New to Mac? Here’s Our (Growing) List of Resources
If you’re new to Mac, we’ve got you covered. Here’s our (always growing and being added to) list of resources for Mac users, new and old:
General Info & Switching to Mac
Apple Support Documentation & User Manuals – Guides for learning how to set up, use and troubleshoot your Mac and/or other Apple products.
Mactracker – Provides detailed information on every Apple computer ever made.
Mac Basics: The Essentials from Apple – A quick and easy guide on getting started with Mac.
Switch to Mac from Macworld – Christopher Breen walks you through buying your first Mac and the myriad of choices.
Mac Buyers Guide from iMore – Another useful guide to help you purchase the right Mac for you.
Hardware
Apple Product Specifications – Easily find your product and its specifications.
NewEgg – A good resource for purchasing hardware such as RAM, HDD or SSD.
Amazon – Similar to NewEgg, but boasts more availability of older hardware.
Simply Mac – An Apple-authorized premium service provider and a good retail resource.
MacParts Online – Another good hardware site for Mac products.
Software
Utilities
Parallels Desktop for Mac – Obvious, but we had to include ourselves! Parallels Desktop allows you to seamlessly run Windows (or numerous other operating systems) on your Mac without rebooting. You can even start a free trial right now.
1Password – The simplest way to remember all of your passwords. ($50)
Clean My Mac – Does exactly what it says.
iStat Pro Widget – A handy, customizable widget that displays system info such as temp, fan speed, and more. (Free)
Onyx – An easy-to-use system maintenance utility. (Free to start, with Pro and Business options available.)
Productivity
Microsoft Office (for Windows using Parallels Desktop, or for Mac)
Apple iWork (Free with purchase of a new Mac.)
OpenOffice – A nice, open-source alternative to Microsoft Office. (Free)
Evernote – A great app for remembering everything. (Free)
Wunderlist – The best to-do list application out there. (Free)
Macbook Pro Slow – A great site with a collection of tips to speed up your Mac.
Browsers
Google Chrome – My personal favorite, if for nothing else than the ability to replace ads with pictures of puppies.
Internet Explorer (In your Parallels Desktop for Mac virtual machine, of course.)
Entertainment & Other
iLife – Includes iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. (Free with purchase of a new Mac.)
Plex – Allows you to easily stream media to many devices in your home.
Steam – For all of the gamers out there afraid of Apple, no more. Yes, you can game on a Mac (especially with Parallels Desktop).
Adobe Creative Cloud – Get access to Photoshop, Lightroom, Dreamweaver and the entire Creative Suite from the cloud. (Starts at $10 per month depending on the plan you choose.)
Blogs
With the wealth of Apple blogs out there, we actually did our own separate post on this—read it here.
Want to go even deeper? Check out this Reddit thread to learn about even more Mac resources. In the meantime, share your favorite Mac resources with us in a comment, Facebook, or Twitter and we’ll add it to the list!
