Five Killer Apps for the Mac

Even though a lot of argument suggests the killer app has seen its day, some apps are still revolutionary enough to swing some folks’ buying decisions. They’re not going to start a stampede to the Mac platform, but for some people and their needs, some of these apps are their own killer apps.

Here are five apps I think could influence people to buy a Mac:

Parallels Desktop version 3
Goes without saying, really. And this is certainly the one with the best claim to being a killer app. Parallels Desktop was always a significant app in the Mac-Windows marketplace (you regularly hear people say it justified them buying a Mac), but version 3 has seen the maturation of Parallels Desktop.

Parallels Desktop now boasts features that make using Windows programs on the Mac almost a pleasure, and definitely much easier. Number one among those features is Coherence, which hides the Windows desktop and task bar so Windows programs are just other windows floating on your desktop. Another mighty cool feature is SmartSelect, which lets you assign which operating system should open specified file types.

Parallels Desktop has done more to negate the argument for a Windows PC than even Boot Camp.

MemoryMiner
Welcome to the future. When I first saw this app I got so excited I called it the greatest app I’d ever seen in 25 years of using computers. MemoryMiner manages your photos based on people, places, and time. This might sound like nothing more than using keywords in iPhoto; MemoryMiner, though, creates an entry for each person you specify plus it automatically uses the people in your address book. These entries have “life periods” (baby, toddler, teenagers, etc.) to which you can also assign photos, places, and times.

The places are mapped using Google maps. Therefore you can link all your photos that are specific to a country, city, or even an address. Hence, you can do searches that show, for example, photos of you when you lived at a certain address.

Coming from a background in IT that included records management, I am very excited by MemoryMiner because all data we deal with in life can be linked to either a person or a place. From there we can filter it with other keywords, but the starting point is always a person or place.

MemoryMiner should revolutionize how we manage files. Currently it works with photos, but if the paradigm is extended to documents…wow! Think about it. You could do a search to show all files created by or about Bob when he lived in Boston that referred to Apple Macs. So you’d get back photos, emails, letters, invoices, spreadsheets, etc. etc.—and all presented visually, not tabular lists. You can’t easily do that with Spotlight, and you certainly can’t do that with current filing systems which store those files in many different locations.

MemoryMiner introduces the layman to a records management type approach to information management. As its focus is photos, it may not be the app to bring us the revolution, but it sure should excite someone out there enough to revolutionize our file systems with this type of functionality.

Numbers
Spreadsheets always seem to be killer apps: VisiCalc, Lotus 123, Excel, and now Numbers. Numbers certainly has its shortcomings, but it is version 1. Of the five apps here, Numbers has the potential to cause the biggest revolution if other developers adopt its approach of independent floating tables within sheets. And they’d be mad not to, as the reactions I’ve seen to it have all centered around the exclamation “Where has this been all my life!”

And with that sort of reaction, it should sell a few Macs.

iMovie ‘08
Yes, the new one. Sure it’s got to add back some missing features, but Apple has already begun that process. Like Numbers, it has also come up with a whole new paradigm. It has made the creation of movies absurdly easy. Once it adds those features sought by folks wanting to make longer pieces, not just YouTube clips, features such as chapter markers and themes, it will have many amateur videographers queueing up to burn Windows Movie Maker and make the switch to Mac.

Bento
Finally someone has given databases the 21st century makeover. Not surprisingly, it is Apple (under the guise of Filemaker). Although not as revolutionary as Numbers or iMovie, Bento makes database creation and management more user-friendly. However, more importantly, it is visually friendly and easy on the eye. Database development applications seemed to have been the last bastion of poor visual design. Despite Filemaker’s regard as being easy to use, its interface had become very dated and out of place in the Mac world.

As the iWork and iLife suites have shaken up the world of each of their applications, so too will Bento force its competitors to revamp their offerings and bring them into the 21st century. Although, don’t expect MS Access to lead the pack.

These were five apps that caught my attention in 2007 and I highly recommended you at least take a look at them. In 2008, I expect them to make even bigger waves, including seeing other developers copying their features.

Note: Just discovered MacUpdate has extended its December 2007 bundled software special for another week, which includes MemoryMiner and nine other very good apps worth nearly $646 all for under $50.