All the Standard Mac Apps That Apple Has Gradually Made Useful
Apple has always packaged a lot of decent software in OS X, but for a long time, users might remember when the built-in options were so poor that you had to install basic alternatives like a PDF reader or image viewer just to get that. something that works well. … Times have changed, and if you haven’t been looking lately, it’s time to try a few of these built-in productivity tools again.
Apple is not always known for its success in delivering standard apps. The calendar is pretty poor quality. iTunes is a joke. Photos are a disaster. The cards are about as useful as hitting the face with a stick. The point is that some of the default apps aren’t great. Some of them. And many of them, like the ones below, used to be quite benign, but they’ve seen big improvements over the years.
Apple Notes is a Goldilocks Notes app between Evernote and regular text
We all had a bit of fun when Apple talked about the new Notes app in El Capitan, but the truth is, Notes is pretty powerful right now. When it comes to customization, this doesn’t really apply to Evernote, but as MacSparky pointed out last year , the Rich Text redesign of your notes makes them much more usable. You can add images to notes, format text, create bulleted lists, add web page previews, and more that you couldn’t do before.
Notes are now shared between two large types of note-taking apps: all the buckets like Evernote and the minimalist simplicity of plain text . It’s in a sort of Goldilocks zone, which will probably work well for most people who don’t want their arms around something big like Evernote and need more than a simple text list. What’s more, one of the big problems with early versions of Apple Notes – iCloud sync glitches – is now gone.
Of course, Apple Notes isn’t perfect. it lacks a tagging system, so organizing can be complex. Search, while robust for a note-taking app, prevents you from limiting your search to a single folder, which becomes problematic the more notes you store in it. As always, Apple Notes only makes sense if you fully invest in the Apple ecosystem. It syncs with iCloud and is only available on iPhone and Mac. That said, if you’re in Apple’s garden and haven’t checked Notes in a while, it’s worth taking another look at it.
Spotlight is the only app launcher you’ll ever need right now
Apple has updated Spotlight (press Command + Space to open it) back to Yosemite, adding a bunch of new features that make it not only an app launcher, but also a file finder. For most people, this new set of features could replace third-party launchers like Alfred or Launchbar , which we still love, but they contain a lot of features compared to what many of you are likely using them for.
In addition to launching applications, Spotlight offers many advanced search options. You can do basic math, figure out words, get the current weather (and forecast), watch movies nearby, search for businesses or restaurants nearby, get a phone number from a contact, use natural language to search the web or your computer, upload a video from YouTube and more . Seriously, if you’ve used a third-party app launcher and haven’t tried Spotlight in a while, try it now. It is probably faster and more flexible than you may remember, and it does not consume memory running in the background as it is bundled with OS X.
Of course, Alfred and Launchbar have many features that make them attractive. These are customizable , usually you can run specific scripts to trigger a series of automation actions, and general search is often marginally better than Spotlight. But most of us don’t need all of this, and if you do, you probably already know that.
Preview renders third-party PDF readers (and some Office apps) useless
Preview has been one of my favorite apps on Mac for a long time. For the general public, it makes bloated and obnoxious applications like Adobe Reader unnecessary. It’s also one of those amazing apps that Apple keeps adding new features to.
Basically, Preview is an application that can open various image formats and PDF documents. With it, you can do basic image and text editing, crop or resize photos, and make minor adjustments to color levels, brightness and contrast, and more. It can even open Microsoft Office documents, although you obviously cannot edit them.
More recently, Apple has added the ability to sign PDFs , annotate PDFs, and add annotations to images. If you haven’t used Preview for a while, it can do pretty much everything most of us need . Basically, if you are not interested in creating PDFs or images, preview is the only application you need to work with them. Even so, if you like MS Paint-style visuals, Preview will do the trick too .
QuickTime makes quick screen recording and snapshot editing
On the surface, QuickTime is a simple, passable video player that still struggles with several common types of video. Beneath this crude, easy-to-install look of VLC hides a built-in screen recording feature and simple editing options.
The best part about using QuickTime for screen recording is that you don’t need another heavy, often expensive app just to create a screencast. With QuickTime, you can even create a recording of your iPhone’s screen if it’s connected to your computer. Open Quicktime, click File> New Movie Recorder, and select the camera and microphone you want to use. If you just need to make a quick screen recording for someone – say you want to show someone how to do something, or you need to report a problem to support – this is the easiest way to do it.
After you finish this recording, QuickTime also includes a few simple editing options for trimming, splitting, cutting / copying / pasting, or flipping / rotating videos. Obviously, this is not a competition for specialized applications that cost hundreds and contain many more features, but most of us do not need them.
Reminders are blissfully simple, and to-do timing and deep integration make it stand out
When Reminders first launched, it was a pretty simple to-do list that only attracted its deep integration with OS X and iOS. The best feature of Reminders is its support for location-based reminders, but over the years this simple little work app has grown in popularity. Synchronization between devices now works well, a simplified to-do folder structure makes it easier to navigate, and its sharing features make it easy to create lists with multiple people (assuming they’re in the Apple ecosystem, of course).
But my personal favorite use of reminders actually comes from third-party integration into another app: my calendar. A number of calendar apps, including Fantastical and Calendars 5 , integrate reminders into your calendar. For me, this is where I want them. I can see my schedule for the day along with my tasks. It makes sense. Heck, that’s even how it works with Google Calendar with their reminder software.
Whether or not you actually use the calendar integration feature, Reminders is still a pretty solid little app. If you haven’t touched it since the initial lackluster launch in OS X Mountain Lion , it’s worth taking another look at.