What do macs run on

With the Stocks app, you can add ticker symbols to your watchlist. You can also view stocks in the Notification center on Mac. Stocks app also allows seeing price charts with multiple ranges. Serious investors may find the app lacking functionality. The Home app is a program that may become very big in the future when we all going to have smart homes. If you have a device that can be controlled over the network you can add it as an accessory to the Home app. Once installed, you can then control lighting, temperature, home security, TV, and speakers.

The list is endless. Besides issues commands and changing things in real-time you can set schedule. For instance, you can set up the thermostat to start heating the house right before you arrive home.

And all of this can be controlled thru Siri which will manage the Home app and its accessories. My personal favorite. Whether you are recording the lecture in class or just recording your notes for the next blog, Voice Memos can capture your recordings. You can then replay or even edit recordings, although editing capabilities are not too impressive.

You can later transcribe voice memos to a text. Apple has a rudimentary note-taking app. Whether you need to save a recipe or make a to-do list, you can use Notes. This is not the best app by all means, but it comes with some neat features. You can attach different media such as pictures, videos, and even locations on the Maps. There is also a collaboration feature. You can share a note with multiple people and work together.

Each computer needs a calendar app, and Macs have a pretty good one. As most applications in macOS, this one integrated with other programs on your laptop. So, if you need to add a location on Maps in your calendar event, you can do it. Other features include sending and receiving invites. Calendar app obviously connected to your Mail app so you can see all meetings from all Mail accounts in one place. You can also color-code your calendars so you can quickly spot events related to family, work, or others.

With this app, you can aggregate multiple contact lists in one giant collection. I prefer to keep contacts on my phone, not a laptop. Another app without a clear purpose.

And if I need to take notes to collaborate with other people, I can use the Notes app. While most of us use MacBooks for work and study sometimes, we want to have some fun, and Photo Booth is super fun to use. With this app, you can quickly snap a selfie of yourself or yourself with friends. Prefer videos? Not a problem, you can shoot videos with Photo Booth as well. If you need time to set up the scene, there is a default three-second countdown before taking a photo.

You can also use various effects to make your photos funny. And finally, you can use any image to create a custom backdrop. Preview is a very powerful tool on your Mac. It took me some time, but I finally learned how to use Preview to edit images for my blogs. In some case, Preview is even better than my old favorite. For instance, Preview keeps a history of changes you made to the image even after you close the app. Another area where Preview can be useful is PDF annotations.

You can add text, signature, or even shapes to any PDF document. And again, Mac keeps the history of changes so you can always go back in time. Speaking of going back in time, Time Machine is not a fantasy novel. On the Mac Time Machine is a backup tool. If there is one thing that I would like you to remember from this post is you need a backup strategy for your computer. Things happen virus, crash, documents accidentally deleted and often the best and only remedy is to restore the old image of your MacBook from the Time Machine device.

There is an Apple Music store where you can purchase music and rent movies. You can join Apple music as a subscriber, and you can manage your subscriptions there.

Another app that spawned from iTunes. Apple Podcasts is the last part of iTunes that became a standalone app. You can subscribe to podcasts and listen them with this app.

While the list of built-in apps in macOS is good enough, you will always need more programs. There are two main ways to get new programs on MacBook: download from the vendor web site or buy from Apple Store. If you have both options, I suggest you always go through Apple Store route. Apple has very strict requirements for any app they host in their stores.

At the minimum, they all free from viruses. And yes, Macs can get viruses. Another advantage of the App Store is the ease of updates. You can configure the app to install updates automatically same way you configure the operating system updates. And finally, any app you bought from the App Store you can download again if you deleted it.

If you downloaded the app from the vendor web site, the process of downloading and finding a license might be quite complicated. This will alert our moderators to take action. ET NOW. Brand Solutions. Video series featuring innovators. ET Financial Inclusion Summit. Malaria Mukt Bharat. Wealth Wise Series How they can help in wealth creation. Honouring Exemplary Boards. Deep Dive Into Cryptocurrency. ET Markets Conclave — Cryptocurrency.

Reshape Tomorrow Tomorrow is different. Let's reshape it today. Corning Gorilla Glass TougherTogether. As you might imagine, as the platform with the largest market share, Windows also offers the most applications. When you choose a machine, it's about the apps you need to run. This is a much bigger factor than the operating system or even the cost. In my experience, the applications on Windows range from excellent to some that are, to be kind, are barely workable.

This, of course, is not unique to just Windows, but because there are so many developers, you see a wider range of spotty apps along with a wider range of apps for almost any purpose. To improve on Windows app quality, Microsoft has instituted the Windows Store.

Developer participation is optional, so not all apps are distributed through the Store. That said, Microsoft has been diligent in keeping an eye on quality, eliminating apps that are unsafe for users as they find them. But there's one Windows disadvantage. Because there are so many more Windows users, malware, spyware, and ransomware are far, far more prevalent on Windows than on MacOS or Linux. The vastly larger total number of potential targets provides a considerably larger return on investment for ransomware and similar attacks.

Nearly all breaches, including the vast corporate breaches, are initiated through a phishing or malware attack that gains a foothold on an individual's Windows PC and then makes the jump into a corporate network. For corporate users, Windows-based authentication integrates "out of the box" with Active Directory-based corporate servers. You can accomplish the same thing with Mac and Linux machines, but you'll need to get extra add-on software to do so.

With Windows, corporate networking is built in -- at least as long as you're running the Pro versions. Windows Home does not come with corporate connectivity. There will be an additional upgrade fee.

For home users, gaming is huge on Windows-based PCs. While there are never-ending debates over whether consoles have more gaming power than beefy gaming PCs, there's no doubt that gaming PCs offer a level of gaming involvement and customization that nothing can top. Not only can Windows PCs be equipped with incredible power, there's also an entire submarket in providing RGB lighting effects for everything from motherboards to memory sticks.

If you're a gamer and you want to get your bling on, nothing beats PC gaming. If you could reach back in time 35 years ago and gently pluck an original Macintosh user from and put her in front of a brand new Mac, she would be able to operate today's machine. The file system would look the same. The menu bar would look the same. Even the trash would look the same. Sure, instead of just a few thousand black and white pixels, the screens would be in glorious high-resolution color, and the speed, breadth, and depth of the applications would be mind-boggling, but the fundamental interface would be understandable.

Macs have undergone fundamental processor changes, jumping from based devices to PowerPCs, migrating to Intel chips, and -- probably in the next few years -- migrating to Apple's own silicon. But to the users, every single change in how the Mac has evolved has had a level of internal consistency and predictability unrivaled by any other platform.

Interestingly, even though some aspects of the system remain effectively unchanged for more than three decades, that doesn't mean that MacOS feels particularly dated, although, as nearly every Mac user will admit, it does have its quirks.

Although Macs have historically suffered far fewer malware threats than Windows machines, there has been a small rise in malware variants targeting MacOS users -- mostly for the contents of cryptocurrency wallets. While it's not as existentially necessary to run an anti-malware program on a Mac, it's generally a good idea.

Microsoft has recently starting bringing its Defender software to Macs , but right now, that's limited to enterprise use. We can't discuss MacOS without discussing Macintoshes. The two go together. While Windows can run on thousands of different machines from hundreds of different vendors, MacOS is distributed by Apple to run solely on Apple hardware. There is a small, intrepid group of Hackintosh builders who source Macintosh compatible hardware and build their own systems , but they're outliers, and the process of building a Hackintosh takes some work.

A common misconception about Macintosh hardware is that it's more expensive than equivalent PC hardware. In fact, that's not true. When I compared a highly equipped Mac mini against available PC parts , I was unable to source a PC with anywhere near the capability and size of the Mac mini.

Where PCs are cheaper is when you're not looking at brand-name or spec-for-spec comparisons. You can absolutely get cheaper laptops and desktops for Windows than Macs. Additionally, if you're willing sacrifice the Mac's legendary design and go for a traditional tower Windows PC, you can generally get more performance for the dollar.

Although the buy-in cost for Apple hardware is often more expensive, many have found that the overall cost of ownership over the lifetime of the system is less expensive with Macs. IBM did a study before the company decided to standardize on Macs, where they found that:. PCs drive twice the amount of support calls. They're also three times more expensive.

Macs are also appealing because of their design and integration. MacOS is tightly integrated with iOS, to the point that you can even share clipboards between a Mac and an iPhone, or use an iPhone to take a picture that drops directly into a Mac application. Although some Windows users may dispute this, many Mac users believe that MacOS is easier to install and update, offers faster updates with less hassle, and allows applications to be installed and managed with greater ease than Windows.

Out of the box, MacOS also comes with a deep range of applications for free, including the music composition tool GarageBand, video editing application iMovie, and a complete productivity package consisting of Pages word processing and layout , Numbers spreadsheet , and Keynote presentations. While MacOS is often touted as an easy-to-use operating system, it also greatly appeals to design and development professionals.

MacOS also has AppleScript, which can be used to automate complex workflows. If you sufficiently equip your Mac and by this, I mean an i7 processor or better, 16GB of RAM or better, and definitely SSD instead of hard drive , you can use Parallels or another virtualization application to provide multiple operating systems on the Mac.

This is a big appeal for me. I use a well-equipped Mac with Parallels, and I'm able to run Windows and Linux side by side with MacOS applications , even dragging and dropping across operating systems. This level of flexibility is unmatched on any other OS. It's important to note that most Macs can't be upgraded. When you spec out your CPU, memory and storage, that's what you'll have to live with. While the new, Mac mini does allow RAM upgrades , it is a complex, tedious, and delicate process.

Other machines, like the insanely expensive iMac Pro , allow RAM to be upgraded, but it requires a highly skilled technician to remove the permanently glued display and case to get at the machine's innards, voiding the warranty in the process..

With a virtualized copy of Windows, a Mac can be used to run any application you might need including Windows and Linux programs , where if you're running on a Windows machine, MacOS applications are not available.

Keep in mind, though, that you're limited to the hardware produced by Apple. If Apple chooses not to update a form factor or model for a few years as has happened a lot in recent years , you're out of luck for that hardware unless you decide to build a Hackintosh.

But with the advent of the T2 security chip last year, and the expected move to Apple-designed CPU chips, it may not be possible to home-build a Hackintosh for much longer. I have a Debian distribution running my home server.

And in my various home devices, I have an uncountable number of Linux instances running, driving everything from my smart TVs to my Internet router. Also: How to replace Windows 7 with Linux Mint. Linux is renowned for its versatility, particularly in servers and embedded solutions.

But in this article, we're talking about desktop Linux implementations, where you'd use Linux with a keyboard and mouse to, at the very least, check your email. Because it's open source, it can be modified and extended by anyone; a virtual army of loosely affiliated coders have been working on it for nearly 30 years.

Also because it's open source, different variants called distributions have been released, containing everything from different core functionality to a wide variation of settings and configuration options, to different user interfaces, and even different fundamental purposes. One reason many of the Linux faithful flock to the operating system is because it's not controlled by Microsoft or Apple.

This can be something of a political preference or it can be a practical one: The desire or need to customize an OS at a level not permitted by a corporate overlord.