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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!"

12 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. The List by neonprimetime · · Score: 3, Informative

    To save your eyes from that god-awful ugly site

    10 - Transmission
    9 - Potion Factory
    8 - Podcast Maker
    7 - Transmit
    6 - Quinn
    5 - AppZapper
    4 - AcQuisition
    3 - CoverFlow
    2 - Newsfire
    1 - Delicious Library

    1. Re:The List by Volanin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Same list, with links:

      10 - Transmission
      9 - Potion Factory
      8 - Podcast Maker
      7 - Transmit
      6 - Quinn
      5 - AppZapper
      4 - AcQuisition
      3 - CoverFlow
      2 - Newsfire
      1 - Delicious Library

      --
      If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
      If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
  2. 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. Re:I think you ment minimalistic...? by Sippan · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Google Earth GUI was one of the most horrible things this monitor has ever displayed, and I've had goatse as my start page.

      Crap, that didn't come out right at all.

      --
      Frog blast the vent core.
  3. 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...
  4. The #1 ugliest Mac website... by ThousandStars · · Score: 3, Funny
    Goes to phillipryu.com.

    Argh! My eyes...

  5. LaunchBar should have made the list. by Capt'n+Hector · · Score: 4, Informative

    LaunchBar is Spotlight on crack. These guys managed to pack as much functionality as the finder itself into a little bar at the top of the screen. And it's fast.

    --
    Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
    Africus aut Europaeus?
  6. One man's opinion... by theheff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... doesn't always echo another man's. This list proves that statement. AdiumX is such a good application in Mac OS X... I'm surprised Apple hasn't taken it up themselves, and frankly, the author of this list all of my respect by not even mentioning it. This is just an absurd list put together by an amatuer. So a downloader has a nice GUI... big deal? Not in my book.

  7. 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.

  8. Beauty... by Zx-man · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...should be in how the application interacts with you, not how it looks.
    Most of Apple's own programs seem to have exactly this type of beauty.

  9. Re:X11 Apps under MacOSX by HuguesT · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The thing is I've never seen an X11 app behave sensibly under OS/X with the rest of the applications. Printing is special, services don't work, menus are not where they need to be. Drag-and-drop ? Did you manage all that ? Just about the only thing that works by default are the 3 buttons on the window's frame.

      If so this is a major undertaking, and If you really pulled all of that off in under a month, my hat's off to you, and I'd like a screenshot !

    Please consider giving the OO.org people a tip or two.

    I've personnally written a largish application that sort-of-works OK under OS/X, but with all the above caveats. I'm seriously thinking about rewriting the lot with a more sensible toolkit, in this case QT. It doesn't take as long the second time, apparently.