. Please send us an email to support@quark.com, I am sure we can help.
Also, as stated in the FAQ, we are working on adding JavaScript also to QuarkXPress 2018 Pro, this will take us a while, as the sandboxing concept of the Mac App Store requires us to incorporate CEF differently. AndrewCSS No Javascript, read the bottom of the description. So I had already bought it, and now I read that you can not use Javascript guys, meaning that you will not be able to stand out if you have practiced and aquired your JS code. Let down, for sure. Yes I should have read the whole thing, but was busy watching videos of the program, and that was never mentioned. Developer Response Thank you for your feedback and sorry that we disappointed you. Please send us an email to support@quark.com, I am sure we can help.
Also, as stated in the FAQ, we are working on adding JavaScript also to QuarkXPress 2018 Pro, this will take us a while, as the sandboxing concept of the Mac App Store requires us to incorporate CEF differently.
For more videos. ($5.99) - Designed for Mac users who use Inbox by Gmail, Boxy is a minimal email app for the Mac with a clean, simple interface that offers a rich feature set like smart replies, Markdown support, email snoozing, reminders, email bundling, email pinning, Google Calendar event parsing, useful archive search tools, and more. Boxy works with any Gmail email address and supports multiple accounts.
($9.99) - Sip is a bit of a niche app, but it's useful for artists, designers, interior decorators, app developers, and other content creators who like to create and maintain color palettes. Sip lets you create and organize color palettes that can be accessed right in the menu bar of your Mac and shared to all of your favorite design apps like Photoshop, Xcode, Illustrator, Sketch, and more. Choosing colors from any source is as simple as a key press, and a color dock makes all of your palettes readily available. (Free) - Agenda is a note taking app that's a little bit unique because it's date based, which makes it ideal for project planning.
Agenda offers a timeline organizational system that makes it easy to keep track of your progress on a project, with an 'On the Agenda' tool for surfacing things that need to be addressed right away. There's a full text editor built in complete with styles and formatting, and notes can also be added to categories for even deeper organization. Agenda is a free download, but it will cost $24.99 per year to unlock premium features like creating calendar events, saving searches, and exporting in Markdown or HTML. (Free) - CheatSheet is simple little app that's designed to offer an overlay with a list of all the keyboard shortcuts that are available on your Mac.
It's customized to the current application that's open, so if you're running image editing app Pixelmator, for example, it'll display all of the available Pixelmator keyboard shortcuts. (Free) - DeskApp is another simple but useful app that's designed to let you search for and watch YouTube videos from within the DeskApp app instead of through Safari, Chrome, or another browser. It allows for quick access to YouTube from the menu bar on your Mac, it supports multiple windows and tabs, and it has a clean, easy to use interface.
Do you have favorite must-have Mac apps that we haven't highlighted yet? Let us know what they are in the comments and we might feature them in a future video. Make sure to also, which covered apps like Unclutter, Dropzone 3, Bartender 3, and Magnet.
I am very disheartened by the negative comments. Is this a sign of our times? Fer heavens sakes these suggestions are offered with the intent to broaden our knowledge of what's available to, maybe, help some Mac Users. Sure, many apps might only appeal to a small subset of readers. If you don't need the app, don't use it.
I am delighted with 'Cheat' and hope this negativism won't discourage future postings of nifty apps. The comments above remind me of the story of an old man on the beach with his grandson. A large wave comes in a washes the child out to sea. At this point the old man looks skyward as exclaims: God, please I implore you, return my Grandson to me! There's a sudden clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning and another large wave rolls in, carrying his Grandson safely to the beach. The old man hugs his Grandson with joy, looks skyward and exclaims: But, he was wearing a hat!
Definitely point us in the direction of some good Mac apps - we're doing these lists because it's not always easy to find useful Mac apps. Would definitely love to hear from you guys. My votes go for a lot that help with common issues you read in the forum, though they’re not so much productivity apps like these are. They’re all free. MalwareBytes for Mac - fixes almost any PUPs you’ll get, very effective at getting rid of them.
OmniDiskSweeper - useful for seeing a simple visual breakdown of what’s taking up disk space. AppCleaner - good for completely uninstalling apps along with their associated files that don’t stay in the Applications folder.
Top 10 Free Apps For Macbook Air
The Unarchiver - my go-to application for extracting RAR files and other common compressed file types that you find on Windows. Boxer - really intuitive version of DOSBOX for playing legacy games. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test - for drooling over the crazy Flash speeds in newer Macs.
Nvidia geforce 6200 agp 128mb drivers for mac. Preview - although it’s built into macOS, it’s got this great Instant Alpha feature to remove white space. Infinitely easier and more intuitive than Photoshop, I was mega impressed when I stumbled on it. Not sure if you’ve covered it already but it’s definitely worth checking out.
My votes go for a lot that help with common issues you read in the forum, though they’re not so much productivity apps like these are. They’re all free. MalwareBytes for Mac - fixes almost any PUPs you’ll get, very effective at getting rid of them.
OmniDiskSweeper - useful for seeing a simple visual breakdown of what’s taking up disk space. AppCleaner - good for completely uninstalling apps along with their associated files that don’t stay in the Applications folder. The Unarchiver - my go-to application for extracting RAR files and other common compressed file types that you find on Windows. Boxer - really intuitive version of DOSBOX for playing legacy games.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test - for drooling over the crazy Flash speeds in newer Macs. Preview - although it’s built into macOS, it’s got this great Instant Alpha feature to remove white space. Infinitely easier and more intuitive than Photoshop, I was mega impressed when I stumbled on it. Not sure if you’ve covered it already but it’s definitely worth checking out. Great list, thank you.
Top 10 Productivity Apps For Mac
We'll certainly check these out.