Best Software for Macs

What would you folks recommend for the best software packages for Mac -- free and also paid?

I've heard there are some nice programs designed for the Mac.

I'm interested in various things with decent GUIs, including things such as engines to analyze games and positions, playing games against the computer, learning, etc.

Thanks.

I understand that Macs have this ability to use Google nowadays. I'd start there.

VERY original. I had not tried Google. I decided to post a question anyway with which someone might be able to help. Do you have a problem with that? Would you like to get together and discuss it?

I try to answer a lot of questions. Sometimes I get frustrated when people are too lazy to try to figure things out on their own first.

Here is a link to 50 different versions of your question:

http://www.chess.com/forum/search?keyword=mac+software

The only thing worse than a post like yours is "Analyze my game for me".

So now you are calling me "lazy, and somehow believe I never tried to use Google. You have a problem with this and are frustrated?

You also have a problem with my asking others for advice in the forums on Mac software? We can straighten out your problem stogether.

Is it okay with you if I ask these questions? What if I did use Google first? Then is it okay with you for me to ask opinions of others?

Would you like to get together and discusss your problems with me in person, since you have so much free time?

I bought Shredder and I really like it, it was around a hundred dollars but it's worth it in my opinion

XBoard is available as an OSX App ( http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=52964 ). You can use any UCI or WB engine with it; the engines included in the App are Fruit and Fairy-Max, but others are trivial to install; just download them and point out the executable through the Load Engine dialog's browse funtion, and next time you can select them directly from the menu.

Of course it's okay for you to ask. However, there is something wrong with asking a question that is so obvious that it would occur to any person older than 10 that it must have been asked before.  

If you had come back with any evidence that you had looked for info on your own and wanted a refined opinion here, that would be much more acceptable. 

Perhaps it is because you do not put any value of the time of strangers and think that your multipart questions can be answered easily by someone and that such answers take no time to put together.   I would urge you to answer a few queries yourself.

Your threats of violence do not inspire me to reconsider my opinion of you.

You can Google "Lantern for Mac".

What threats?

Go away, notmtain. Troll elsewhere. I'll get right on that evidence you requested. LOL.

Thanks for the suggestions, folks. I know there was another post a long time ago about an amazing software program specifically for Macs. Unfortunately, I cannot think of the name now or find the post...

If you are into music the best application exclusive to Mac computer is called Garage band excellent.

https://www.apple.com/ca/mac/garageband/

Perhaps I misunderstood your repeated offer to get together and discuss it.  Was that a proposition of some other sort?

// Patriot's fans are so misunderstood.

Yes, I think I have that but haven't used it. Was going to focus on chess but it sounds neat.

Oh I get it now. It all about #deflategate. I need to change my avi. I am getting too many mean messages. For the record, I had nothing to do with deflating the balls. Not my fault. I just happen to be from Boston.

HIARCS Opening Explorer (for Mac or PC) looks excellent. Does anyone here have this product and an opinion on it? Do you also have subscriptions?

I think it is like Xboard but on steroids.

The best commercial GUI on Macs is Hiarcs Chess Explorer. The best free GUI IMO is chessX.  Use them with the Stockfish 6 engine. 

Would you recommend, on a Mac, HIARCS Chess Explorer or Chessbase (I could get get a PC emulator)? And why? Thanks.

There are various software packages for the MAC that can be useful for the users as they can access the software for their various purposes. I was also unaware of that and got to know from here.

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This topic has lain dormant for almost 7 years apart from the brief comment in 2019 by rocky700balboa. However, when it comes to sourcing quality software for Mac, nothing much has changed in that time. I switched to a Mac about a year ago, and here is my experience trying to get hold of decent chess software.

HIARCS is a commercial version of the open source ChessX. I haven't tried it but if it is the same as ChessX, its main shortcoming is searchability of the databases. It seems you can only (under the "find" menu) search a position or manually input a "tag" in rather unwieldy fashion. HIARCS might have refined this feature in which case it is possibly worth considering. ChessX (and this would apply to many other open source products) comes with the outdated Stockfish 9. The current version is 14.

SCID vs Mac is a version of the well-respected SCID vs PC app, but the same problem arises concerning chess engines.

When I realized how badly the Mac was served with apps, not just for chess, I installed Codeweavers Crossover to allow Windows apps to be run. This has been a mixed blessing, since to date, I have only managed to get a couple of apps to install and run properly. SCID vs PC is one of them, and that does at least allow you to run any Windows chess engine.

My latest struggle is trying to get Chess King running on Crossover. Having watched all the tutorial videos by Steve Lopez, I felt that this was a decent app for not too much money. It has a comprehensive searchable database and pretty much all the common functions that the club player would need. They do offer a Mac version for $10 more than the PC one, but it is not native. It is the PC version with a wrapper produced by Codeweavers! As I already have Crossover, I reasoned that I could buy the PC version and install it through that. It didn't work. Part way through the installation process I got a "disk full" error message, so I remapped the storage location to the main drive on the Mac to take advantage of the 900Gb of available space. I still got the same error message!

At the time of this post I have given up trying to install the PC version and I am waiting for Chess King to provide me the download of the Mac version. I'll post an update when I have that (hopefully) installed.

I've also come to this thread because I'm struggling to set up decent chess software on my Mac.

I want to put some over-the-board games into a viewer, analyse them, and save them as a PGN.

Can anyone suggest some software (preferably free) to help me do this?

cheers,
Scott