Essential Mac Apps 2018
Looking at my 2018 must-have Mac apps, there’s an interesting contrast between what I consider must-haves on iOS and the Mac. On iOS, many of the apps I consider must-haves are compelling because of a single feature that sets one app apart from others or because it fits especially well with how I work.
Windows has the highest number of Program and software available. One of the perk of the popularity of Windows is that you have so many apps and games. For Example, just imagine MAC users playing a popular high-end game. No, you probably can’t because MAC does not support them, windows do. Windows 10, is the most killer outcome from Microsoft, we all love it. The new windows 10-anniversary update is even better. Other operating systems have advantages, though, yet they fail when it comes to choosing apps that matter to you.
Let’s start the drill down.
Productivity
01. Simplenote
As the name speaks for itself, notes – real-time sync, distraction-free writing and word counter and text styling options. Bold, italic, and strikethrough and if you enable the markdown extension it will support more which you can read more about it here. Despite the fact that it doesn’t provide features like Evernote does nonetheless its a text-based writing tool. Recently Dropbox launched Paper to compete with other note-taking/ writing tools.
There are several options to use this application as it provides enough for most platforms, Android, iOS, Mac, Linux, Windows and native web application. Sharing your notes and printing them is just a click away. Overall this application is a must have an android app.
02. Grammarly
Write error-free with this Grammar and Spell Checker. Free version detects 150+ style mistakes, and premium version has Plagiarism checker and plenty of predefined document type to get specific suggestions for corrections. Ginger is one reliable alternative to it and even offers Android/iOS keyboard to check and remove spelling, grammar mistakes as you type.
2018 Mac Mini
03. Voice to Text App
Well, chrome makes is super easy to utilize the Google API that converts voice into text. You must be aware of Google Docs’s built in voice to text feature. Fortunately, there are a bunch of websites providing you the ability to write by your voice. One good site for this purpose is speechnotes, also a chrome extension is available to write with your voice to any website.
Internet browsing
Hail, hail, nothing is close to Google Chrome when it comes to security with speed, Chrome gets regular updates. There are several Chrome variants for different users, Canary for example which comes with the latest features. Google Chrome is the only browser that currently supports Voice API and many more hidden features. You can turn on full material design in chrome to make it looks even better.
MAC users can also install the Chrome Browser, yet there are some alternative browsers as well.
04. Vivaldi
A new web browser and based on the same Chromium project that powers Chrome. It does get pretty features from customization to speed. Read more about Vivaldi
Entertainment
7 Best Video Players For Windows (2017)
05. KMPLAYER
KMP is one of our favorite media player of all time, supports almost every kind of media formats, even VR or 3D files, and KMP can play all. Customization support for subtitles and everything that matters seeking a video file is fast and accurate with arrow keys. Some of the best useful keyboard shortcuts are CTRL+X to toggle audio stream, Enter to Full screen, and ‘[ / ]’ keys to subtitle sync.
06. VLC
This tiny little robot is famous, very famous. It also can play any media formats and search, and downloading subtitles are just matter of 2-3 clicks. We use to call it a multi-tool because it can play a video from an URL, supports additional audio files and converts files into one to another format. The desktop mode plays videos on your desktop screen.
Both media players support audio and subtitle sync.
Everything else
More apps that you can install and make your windows a super machine.
Best Essential Windows Apps
20 Best Software to Install On windows 10
07. XION Audio player
What is your favorite audio player? Media player that comes preloaded with Windows? Try Xion audio player, supports most of the audio formats and is fast, crossfader, equalizer. Also one of the best parts is it only need tiny Cpu and Ram consumption.
08. RIOT
Riot is an image encoder that makes the Image file size smaller. The new png compressor can be little sluggish but worth, how many spaces your photos are taking, do you take photos with your camera and Phone, make sure to try Riot to give photos the file size, they deserve.
09. TheRenamer
Update: The last version was released in 2014, which worked great until IMDB launched v2 and Windows 10 latest version does not run the software anymore. Please use “Rename my TV series” as an alternative.
Everyone loves TV serials on a laptop or computer, does not matter if the program airs in your country or another. I personally have a folder on my PC, where you can find at least 20 Serials. So how to rename all those serial’s name with the understandable name.
Here comes the TheRenamer, select all episodes files and drag them to this too, it auto fetches details of serial episodes and with one click you can rename all of the episodes at once. In settings, you can choose the rename settings.
10. PAINT.NET
Unless you are a professional photo editor who cannot leave without Photoshop and some other high-end photo editing tools, paint.net is all you need. It supports editing transparent (png) images and inbuilt effects. While maintaining the lightweight size, this program can easily be a paint or GIMP alternative for daily purpose.
Paint.Net Features.
- Support PNG/ JPG / BMP and other image file formats.
- Supports layer editing / Transparent Elements.
- Basic image editing features, cut, crop, magic hand,
- Fine tune your photos with Effects included in pain.net
The traditional photo editing comes with windows in Paint, that does reduce the overall quality when you save images, Paint.Net is a similar editing tool with basic and powerful features. It is a Photo editor for Windows 10 free and lifetime updates.
11. Notepad++
More powerful, various language highlighting and way better than Notepad. It remembers your last working location and will open the directory next time you open it. It also supports decode and encoding of Base64. Notepad ++ is not just a text editor — it is more than that. It has so many features that we can not sum up all here.
Internet Security
12. Zenmate
This free Chrome extension provides a 24×7 proxy, so hiding IP is nothing to concern when you have enabled it. The free tier lets you choose from 4 locations, for a week you’ll get premium service meaning you can choose from many locations. However, you may see some upgrades pop-ups from the extension, but they won’t bother you when you click on close button.
13. Connectify
Turns your laptop into a portable hotspot, share your laptop’s internet with other devices, this feature is in connectivity Pro which is a paid version. However, mHotspot is a free alternative.
Update: Windows 10 latest insider builds comes with a brand new feature called Mobile Hotpost, that create a hotspot with a single click.
Over to you,
Hope you like this article and have found some good apps to install on your Windows computer. Did you like this post? I know you did, shout out this story to anyone who matters to you.
Contents
- Productivity
- 03. Voice to Text App
- 04. Vivaldi
- Everything else
- Internet Security
Over the last few weeks I've been writing about my shift to Windows from Mac after five years of using a MacBook, and many of you have written to ask what apps I use to replace various Mac-only tools.
In general, I've been impressed with the state of Windows apps — it seems like they've come a long way in recent times, and I've found a number of tools that have enhanced my workflow in a big way.
Lightshot
Windows has built-in region capturing now, but Lightshot takes it to the next level. If you want to annotate, add text or even just copy to your clipboard rather than saving a file every time you make a screenshot this app is for you.
This app has been around forever — and works on Mac too — but as a religious CMD + SHIFT + 4 user on Mac, this was perfect for replacing that reflex (I even mapped the same shortcut to work inside Windows, so I can just keep doing it).
Seer
Another one of my reflexes is slamming the space key to see inside a file, rather than opening it. One of my annoyances about Windows is that there's no universal 'Preview' style app that lets you open a large range of files quickly.
Seer makes life a lot easier, bringing back the space-button preview, and making it work well inside Windows. I wish Microsoft would just bundle this behavior right in.
Nylas
If there's anything macOS has a glut of, it's mail apps that look good. On the Windows side it was always a little awful, but life is getting better thanks to Nylas.
It's finally on Windows and provides a super-snappy way to access whatever email service you use, with full search and a bunch of nifty other features. I'm a huge fan of the work Nylas is doing simply because their sync engine is so damn good.
All of this said, I'm also finding myself to be a fan of the built-in Windows 10 mail app. It's well-designed, and works nicely in the background providing push notifications and near real-time updates, along with live tiles in the start menu.
Hyper
If you're a developer and plan to use Bash on Windows like I am, Hyper is an essential download. Built by the fantastic team at Zeit, Hyper is the only Windows terminal emulator that doesn't make my brain hurt.
If you want to get it set up really nice, set Hyper to launch Bash every time it opens, install the ZSH shell, and download zsh-pure.
Chocolatey
If you've used a Mac for a while, you've probably come across Brew, a command-line tool that makes installing basically anything a `brew install` command away. Windows finally has something that fills that gap, and it works great.
Chocolatey is a command-line tool for Windows that rids you of those crappy old-school MSI installers where you click next 1000000 times, and lets you install basically any app by typing `choco install` at the command line — incredibly handy, and works for desktop apps too.
Instant Eyedropper
macOS has a mediocre-but-useful built-in eyedropper tool, while Windows has nothing. Instant Eyedropper is a fantastic, tiny tool that lives in your taskbar making it much easier to just grab a color by clicking it at any given moment.
Wallcat
Honestly, I never know what I want my computer's wallpaper to be, so I'm a huge fan of Wallcat.
It's another tiny little app, but the team curates beautiful screenshots within different themes like 'Fresh Air' or 'Gradients' that mean your background picture is something different every day. It's a small touch, but I like the fresh feeling of a new wallpaper every morning.
Visual Studio Code
There are a million coding apps out there, and you probably have your own preference but since switching across I've become a huge fan of Visual Studio Code.
The team behind the app has been iterating on it really quickly and it's packed with useful features like a built-in shell (where you can use Bash!), fantastic Git tracking and a great plugin architecture.
I never really thought I'd stop using Sublime Text, but here we are.
Lunacy
The most annoying thing for me personally right now is the lack of Sketch on Windows. The company is adamant it's not coming, but a lot of the designers I work with hand me Sketch files that... I can't open anymore.
I had a virtual machine with macOS inside it sitting around just for Sketch, but it was a pain in the ass to fire it up every time I wanted to look at a design.
I use Lunacy to solve that, which is a Sketch viewer built by a third-party for Windows. It works pretty well, and lets you do what you probably need to do: slice up files.
Essential Mac Apps 2018 Free
UWP apps
OK, this is a total aside, but one of the coolest features of Windows 10 right now is that there are native apps for almost every major service, which means you can do things like running the entire Instagram mobile app, right on your desktop.
2018 Mac Mini Review
There's apps I use for Facebook, Twitter, Todoist and many others, which work really well. I think when Microsoft's Fluent Design language is in full swing and starts hitting the store it'll be a fantastic alternative to checking all these things in your browser.
That's it, for now...
I'll keep this post up to date if and when I find something cool. If you've got a recommendation, let me know on Twitter or in the comments on this post.
This post is part of a series I'm writing about switching to Windows: