What Were The Best New Desktop Apps Of 2009?

Giles Turnbull ()

20091210-newapps.jpg

It’s that time of year again folks.

Last December, we asked you to nominate your favorite new desktop apps of 2008. Popular choices back then included Evernote, Dropbox, 1Password and Things.

But what new stuff has grabbed your attention during 2009?

Remember, this is new apps we’re talking about. Perhaps one of those myriad Twitter clients has floated your boat. Or maybe a certain new browser just released this week by a well-known search company. There’s loads and loads of new stuff that qualifies, so have a little think about it and then make your suggestions known in the comments – or if you prefer, add a comment to the

Cult of Mac page

on Facebook.

We’re happy to be a little flexible with the rules, so: “new” can mean:

  • a completely brand-new app (this is the best option)
  • a major update to an old friend (Screenflow 2 would qualify, BBEdit 9.3.1 wouldn’t)
  • something that appeared in the final couple of weeks of 2008 and was too late to get noticed that year

DON'T MISS
Your Nominations: New Mac App Of The Year

There are no prizes, this is just for fun. It’ll be interesting to see which apps get the most votes. Also, please mention why you think your chosen app deserves recognition. What made it stand out? We’ll do a round-up of the most popular choices some time next week.

For clarity: we’re looking for Mac OS X desktop apps, please – we’ll deal with iPhone apps in a separate post. Sorry for confusion.

17 comments »

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He writes for the Press Association and The Morning News. He has a website you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

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Posted in News, Opinions, Software, Top stories |

  • Sayam Aggarwal

    Facebook 3.0
    Tweetie2
    Dragon Dictation
    Eliminate Pro
    I amT-Pain
    Voices
    Pastebot

  • SnazzyMax

    Here are my top apps of 2009, not in order of which is best:

    1. Air Mouse Pro
    2. Tap Tap Revenge 3
    3. Spawn
    4. Echofon
    5. ColorSplash

    I might post some more, these are the only ones I can think off the top of my head.

  • Benjamin

    WhatsApp Messenger! An iPhone to iPhone instant messaging system, akin to Blackberry’s BBM.
    Its awessssoooommeee.

  • http://www.szilveszter.ca WS

    Judging by the comment above, I don’t think it’s clear whether you are restricting this to Mac OS X, or extending it to the App Store as well.

    If Snow Leopard doesn’t count as a new app, then I really have nothing to contribute.

    Wait, chalk up a vote for Tweetie (for the Mac). Why do I like it? It is probably the cleanest Twitter client I’ve tried so far.

  • http://gilest.org Giles Turnbull

    WS: you’re right.

    This post is about **desktop Mac OS X apps** only.

    We’ll deal with iPhone apps in a separate post. I’ve updated this one to clear up any confusion, apologies for that.

  • http://www.twitter.com/egOriginal Kofi Asirifi

    TweetDeck
    GetTube
    Awaken
    Skim
    Vuze (can’t live without )

  • Robert Brave
  • http://www.nexuspdx.com Lee Dudley

    Rapidweaver 4 (by far! — what a great application)

  • GimcrackNick

    Ommwriter!

  • Alex

    mBox Mail for Mac (more like a plug-in than an app)
    http://fluentfactory.com/mboxmail-for-mac/features.php

    Basically lets Mail/Thunderbird/Entourage use Hotmail email addresses like they we’re IMAP instead of POP3. Read/Unread email sync, folders sync, …

  • ahrucool

    Chrome! Downloaded it to give it a try and haven’t closed it since. It works like I do, all efficiency and speed.

    Snow Leopard! Exchange support in Mail, 64-bit, and regaining gigabytes of drive space make this update a must have.

    MindNode is the most efficient and intuitive mind-mapping program I’ve found (all while staying beautiful and affordable!)

    Notational Velocity rocks note keeping by being keyboard optimized, blazing fast, and having the ability to save in plain text rather than a proprietary database.

    World of Goo is a blast and the developers did a great thing with their pay-what-you-can promotion. I wouldn’t have been able to play it otherwise.

    A nod to OmmWriter as well, it is great for journaling. I like it better than Writeroom.

  • Aaron

    Notify 2 (Gmail notifications)
    Dropzone (Drag ‘n’ drop tasks)
    Espresso (web development)
    F.lux (adjusts monitor warmth according to sun up/sun down)
    Cornerstone 1.5 (subversion client, huge release)
    Bodega (“app store” for desktop apps)
    Camtasia Mac
    Snowtape (play+record internet radio, export to itunes)

  • Tony

    Alex,

    I agree that mBox Mail for Mac is a great Mac tool. It is a must have since WebDAV went away.

  • http://theroot42.org Mike

    mBox Mail for Mac – IMAP for Hotmail on Mac
    http://fluentfactory.com/mboxmail-for-mac/

    The Hit List – to do list management

    TinyGrab – screenshot sharing

  • Aaron

    Mike, isn’t The Hit List still in beta? Dunno if that counts since it’s not “released”.

  • imajoebob

    Based on everything I’ve read over the last year I thought they only made apps for the iPhone. But they make apps for the Mac? Who’da thunk it?

  • Michael

    Tweetie (for Mac and Tweetie 2 for iPhone) – Probably the best looking/functioning (native) twitter app for Mac
    Tinygrab – simple screenshot sharing app
    Droplr – file/link sharing and shortener

    Kinda/sorta ‘released’:
    Chrome – been playing with beta and love it so far, almost usable as main browser. Safari speed w/ firefox extensibility.
    The Hit List – Awesome to-do list management, as soon as it gets an iPhone app (with syncing) it’ll be absolutely perfect