My most used, Mac-only apps are as follows:
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Curio – An absolutely must-have app to brainstorm, manage top-level views of projects, and develop lecture content. Since I started using it some years ago, Curio has dramatically changed how I coordinate my work. I would be seriously lost without it.
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OmniFocus – My go-to task manager across my macOS, iOS, and iPadOS devices. This app keeps my head from exploding with the abundance of tasks that I have across multiple types of projects.
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TeXShop – My number one app to create LaTeX. I’ve tried others but keep returning to TeXShop if for no other reason than that it remains robust and follows the macOS standards well (unlike other cross-platform options).
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LaTeXIt – An essential app to typeset equations as images (e.g. to embed in Curio). The support for LinkBack between Curio and LaTeXiT is a godsend.
My less-frequently used but much appreciated Mac-only apps are as follows:
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DevonThink – Someday, I will actually figure out why I keep coming back to this app to establish it as a resource to try to write my textbook.
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Graphic Converter – I use this for the cases where I have to adjust images to meet certain critical needs.
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Numbers – It is less powerful than Excel for real “number crunching” work, yet more appealing than Excel for visual layout of data and results.
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PDFExpert – It is robust than Preview (yet less robust than the Acrobat suite). I use this app more on my iPad as my gold standard to work with PDFs.
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BBEdit – I have the infamous T-shirt! When I need to manipulate text files, this app is a must-have.
Finally, I rely critically on some cross-platform and well-developed apps as well:
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Igor Pro – This is the only app I will recommend for anyone who needs to develop publication-ready graphics from data and to create control-panel driven, interactive demonstrations of scientific or engineering formulations. For the types of work that I need to do, I would be entirely frustrated when I would be forced to use equivalent apps such as Origin, MatLab, R, Mathematica, Maple, or python. Interestingly, Igor started three decades ago as a Mac-only app.
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Camtasia – While I like the power behind it, I probably only touch its surface in features.
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JJW