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by wingerlang 502 days ago
Do you not use a desktop environment? Loads of software is being made (and I only know the macOS side of it). Window managers, compression tools, utilities, powerhouse tools like Photoshop, text editors, IDEs, etc.

I myself build software in this space and generally its productivity-ish-tools.

Here's a list of 70 macOS apps that received updates _today_ https://macupdater.com/app_updates/index-2025-01-27.html
2 comments
gecko6 501 days ago
I do use a desktop environment. I don't use many additional productivity tools, though, and that is likely why I have a blind spot about that part of the software market.

My question was more geared towards the seeming lack of a robust software ecosystem (i.e., there appears to be at most one leading product in each category, with one or two alternatives), to whit: - there's Xcode/VSCode. - Photoshop/GIMP. - Sublime Text - not sure about DAW software - the field has changed since I was involved

I'll have to check macupdater out, thanks for the tip.

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carlosjobim 500 days ago
MacOS has a rock solid software ecosystem, both for the most advanced suites and for minor apps.

> Photoshop/GIMP And Affinity, and Pixelmator. Gimp is not in the same league.

For high quality software, it would be strange to have more than a leading product and a couple of alternatives, wouldn't it? Like, what would be the kind of customer who would not be satisfied with neither PhotoShop or Affinity nor Pixelmator?

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vunderba 501 days ago
Almost all major DAW software targets the desktop environment - A lot of them are cross platform (Ableton, FL Studio, Studio One, Cubase, Reaper, Bitwig, etc.)

Linux is sort of left out in the cold unfortunately, except for reaper and bigwig, both of which are very solid choices.

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skydhash 501 days ago
Currently on my Mac, I have: Affinity Designer and Photo, Pixelmator, Balsamiq, Things, Bear, Dash, Parallel, iA Writer, Cleanshot, Alfred, Transmit,… Most free apps are either opensource or SaaS powered. There’s a lot of paid software when you want to do stuff with your computer and not someone else’s.
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