Mac Apps You Need For College

Jul 04, 2020  If you’ve heard the phrase, “Once you go Mac, you never go back,” you know it holds true. Macs are premium devices that offer amazing features, apps. With a Mac, you get the best of both worlds! Colleges often specify—and students usually prefer—laptops instead of desktop machines. Although the iMac is a great machine with a gorgeous screen, it’s too big and unwieldy for the transient lifestyle of the typical college student.

If you need access to local computing resources (such as printers, thumb drives, local hard drives, etc.), then install Citrix Workspace app on each computer that you will use to access BC Apps. The Citrix Workspace app must be installed on each computer you want to use BC Apps on. Aug 11, 2012  We recently put together our list of the best Mac apps, but college students need different tools. If you snagged a shiny new Mac with one of those student discounts, here are the apps.

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The iProcrastinate app works with class filters, step-by-step tracking and repeating schedules.
updated 8/11/2012 4:37:47 PM ET2012-08-11T20:37:47
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We recently put together our list of the best Mac apps, but college students need different tools. If you snagged a shiny new Mac with one of those student discounts, here are the apps to load it up with before you hit that first class.

Productivity
Syncing Note Taker: Notational Velocity
Notational Velocity is a fantastic Simplenote client on Mac. Simplenote is a great way to keep all your class notes synchronized and stored in one place so you always have access to them.
Price: Free

Note and Idea Capture: Evernote
Evernote is an excellent resource for students to capture everything they have going on in class. If you need a little inspiration for how to use Evernote, Shep McAllister's guest post on the Evernote blog outlines a lot of ways you can use Evernote in school, including taking snapshots of notes, blackboards, organizing research, and more.
Price: Free

To-Do: iProcrastinate
iProcrastinate isn't a to-do manager specifically designed for college students, but it might as well be. It works with class filters, step-by-step tracking and repeating schedules. However, if iProcrastinate doesn't look like it'll fit your needs, be sure to check out Wunderlist.
Price: Free

Homework Management: iHomework
Sometimes it's easiest for a student to have an all-in-one life tracking app. In that case, iHomework could come in handy. It features iCal integration for your schedule, as well as a full assignment tracker, reading list, reminders, course info, and easy access to teacher contact information.
Price: 99 cents

Office Suite: Google Docs
Not long ago, students were stuck with Microsoft Office for their office suite, but now that Google Docs has offline editing it's a perfect replacement to Office for most students. The best part is the fact that it's free, but it also has pretty much everything you need: spreadsheets, presentations, and a document editor. It also stores you documents in the cloud so you never to worry about the horrible just-lost-my-paper panic.
Price: Free

Books: Kindle for Mac
Carrying around textbooks is a huge hassle. Instead, provided your books are available digitally, you can just carry around your computer and access them on your PC. The Kindle app is also a great way to highlight, take notes and share those notes with other classmates.
Price: Free

Document Backup: Dropbox
We mention Dropbox in our annual Lifehacker Packs, but it's worth noting again for students. Not only is Dropbox a handy place to store all your files, it can also be a lifesaver when you realize you forgot to bring in an assignment. Simply pop into Dropbox, and email the link directly to your professor from any computer.
Price: Free

Internet/Communication
Instant Messaging: Adium
Instead of wasting your money on SMS messages for your phone, an easy way to save a little cash in school is to use an instant messaging client. The bonus is that if you're using it on your computer your professor probably won't even realize you're not paying attention.
Price: Free, open source

Video Chat: Skype
Whether you just miss your parents, or you want a cheap and free way to talk to friends at other schools, Skype is one of the easiest video chat clients to use. It's also a way to phone-ify your computer so you don't have to wory about an annoying cell phone bill.
Price: Free

The Extended Pack

Streaming Music: Spotify
You have an abundance of choices for streaming music on your computer, but we're fans of Spotify for its massive collection of songs, and its free radio apps on mobile. Rdio is also worth looking at if Spotify doesn't fit your needs. The point is, with streaming apps you don't have to worry about trying to afford music throughout your college career.
Price: Free

Secondary Office Suite: LibreOffice
While we generally prefer Google Docs for creating and editing your own documents, that doesn't mean everyone else does. Just to be safe, it's not bad to have an Office suite on your computer, and LibreOffice is nice to have around in case you can't access Google Docs. It's also helpful for when you need advanced formatting options for certain types of assignments.
Price: Free

Research Assistant: MendeleyKeeping track of research can get really complicated, especially when you're working with a bunch of different documents from your library. Mendeley is an organization tool that helps you keep track of all those PDF files. It also lets you annotate and generates citations on the spot.
Price: Free

Mac Apps You Need For College

f you're looking for more great apps for your Mac beyond what's in our student pack, head to the Lifehacker Pack for Mac.

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Here's an app kit that will turn your academic life into a pleasant bearable experience. When you have the right tools, it's so much easier to score those A's. Get published, get a Nobel prize in math, get a favorable comment from your supervisor (in that order). You can do anything because academia is the true land of opportunity.

You can have all these apps as a part of Setapp subscription.

Best apps for students

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Manuscripts: Academic document manager

Manuscripts knows what it means to write a proper paper. Handling footnotes, annotations, references, restructuring, and editing is unbelievably easy. Everything is a click away and, unlike in Word processors, all formatting is intuitive and painless. With Manuscripts it even seems (briefly) like the style guides weren't invented to make you suffer.

Prizmo: Image to text converter

Prizmo is the best for scanning and performing OCR (Optical Character Recognition ) in 23 languages, has powerful editing capability, text-to-speech, iCloud support, and translation into 59 languages.

You can convert printed documents, photocopies of text documents, text on the images, scanned documents, and screenshots – whatever you want – into digital text. It allows to effortlessly extract and share text directly in the camera view, search for or edit your document.

Prizmo has editing tools to correct warping, skewness and other distortions. For multipage documents or multiple text documents, the software offers batch OCR functionality to speed the process.

PDFpen: Robust PDF editing

Is anyone still buying hard copies of textbooks these days? When it comes to cramming, PDF is way more convenient (weighs less at least). And with PDFpen, you also get the freedom to tweak your docs in any way imaginable – from editing text to merging multiple PDFs into one test prep package. Redaction functionality is a nice perk as well: if you’re often tempted to check solutions to exercises in your textbook, PDFpen covers them up, so that you concentrate on tasks.

MarginNote: A non-boring way to read and learn

Out of all the apps for studying and completing assignments, MarginNote is the most fun. Whenever your relationship with a textbook gets complicated, the app is there to save the day. The ultimate e-reading expert, MarginNote adapts to your study habits: you can choose your perfect annotation mode, outline and mindmap, or turn notes into flashcards. No more humdrum courses – as soon as you start using MarginNote, your study plan will be nothing short of awesome.

MathKey: Translating words into math expressions

Free

If you’re dealing with math documents and reports, you’ll want to get your hands on MathKey. The app converts your handwriting to LaTeX, MathML, or a perfectly formatted image. Write an equation with your mouse or TrackPad and hit the Convert button – it’s that easy. You can also apply various colors to formulas and images.

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Be Focused: Smart timer for productive work

Be Focused is a work timer that uses psychology to keep you on task. If know yourself to be easily distracted, this app is your jam. It's created for the ultimate work-break balance, which is essential if you want to stay sane through the semester. Set daily goals and move towards them at a steady pace, controlled by the fun interface with a classic 'pomodoro' timer.

Instant Translate: Quick translator with 100 languages

If Google's Translate kind of bums you out with its inaccuracy, try Mate (Instant Translate). It's way more powerful and can correctly translate phrases and sentences with its new feature 'Phrasebook.' It even has speech translation if you're in a hurry and typing seems tedious. 104 languages, a history of translations, and an easy access from the menu bar.

Studies: Storage for info, schedules, and memos

When you take on the next project, it all starts with notes. You probably have a pack of subject-related notes stashed somewhere on your Mac and it's a pain to find the ones you need when you need them. Studies solves this issue with elegance: it gives you separate and comfortable niches for each subject, there's a space for images and screenshots alongside text notes, and a schedule with statistics data on classes. So good.

MoneyWiz: Personal finance manager to track your expenses

You should be thinking about your next scientific breakthrough, not heating bills. Let MoneyWiz take care of money matters for you: a single setup and a single input of all your regular bills, and you'll never forget to pay anything. MoneyWiz will send you reminders, plan your monthly budget, even predict your future expenses for the nearest period (if you feel like looking into that).

You can record and edit the parts in-between the recording and then you can download them in desired format like Wav, OGG etc. Free music making software.

Ulysses: Professional writing app

Even if your plans go as far as dissertation, Ulysses is where you should write it. This app is favored by writers and bloggers, it's distraction-free and highly reliable. It allows you to focus on writing, quickly export finished work as a PDF or an ebook, and enjoy the process way more than with the usual doc-like services.

Aeon Timeline: Project management app

When you feel overwhelmed by the number of important items in the project, by the subtasks and milestones, open Aeon Timeline and put all of it in there. Aeon gives you a bird's-eye view of the whole project and lets you easily orient among its parts. You'll never miss anything important and your beautiful research will form easily, chapter by chapter.

Findings: Experiment and research notebook

If your academic endeavours include conducting experiments and keeping protocols, Findings is simply indispensable. It's a whole toolset of notes and indicators that allows you to keep track of anything and measure everything. From Physics to Sociology, it covers all processes and nuances. Cross-sectional, longitude, with multiple sampling and fifty variables? Ez pz.

TaskPaper: To-do list to have tasks at hand

Deep down you know that your memory did not undergo that tedious evolutionary process to cope with dry cleaning and groceries. Your mind is made for higher levels. That's why when it comes to routine, to-do lists are life saviors and should be used at all times. And TaskPaper is a perfect example: it has the simplicity of a sticker note, the search of a smart engine, and the cleanest interface.

XMind: Mind map for idea generation

Mac App Store For Pc

Whenever you feel bubbling with ideas, use XMind. It's a brainstorming and idea-gathering tool. Visualise every possible solution or see how many studies refer to a specific topic. It's a fast and clear way to approach a complex subject and understand the big picture. And when it comes to drawing conclusions, mindmapping is a magic well of insights.

Best Free Mac Apps

Every app on this list is available as a part of Setapp subscription and we have an Educational discount for a whole year. Try it out and see the difference a good toolset makes in studying.