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The Ten Most Beautiful OS X Apps

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sugar-in-your-ocular-cavity dept.

Phillip Ryu writes "As someone in the Macintosh shareware business, as part of my job, I make the daily crawl through MacUpdate to look for the latest and greatest in Mac software. One thing I've been noticing recently is a renaissance of extremely polished and beautiful Mac apps, so I thought I'd share some of these finds with you guys. Without further ado, presenting the top ten most beautiful OS X apps. Hopefully you'll find some new gems in there, even I found a few surprises while compiling this list. Enjoy!"

4 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. I think you ment minimalistic...? by Duncan3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Only #3 and #1 have any place on that list.

    There are so many more visually appealing OS X apps out there. Most of his list is just file-list style apps. A downloader? Good grief.

    --
    - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
    1. Re:I think you ment minimalistic...? by nacturation · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, a downloader. Even downloaders can have UIs. (Unless you use wget/curl all of the time.) All interface with the user needs to be friendly, usable and well designed. *All* of it. Even a downloader.

      Of course, but this isn't "Ten OS X Apps with a User Interface", it's the "Ten Most Beautiful". And check out this screenshot:

      http://www.mathgamehouse.com/images/phillryu/acqui sitionfull.jpg

      Does that strike you as particularly "most beautiful" of all OS X apps out there? To me, it looks busy and uninspired... and that's supposed to be the fourth most beautiful app? More beautiful than, say, Google Earth on OS X which didn't make the list even though it's freeware as well? Screenshot:

      http://saya.s145.xrea.com/archives/images/GoogleEa rth.jpg

      The "extremely eye-pleasing" P2P app they mention doesn't look much different than Safari's download panel with a couple of colorful buttons thrown on top. Compare:

      P2P app: http://www.mathgamehouse.com/images/phillryu/trans missionfull.jpg
      Safari: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/is/diary/mac/SafariDownloadMa n.jpg

      I'd say the list could perhaps qualify as top ten nice OS X application icons.

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  2. The Mac-iest Mac app ever.... by Otter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the "right"-est MacOS app ever is, hands-down, Fetch. Every time I ever wondered "Maybe Fetch could do this...?", it always could and the first way I thought to try it always worked.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  3. Re:Bah. by Trillan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I must disagree. Firefox is easily the ugliest application ever created. And I say this even after trying dozens of skins. Not a single one of them comes close to the eloquence of the built-in "Aqua" appearance on Mac OS X.