3rd party Mac apps that I like better than any of their counterparts on any OS are:
- iTerm2 - it works right, it feels responsive. I don't have to futz with it but can
- Pixelmator Pro - it's what Photoshop used to be to me 20 years ago
- Omnigraffle - When I need to hand-layout a diagram it's my favorite ever
- Postico - It's weird that I like a single DB UI. But it's nice over just pqsl sometimes.
I have some handy utilities I like:
- The UnArchiver
- Flycut
- SwiftBar
- Disk Inventory X
- Amphetamine
- Skitch
- Magnet
I use Office 360 begrudgingly. But I do like it better on macos than Windows.
The rest of my GUI stuff is largely cross platform (and some electron)
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Notable
- Signal
- KiCAD
- Wireshark
- VirtualBox
- IntelliJ (I use less and less)
- Spotify
The killer app for me in a lot of ways is just Homebrew. I live in the terminal. I love having up-to-date dev tools. I hate maintaining it. Even with Linux it can be a pain to hit the sweet spot between up-to-date and DIY. I'm happy running a FreeBSD server, but I want my workstation to not require a lot of planning. I also love that I can install/update native apps from it. I always use it before I hit the App Store.
I've ditched making VSCode and IntelliJ like vim and made neovim like VSCode. It's glorious. I use git and text for almost everything I do, unless I can't or when a picture helps.
And I don't play games on my laptop anymore. Really just Minecraft on my tablet. Sometimes I let my kids play with me :)