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When you’re always looking for the greatest new app, sometimes you forget about the awesome apps that power your life. The apps you use day in, day out to make money, stay in touch with family and friends, be creative, stay informed, and more are the most important apps, way more important that that new app that might come out tomorrow and just might revolutionize your life … or not.
Funny thing is, apps that you use all the time can fade into the background, and you’ll almost never think about them. It’s easy to take for granted the apps we use most. From your web browser to tools like Dropbox and Alfred or the launcher of your choice, there are apps you use every day without thinking about it, but you’d be hard pressed to live without them.
Today’s Thanksgiving in America, which makes a great time to stop and think of the things you’re grateful for, no matter where you call home. Our team has rounded up some of the apps we’re thankful for this year, and we’d love to hear from you. What Mac apps are you the most thankful to have around this year? Perhaps an older app that’s stood the test of time, or a newer app that’s recently become essential to your workflow. Either way, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
It’s been nearly 4 months since OS X Mountain Lion was released, and millions of Mac users around the world have already upgraded. Many of us upgraded our Macs as soon as it was in the App Store, while others were running it weeks earlier thanks to Apple’s developer program.
Mountain Lion brought many nice new features to OS X, from the Notifications Center and social network features to new apps like Reminders and Notes. Unfortunately, the new upgrade also left behind some older Macs, and many still don’t like the addition of more iCloud and iOS features in OS X.
I personally have been very pleased with Mountain Lion, and found the upgrade to be a great new change, but not everyone feels the same. That’s why we’re wondering: 4 months into the upgrade cycle, have you switched to Mountain Lion? Or are you still using Lion?
Is the cat that’s currently powering your Mac enough for your needs? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
It sure is frustrating when an app you love gets sidelined by its developers. From the recent demise of Twitter for Mac, Sparrow being bought out by Google and promptly sidelined for Gmail.com, and Read Later being turned into Pocket for Mac and leaving Instapaper support behind, I’ve had a number of apps in my own workflow that have been abandoned lately.
It’s a normal problem we all face, and it’s not surprising at all when lite apps and games don’t get updated. But when something we rely on gets abandoned, it can be far more frustrating. You’re left with the option of continuing to rely on an app that might break with a future OS X update, or searching for something else that might fit the bill.
For me, I’ve given Pocket for Mac a shot, switching away from Instapaper for a trial run. I’ve bought Tweetbot, as I’d already been using its beta for months. But I’m still using Sparrow, as there’s no other mail app that works as good for me. I’m sure hoping something else better will come along before it gets abandoned for good.
How about you?
This morning, I woke up to a Reeder full of articles about Apple’s new announcements in yesterday’s keynote. Living in Asia makes it a bit tough to watch keynotes live, and Apple usually doesn’t even stream them live online. After reading through the articles and checking through Apple.com, I didn’t really feel the need to watch the full keynote. I enjoy watching Apple’s product launches, but this one felt like one I could skip. Incidentally, it turned into a very exciting keynote for Mac users, with new iMacs and Mac Minis, but still, I could find what I needed to know from Apple.com’s pages.
That said, I’ve watched tons of Apple keynotes over the years, especially while Jobs was still alive and doing his magic on stage. I’ve gone back and rewatched portions of old keynotes to see how Apple’s changed (ouch, the fonts in old keynotes hurts to look at), and listening to Jobs’ speeches from when he first came back to Apple gives a unique perspective on the company.
So how about you? Do you always watch Apple’s keynotes, or do you just pick choice ones to watch? Or have you never watched an keynote before (is that even possible)? We’d love to hear your thoughts below!
