May 30, 2014 Here are my top 10 mac apps for 2014! They are a mix of productive apps, utility apps, and more. Alfred - download free from the App Store 2. CCleaner - download free from the App Store 3. Apple 2014 MacBook Pro 13' Retina / 2.60Ghz i5 / 8GB / 250GB SSD + Warranty $548.00 Apple MacBook Pro 13' Retina I7 3.0 GHz 16GB Ram 512GB SSD Catalina Warranty.
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” – Steve Jobs
Macintosh, as you know all too well, is the much beloved computer, made by Apple. Macintosh computers were the first ever manufactured so as to be accessible to average users, and dominated what little market there was for personal computers from the early 80’s to the early 90’s.
ADVERTISMENT:
The Best Deals For Digital Design Assets - InkyDeals.com. Learn More>>
Free Video Apps For Mac
After a short period of decline between the early and mid 90’s, Macs have regained popularity, and is currently pretty much dominating the hipster scene with Macbooks.
If you are a designer that’s only just recently made the switch from a Windows computer to a Mac, then you are probably looking for some apps for it, just so you can see what this puppy can do. We are here to help. To aid in your quest for Mac apps, we have decided to make a list of some of the best the internet has to offer.
1. Pixelmator
We could just start off our list with the Adobe Suite, but that would be just plain lazy of us, so instead we will be kicking off with a Mac exclusive. Taking full advantage of the latest Mac technologies, Pixelmator is a terrific image editing app that offers lots of tools for all your “photoshoping” needs.
2. Sketch
Whatever you are designing, be it UI, UX, icons, or anything else you might have in your head, Sketch is here to give you a helping hand. With its state of the art vector boolean operations and extensive layer styles, this app’s workflow makes the creative process streamlined, and significantly less of a hassle, allowing you to focus on being creative.
3. alpha
Calling itself a “composition engine”, alpha lets you work with whole images, rather than individual pixels, and its tools reflect that, meaning that it might take some time to get used to it. Once you do, however, you will discover an entirely new way thinking about image composition, thereby taking your designs to a whole new level.
4. BBEdit
If you are working with HTML, then you are definitely going to need BBEdit. It is the leading HTML and text editor for the Mac, boasting an intuitive interface, FTP and SFTP open and save, AppleScript, and Mac OS X Unix support, this is a must-have for web designers using Mac. Also, the developers are a humble bunch, using “It doesn’t suck.” as a slogan.
5. Ember
Keeping screenshots and photos in folders might seem organized enough, but once you have enough of them, looking for a specific one becomes a real nightmare. Ember is here to help you neatly organize all you design inspiration, by letting you drag and drop images off the web, and applying tags and other metadata to create “Smart Collections”.
6. Espresso
Time is of the essence in web design, and Espresso’s goal is to give you a caffeine buzz (pardon the pun). Extensive language support, contextual completions, and Zen actions are just a few of the words used to describe how this app will help you with your workflow, and as an added bonus, it also has CSSEdit 3 built in.
7. Diagramix
We’ve mentioned how important infographics and diagrams are, in a previous article, so an app just for creating them had find its way on our list. Diagramix is just the app you need if you are preparing a professional looking pitch for some up-tight corporate types.
8. Cornerstone
Built on Subversion, Cornerstone provides a tremendously useful version control tool, keeping all the changes done to a project over time in one, easy to access place. It focuses on user friendliness on all levels, beginning at price, and ending at UI, and it doesn’t loose performance along the way.
9. Hype 2
Nothing quite captures a user’s eye as animated and interactive elements. Websites can feel a bit samey at times, so it is your duty as a web designer to turn it up a notch. You can do that with Hype, which has a whole array of cool features and effects that you can use to make stunning animations (which are also IE6 compatible).
10. Antetype
As the developers themselves state, it’s design and layout software by UI designers, for UI designers, meaning that, once again, user friendliness reigns supreme. It also has a nifty tutorial section to help you ease into the app, which you can see here.
11. Logo Design Pro
We’ve discussed how important logos are before, and you will be thrilled to see how easy and fast making a logo becomes with this app. Thousands of logo templates, a great resizing tool and a great interface make this program a must-have if you have very little time to make a logo.
12. Transmit
Guess what this does. If you guessed “transmits files really fast”, then you are right.
13. Glyphs
Fonts, when done properly, are awesome. Fonts are one of those cool, little elements that most people don’t really notice, but make all the difference in the world in a design. Glyphs is a great app for the Mac, that lets you either create an entirely new font, or modify an existing one, making sure you will never be short on fonts.
14. Intesify
Intensify lets you work on your photos, the same way that Ableton lets you work on your songs (for creative purposes, we’re thinking of you as a DJ. Great show last night, by the way). Endorsed with nice words by Urs Buhlman and Lucas Gilman, this app is absolutely fantastic for creating gorgeous photos from even the banalest shots.
15. MacDraft PE 6
MacDraft is a great app if you like vector illustrations, and by “like” we mean “make”. The “PE” stands for personal edition, but it still has plenty of features from the award-winning professional edition, while being easier to learn than other available similar programs.
16. Gradient
It takes much, much longer to explain this app, then it takes to actually use it, and we are already kind of half-way done. Basically, you chose a color from either your mockups, or the standard color window, set the gradient, choose the browser prefix, color fallbacks, and output types, then Gradient will generate a ready-to-paste code for you to use in your web design.
17. SketchBook Pro 6
If you are a pen tablet user, then you will absolutely fall in love with SketchBook. This app is especially designed to be used with the aforementioned pen tablets, making the process of drawing in the program feel natural.
18. mosaic
Out of all the apps on our list, it’s this one that can definitely get you hooked on it. It is incredibly easy to use, and the results can be pretty awesome. Seeing as it runs very fast, you can just keep on experimenting until you get a result you like, making it both a fantastic toy and tool.
19. Icon Slate
Not much to say here other than what it does, with the mention that it does it really well. With Icon Slate you can compose, import, and export icons in several formats for both PC and mobile.
20. PhotoArtista – Oil
And now we finally know where all those Impressionist paintings that you find in bars come from. Although you probably won’t get the classiest of results, it’s still impressive just how good the app is at creating “oil paintings” from photos, and you never know when that will come in handy.
That wraps our list of 20 awesome Mac apps. We hope you found them useful, and that they’ll help you make great designs. Please leave us your thoughts, along with any suggestions, in the comment section below.
You May Also Like
Did you just pick up a shiny new 13-inch MacBook Pro? Or even a 16-inch MacBook Pro, maybe a MacBook Air, perhaps an iMac? No matter your Mac of choice, there are some Mac apps out there that are just so good that they should be one of the first apps that you download and install on your new machine right away! Here are our favorites.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you easily backup important documents, files, photos, video, and other things. While your stuff is stored in Dropbox, you can access it across any other device, as long as you're logged in to the same account. Any changes to your files get saved automatically, though you can also check older versions on the web interface if needed. Everything you upload into Dropbox is encrypted, and there are also collaborative features that make it easy to share files with others. One thing I absolutely love about Dropbox is how it integrates with pretty much any other app I need, so my stuff is accessible from anywhere and in anything.
Mac 10 For Sale
A free account gives you 2GB for free (and the chance to get more space with referrals), but they have plans that start at around $11.99 for 2TB.
Dropbox
Online backup for all of your files, with integrations in almost every app.
Source: iMore
I'm on Twitter pretty much all day, every day. My app of choice is Tweetbot from Tapbots. The reason I use Tweetbot over every other Twitter app is because I love the interface, as it's easy to use, and it provides plenty of powerful features. You can quickly search for topics that interest you, filter and mute hashtags and people that are annoying you temporarily (or permanently, it's up to you), create lists, and there is support for a multi-column view. I've been using Tweetbot on my iOS and Mac devices for years — there's no other app that I would rather use. Plus, you don't see promoted ad tweets.
Tweetbot
Tweetbot has plenty of powerful features that make it the best Twitter app on Mac.
Source: iMore
While I use Safari as my default browser on my Mac, it's always good to have an alternative, especially since some things don't always work properly in Safari. For my alternative, I use Google Chrome. It syncs with your Google account, has numerous plugins and extensions to enhance the browser experience, and it works better with certain Google apps than Safari, like Meet.
Google Chrome
Chrome is a great alternative browser that syncs with your Google account and has a ton of plugins and extensions.
Source: iMore
I have a lot going on daily, so my schedule gets really hectic at times. That's why I need a calendar, and I continue to use Fantastical on my Mac. Fantastical has a beautiful interface that is easy to use, and you have several different views on how to look at your calendar. It integrates with your iCloud, Google, Exchange, or even local calendar, so any changes are saved and sync automatically. The agenda list view is a great way to see what's coming up in your schedule, and it's easy to create events with the natural language input support. Fantastical also integrates with Reminders, so you have your calendar and tasks in one place.
Fantastical
Fantastical provides a beautiful interface for your schedule, and natural language input makes it easy to schedule events and reminders.
Source: iMore
One of the most important things you can do to protect yourself online is to have secure passwords. For this, you're going to want a good password manager, which can track your passwords and other sensitive data, while also helping you generate randomized passwords to use. With 1Password, you can create different vaults for personal and work accounts (or whatever else you need), sync your data across multiple devices (it's available on everything), and even store things like bank info, credit card numbers, and other things that need extra security. 1Password encrypts everything so that it's safe, and you can't even get in without a master password. I've been using 1Password for years, and it's one app that I cannot live without.
1Password
Generate safe and secure randomized passwords, track all of your passwords and other sensitive data, and sync everything on all of your devices.
Source: iMore
Need to do a bit of hard drive cleanup? DaisyDisk is a must have. This app lets you easily see what is cluttering up your hard drive thanks to bright and colorful blocks, so you can see what's taking up the most space. You can delete stuff directly from DaisyDisk to free up space, and it's all done in an intuitive interface that's a joy to use. Decluttering has never been prettier.
DaisyDisk
DaisyDisk lets you easily visualize what's on your hard drive, and you can delete useless files directly through DaisyDisk's intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Source: iMore
Once you start installing a lot of apps, you may find your Menubar cluttered with a bunch of icons. Bartender is an app that helps you tidy up that Menubar by tucking away unwanted icons into a kind of sub-Menubar. With Bartender, you can choose to rearrange your icons into an order that makes more sense to you, as well as choosing what is shown in the main Menubar, and what to hide in a secondary Menubar. Or, you can hide some items completely, because they're unnecessary — it's up to you.
Bartender
Tidy up your Menubar by rearranging and hiding app's Menubar icons as you see fit.
Source: iMore
The Spotlight Search in macOS is alright, but you can do so much more with Alfred. Alfred is essentially Spotlight on steroids. You can do your basic search functionality, but you can also create workflows to make your life easier, access your clipboard history at anytime, view contact info, have app integrations, text expansion, search the web, and more.
Alfred 4
Boost your productivity like never before with Alfred and it's many magical wonders with the keyboard.
Source: Pixelmator Team
Whether you're an amateur or professional, you may end up having to do some photo editing at some point. Pixelmator Pro is one of our favorite apps to get the job done. It's a powerful photo editor that will have all of the tools you need, but it's intuitive and easy to use, unlike Photoshop, which some may find intimidating. With Pixelmator Pro, you have many professional and non-destructive editing tools, allowing you to bring the best out of your photographs. And the image editing is enhanced by Pixelmator's machine learning, so you get the absolute best looking photos with ease. Plus, the price is reasonable and affordable.
Pixelmator Pro
Top 10 Apps For Mac 2014 Update
Pixelmator Pro brings professional-grade tools in a simple and easy-to-use interface for everyone.
Source: Bare Bones Software, Inc.
If you're looking for a professional text, code, and markup editor, then you should download BBEdit. It's used often by web application developers, writers, and software developers who need powerful tools for editing, searching, and manipulation of text, code, and HTML/XML markup. Some features of BBEdit include grep pattern matching, search and replace across multiple files, project definition tools, function navigation and syntax coloring for a wide variety of source code languages, code folding, and more.
Unsure if BBEdit is what you're looking for? The app has a 30-day trial for you to put the app through its paces, and then you can decide whether or not to purchase the full package, which has even more advanced features. But you can continue to use the free version of BBEdit too.
BBEdit
BBEdit is one of the best go-to apps out there for text, code, and markup editing.
What are your favorite apps?
These are just a few of our favorite must-have apps for a new Mac. Do you have any recommendations of your own? Let us know in the comments!
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
if only you knew the power of the dark side...Top 10 Mac Apps
Apple doubles trade-in value of select Android devices for a limited time
Mac 10 Price
Apple has quietly upped the trade-in price of several Android smartphones for a limited time, doubling the value of some handsets.