“Top ten lists are a dime a dozen, but I haven’t seen one floating around yet on the most beautiful OS X apps out there. And as someone who’s hitting MacUpdate daily as a small part of my job, always on the hunt for what’s cool and new, I thought I’d share some of my insight, condensed down for mass consumption into a neat little list,” Phill Ryu blogs for PhillRyu.com.
Ryu writes, “Before you go on, remember that this is going to be controversial no matter what. I haven’t found a single top ten list that doesn’t get most people complaining. But honestly, after a lot of thought, I feel there are very few truly beautiful OS X apps left out if you include the honorable mentions. Oh, and before you begin, note that Apple apps (like Front Row and Aperture) have been knocked off the list. This one features independently developed freeware and shareware apps”
Ryu’s Top Ten Most Beautiful Mac OS X Apps in the world:
10. Transmission
9. Voice Candy
8. Podcast Maker
7. Transmit
6. Quinn (MacDailyNews Note: Quinn has recently been pulled from distribution at the behest of The Tetris Company. More info here.)
5. AppZapper
4. Acquisition
3. CoverFlow
2. Newsfire
1. Delicious Library
Honorable Mentions:
• Inquisitor by David Watanabe
• TextMate by Macromates
• Pixadex by The IconFactory & Panic
• Omniweb and OmniDazzle by The OmniGroup
• RapidWeaver 3 by Realmac Software
• CSSEdit by MacRabbit
• Comic Life by Plasq
• Adium 1.0 SVN
• Quicksilver by BlackTree, Inc.
• StickyBrain by Chronos
Full article with explanations and links galore here.
Since they don’t even mention OMNiGraffle…i consider this report pure flamebait. Granted Delicious Library deserves #1
and what about iPhoto Library Manager?
that rocks too.
First?
I also do enjoy Delicious Library, but some things really need an upgrade –
• Printing – the printed list looks fine. But would it be possible to print the list also with selected columns? So we could also print a list that also shows the genre, rating, Region Code or other features?
• editing entry details. Would it be possible to enter intormation directly in the list view, like iTunes does it?. Currently it only seems to work in the details panel.
• Smart Shelves – Any plans on adding smart shelves? Like the iPhoto smart albums, so we could select a shelf with all films from Ridley Scott, or make a shelf just for Kids, or select only region 1 movies. Something like that.
Comic Life should have made the Top 10.
Omnigraffle? It’s about beauty, not functionality.
CoverFlow is indeed the most extraordinarily beautiful thing – especially if you’ve got hi res album art. Feels like have a collection of LPs again.
If we’re including games (like Quinn), what about Big Bang Chess?
I would also include iTheater and/or CenterStage (even though they are both in beta), Shiira, Desktop Manager. OmniGraffle.
OmniGraffle is beautiful. It’s one I looked for in the list immediately. I think it has the best interface of any app that I’ve used. If it was just about aesthetics and not also about making hard things easy, then Transmit wouldn’t be there.
Comic Life and DoubleTake are right up there imo.
I second The Batman on DL.
Dumb question.
I got this free with my Powerbook. What is OmniGraffle? What does it do?
I used to use StickyBrain; paid for 1.0 and an upgrade to 2.0. (Or possibly 2.0 and 3.0, I forget.) I relied on it; all my important information was in it.
Then their “Your software is out of date” popup window started showing up every time I logged in. When it upgraded me without any warning to a major release that I wound up needing to spend money on or lose access to my data after 30 days, they lost me as a customer.
Sticky Brain has been discontinued; replaced by SOHO Notes.
Still seems to work okay, but not sure if it’s going to be too robust for my needs; also downloaded SOHO Organizer on a free trial but it doesn’t have it’s own calendar — it uses iCal and I’m not that crazy about the iCal interface. I really like Entourage but I’m getting annoyed with spinning beach balls (it runs under Rosetta right now). The search continues…
OmniGraffle deserves to win. It looks great, it’s so simple to use, and it puts out great charts.
OmniGraffle? never heard of it. I like Enigmo 2 myself.
belightsoft.com belightsoft.com belightsoft.com
That is great software!!!
I vote for Launchbar – beautifully saves me massive amounts of time… (also really like Yummy FTP)
Coverflow is lickalicious – fantastic eyecandy AND an aid to get back to listening to music by the album, rather than by the track. You GOT to at least SEE it.
And what about DEVONthink Pro? Not only does it offer unique usability, it also has improved immensely in the User Interface department and is now the only really viable alternative when it comes to compiling and mining data of all sorts. It has very advanced AI capabilities and gives easy access to them through this great interface.
I have no connection to either product, other than paying for them, but they are the two products I use when I want to impress non-Mac people. And they work.
Yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Belightsoft’s Swift Publisher. Takes 10 minutes to learn, looks good, killer search features and all this at a stupidly low price. It’s even good enough for professional use.
I cannot understand the love affair with AppZapper. It’s a ripoff, if ever there was one. But I’d bet most of the people who buy it are from the Windoze world.
AppZapper is no more than a crippled Cmd-F that costs money. Now it’s in a list of the top 10 applications that probably was written by a ‘Doze droid.
There’s a sucker born every minute. This way to the egress.
FreePhotoconverter should be included.
I’m interested if there is a simple shareware app that can do animated flow charts.
Any help?
What do they mean by “beautiful”?
I happen to love RapidWeaver – an honorable mention – but would hardly call its “look” beautiful. And I’ve just started using VirtueDesktops and it has hardly ANY “image” to call “beautiful” … but, DAMN!
OK, I have to admit that nearly anything on a Windows machine looks “crude” compared to anything from Apple. Or ON OS X. Want examples?
Start a browser … try Firefox … on XP.
Start a browser … Firefox is good … on OS X.
Start iTunes on XP.
Compare. Case closed.