Buying a MacBook is like getting a ticket to a land of fantastic new software. In addition to all of the free apps that Apple gives to every Mac owner, both the Mac App Store and independent developers provide tools that make using your computer easier — and a little more fun.
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- Best Mac Apps For College 2016
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Our must-have list includes apps that remember your passwords, organize your notes and to-dos, and follow your package deliveries. There's also a Mac App subscription service that outfits your MacBook with more than 75 programs for only $9.99 per month! Adobe's just put Lightroom in the Mac App Store, marking a new era for the creative professional software vendor.
1Password
1Password to rule them all: Given how many accounts we have, it's getting harder to keep these username and password combos straight, let alone differentiated. (You're using a different password for every account, right?) AgileBits' secure app lets you keep all of your passwords in one place, so you can create a single master login password with the maximum security. The app lets you store credit card information to auto-fill forms, and it keeps track of your security questions for different sites. You get Dropbox and iCloud syncing support, and for a few extra bucks, you can get mobile apps to take your passwords on the go. Now a free download, 1Password is currently offered as a service, with pricing starting at $4-per-month for individuals. A $6-per-month family plan that includes up to five installations on multiple devices is also available.1of 24Evernote
This Retina display-optimized app provides a front face for accessing Evernote's popular note-taking and storage service. While the app's design lacks some finesse, it does simplify note-taking, by capturing quick tasks and saving documents as web pages. The process of searching through notes is now simplified, so all you need to do is tell it what you want in plain language. For instance, you can tell the app you want to search for 'notes with PDF.' All of this info is then synced to the cloud, so all of your devices have access to the same data. Step up to Evernote Plus to add offline notes and password protection ($4 per month or $35 per year), or Evernote Premium to add annotations and markup ($8 per month or $70 per year). If you're stuck in the Microsoft camp, the company's OneNote software offers similar functionality, also for free.2of 24Clear
Task management apps are a dime a dozen these days, but few match the sheer simplicity of Realmac's Clear. There aren't a million options to get lost in; you start it, type in your tasks and swipe them away as you complete them. The app lets you rearrange them in order of importance — indicated by that handy red-yellow gradient — and set due dates for time-specific tasks. iCloud syncing, as well as iPhone and iPad apps, give you the same easy access on the go.3of 24Setapp
An alternative to the Mac App Store, Setapp provides an app buffet filled with titles for productivity, blogging, finances and more. Currently featuring more than 75 programs, this $9.99 per month service offers a great way to discover great tools you've never known you needed.4of 24Pixelmator
Pixelmator is similar to Photoshop, except that you pay only once, so you're not forever sending money in a subscription model. So if you've wanted an image editor that does more than Photos offers, but don't want to carve out a whole new space in your budget, this is the app for you. Sure, it might not offer all the same features as Adobe's editor, but it's got most of what everyday users will need.5of 24PDF Expert 6
You'll never think of PDFs the same way again after using PDF Expert. Most users see these documents as frozen-in-time artifacts, but this program allows you to edit the text and images in these documents, and even add and adjust links.6of 24Bear
When I'm working on a post for my personal blog, I brainstorm and edit in the Bear writing app. Not only does it sync between my MacBook and my iPhone and my iPad (all writing apps by this point), but its support of the Markdown syntax writing style allows for faster, easier writing that create smaller-sized files. Bear also offers a variety of neat themes, if you don't like its black, red and white default. While Bear is a free download, its cross-device syncing and other advanced features are locked behind its Pro subscription, which costs either $1.49 per monthly or $14.99 per year.7of 24Things 3
Some people can make do with simple to-do lists in Apple Notes or the colorful Clear app. Things, an app that first rose to prominence on iOS, is loved by users who track more complicated, project-based documents. So whether you're tracking a home renovation or putting together a term paper, Things 3 is just right for you.8of 24F-Secure XFENCE
Antivirus software protects you from attacks, malware and unwanted programs, but what about non-threatening apps that poke their nose where they don't belong? For example, if you're using your webcam for a Skype call, but another app decided to peep through that lens, you wouldn't know. Also, there's no way to know when your microphone is being used either.F-Secure's XFENCE, currently in beta, prevents this problem, alerting you when apps operate outside of their expected behavior process. Thankfully, it's free! Just remember to set it to Simple mode, which is novice-friendly. We used the tool back when it was called Little Flocker, and found its alerts a little too confusing under the default settings.9of 24Fantastical 2
Flexibits, the developer of Fantastical 2, calls the app 'the calendar app you won't be able to live without,' and it may be right. In a lot of ways, this calendar replacement reminds us of Siri. For instance, you don't click specific days and times to set appointments. Instead, you just type your sentence in plain English, and the program figures out what you're trying to schedule. Fantastical can work with Calendar, iCal, BusyCal, Entourage or Outlook. While Fantastical 2's functionality somewhat overlaps with that of Clear, we preferred Clear for simple daily tasks, and Fantastical as a robust appointment system. We love the full window view and how easy it is to view your home and work appointments separately.10of 24Amphetamine
If you need your Mac to stay on for an extended period of time but you're sick of the Energy Saver section of System Preferences, this is the utility you've been looking for. Amphetamine sits in the menu bar, and its default setting will keep your Mac and its display turned on indefinitely. Amphetamine also offers other options, including one to set your Mac's display to follow a schedule and stay on when certain applications are open.11of 24Todoist
If you've got a dense stack of complicated projects that include recurring tasks and collaborative assignments, you should check out Todoist. It's the app I use to manage my priorities. One of my favorite features is its suggested date scheduling, where it looks at your upcoming week and figures out how best to postpone actions. For more features, including location-based alerts, custom filters and the power to attach files and comments to your tasks, unlock Todoist Premium for $28.99 per year.12of 24Chrome Remote Desktop
Google's Chrome Remote Desktop is the best and easiest tool for accessing your computer from afar. If you're sitting at work and need to do something on your home desktop or laptop — assuming it's on — then Chrome Remote Desktop makes it very, very easy to interact with your remote system as if you were sitting right in front of it. You don't have to memorize your home system's IP address or any of that; a simple PIN authentication is all you need to gain access to your remote system's mouse, keyboard and desktop.13of 24Keypad
You can now make and receive phone calls via OS X. However, you don't have a great keypad in the operating system with which to do that. While you don't really need one, assuming you're calling your contacts, having some kind of keypad makes it super-easy to call everyone else's numbers. This $1 app drops a little keypad on your screen that you'd use just as you would the keypad on your iPhone. You can click on the numbers, copy and paste them in, or just start typing the name of the person in your contacts list.14of 24Deliveries
If you're a big online shopper, you know that tracking deliveries can be a bit of a mess. How are you supposed to know when you need to be home to collect certain packages? The $5 Deliveries app tracks shipments from a number of different services (including Amazon, Apple, FedEx, UPS and the USPS).15of 24HandBrake
If you're a video connoisseur, or if you're always finding that you have to convert your videos to make them playable (or streamable) to all of your devices, then you're going to want HandBrake on your Mac, pronto. This is one of the best OS X apps for video conversion, period. It's detailed enough to give power users plenty of options to play with, but it's also simple enough in its core functionality that even newbies will be able to figure out how to convert a video file from one type to another. Best of all, it's free.16of 24Dropbox
We'd be surprised if you hadn't heard of this super-popular cloud storage service. Here's the gist: Install Dropbox, and you'll get 2GB of cloud storage free. The app dumps a simple Dropbox folder onto your Mac, and anything you drag into there will be synchronized with the cloud. You can head over to Dropbox's website to access these files remotely (or download them to a separate device manually). Or, if you have multiple computers, anything in your Dropbox folder will be synchronized across all the other systems the app runs on. It's as easy as that — and cross-platform, too.17of 24VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is a powerful media playback app from the nonprofit VideoLAN group. Resolutely open-source, the team has ported VLC to OS X, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and more. What sets this media player apart is its ability to play — or stream — almost any non-DRM file you throw at it, all without requiring the installation of various codec packages. Have an old audio file, camera footage or other piece of arcane media? VLC can get the job done.18of 24AppCleaner
Sometimes, downloaded applications dump stuff all over your hard drive, and the standard uninstallation routine (deleting the apps from your Finder) doesn't get rid of all the extra stuff that came with them. If you install AppCleaner, it will find these extra bits of data and delete them for you. When you want to uninstall an application, just pull up AppCleaner first; then drag the application you're removing into the AppCleaner window. It's as easy as that. AppCleaner finds all related files, and it'll give you a prompt to delete them when it's done searching.19of 24BetterTouchTool
BetterTouchTool enhances your Mac desktop or MacBook laptop with two powerful features. First, you can customize gestures and apply them to various actions on your laptop. So, for example, you can open your favorite game by spelling the first letter of its name with your finger. You can even trigger multiple actions in a sequence so that tapping a certain way can start a chain reaction of actions on your system. Cough up an additional $3, and you'll even be able to use your iOS device as a remote for your computer.20of 24Spectacle
If you're more productive when keeping your hands on your keyboard at all times, then you need a quick and convenient way to move the windows around your desktop or laptop screen. Spectacle lets you shoot your open windows around your desktop (or to other monitors) using simple keyboard shortcuts. You can send the windows to pre-defined areas, such as the four quadrants of your main screen or your screen's horizontal or vertical thirds. You can also shrink and expand windows as you see fit, all without touching your trackpad or mouse.21of 24Bartender 2
If you have just a few applications installed, you're probably already feeling a bit overwhelmed. Take one glance at your Mac's menu bar, and it probably looks like a smorgasbord of icons. Yuck. Bartender helps you fix that by giving you a lot more control over this otherwise hands-off area of OS X. Though this app is expensive, it's worth every penny: You can take a bunch of the icons on your menu bar and hide them under a single icon, which keeps the top of your screen clutter-free (until you need to access those apps for something). If you have some must-use icons, keep them on your menu bar; hide everything else for less of a visual headache.22of 24Sophos Home for Mac
If you switched to a Mac because you thought the platform was free of viruses and malware, you should know that is no longer the case. Fortunately, our current top pick for Free Mac antivirus software is not only easy to use, but also supports multiple machines. Sophos provides capable malware detection and a light system impact.23of 24Tweetbot for Twitter
The power user's Twitter client started out on iOS, and its desktop counterpart is one of the best ways to use the social network on a Mac. Tweetbot provides all of the mute filter options you'll need to tune out hashtags, users and even keywords, and it syncs with its mobile sibling, so your streams are up to date on all platforms. It also provides a multiple-tab view, so you can keep track of all of your lists at the same time.24of 24
More Tips
![Best mac apps for college 2016 championship Best mac apps for college 2016 championship](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126030348/543914724.jpg)
* Beauty, Simplicity, and Reliability - myHomework has a gorgeous appearance and simple interface making it easy for anyone to use. Our apps fill their role as a planner without network connectivity. * Amazing Anywhere - With highly rated cross-platform apps, and a wonderful website, it's the most complete on the go planner experience anywhere. Everyone else can purchase it for $19.99 on the Mac App Store, which is pretty good for a fully-fledged word processor. As a tool for getting words on a page, it’s solid. It comes with a number of templates for academic writing. Please contact me if you have any suggestions for best Mac OS apps! I haven't included any of the default apps that come with Mac OS. I haven't included any of the default apps that come with Mac OS. All of these apps are actually used by me.
Most students looking for a new MacBook should pick up the MacBook Air. It's less expensive than other MacBooks, more powerful, and has a bigger display than the 12-inch MacBook while remaining lightweight. And though it might not be as powerful as the MacBook Pro, it should provide enough power for the average student to get through their day.
Our pick
MacBook Air (2018)
Hits the sweet spot of power, portability, and price.
More powerful than the 12-inch MacBook and more mobile than the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air sits in the Goldilocks zone of Apple's portable Mac lineup, offering enough power for most everything you'll want it to do without the bulk of a MacBook Pro. Features Touch ID for easy, yet secure, authentication.
Who should buy this computer?
College students who want a Mac for writing papers, doing research, surfing the web, light photo editing and just entertaining themselves should get the MacBook Air. It should also be a great computer for you when your academic career is over and you're headed out into the world.
Is it a good time to buy this computer?
The current MacBook Air came out in October 2018, so now is a great time to buy this Mac. Some solid discounts are popping up at retailers like Amazon, and we're likely many months away from a potential refresh. It's been a while since Apple refreshed any of its Macs in less than a year.
Reasons to buy
- Great balance of price and power
- Light and portable
- Retina display
- Touch ID
Reasons not to buy
- Limited customization
- Butterfly keyboard may irk some
The MacBook Air is a great Mac for students, successfully riding the line between power and portability
For students, portability is a chief concern when it comes to buying a computer. Whether you're walking through your high school's hallways to your history class or sprinting across a college campus to make it your next lecture on time, you don't want to be lugging around a heavy computer. You want something fairly light. At the same time, you don't want a computer that's underpowered. The MacBook Air occupies the happy medium of that ideal. It's more powerful than the MacBook and thinner and lighter than the MacBook Pro.
For the longest time, the MacBook Air was Apple's thin-and-light computer. Many credit MacBook Air with paving the way for the 'ultrabook' genre of computers that gained prominence in the early part of this decade. But Apple has since introduced the 12-inch MacBook, which debuted with a Retina display and was even thinner and lighter than the Air. Surely, if portability is your main concern, you should get the MacBook, right?
The MacBook Air sits in the happy medium between the portability of the MacBook and the power of the MacBook Pro.
Well, let's take a look at the modern MacBook Air. It now also (some would say 'finally') has a Retina display, without adding any bulk. And no, it's not as small as the MacBook, but it's almost as light. The MacBook Air comes in at 2.75 lbs, less than a pound heavier than the MacBook's 2.03. You're not making much of a sacrifice on weight. If the footprint of the computer is a concern, check out the MacBook, but you're gaining only about half-an-inch each on width and depth, so maybe the larger Air won't present much of a size problem.
The other consideration the MacBook versus the MacBook Air is power. While the MacBook Air's eighth-generation Intel processor won't really keep up with those found in the current generation of MacBook Pro, it's more than a match for the 7th-generation processors found in the MacBook. For everything from web browsing to photo editing, the MacBook will find itself outmatched by the Air, all while the MacBook Air is priced at least $100 under the current MacBook.
Speaking of power, the MacBook Pro is probably overkill for most students. Sure, some will be able to take advantage of its more powerful processors available to it, but if most of what you're doing is writing papers, putting together presentations, or doing research on the web, you probably don't need the level of power a MacBook Pro offers. And again, you'll be saving a bit of money if you get the MacBook Air, which is always something to consider.
Ultimately, when looking at the current MacBook lineup through the lens of a student, the MacBook Air successfully rides the line between the thin-and-light MacBook and the powerful MacBook Pro. It will meet the needs of most students, and should still be a great Mac to have when you're ready to leave academics behind and head off into the world.
Alternatives to the MacBook Air
The MacBook Air might be the best MacBook for most students, but different people have different needs. If you're looking for more power, then check out the MacBook Pro. It'll be a more capable machine for almost everything you want to do, with more expensive models offering an ever-increasing amount of power for tasks like photo and video editing, app development, scientific programs, illustration, and music production. It will last longer than the MacBook Air and perform at higher levels the entire time.
If you're looking for more of a budget option, unfortunately, you're going to have to settle for something older from Apple. It's still a MacBook Air, but it lacks the Retina display of the newer model, and its processors are older. But, it still has all-solid-state storage, which means a lot when it comes to boot times. If budget is your chief concern and you still want a Mac, the older MacBook Air that Apple still sells should work just fine, if not quite as well as the new model.
More power
MacBook Pro
More power for whatever you need to do.
More powerful and versatile than the MacBook Air, the Pro lineup offers more customization options so you get the exact machine you need for photo and video work, scientific programs, music production, or other intensive tasks.
The MacBook Pro offers a lot of customization options that allow you to create the computer you need. Offers everything from a seventh-generation dual-core Intel processor to an ninth-generation, eight-core i9 beast, configurable up to 32GB of memory with AMD Radeon graphics for the most intensive tasks. If power is what you want, that's what you'll get with the MacBook Pro.
Value pick
MacBook Air (2017)
Best Mac Apps For College 2016 Baseball
A capable computer for the money.
While it hasn't seen anything other than a spec bump in the last couple of years, the 2017 revision of the MacBook Air is still a capable machine. It may lack Thunderbolt and a Retina display, but it'll still get you through most of your tasks without hassle.
Apple quietly bumped the specs on the MacBook Air in 2017, introducing a couple of new processors to choose from. Despite its lack of Thunderbolt 3 ports or a Retina display, the older MacBook Air should still be able to meet most of your needs. It even still has an SD card reader, something many Mac owners thought was lost to the ages (or at least the Mac).
Bottom line
If you want an excellent 'medium' Mac laptop, get the MacBook Air. Offering enough power to meet most of the needs of student life while being almost as portable as a MacBook, the Air strikes a great balance between the other offerings in Apple's laptop lineup.
Best Mac Apps For Productivity
It's also among the most affordable of the portable Macs, especially when you start getting into the upper echelons of what that MacBook Pro has to offer and even compared to the 12-inch MacBook.
Our pick
MacBook Air (2018)
Hits the sweet spot of power, portability, and price.
Best Mac Apps For College 2016
More powerful than the 12-inch MacBook and more mobile than the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air sits in the Goldilocks zone of Apple's portable Mac lineup, offering enough power for most everything you'll want it to do without the bulk of a MacBook Pro. Features Touch ID for easy, yet secure, authentication.
Credits — The team that worked on this guide
Joseph Keller is a senior writer at iMore. An Apple user for more than a decade and a half, he spends his time learning the ins and outs of iOS and macOS, always finding ways of getting the most out of his iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Rene Ritchie has been covering the personal technology industry for a decade. An outspoken analyst and critic, he writes at iMore.com/vector, podcasts at applepodcasts.com/vector, and you can find his show at youtube.com/vector. Follow him @reneritchie on Twitter and Instagram
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Dock it!Best Mac For College
Bye-bye dongles! Here are the best docking stations for your MacBook Pro
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Need to connect all the things to your MacBook Pro with USB-C ports? Dongles be damned. Get yourself a docking station instead!