Mac Applications Starter Kit

Since the latest release of Apple products, including updated iBooks and the all new Mac mini, many of my friends, colleagues and as far as I can tell from the some comments or forum entries, also some of you have recently switched to a Mac.

Since then I got a lot of requests concerning which software is recommendable for specific purposes. For this reason I’ve made up a list of software I use on a regular base…

NetNewsWire
Currently my favorite RSS reader with a bunch of great features, including support for podcasting, bloglines as well as for custom stylesheets, .Mac syncing, smart lists and many more.
 
TextMate
One of the best editors available for Mac OS X. Behind its clean and minimalistic interface TextMate provides extremely powerful and highly customizeable features, such as smart and column typing, snippets, macros etc.

skEdit
Excellent CSS/XHTML editor — the only editor with real code completion. By the way, the beautiful application icon, as well as the ones used in the interface have been designed by Jon Hicks.

CSSEdit
CSSEdit features full-blown source editing for the advanced user. With one click you transform the easy to use visual editors into a mighty source code environment. Currently my favorit CSS Editor.
 
Transmit
Simply the best FTP client available for Mac OS X. The recently released version 3.0 comes with a bunch of nice features, such as tabs, column view, DockSend, previews with zooming, server-to-server transfer, support for SFTP, WebDAV, iDisk etc.
 
Quicksilver
Quicksilver is definitely one of those apps that have to be installed on every Mac, as it provides you with a extremely convenient way to access and manipulate many forms of data. Personally I mainly use this app as application launcher, as well as for looking up phone numbers or email addresses.

Synergy
This handy little application provides the ability to control iTunes either via three buttons in the menu bar, or via system wide keyboard shortcuts. Additionally Synergy may display information on the currently played song, including title, duration cover etc. via a customizeable semitransparent floater. By the way, since version 1.7 Synergy also provides the functionality to display those infos via Growl.

Growl
Growl is a global notification system for Mac OS X. Any application can send a notification to Growl, which will display an attractive message on your screen. Growl currently works with a growing number of applications, such as Safari, iTunes, Apple Mail, folder actions and many more.
 
Saft
Saft is a Safari plugin to add features like full-screen browsing, searchable bookmarks and history, URL shortcuts, kiosk mode and more. Once you’ve tried Saft you don’t want to live without anymore — I promise you :)
 
Pixadex
Pixadex is to icons, what Apple’s iPhoto is to images and lets you import, organize and search huge numbers of icons quickly & easily. Pixadex lets you store all of your icons in a single place, organized into collections that you create. Additionally it provides the ability to easily export your icons into many formats such as PNGs, Windows and ICNS icon files etc.
 
Candybar
CandyBar is quite the easiest, quickest and by far, the safest way to customize the icons found in the system and application toolbars of Mac OS X. The tight integration with Pixadex is what makes this little tool so special.
 
Shapeshifter
With ShapeShifter you can skin every pixel of Mac OS — the look of windows, menus, apps, buttons, absolutely everything. Really impressive tool, although I always keep coming back to Apple’s default aqua theme.
 
VLC
VLC is a highly portable multimedia player for almost all available audio and video formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg… as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. If you like this app make sure that you also check out Jan Van Boghout’s VLC Replacement icons.
 
XScope
xScope is a set of tools that will help any designer do their job faster and produce more accurate results. As every application from the Iconfactory, it is also visually very appealing.
 
Well, from my point of view the list is quite complete. If you think that there are some more tools to be mentioned — and I’m sure there are — please post them in the comments. By the way, in order to create a link, just copy the whole URL (including “http://”) to the comments field — the link will be generated automatically.