The perfect App-set

March 7, 2013 11:30 AM

I've got a brand new (refurb) Retina MacBook Pro, fresh out of the cellophane wrapper. I've been eking out a slow and cluttered existence on a combination of my iPad mini, my oldish Mac Mini, my iPhone, and a desktop Windows machine (for gaming) for a couple of years. I haven't had a laptop in... I can't even remember if I have ever had a laptop. Help me find the perfect set of apps for it? Snowflake details inside.

When I was in the decision phase of which laptop to buy, I struggled with defining myself. Am I a writer who sometimes plays games? Or a gamer who sometimes writes? Choosing a decently tricked-out refurb meant I didn't have to choose. Here are some of my laptoppy priorities:

1) Fiction writing. I've been using Byword, for the cloudsync/dropbox - is there something better out there? I used to use Scrivener, and would be willing to again.

2) Web surfing/email. I've always used Mail for, well, Mail, and some combination of Firefox/Chrome/Safari for surfing. I've read that Chrome and Firefox aren't yet Retina-ready; is that info out of date?

3) Chat. Right now, this is is handled with a combo of the built-in Message app (for syncing across iPhone and iPad) and Adium. Is there something awesome out there I'm missing? Must be able to handle IRC.

4) Random avi/mp4/mkv viewing for entertainment (also Hulu and Netflix)

5) World of Warcraft and Guild Wars (I have a desktop for raiding, if I ever raid again, but I can do random questing and such even on my old Mac Mini, so I think I should be good to go for light MMO gaming on the RMBP.)

6) Other random games - would welcome recs for things that would not set this laptop on fire; it's new. I like MMO's, but also other random adventury/puzzly games. Not a big FPS fan.

7) Image viewing/editing

I have a smallish (256 GB) flash storage hard drive, so my space is limited, and I'd like to keep my app set pretty streamlined. All recs welcome!

posted by kythuen to computers & internet (9 answers total)

1) I use either WriteRoom or Scrivener depending whether I'm writing something long and involved or short and neat. They both have full-screen modes for minimizing distractions. You might check out Omm as well, which takes the full-screen no distraction thing to a kind of zen level.

2) No idea about retina support, but Chrome is much snappier on my MacBook than Safari or FireFox.

3) No idea, sorry.

4) You want something called Video Lan Client or VLC.

5-6) Again, no idea.

7) Check out Acorn or Pixelmator for image editing software that won't take up too much space in your budget or on your hard drive. [ETA: you can do a bit of basic image cropping / resizing / color adjusting in Preview which comes with OSX]
posted by gauche at 11:38 AM on March 7

1. No idea
2. Chrome is retina ready now, if that's your bag.
3. Adium is the best third-party app and supports IRC IIRC.
4. VLC
5. No idea.
6. No idea.
7. I use iPhoto, Lightroom, and Preview/Quicklook. A lot of people like Pixelmator too.
posted by entropicamericana at 11:40 AM on March 7

3) what I like about safari is the icloud tabs feature. It will make available the tabs on your Mac iPhone iPads available on each device.
4).VLC.
posted by birdherder at 11:47 AM on March 7

1) I think Byword is still considered good, I still see people talking about it.

2) Chrome is retina-ready; no idea about FF. Mail-wise, you could look at Sparrow.

3) I just use Messages.

4) I use Movist primarily, VLC as a backup.

5-6) Good Old Games has old games, pretty cheap, that are unlikely to explode your laptop. There's some good stuff on the Mac App Store, too. If you haven't played Psychonauts, run don't walk and get it (on the MAS).

7) I like Acorn.
posted by Maecenas at 11:50 AM on March 7

2) Chrome and Firefox are all Retinaified these days. Safari has the fastest rendering but does have occasional rendering glitches. Chrome actually feels the slowest to me, which is surprising. So I've settled on Firefox recently and have been happy with its Retina performance.
posted by zsazsa at 11:53 AM on March 7

2. Firefox is retina-ready as of FF 18. (current version is 19)

4. I'll be the voice of dissent and say "MplayerX. (it's free in the Mac App Store)
posted by namewithoutwords at 12:13 PM on March 7

1) I like Scrivener, but if you want something a bit less, I also like Storyist.
2) I like Gmail and Chrome
3) No idea.
4) I like VLC
5) No idea
6) No idea
7) I use Pixelmator
posted by THAT William Mize at 12:54 PM on March 7

I recently migrated from a Macbook Pro to an Air, and pruned a lot of applications.

(1) I'm an Emacs user, alas. Probably not helpful for you, even in its pure OS X incarnation.

(2) I use Mail for Mail and Firefox for browsing, although I've resorted to Safari on occasion.

(3) Not a Chat user, but I do use Skype a lot.

For (4) I use VLC. I used to have MplayerX as well but didn't use it often enough to make the cut on my last migration.

(5,6) No clue, sorry.

(7) Image viewing/editing: what do you need that isn't already handled by Preview? (It has basic editing capabilities as well, under the Tools menu.) I also use OmniGraffle for creating figures, and Xee is a fast/lightweight viewer.

Other things I installed: Twitter, NetNewsWire, SuperDuper!, QuickSilver, Fantastical, Dropbox, and Chronicle for bills. And then there are my scientific applications suite that are probably not interesting to you.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:54 PM on March 7

For word processing/writing I really like Nisus Writer, the OS X reincarnation of a truly venerable and great Mac app.

Image editing: iPhoto is perfectly fine for the absolute basics. There are some very interesting indie Photoshop competitors these days, like the aforementioned Pixelmator and Acorn.

Random unsolicited recommendations for indie Mac software: Rogue Amoeba for audio-related apps, Ironic Software for PDF and document organization
posted by RogerB at 2:30 PM on March 7