Apple’s App Store for the iPhone changed the landscape for applications in a big way. It squeezed the online purchase and installation process down to a couple of taps.
That created a generation of users addicted to good apps with remarkably low prices. Apple carried the same methodology to the Mac with the opening of the Mac App Store. Easy purchase. Lower (but not too low) prices for apps. Which apps are the best apps?
Must Have Mac Apps
What constitutes the best of anything? For our list of the Top 6 Best Mac Apps of 2012, each of the Mac360 writers submitted a list of their 10 favorite Mac apps, ranked in order of preference.
Duplicates on the list found their way to the top of the list rather quickly.
After that, we argued back and forth via email and Face Time and Skype, then printed out each app’s icon and pasted it to a sheet of paper.
Then, we elected one of our stellar staff members to throw six darts and whichever app was hit made it to the list.
That’s the official story. The actual app review methodology is much more mundane, but still yielded about the same results. Choosing good Mac apps is fun until you realize that many apps just won’t make a short list.
Here’s the Top 6 Best Mac Apps Of 2012.
#6 – Clear: This is the perfect list-keeping, todo and shopping list app for those that finder Reminders too cumbersome. Clear has a hefty price tag for a Mac todo app but is just as easy to use as the iPhone version (which costs much less).
#5 – Flare: Let’s keep the tradition of one-word app names alive. Flare may be the best way Mac users can enhance photos with effects, filters, and textures. The presets make it as easy to enhance a photo as it is to click.
Previews are live, and all the expected tools are there include RAW format support, export, share, and a long list of color, lens, and creative effects.
#4 – Wunderlist: If Clear is too little, and the porridge is too hot, then Wunderlist is just what Goldilocks needs to manage tasks, syncs tasks in the cloud, and do it all for free.
Create tasks and todo items, share notes, set due dates, and more in a professional level app without a price tag.
#3 – TypeIt4Me: Your fingers can only type so many words before they rebel, join a union, or fake carpal tunnel syndrome. Use TypeIt4Me to type words, sentences, paragraphs, and more with simple abbreviations. You type faster and with fewer errors and with less strain on fingers, hands, and wrists.
#2 – Snapheal: This new app makes everyone’s Top 10 list, but it’s been a long week, so all we could come up with is a Top 6 list. Snapheal is a photo enhancer app with a number of the standard effects and enhancements.
What sets it apart is the healing and erasing function. If you have photos with unwanted objects– signs, poles, people in the background, rocks, telephone lines, or anything that detracts from the photo– Snapheal can erase the object and fill in the erasure hole with a background that matches. It’s truly incredible.
#1 – Fantastical: There’s nothing really wrong with using Calendar in OS X. It handles events and alerts and alarms, but it’s as cumbersome and clunky an app as Apple has ever produced.
What you want is an easier way to use Calendar without using it at all. That’s what Fantastical does. Click the Menubar icon and get a pop down window with all you need to know and without using Calendar.
Fantastical makes it easier than Calendar to add events and reminders and alarms without leaving the app you’re usiing. It also syncs and plays nice-nice with Outlook, Google Calendar, Yahoo! Calendar, and syncs up with the iPhone version over iCloud.
There you go. The Mac360 Staff Picks of The Top 6 Best Mac Apps of 2012. What’s on your list? What did we miss?
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