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Mac Software

People almost never ask me what software they absolutely should install on their Mac. This is because Apple made Mac OS X perfect as it is. However, I have occasionally come across useful 3rd party software. Here's what's on my Mac.

Before we start, I should point out a few things about my software-picking philosophy:

1. I have to use the software a lot. If I install it, run it once and never look at it again, it's not on this list. It's probably also no longer on my Mac.
2. For the most part, it has to do one thing and do it well. It shouldn't duplicate functionality already found on my Mac, unless it's also providing additional must-have functionality. It should be unobtrusive. Stuff that installs a kext will make me cry.
3. If it's a simple utility and it isn't free, it's not getting installed. I don't mind paying for big apps that solve difficult problems, but I'm not going to pay for a post-it note application or a pre-compiled GNU app. Apps that have ads in their windows are not acceptable, either.
4. Unless it's really awesome, it has to be a native Mac application. No X-Windows crap with Gnome or KDE ugliness spoiling my Mac UI.
5. It has to not interfere with the default human interface experience of the Mac. A lot of people use software that makes their Mac UI behave like their favourite Linux window manager, or do something the same way Windows does. I'm not a fan of this approach: I'd rather learn to work with new UI behaviour than work around it. For the most part, I've found that dwelling a lot on UI behaviour means you have too much time on your hands.

So, on to the list:

• Windows Media Components for QuickTime. This allows you to play Windows media (e.g. WMV files), including streaming media, on your Mac. It hooks into QuickTime, so once it's installed, you never have to worry about it again. Looks like Microsoft contracted with a 3rd-party developer (Flip4Mac, now part of Telestream) to develop this.
• Perian. This provides a bunch more codec and file format support (e.g. realmedia) for QuickTime. Like the Flip4Mac stuff, this hooks into QuickTime and gets out of your way. Install once and never worry about it again.
• Caffeine. This super-duper little app puts a little espresso cup in your menu bar. When you click it, it fills with tasty espresso and disables your screen saver, stopping your Mac from dimming your display and sleeping. Click it again, the cup empties and your screen saver is re-enabled. Great for staring at the screen during long coding sessions or watching long flash movies in your web browser. Wins my prize for most perfect, simple app ever.
• Google Notifier. Puts an icon in my menu bar that tells me when I have new email in my GMail account. Also works for Google Calendar notifications, but since I don't use Google Calendar, I don't bother with this. Simple and unobtrusive.
• Yahoo Messenger. This is the app I'm least happy about - it would be nicer to have a plugin for iChat instead. I only use this because I have a bunch of friends that are on Yahoo Messenger.

And that's it!  It's a short list, and certainly not the only software I have installed on my machine, but that's the extent of free useful stuff I would recommend everyone install.

I should also point out that I installed many useful-sounding things along the way and just as quickly turfed them out. Here's a list of software that I don't recommend installing. I'm not judging them on any merit other than how useful they were to me:

• Growl. I like to think that Growl stands for "Gratuitous Reminder Of Windows Lossage" because it turns your Mac into a Windows XP machine. On Windows XP, if you plug in a new mouse, say, Windows spews a bunch of "useful" crap at you: "Hey!  I just found a piece of new hardware!"; "Hey, it's a mouse!"; "Hey! I just found a driver for your new mouse!"; "Hey! Your new mouse should work now!"; "Hey! Isn't this fun!?" If you like this childish trying-to-be-useful behavior, then Growl is for you. Growl allows growl-aware applications to spew info turds at you. It comes with a bunch of scripts that do useless things like tell you that you just plugged in a new USB drive or that your iTunes track just changed.  Some apps ship with growl built-in (e.g. Yahoo Messenger.) If you install one of these, disable this feature. Life's too short.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader. If the standard Preview app loads to quickly and doesn't put enough ugly UI crap on the screen for you, then you might want to consider this. Otherwise steer clear. Don't be tempted to install this when you receive a PDF file that Preview can't handle, either. This happens to me about once a year, and I usually find it's more preferable to ignore the file. Adobe is an amazing company that makes many fine and useful applications, but this isn't one of them.
• Disk For iPhone. This sounds like a useful utility. It allows you to access your iPhone's hard disk just like a regular volume on your desktop. I installed it and never used it. I can't imagine what I'd want to use it for - I don't routinely need to carry large files around with me (I don't own a thumb drive, for example.) I guess if you've never seen the layout of the iPhone disk image, you might consider installing it once just to have a peek around. Since I work on the iPhone project, I'm intimately familiar with the layout, so that was nothing new to me.
• MacFUSE. MacFUSE is used by Disk For iPhone to do it's thing. It allows you to install applications that provide filesystem functionality for your Mac (instead of relying on the built-in kernel filesystems.) It's such a geeky idea you absolutely know it has no practical value whatsoever. Example filesystems (other than Disk For iPhone) include YouTubeFS and SpotlightFS.
• BitTorrent. Installed it and never used it. I suppose that if I cared enough to download gigabytes porn and pirated movies, then it would be useful. Life's too short. Go read a book.
• Google SketchUp. This clunky piece of software allows you to create your own models for Google Earth. Either you'll never actually do this, or you will do this but they'll be crap.
• Miro. Miro is a media player of some sort. It allows you to look at various random internet TV channels. I think I used it once after I downloaded it, then never bothered again. Life's too short. Go read a book.
• iTerm. iTerm is like the Terminal app, but with more bling (transparent windows, focus follows mouse, etc.) Not interesting enough.
• VLC. VLC used to have one huge advantage over DVD Player: it handled multi-region disks without the annoying DVD drive region-change limit. Newer Mac DVD drive firmware "fixes" this loophole and so VLC is no longer useful.  Stick with Perian and Flip4Mac.
• MPlayer. Butt ugly UI. Confusing web site. Mac version marked as "outdated." Mac version on sourceforge hasn't been updated since 2005. Limited usefulness. Stick with Perian and Flip4Mac.