Favourite 2008 Applications

Well the year end wouldn’t be the same without a quick look back at the favourite applications from the year!

This year of course there is the iPhone to consider, while on the Mac front I have reviewed far less applications than in previous years which is a combined result of a) getting a bit bored with the whole ‘review thing’ and b) actually using my Mac more to ‘do stuff’ and as such having less time or inclination to stray away from the applications that work for me.

So looking back at my favourite applications for 2008 I a going to divide them into Mac and iPhone, and concentrate only the applications that I have used extensively i.e. the ones that work best for me in my workflows.

Favourite iPhone Applications in 2008

The applications are by far the best and most useful aspect of the iPhone in my view. I use the application way more than I use the phone! For the purpose of this article I am going to stay away from Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Safari, SMS etc and just look at the third party applications that I use all the time.

  1. Evernote
  2. Qik
  3. Twittleator
  4. Note2Self
  5. WordPress

NB Have not listed Remote as in my mind that is a no brainer, every iPhone user that uses iTunes should have it on their iPhone. Things nearly made it onto the list but I have only started using it this month so is more one to watch in 2009.

Favourite Mac Applications in 2008

2008 has very much been the year of content for me. Even if things have been quiet on this blog front for most of this year, the Almerimar Life site and in particular the Long Way Round client site have required a lot of content, and as such that has dominated my applications in 2008.

  1. Evernote
  2. Forklift
  3. iWatermark
  4. Lightroom
  5. iMovie

The real surprise (for me at least) was iMovie. I had only really played with it before, but this year I have used it a lot and really loved it!

So that is my lost (or lists). Would love to hear what made your favourite applications list for 2008.

5 thoughts on “Favourite 2008 Applications

  1. Gary

    I’ve been using three of Bruji’s ‘pedia programs – Book, CD and DVD – plus their iPod Touch Pocketpedia app quite a bit this year. The three desktops apps were pretty good to begin with – the addition of the iPod/iPhone app was the icing on the cake. (Pocketpedia still has a few features that could/should be added, but it’s still a v1 app and they’re a small company.)

    ConceptDraw’s “MINDMAP 5 Pro” would be the other app worthy of mention. ConceptDraw gave away a recent version on a magazine cover-mounted disc earlier this year as an incentive to try and buy the newest version. I’d tinkered with mind maps at work before for organising my work (not for brainstorming or learning something) but with no real success. However, I was running a project at work over the last few months which had lots of aspects to it and kept growing. I gave it a try in MINDMAP and found it really took off this time. I can see me using it a lot more in the coming year – both at work and at home.

    Having had an initial look at Things (desktop, not iPod yet) and been reasonably impressed, it will be interesting to see if I can develop some sort of synergy between Things (or any similar GTD app ) and MINDMAP (or any similar mind-mapping app).

  2. Mac Sokulski

    Favorites for this year, would have to be Lightroom, Photoshop, Devonthink Office, and Omni Outliner. Lightroom and Photoshop for obvious reasons…. Devonthink Office, for making it easy to keep me semi organized…. and Omni Outliner for keeping my tasks prioritized….

    I tried a couple of these mind mapping programs, but I can grasp the whole concept…. yet

  3. Gary

    Interestingly(?), ConceptDraw’s MINDMAP is built on an outliner. In fact, you can swap between the two display modes. I’d never really got the hang of outliners either, but my recent experience with MINDMAP has me looking at using Outline mode in Word more seriously than on previous occasions.

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