4 ms·

MacOS' "productivity" software is my favorite I know of. I'd have to go back to historical (10+ years old) versions of similar products to find ones I like bett

MacOS' "productivity" software is my favorite I know of. I'd have to go back to historical (10+ years old) versions of similar products to find ones I like better. Their quality is excellent. They're light on resources (I can forget them in the background), quick to launch, do everything I need (even collaborative editing), and have good-enough templates for most stuff I'd want to do. Preview is best-in-class, as far as I know. Finder may not be amazing but it also crashes ~never (which isn't impressive compared to Windows Explorer but is compared to some, ahem, other platforms) and is lightweight. The calculator is great (and I miss a couple very minor, but thoughtful, UX things about it when I use others). Digital Color Meter is awesome. I wish Notes had export and supported Markdown input, but how smoothly and sanely it handles things like embedding files, and how stable it is and the reliability/speed of sync between devices, makes it pretty damn good anyway. The email reader's stuck at some kind of local maximum like nearly all other email clients, but it's good enough. The 1st-party software quality is a big part of what keeps me around. Possibly the main thing. [EDIT] Oh, and the Terminal is one of the best there is. It's very good. Others may have more features, but it's far from minimal, yet manages to have lower input latency than most (which tells me Apple's got their priorities straight)

microtonal 5y ago
I largely agree. Keynote became a bit bland compared to the competition, but I love working in former iWork apps (especially since they've added no-frills support for equations), Terminal, Preview, etc. The only thing that I loved, but has become slow and buggy is Grapher. Grapher is a hidden gem, very few applications come close for quickly visualizing a function.
- brimble 5y ago
  Whoa, there's one I didn't know about. I should probably take the time to RTFM for that stuff, after more than a decade on the platform. Every time I find another little Apple utility, I end up getting something out of it.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    I enjoy Apple's Image Capture with my Epson scanner as well.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    Yeah, it's definitely worth poking around in Applications and its sub-folders to find out what the heck is on the computer already. Lots of hidden gems.
    - brimble 5y ago
      It's a case where not having something like the old-school hierarchical Windows Start Menu with its delightful "accessories" section, is unfortunate. Takes a little more digging to find the fun stuff (and even there, Windows hides/hid some cool utilities, especially system-config stuff, so you're unlikely to find them unless you know the name)
      - dhosek 5y ago
        Utilities is kind of the equivalent of the Windows Accessories section.

microtonal 5y ago

I largely agree. Keynote became a bit bland compared to the competition, but I love working in former iWork apps (especially since they've added no-frills support for equations), Terminal, Preview, etc. The only thing that I loved, but has become slow and buggy is Grapher. Grapher is a hidden gem, very few applications come close for quickly visualizing a function.

brimble 5y ago
Whoa, there's one I didn't know about. I should probably take the time to RTFM for that stuff, after more than a decade on the platform. Every time I find another little Apple utility, I end up getting something out of it.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  I enjoy Apple's Image Capture with my Epson scanner as well.
- dhosek 5y ago
  Yeah, it's definitely worth poking around in Applications and its sub-folders to find out what the heck is on the computer already. Lots of hidden gems.
  - brimble 5y ago
    It's a case where not having something like the old-school hierarchical Windows Start Menu with its delightful "accessories" section, is unfortunate. Takes a little more digging to find the fun stuff (and even there, Windows hides/hid some cool utilities, especially system-config stuff, so you're unlikely to find them unless you know the name)
    - dhosek 5y ago
      Utilities is kind of the equivalent of the Windows Accessories section.