My Best List Of Favorite Mac Web Sites.

Why is the resurging Mac as a platform so successful these days?

Partly because of a robust community of developers, a growing list of happy customers, and evangelizing Mac web sites.

There are dozens of Mac oriented web sites. Sites for iPods, OS X Server, low end Macs, programmers, newbies, switchers and more.

Here’s my list of favorite Mac sites and why, starting with my daily visited sites, my RSS sites, and must-read-again sites.

Tops on the list are MacSurfer (you gotta love their “staff” names) and MacUpdate, followed closely by VersionTracker, and MacMinute. I know. You’re saying, “Duh, Bambi.“

All are updated multiple times during the day and feature the latest in Apple and Mac news, and the latest application versions.

I will check in to Macworld from time to time, but not daily. Their reviews tend to be a little more detailed than Mac360, and the news more frequent, though not cutting edge.

See what you can do when you have a budget that actually pays for staff?

For attitude, MacDailyNews is hard to beat. Those folks are highly pro Mac but manage to cover a bucket of debating topics each day.

Daily must reads also include John Gruber’s always entertaining DaringFireball, and the less entertaining but more informative MacsimumNews.

ThinkSecret and AppleInsider seem to turn out more after-the-fact news than insider scoops these days. Lawsuits and lawyers may tend to dampen the spirit of bean spiller and spillee.

Both are regularly read by the Mac360 staff, but MacOSRumors is no longer on the list.

News regurgitation sites abound these days, and the best include The Mac Observer and MacNN.

As a Mac site, we cover some iPod news, views, reviews, and commentary, but don’t focus as much attention as iLounge on iPod matters.

AppleMatters often has some intriguing articles and content, as does CARS—the Crazy Apple Rumors Site. Those folks are truly crazy. And funny.

If insightful entertainment is your bag, then you’ll enjoy the occasional antics found at the Macalope site. It’s not Mac the Knife, but those days are gone.

Bare Feats is a great Mac site for hardware reviews, with a particular slant toward performance. The geekier among us love it.

Not all of us can afford the latest and greatest and most expensive new Macs, so Dan Knight’s LowEndMac is a must read for how to keep your costs down when using a Mac (not always easy these days).

The average Mac user will have to wade through a lot information that may not easily be understood, but Mac OS X Hints is an excellent resource for quick fixes when your Mac experiences a problem.

Ron and I both use Final Cut Pro, though he tends to be more of the pro (he’s older than dirt so he deserves the nod), and visit Ken Stone’s FCP site, as well as LAFCPUG, one of the best forums ever.

Some Mac magazines have translated well to the internet and web sites, including MacAddict.

Many Mac web sites have forums these days, and one of our favorites is MacRumors.

Make sure you know what you’re talking about when you post. They bite. Tera tangled with them a few times.

Speaking of Tera, she was much more active on Mac forums than me or other Mac360 staffers. We have a tough enough time trolling the Mac360 Forums as often as we should. But then, we have a Mac360 Store to tend.

MacCompanion can be an excellent resource for Mac users, as is Adam Engst’s long running TidBITS. Tera and Ron both used his books to get running on the internet back in 1994.

There are plenty of other Mac sites which are must reads, including Softpedia for reviews, and SlashDot for the geekier among us.

All these Mac sites show up in my RSS feeds or my Safari bookmarks, along with a few others that are visited less frequently.

Tera often mentioned that Mac360 was originally inspired by the writing style of Jack Miller at AppleTurns and John Gruber of Fireball. Tera and Jack are gone, but Fireball and Mac360 are still around.

There are other Mac sites I visit from time to time, though the list above includes the regular places to haunt.

What about you? Do you have a list of favorite Mac web sites to visit? Did I miss one on my list that’s deserving of mention or commendation or scorn? Share your favorite with Mac360 readers in the Comments section below.

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