The Best Mac Productivity Software

This page is a collection of the best Mac Productivity Software currently available for the Mac. We review a lot of software for the Mac, some we like and some we don't! If we like it then it appears on these pages.

This page is based on the applications in the Mac App Store Productivity category, and include writing tools, utilities, and personal management tools.

Against each App there is a black App Store button, which when clicked, takes you to the same application in the Mac App Store. You can then read further reviews and purchase the App if you so chose!

OS X Lion

OS X Lion is the latest release of Apples operating system which is used throughout their range of Mac computers.

Lion was released at the end of July 2011 and has concentrated on bringing some of the functionality found in the latest versions of the iOS operating system, used in the iPhone and iPad, back to the Mac.

We love the new update to the most advanced operating system in the world. So what are the main features found in OS X Lion then, well the following is a list of the main highlights.

• Full Screen Apps.
• Multi-touch gestures.
• Launchpad.
• Versions.
• Mission Control.
• Air Drop.
• Mac App Store.

The list above is only a glimpse of some of the new features to be found in Lion, there are of course many other improvements and changes that ensure that OS X Lion is still way ahead of the competition. The screenshot below shows the new desktop.

Mac OS X Lion Desktop

Read our overview of OS X Lion to see why we think this is still the best operating system in the world.

Omnifocus

In our crazy hectic world our minds get no peace, no break, it can't because we might miss something important. A meeting, collecting dry cleaning, getting little Johnny from school, finishing that report, it goes on and on!

This mayhem has made us all desperate for a solution, something to help us, may be even control us. Gurus have appeared with ideas like Getting Things Done or Zen habits, and thousands of software apps intended to help us get organised.

Our first App for task management is called Omnifocus, by developers The Omni Group. Omnifocus is a very powerful piece of software intended to help us Mac users manage our tasks.

Omnifocus allows us to dump the contents of our brains into the Inbox. We can then work through our outstanding tasks, goals and projects, giving them start and end dates, notes, linking them to projects, etc.

The screenshot below shows the layout of the main window.

Omnifocus for the Mac

Once your planning is complete you can sync everything with the Omni group servers and carry your outstanding tasks with you on your iPhone or iPad.

Things

You might be wondering why I have listed Things here when I have just looked at Omnifocus above!

It is true that Things does basically the same task as Omnifocus, but in some ways Things does everything a little bit simpler, a little easier, with a little bit less hassle.

I tend to switch between the two. Things has a nice clean layout and displays tasks and projects in an easy to view format. I like the Areas idea where tasks and projects can be grouped together in a common area.

The Today section, another nice touch, gathers everything together that you must do today! This helps you to focus without having to switch between different windows.

You can probably see from the screenshot below why I like its looks. At the end of the day it is probably down to personal choice.

Things for the Mac

You will also be pleased to know that Things is also available for the iPhone and the iPad.

Cleanwriter Pro

One of the biggest problems with creating a website like this is just how to concentrate on a single article at a time!

Even sitting at your Mac in an office can be distracting - emails, checking Google Analytics, sudden thoughts for new articles, all end up with a gradual drift away from what is important.

Cleanwriter Pro is one of those life changing little applications that make you wonder just how you managed to cope before discovering it. If you have a look through the Mac App Store you will find many similar applications all doing basically the same as Cleanwriter, and I have tried many of them!

Even though I want simple, I still want to have control over settings like font size and style, I want to see a word count, and sometimes knowing a line number is handy.

Cleanwriter allows you to see document statistics and to format text, all from the comfort of the window you are currently working in. It works very well indeed. The screenshot below shows two documents open in different windows. The paragraphs that you are working on are highlighted and the others are dimmed.

Cleanwriter Pro for the Mac

If you look carefully down the right-hand side and across the bottom of a window you will probably be able to see some faint grey icons, these are where you control the documents settings.

Ulysses

Using an App like Cleanwriter Pro, mentioned above, is great for writing an article on the go where you just want piece and quiet while you write. But what happens if you want to work on a bigger project.

May be you write a website or are working on a book, where the final version is going to be hundreds of pages long and published as an ebook.

This is where Ulysses comes into its own. It allows you to write in an environment where all of your notes can captured in one place. You can group articles together into relevant sections, and all opened documents are accessible via tabs at the top of the window.

But what makes Ulysses stand out for me is the ability to export your latest masterpiece with ease. If you want the page to be for a web site then you can create a template that allows you to format how you want the page to look when it is exported as an HTML page. If you would rather write an ebook that can be viewed on an iPhone or iPad then select the ePub exporter.

The screenshot below shows Ulysses being used for this website. Each of the menu options on this website are used as section dividers, with each article grouped under the relevant section.

Ulysses for the Mac

Scrivener

To round of our look at writing applications available from the Mac App Store, we will take a look at Scrivener which has been enjoyed by the professional writing community for many years and only recently found its way into the Mac App Store.

Scrivener takes another step up from Ulysses and is intended for script writers or authors, people who want to build an entire world inside scrivener. What do I mean by this? Well, Scrivener gives you tools like cork boards where you can sketch out characters on cards and move them around while you think, building up the plot, etc.

You can keep research in one place, including web sites, ready for when you need them. Chapters can be easily controlled in the binder, with the ability to swap them around, to group them in collections.

Scrivener for the Mac

If you are researching a location out in the field with your iPhone or iPad you can choose to synch documents with writing tools like SimpleNote and Notebooks, and then synch them back into Scrivener when you get back to your Hotel room, or office.

Voila

Mac productivity software includes many different applications. Now we switch to Voila, an App that makes screen capture and screen recording an easy task.

As a Mac user with get keyboard shortcuts for taking a snapshot of the screen, we can use the Grab utility to capture the screen, windows or selections.

So why would we need Voila? Well, those little Apps and utilities that are bundled with your Mac are intended to be simple, straightforward, and easy to use.

Voila is intended for Mac users who take regular screenshots, like I do for this website! Users who sometimes want a screenshot of a menu or an object, who may suddenly want to take a recording of the screen, and then want the flexibility to trim, crop and annotate before publishing the new image.

The screenshot below shows Voila having captured the home page of this website.

Voila for the Mac