Mac Apps With Beautiful Interfaces

1. wunderlist. How is this beautiful? They crammed a wood-styled UI into OS X's standard window chrome. The toggle switches at the bottom are not the OS-provided ones and look like they're intended to match the iPhone app more than the OS they're running on. Things is a far better example here.<p>2. Reeder. See <a href="http://danielkennett.org/blog/2010/12/analysing-a-touch-to-desktop-ui-port-using-fitts-law-reeder/" rel="nofollow">http://danielkennett.org/blog/2010/12/analysing-a-touch-to-d...</a><p>3. Sparrow. These are not OS X toolbar icons -- they're UIKit icons! They look as out-of-place on OS X as OS X ones would on an iOS device.<p>5. DaisyDisk. The UI here is very unique and usable. The mouse-over support on the file graph is actually very, very useful for determining where storage space is being used.<p>6. Transmit 4. I personally found Transmit 3's favorites interface and syncing interface to be more usable. The animations they've added slow down use and some buttons (e.g., disconnect) are far harder to reach than in T3.<p>7. Courier. While the interface is novel and interesting at first glance, I have to question how useful it is for repetitive tasks. I have not used the app, so I can't comment there, but more often than not fancy graphics get in the way of speed.<p>8. 1Password. This one I love. It's useful and very usable. I've used multiple versions of this program and the UI changes they've made with the current one far outshine the previous versions both in terms of appearance and usability.<p>My only gripe still would be with the browser plugin. I've tried setting up other less computer-savvy people to use it, and the menu does not make it immediately obvious to them which item to select to log in -- the top several options are too crammed together visually.

The performance of some of these apps is appalling. The Sparrow GMail client idles in the background on my MacBook Air around 20 or 30% CPU usage on one core. If you try to scroll the list of mail, resize the window, or breathe on it wrong, it will chug, the graphics will stutter, and it will peg itself at 100% cpu for several seconds. If I have it running, it cuts my estimated remaining battery life from 4 hours to 1 hour.<p>Kiwi 2, the twitter client, uses 100mb of ram for one twitter account. What?<p>I know most people aren't going to check these numbers or care, but when I open an email client and feel my laptop getting warm underneath my hands, <i>something is wrong.</i>

I agree that Transmit and 1Password are exemplary Mac OS X user interfaces. The other apps mentioned: not so much. To me, they look like iOS ports. Lots of chrome, wasted screen real estate.<p>My personal favorites:<p>Versions - <a href="http://versionsapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://versionsapp.com/</a><p>Kaleidoscope - <a href="http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/</a><p>Coda - <a href="http://panic.com/coda/" rel="nofollow">http://panic.com/coda/</a><p>Espresso - <a href="http://macrabbit.com/espresso/" rel="nofollow">http://macrabbit.com/espresso/</a><p>PixelMator - <a href="http://www.pixelmator.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.pixelmator.com/</a><p>BoinxTV - <a href="http://www.boinx.com/boinxtv/overview/" rel="nofollow">http://www.boinx.com/boinxtv/overview/</a><p>LittleSnapper - <a href="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/" rel="nofollow">http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/</a><p>OmniFocus - <a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/" rel="nofollow">http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/</a>

I'll probably get downvoted for this, but it looks like the UI for these Mac apps is wildly inconsistent and each app has a very idiosyncratic idea of how it should look, which many times doesn't seem to take usability into account.<p>I don't think it looks prettier, but to me most modern GTK apps on Ubuntu seem much more consistent and strict as far as respecting the platform UI guidelines.

My least-favorite trend in Mac app design: using Helvetica instead of Lucida Grande, the system font, often because Helvetica is the default on iOS (cf. Reeder, a Mac port of an iOS app).<p>Why is this wrong? 1) Lucida Grande was optimized for legibility on low- and medium-resolution screens [1], and Helvetica is a 50-year-old print font. 2) Lucida Grande is the system font, and other fonts stick out like a sore-thumb, contrary to the consistency designer’s strive for [2].<p>The problem, of course, is that Apple keeps using Helvetica in their own Mac apps, most recently across vast swaths of iPhoto, seemingly for the sole benefit of making it more like an iOS app (especially when full screen), disregarding much of what makes a Mac app unique.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.tug.org/store/lucida/designnotes.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.tug.org/store/lucida/designnotes.html</a><p>[2] <a href="http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/swiss-interface-syndrome/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.cocoia.com/2008/swiss-interface-syndrome/</a>

Far too many physical metaphors, I thought we got over that in the early 90's with MS-Bob.<p>Designers, please, if you are thinking of using wood paneling or shelves in your design, <i>stop</i>, move on to the next idea.

The problem with a lot of Mac apps is that:<p>1. They have glossy websites that talk about how awesome they are. 2. They have copy that claims they have awesome UI. 3. You download them, try them, and realize they do almost nothing except look pretty.<p>It's pretty hard to find exceptions to this.

Daisy Disk isn't a new idea... the Windows Freeware 'Scanner' by Steffen Gerlach was the first I saw to implement this disk view 8-9 years ago. Still find that utility priceless to this day.<p><a href="http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/" rel="nofollow">http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/</a>

Hate to say this, but it's been a while since there is any beautiful UI software on Windows.

I would put as number one the new and still-in-beta "Tower" git client for Mac: <a href="http://www.git-tower.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.git-tower.com/</a>

DaisyDisk is really awesome, I use this app a lot on my Macbook Air because disk space is still relatively scarce compared to my other machines. I like it a lot and recommend it.

ah yes, let's praise inconsistent user interfaces...<p>I only like the SweetFM. wich is nothing clever, they just copied the first version of the official lastFM desktop application (at least how it looked in linux). Probably the guys at lastFM did some usability research and ditched that old version for something more itunesque.