Top 5 OS X Applications of 2004 | December 23, 2004

2004 has also been a great year for new OS X applications, from a glut of new RSS readers to innovative ideas like xScope and Delicious Library

Here are my favourite OS X applications from 2004. What treats did 2004 hold for your OS?

Quicksilver - This little app has revolutionised the way I use my OS and literally shaves hours of my working week. A must have for all OS X users.
NetNewsWire Lite - Still in my opinion the best RSS reader around. After Safari and Dreamweaver (my dirty little secret), this is probably the app I use the most.
FireFox - While I don’t actually use Firefox, It’s steady propagation and acceptance into the main stream may at last start to topple Microsoft’s strangle hold on the browser market. Here’s wishing Firefox a very happy New Year.
Acquisition - Being a bit of a late adopter and not having jumped on the Bit Torrent bandwagon yet, this is still my file sharing application of choice.
Skype - This is another application that I don’t actually use much, but can see huge potential for. Also I really like the design of their site in all its CSS loveliness. Watch out BT, your time is almost up.

Posted at December 23, 2004 1:08 PM

Comments

Jon Hicks said on December 23, 2004 3:08 PM

I think mine would have to be NewsFire, Saft (Safari is naked without it), Omniweb 5, skEdit and Quicksilver. Its good to see lots of smaller developers creating beautiful, and useful OS X apps.

You’re still using the Lite version of NNW? Shame on you Andy! Get the to the full version and support the developer! ;o)

Jeff Croft said on December 23, 2004 3:16 PM

NewsFire, Delicious Library, Quicksilver, OmniWeb 5, and StickyBrain 3.

Brian Behrend said on December 23, 2004 3:32 PM

Being just a new and part-time Mac user, here’s my 4:

skEdit, Quicksilver, Transmit, Firefox

Drew said on December 23, 2004 3:35 PM

My top five would be TextMate, TextMate, TextMate, TextMate and TextMate.

No, really.

Jacob Bøtter said on December 23, 2004 3:50 PM

My top 5 OS X apps: Synergy, Paparazzi!, Blue Coconut, KeyCue and MenuCalenderClock :) Might not all be new, but these are the ones I appreciated the most this year..

Rob McMichael said on December 23, 2004 4:30 PM

Mine would be:

News Fire (frequently updates, like ever day)
sKEdit
Adium (just awesome)
IpodRip (saved me a few times)
Nicotine (Soulseek for Linux runs through XII)

Small Paul said on December 23, 2004 4:48 PM

Blimey. I think I’d sort of heard of Skype before reading this, but I’d never really twigged as to what it was. Sounds pretty amazing. Good luck to them. (Where the heck are they making money? Nowhere at the moment, I’d assume. But with a website as well-written, well-coded and just plain good as that, they deserve to.)

Gotta try TextMate. And Firefox has beaten Safari for me this year. I like RSS bookmarks, I like extensions, I like my bookmarks in a sidebar, I like having all the same bookmarks at home and at work by virtue of one HTML file. It’s the browser for power users.

Sophie said on December 23, 2004 5:12 PM

Here’s only three :

NewsFire (beautiful simple software)
Adium (just getting better)
Subethaedit (might have been around for a long time, but a discovery for me)

jon said on December 23, 2004 5:12 PM

do they have to be just released this year? for i am new (again) to Macintoshes. Here is what i’ve found particularly useful, and downright fresh:

Adium - (i promptly ditched Fire for this)
Dragthing - (after reading all the clamoring, i finally realized that my dock is near useless)
Windowshade X - (window shading again, and the minimize in place is the joint
iTunes - yep it’s mainstream, and could be better, but its what i got to sync to my ipod and does the job
Xcode - a complete IDE/dev environment that comes with the OS? i’m back in NeXT heaven!

Ste Grainer said on December 23, 2004 5:44 PM

Nice choices! Mine would be similar:

1. Quicksilver (This program is now the first thing I install on a new Mac or after a reinstall.)
2. Firefox (Safari is great, but Firefox has several features I really need.)
3. Synergy (I’m always listening to music - this makes it much easier.)
4. skEdit (Definitely the best HTML/text editor out there.)
5. Unreal Tournament 2004 (Sometimes you just want to kill half an hour and have a good time doing it.)

Justin Perkins said on December 23, 2004 6:01 PM

Although BitTorrent is still alive, it’s hardly what is was a month or so ago. With the MPAA going after Bit Torrent sites like mad, it’s becoming a little difficult to find a good Bit Torrent site right now.

Ian Phillip said on December 23, 2004 9:53 PM

This year I have mostly been using:

skEdit - v3.5 is the text editor I’ve been looking for since forever!
NewsFire - won me over from NetNewsWire.
Acquisition - file-sharer of choice, and it just keeps getting better.
Transmit - like skEdit, this just does everything I need it to do, and does it well.
iCal - my whole life is on this app. And, since getting a bluetooth phone, it’s really become a staple of my daily routine (courtesy of iSync).

Not all 2004 releases clearly, but these are the apps I rely on day-to-day.

Casey said on December 24, 2004 4:16 AM

Not sure that these are all 2004 but here goes…
In order of how much they are used:
NewsFire - a simply beautiful piece of software
Safari - A fast useful stable (standards compliant) browser
SubEthaEdit - I haven’t played around with the group editing but its a great code editor and it doesn’t suck for free!
Adobe Photoshop CS - need i say more?
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 - really quick and easy vectors

web site portfolio said on December 27, 2004 6:50 AM

Safari
flyakite, to make XP look to MAc OS X
Photoshop CS
and yes xcode

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