Apple applications you're using

[Alex Snyder]

We all know Apple is far superior to any PC product

And I have seen quite a few people using them in dealerships lately. So, what apps & programs can we help each other discover?

Some of the "non-mainstream" programs I'm using right now:

1Password - I have bought this for my computer, iPad, and iPhone. It is awesome and I'm sure I've talked about it here before. It is basically a password, credit card, and account locker that works with your browsers. I just saw a notification that they now have a PC product.

Dropbox (use this link to sign-up) is a free online storage spot. It is basically an online thumb drive that you increase the size of either by referring new members or by paying for a larger capacity. 1Password uses DropBox to sync things between devices.

Adium - Instant Messaging host. It handles and seamlessly combines all your chat accounts like AIM, GTalk, MobileMe, MSN, etc. It is great for managing and easily keeping up with all sorts of people across all sorts of accounts.

Mobile Mouse - an application that allows you to control your Mac through an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Fantastic for presentations and meetings.

BetterSnapTool - quickly move windows and resize them by placing windows in certain places on your screen. Another cool one for this is Divvy.

BetterTouchTool - gives you a ton more control over your Apple input devices: touchpad, magic mouse, etc.

Tidy Songs - cleans up your iTunes library and does a few other things for it too. It is an essential tool for anyone with over 50GB's of music in iTunes.

Swackett - fun way to get the weather. And pretty damn accurate too

SketchBook Express - free through the Mac App store - this puts Microsoft Paint to shame. It is a way to "hand" (mouse)-draw, paint, and do all sorts of artistic stuff.

Axure - if you want to build clickable wireframes, this is an alternative to iRise. If you're getting ready to do an extensive website project, or something along those lines, this could be a good route for you to do your planning. I must warn you - this program is not for beginners.

NetNewsWire - RSS reader that I absolutely love. It syncs through your Google RSS reader account, but you never have to go to Google. Because it syncs through a central account you can read your feeds on different devices at different times and always have a matching read/unread list. This is a really strong one!

Evernote - online notes. Every update makes Evernote better. It is so convenient to walk into a meeting or conference with only an iPhone or iPad and have your sync'd notes waiting for you on your computer when you get back. You'll just have to take a look at it yourself.

Omnigraffle Pro - fantastic for creating org charts and wireframes. It is essentially a vector graphics tool that allows you to create quick mock-ups and all sorts of other things that can come in handy.

ScreenFlow - this is a screen capture tool that gives you the ability to make screen casts for troubleshooting, lessons, and all sorts of other reasons you might want to turn the actions on your computer screen into a quick movie.

Photoshop CS5 - Photoshop is still my favorite program ever created to date. I've been using it since version 6 (7 versions ago) and I can say that CS5 is not worth the money over CS4 or CS3. If you haven't yet invested in Photoshop for creating compelling imagery for your website, mailers, emails, etc then know it is much more than a $300 - $2,000 (buying the suite) investment. It is a significant time investment with a tough learning curve. I have been using PS, almost daily, for over 10 years and I am still far from an expert.

[Billfred]

We're a two-Mac dealership here, and my commonly-used apps are:

-Mail.app (if only Outlook were so easy to use!)
-Preview (obnoxiously handy for quick PDF edits and image cropping)
-iMovie '10 (for amping up our videos a touch--SO much better than '09!)
-iPhoto '10
-GarageBand (more for the loops than anything else)
-VMware Fusion (gotta access ERAccess somehow.....)
-Photoshop Elements (our version is a few years old, but it does the job)
-Cyberduck (for FTPing into sites)
-TextWrangler (a more powerful text editor than TextEdit, but still free)

[ChrisB]

I use:
Omni Graffle (Charts, and graphics)
OmniFocus (Powerful Task Management)
CaptainFTP
Keynote (instead of Powerpoint)
Adobe Creative Suite 5 (Photoshop, Dreamweaver)
Hootsuite / TweetDeck
ClipMenu
Skype & Adium
MS Office (Word/Excel)

[markwinters]

I really hate it when we talk about using MAC's in the dealership. Don't you know we are never supposed to reveal our secrets? It's like breaking the magicians code. If we want to continue to be hero's lets not tell everyone about this. That being said, what I have found is that dealers are never going to convert over so I guess it's OK.

iPhoto - Great for doing fast photo retouching and organization. Works really well to archive photos in a simple and easy to use format. I love the search feature.

iMovie - Real easy to make video walk around's or in our case a video introduction of our sales people. Take a look at this. These were shot using my iPhone and edited on iMovie. Took about 25 min to edit and upload the video.
YouTube - mini of murray salt lake city utah motoring advisor tony poulson

Mail - put's outlook to shame

Things - Great GTD manager for iphone and desktop

Pages - use this for almost everything. Great for creating process' with workflows and chats.

Photoshop - use this to create ads and graphics for web and print.

Stickies - great for keeping code and phone numbers a click away. better to have this than a rainbow of sticky notes all over your monitor.

Textedit - use for writing HTML code and formatting. Very basic but works

Password1 - The Holy Grail of passwords

VMware Fusion - have to use windows to interface with BMW. Makes me appreciate apple every day.

DropBox - Online data storage, great for keeping yourself portable.

Keynote - The Steve Jobs of presentations. (It was made for him by apple)

Soundtrack Pro - I make all of our commercials for our on-hold music. better than musak and we control the content.

Screenflow - Screen shot video recording. makes making a "training video" real easy.

[Ryan Thompson]

Dude- Movie looked great. List is looking solid.

[Jeff Kershner]

I'll never go PC again. I do have Alex to thank for that. Our many many discussions about it finally convinced me to give Mac a shot about a year ago. I now have 27" iMac and a MacBook Pro. Of course an iPad, itouch and Apple TV. BUT - I still have my BlackBerry and considering the new Playbook

1Password - Love this program, just wish they had the app for my blackberry.
DropBox - love it!
Evernote - I have this on everything including my blackberry
Jing Pro - awesome for quick screen shots and videos
Mobile Mouse
VMware Fusion
NewsRack - RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. I used this on my ipad and love it!
Just bought Adobe Acrobat X Pro for a few projects.

[KoreyB]

Good set of toys Jeff!

Fan of:
DropBox
Thunderbird
Chrome
Keynote
TextMate
Parallels
Skype
Time Machine
Preview
Cyberduck
MANY web based applications

Apple makes life easier. Now, just have to wait for them to release SSDs in to their computers!

[Alex Snyder]

Went diving through the Mac App store and found some more cool stuff.

PDF Editor - $2.99 way to have a lot of functionality around PDF's.

CalendarBar - puts your calendar in the menu bar, and syncs with facebook to keep-up with birthdays. It also syncs with Google Calendar.

Things - To do list organizer. There are a few out there: Omnifocus and Flow being two others that are really good, but I like the interface and flexibility of Things.

QuarkXPress - This is a mammoth program that allows you to create and format all sorts of things for publishing. PDF's, mailers, magazines, and just about anything else for printing. Quark is easy to use and something to consider if you're not going to buy an Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, etc) that comes with InDesign. Adobe's InDesign CS5 is more powerful than QuarkXPress 8, and I actually advise it over Quark (I have Quark and InDesign CS4). However, I like the simple workflow in Quark better.

iVI - if you've ever come across some video files you couldn't play natively on the Mac (like .WMV, .MKV, etc) take this free app for a spin. Also....If you have come across some files that don't play natively, get Perian and Flip4Mac. Edit - looks like this app is now $3.99 ....not sure it is still worth it.

[Alex Snyder]

Found another one today I'm really stoked about. The only downside is the price at $38.99.

Yojimbo - a repository for anything you come across in any application. There have been too many times I've bookmarked something, added it to EverNote, saw an image I wanted to keep, store my serial numbers & purchase receipts, or just grab the text from a good article that was emailed to me, delivered in a RSS feed or something I came across on the web....things I've forgotten where I archived them. This application lets you quickly capture and catalog all those goodies with a tagging and/or folder system. Yes, there are other repository apps but after researching a few I decided on Yojimbo for the interface and ease of use. The other good ones are the same price.

[ChrisB]

I also forgot to mention FLV Crunch. I came across this free app when I needed to easily convert WMV video files to FLV format. This apps is easy and works great.

FLV Crunch for Mac - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

FLV Crunch can convert Flash video (FLV) files and numerous other file types--including MPGs, MP4s, MOVs, AVIs, and WMVs--into a wide variety of other formats. You can control bit rate, final resolution (with handy presets for iPods, VGA, and higher definitions), and frames per second. FLV Crunch can also do batch processing, and it even comes with niceties like good help and error logging.