Mac Software Picks

Since I’ve been working on a Mac for a while now, tried out a bunch of software for the platform and thought I might share some of my favorites with you. This isn’t going to be an in depth review of anything, just some quick hits.

First up is my task manager. Yes, I know that iCal has task support built in and if all you want is to make a quick To Do list it’ll suffice. For anyone who wants more power and flexibility, however, I can heartily recommend OmniFocus. I’m a big user of To Do lists and have been looking for something like OmniFocus for a long time. Ever since I heard about the Beta and signed up I’ve been in love (don’t tell Dara).

OmniFocus costs $79.95.

Next up is finance software. As with tasks I’m ridiculously anal about organizing my finances. I was using Cha-Ching, a very simple financial manager that holds a lot of promise but crashed too much and didn’t provide the features I wanted. I wanted to avoid the standby Quicken as everything I read indicated it just sucks on the Mac. I ended up settling on iBank instead.

iBank provides all of the financial management features I want, including category support, direct download of your financial data from your bank, and, most importantly, integration with the iPhone. This last is something that no other product currently offers, and means that I can easily look up my accounts and add a transaction on the road.

It should be noted that many of these features are not in the current iBank 2, but will be in the updated iBank 3. A beta is out already and it should just be a matter of weeks before the final version is available.

iBank will set you back $49.99.

The last piece of software that I’d like to mention is Transmit. Now, there are a ton of FTP clients out there for Mac, including the very good, and free, CyberDuck. Why should you go out and pay for Transmit then? Because nothing else out there provides the ease of use, power and compatibility that Transmit does.

In my case I found myself perpetually frustrated by my company’s FTP server using, with about one out of every three attempts failing using CyberDuck and other options. Since I started using Transmit I’ve never had a problem, and having that headache go away was worth every penn. Plus those that use Amazon’s S3 service will appreciate the fact that Transmit allows you to easily upload files to it as well.

Transmit goes for $29.95.

So there you have it, three great Mac applications that I can heartily recommend. Also, for anyone who is just getting started on the Mac platform and doesn’t want to dish out a bunch of money for software check out Open Source Mac for a list of free and useful Mac software.