Where are the killer scientific apps for OS X?
Every discipline has its must-have software applications that drives sales of the underlying platform, also known as "killer apps". Windows benefits from many killer apps, most notably from PC games and business software. As far as the general home user is concerned it's easy to identify members of the iLife suite, such as iPhoto and iMovie, as killer apps for OS X. Macs have always had a strong following in the world of scientific computing, with recent popularity being driven mainly (in my opinion) by OS X's ability to run the wealth of existing scientific applications developed for UNIX systems. A while back I predicted that a number of killer scientific apps would begin to appear for the OS X platform due to the fact that Apple gives their developer tools away for free. In addition the Cocoa API (used to develop native OS X programs) is so elegant and well documented that an individual with even the smallest bit of technical ability is able to produce a simple application using Applescript Studio. Aside from the efforts by the brilliant developers at Mekentosj my prediction is thus far proven incorrect. Of course my personal interests lie in the field of Bioinformatics so it's very likely that I've missed some great killer apps in other scientific domains. If you've switched to Mac to use a particular killer app, or would refuse to leave the Mac platform because of a killer app, please post a comment to this story so we can highlight these applications and keep a running list for those curious about the best scientific computing platform around.
Comments
Xgrid is my killer app
I can just barely hack perl so I definitely won't be able to run Sun Grid Engine or program MPI stuff. As a result Xgrid has allowed me to think a little bigger (or get a little lazier :-) ) in analyses. Sure Xgrid has its quirks, but I'm hoping that it will really become rock solid in a version or two. The best feature for me is the fact that I can use all the wasted CPU cycles from the iMacs in our computing commons.
killer apps
Personally as an astronomer just being able to use all of our unix research tools in a great form factor with multimedia support is a killer app (why so many have switched from linux & especially windows). But as some level that has hurt mac os x as we have no reason to write mac only programs (e.g. it's better to write X windows programs).
As for developer tools that's nice but nothing that special. And I still think that apple's decision not to bundle fortran as part of their gcc distribution is just plain dumb. I might not like it but their is a lot of legacy code.
teXShop is pretty great too.
I guess I don't see a Mac OS only killer app coming from the astro community anytime soon.
Maybe not killer apps but useful in science
I work in Applied Science (Combinatorial Optimization Algorithms) and for me the useful apps are:
- the statistical environment R with the Aqua GUI developed by Iacus and Urbanek
- the LaTeX environment with TexShop and BibDesk
- Keynote for presentations (with LaTeXIT for mathematical formulas in pdf)
- Delicious Library for the managment of the lab library
- Fink and FinkCommander for some UNIX packages
- SuperDuper! for the backup of the experimental data
What I really would like to have is a nice GUI interface to a program able to do incremental backups (like rdiff-backup) and also a GUI to manage OpenMPI environment
PS: In our domain the killer application would be CPLEX (an ILOG line of products) and XPRESS-MP (a Dash Optimization line of products), that AFAIK are not available on Mac OS X
Traceback from Maniacal Blogger
Traceback from Maniacal Blogger
MacResearch, which I think is a great site for the Mac using Scientist, has pondered the question of why there hasn’t been a boom in Scientific Software exclusively for the Mac....
It's not so much OS X
It's not so much OS X exclusive killer apps for me - it's more being able to use the exsting portable unix code in an OS that makes me more productive and allows me to work on presentations / graphics without rebooting or finding a different box to work on.
killer apps
It may not be immediately evident, but DevonAgent and DevonThink are extremely useful apps for any research lab for keeping labnotes, projects, literature, webpages etc. together.
In my view, DevonThink is a killer app.
Cocoa Based Molecular Biology Tools
I am equally surprised that there hasn't been a steady output of molecular biology related programs. I am aware of most (from Mekentosj), but a simple stand alone Cocoa based restriction enzyme mapping program would be great along with a plasmid map drawing output option or DNA alignment program would be great. Also, it would be outstanding to have a Cocoa GUI for the Emboss or Staden packages that nicely handles all that output. I've just started teaching myself Cocoa and I hope that isn't an indication of how soon these types of programs can become available.
Killer App
The killer scientific app that for Mac will be Comsol Multiphysics, as soon as the program goes 64-bit on the Mac platform. Although it runs on most all Windows and Unix/Linux platforms, the G5 Quad is reasonably priced iron that can support 16 GB of RAM.
Mol Biol Tools
Have a word with http://www.aborygen.com/
killer app
I switched over to Mac to use GAMESS ab initio chemistry package.
http://www.msg.ameslab.gov/GAMESS/GAMESS.html
I really could have used any Unix system, but there is a good graphical front end for OS X (MacMolPlt).
http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/~brett/MacMolPlt/
CFD Code on Mac
The folks at NASA have made a Mac version (using Cocoa) of a CFD toolset. I have not tried it as of yet but plan to. It won an Apple Design award in 2004.
http://aaac.larc.nasa.gov/tsab/tetruss/mac/
I believe the OS X itself is the killer app. The ease of combining the terminal program, applescript, python, Automator, etc. makes me cringe when I use my Linux box. Aspects of my job involve video and the Linux/Windows boxes can't touch the capabilities of QuickTime, Core Graphics/Core Video, and Quartz Composer.
datkins23
Killer applications for MacOSX
If you want to use Bioinformatics applications on MacOSX the easiest way is to download and install eBiotools: http://www.ebioinformatics.org.
The package installs the most common bioinformatics packages and make all necessary configurations for you. The package also installs all necessary libraries and databases to run EMBOSS and other packages. eBiotools installs among others: EMBOSS, Staden, NCBI-tools, HMMER, Clustal, sim4, SMILE, Vienna RNA package, MEME, Primer3, Infernal. The group is also working on different GUIs for sequence manipulation and front end for e.g EMBOSS a first Beta is out there: BioX.
For detailed information read the official magazine of the EMBnet community: EMBnet.news (contains other interesting articles about MacOSX and bioinformatics):
http://www.embnet.org/download/embnetnews/index.html