Posted on August 13th, 2010Apple has always been known and loved for creating hardware and software that is easy to use, intuitive and reliable, and it’s Mac OS X desktop operating system continues the tradition like no other software product does.
A lot of attention and care has been put into this marvelous OS, and the end result is respected by everyone – every application designer and developer is trying to match or even outdo it. When an application is set as an example for all others to follow, you know that it’s truly worth something.
Linux developers make their apps practical, and don’t care much about the ease of use or interface intuitiveness. Windows developers vary greatly – there are a lot of good apps out there for the OS, but most of them are mediocre in the UI design and ease of use department (plus the functionality suffers on many older apps because of the limits of the platform itself).
Mac OS X developers try to make their applications as easy to use as possible while having a great, beautiful and intuitive interface and being stuffed only with the most necessary tools and maybe a few extras, but they are never chockfull of useless features that just make the app occupy more space, load slower and be hard to use. Apple even has an yearly Design Award for the best application in category, and a lot of people are competing for it, making everyone’s apps a bit better every year.
Here are a few examples of the best Mac OS X apps that have the best interfaces (best meaning easy to use and intuitive for first time and advanced users alike).
Coda:
Coda is one of the best web development applications around for any platform. It’s a winner of the Apple Design Award, which says a lot about it. What makes it great and special is that it packs almost all of the must have development tools into one, single-window application, so developers can have an FTP client, a CSS/HTML editor, a Terminal and much more open in one window with tabs instead of cluttering the main OS with all of that stuff. Basically, it’s like having multiple sites open in Internet Explorer 6 (multiple windows, for those who don’t remember) versus having the same sites open in Firefox (nicely in tabs inside a main window).
Things:
This is one of the best task managers for Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad. It has a ton of features and the interface is very easy to use. All of the main features and tasks are accurately sorted into a very intuitive navigation system, with beautiful icons and bars everywhere. The first time you open it is like a revelation, especially compared to MS Outlook.
xScope:
xScope is one of the best measurement applications for Mac. Any designer needs a tool that can easily measure the size of onscreen objects or the distance between them, and xScope does this very well. The rulers, loupes and other tools can easily be placed above anything on the screen, and you can see and save the relevant measures immediately.
CleanMyMac:
This is a very clean and simply beautiful Mac OS X application. Its purpose is to clean your computer of useless and unneeded stuff, but that doesn’t matter for web designers. What matters is that you can look at it for hours without getting tired. If only other apps looked like it.
NewsLife:
NewsLife is a great RSS reader for Mac computers, and its interface is clean, easy to use and focused on the feed items. You’ve got 2 sidebars and the feed items in the center, nothing more. Any other features are hidden behind drop down menus and the settings panel.
Tweetie:
Tweetie is a great looking Twitter client which makes reading and posting tweets, pictures and videos an even better experience. It uses the standard Mac OS X shades of gray, and you can navigate the menus and tweets by scrolling, which is very smooth and easy on the eyes.
Bodega:
This is a really useful application that lets users store all of the applications on their computer in one place, by categories, so that they can be easily found later or when needed. The interface is simple and the main thing that stands out and makes the app very good are the big icons and the news stand-like window, which makes it interesting to navigate and open the apps.
If you are developing applications, you should definitely take a look and a few notes from the above apps. Mac OS X apps have always been known for their stylish look and easy to use interfaces, and bringing those things to other platforms (even online services) would benefit everyone.