10 Awesome UI Enhancement Apps for OSX
If you are just wondering why would anyone need UI Enhancement apps for OS X then you got me at the right time. While being one of the most elegantly designed OS’es out there, OS X still lacks some stuff which these enhancements can fill up.
So go ahead and see how they work for you..
- 1. Backdrop
- 2. CandyBar
- 3. Desktop Magik
- 4. Doodim
- 5. Shapeshifter
- 6. MegaZoomer
- 7. MenuShade
- 8. Spirited Away
- 9. Uno
- 10. Virtue Desktops
Backdrop is a useful application for taking screenshots with limited windows in the foreground so they are much more presentable to others.
Price: Free
Many great applications sadly have not-so-great graphic designers behind them, and often their icons for and within the application are not quite up to standard, CandyBar solves this by replacing icons. You can download iconsets produced by others or manually assign them yourself and you are not limited to just the applications installed on your system, but the system itself, you can all icons from the hard drive icons to the individual folder types.
Price: $12.95
Bored with static backgrounds? You can now set videos and websites as your desktop background.
Price: $12.95
To help you concentrate on the task in hand, Doodim “dims” all but the current application window(s).
Price: Free
Tired of the standard OS X look or looking to try out a mock-up of a “illuminous” theme? Shapeshifter can restyle the whole user interface to however you want, and there isn’t a lack of downloads waiting.
Price: $20.00
When people switch to Mac OS X the first thing they tend to become annoyed with is the way in which you cannot usually “full screen” an application like you can on a Windows machine. MegaZoomer returns this power to the user.
Price: Free
With new monitors being brighter and brighter, the top menu bar can often distract or hurt your eyes, MenuShade allows you to fade it, or even totally hide it.
Price: Free
Unless your on a nice big monitor your desktop can quickly get cluttered with application windows that you may not be using. Spirited Away hides windows that have not seen activity for a set amount of time.
Price: Free
One of my pet hates about Mac OS X is the way in which some applications have the brushed metal look, some have the smooth metal look, and so on. Uno solves this problem and unifies the user interface.
Price: Free
If you simply cannot wait for Leopard to be released, you can get your hands on “Spaces”-type, multi-desktop functionality.
Price: Free
So get going and try these apps today and let me know how they work for you..



2 Comments, Comment or Ping
adam
Excellent, excellent article. You found some great stuff that I’ve been looking for as a recently switched PC -> Mac guy. Thanks! Cheers!
Sep 19th, 2007
Karthik Kastury
Thanks for your Kind Words Adam. Its this kind of reader comments that motivate me to write better stuff. I suggest you to subscribe to this blog so that you can read all the apps that I review
Sep 19th, 2007
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