The Best of The Best: Readers" Choice Awards 2013
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Vote for Your Favorite Mac-Related Items
It's that time of year again; time for About: Macs readers to vote for their favorite Mac apps, peripherals, and resellers. Each year, we ask you to nominate your favorite Mac products, apps, and services, and then vote for a winner in each category.
Once the nomination phase of the Readers' Choice Awards 2013 closed, our team of crack editors ensured that each nominee was in the appropriate category.
Next, we selected the top nominees in each category. We prefer to have three to five nominees in each category for the voting round. If there are more than five eligible nominees in a category, our editors make the decision on who gets cut.
Now that all the finalists have been selected, it's time to move on to the voting round, which will open on February 19, 2013 (2/19/2013), and remain open until March 19, 2013 (3/19/2013).
You can vote once every 24 hours in each category. For example, if you voted at 1 PM on February 19th, you would be able to vote again after 1 PM on February 20th.
Remember, it's winner-take-all in each category. There are no runner-up prizes, so vote early and vote often for your favorite nominees.
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Mac System Utility
The Best Mac System Utility category nominees are listed below in random order. All finalists in this category met the requirements; they provide features or services missing from OS X, and/or they enhance existing features to make them more productive for the end user.
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Backup Application
The Best Mac Backup Application category nominees are listed below in random order. The backup category is pretty wide open, and includes any app that can back up data from a Mac.
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Mac Browser
The Best Mac Browser category nominees are listed below in random order. The browser category is pretty self-explanatory; it encompasses any general-purpose web browser app that runs on a Mac.
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Application for Running Windows on a Mac
The Best Application for Running Windows category nominees are listed below in random order. This category covers any app that allows you to run Windows, or for that matter any OS, on a Mac.
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Word Processor
The Best Word Processor category nominees are listed below in random order. This category covers any app whose primary purpose is to provide word processing capabilities.
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Image Editor
The Best Mac Image Editor category nominees are listed below in random order. This category is open to both consumer and professional image editing apps.
The Best Mac Home Theater App or Product category nominees are listed below in random order. This category covers any app or device that allows you to use your Mac or other Apple device in a home theater setup.
The Best Mac Peripheral Reseller category nominees are listed below in random order. This is the second year for this category, one that proved very popular last year. This category is open to any reseller that carries Mac-related products, such as RAM, drives, accessories, or what have you.
Enter the Best Mac Peripheral Reseller Voting Booth
It's that time of year again; time for About: Macs readers to vote for their favorite Mac apps, peripherals, and resellers. Each year, we ask you to nominate your favorite Mac products, apps, and services, and then vote for a winner in each category.
How the Finalists Were Selected
Once the nomination phase of the Readers' Choice Awards 2013 closed, our team of crack editors ensured that each nominee was in the appropriate category.
Next, we selected the top nominees in each category. We prefer to have three to five nominees in each category for the voting round. If there are more than five eligible nominees in a category, our editors make the decision on who gets cut.
Time to Vote for The Best of The Best in 2013
Now that all the finalists have been selected, it's time to move on to the voting round, which will open on February 19, 2013 (2/19/2013), and remain open until March 19, 2013 (3/19/2013).
You can vote once every 24 hours in each category. For example, if you voted at 1 PM on February 19th, you would be able to vote again after 1 PM on February 20th.
Remember, it's winner-take-all in each category. There are no runner-up prizes, so vote early and vote often for your favorite nominees.
Jump to the Readers' Choice Awards 2013 Voting Booths
- Best Mac System Utility
- Best Backup Application
- Best Browser
- Best App for Running Windows
- Best Word Processor
- Best Image Editor
- Best Mac Home Theater App or Product
- Best Mac Peripheral Reseller
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Mac System Utility
The Best Mac System Utility category nominees are listed below in random order. All finalists in this category met the requirements; they provide features or services missing from OS X, and/or they enhance existing features to make them more productive for the end user.
The Best Mac System Utility Ballot
- Drive Genius 3 is a comprehensive disk utility that provides many more features and capabilities than Apple's Disk Utility. With more than 13 functions, Drive Genius 3 can diagnose, repair, defrag, repartition, and duplicate a hard drive. It even provides benchmarking tools to test the performance of your storage systems.
Drive Genius 3 web site
- DaisyDisk won this category in 2010 and is back for a rematch against stiff competition. DaisyDisk can display the contents of your storage device in an interactive map that not only allows you to see just how you're using your drive space, but also how much room different types of data are taking up. With DaisyDisk, you can easily find and remove any items that are wasting space.
DaisyDisk web site - CleanMyMac is another previous winner in this category; it's back to take on all contenders. CleanMyMac is a utility for cleaning up your Mac and disposing of excess files that you no longer need. CleanMyMac has a long list of features that include removing old cache files, uninstalling apps completely (simply dragging an app to the trash sometimes leaves preference files behind), and removing unneeded localization files from apps.
CleanMyMac web site - 1Password is a password manager for the Mac that goes well beyond what Apple's Keychain app can do. You can use 1Password as a standalone app that lets you set up categories to store almost any type of login, password, serial number, or banking information. In addition, you can integrate 1Password into your favorite browser, and quickly supply login information for your favorite secure web sites.
1Password web site
- Gemini is a duplicate file finder that can search your entire Mac or selected folders. Gemini organizes search results by type, such as music, video, or images. Gemini also helps you make decisions about duplicates by providing any available information about the files, including whether any app is using them. For instance, you may have duplicate photos, but if one is in your iPhoto library and the other is on the Desktop, you may not want to delete the iPhoto version.
Gemini web site
Enter the Best Mac System Utility Voting Booth
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Backup Application
The Best Mac Backup Application category nominees are listed below in random order. The backup category is pretty wide open, and includes any app that can back up data from a Mac.
The Best Mac Backup Application Ballot
- CopyCatX is a drive-cloning app. You can use it to quickly create bootable copies of your Mac's startup drive, as well as any other bootable drive that may be attached to your Mac, including drives running Windows or Linux.
CopyCatX web site
- Carbon Copy Cloner was last year's winner; it's back to take on all comers. Carbon Copy Cloner provides all the tools you need to create bootable clones of your Mac's startup drive. It can also perform full and incremental backups, sync files, and automate the backup process based on schedules you create.
Carbon Copy Cloner web site - SuperDuper is a backup and cloning app that packs a lot of features. Besides creating clones of your Mac's startup drive, you can also use SuperDuper to perform incremental updates to those clones. SuperDuper can also create sandbox clones, which share your user data but isolate all system files. Sandbox clones are a great way to test out new apps without worrying about them causing problems with your Mac.
SuperDuper web site - DataBackup 3 is an easy-to-use backup application that not only creates bootable clones of a startup drive, but can also manage independent backups of important user libraries, such as iTunes and iPhoto. DataBackup 3 supports full and incremental backups; you can also set up schedules to automate the process.
DataBackup 3 web site
- Time Machine, a backup utility that has been built into every Mac since OS X, provides an easy-to-use interface for backing up your Mac's data. Time Machine lacks many capabilities that are standard in other backup apps, such as the ability to create bootable clones, but its user-friendly interface, and the way it lets you quickly and easily find a file in its backup archives, are unbeatable.
Time Machine web site
Enter the Best Mac Backup Application Voting Booth
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Mac Browser
The Best Mac Browser category nominees are listed below in random order. The browser category is pretty self-explanatory; it encompasses any general-purpose web browser app that runs on a Mac.
The Best Mac Browser Ballot
- Safari is Apple's browser; it's included with every version of OS X. Safari has many unique features that make it a good choice for an everyday web browser for the Mac. It also supports a wide variety of plug-ins that add to or enhance its features.
Safari web site
- Chrome from Google uses the same basic foundation as Safari; WebKit, an Open Source basic browsing engine. Since Google tends to update Chrome more often than Apple updates Safari, Chrome generally leads in overall performance, but it can lack in features.
Chrome web site - Firefox from Mozilla is one of the more popular web browsers for the Mac. It also has one of the most extensive lists of available add-ons and extensions, which allow you to customize the browser.
Firefox web site
Enter the Best Mac Browser Voting Booth
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Application for Running Windows on a Mac
The Best Application for Running Windows category nominees are listed below in random order. This category covers any app that allows you to run Windows, or for that matter any OS, on a Mac.
The Best Application for Running Windows Ballot
- VMware Fusion allows you to run a wide selection of non-native OSes on a Mac, including Windows and Unix. Fusion is a virtualization application, which means you can run OS X and another OS concurrently and easily switch between them, without having to suspend or stop the other OS.
VMware Fusion web site
- Parallels was the very first virtualization application for Intel Macs that allowed concurrent use of Windows and other OSes with the Mac OS.
Parallels web site - Oracle VirtualBox is an open source virtualization app originally developed by Sun and now managed by Oracle. VirtualBox supports a wide range of guest OSes and has a very nice price tag; it's free.
Oracle VirtualBox web site
Enter the Best Application for Running Windows Voting Booth
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Word Processor
The Best Word Processor category nominees are listed below in random order. This category covers any app whose primary purpose is to provide word processing capabilities.
The Best Mac Word Processor Ballot
- Pages is Apple's word processor and page layout application. Originally part of a suite of office tools, Pages is now available as an individual app.
Pages web site - Mariner Write from Mariner Software is an elegant, efficient, and very powerful word processor that concentrates its core functions on making word processing an easier task, even for the most complicated of projects.
Mariner Write web site
- Microsoft Word is one of the most popular word processors available for the Mac; it's also available for Windows. Word includes a large set of features that cover everything from jotting off quick notes to desktop publishing.
Microsoft Word web site - LibreOffice from The Document Foundation is a free open source office suite that includes Writer, a word processor that can handle everything from a casual letter to your first novel.
LibreOffice web site
Enter the Best Mac Word Processor Voting Booth
Readers' Choice Awards 2013 - Best Image Editor
The Best Mac Image Editor category nominees are listed below in random order. This category is open to both consumer and professional image editing apps.
The Best Mac Image Editor Ballot
- Pixelmator is an image editor that uses OS X-native Core Image API to provide pixel-level, real-time, non-destructive image editing. It's fast, easy to use, and produces professional results.
Pixelmator web site - Photoshop, currently at version CS6, is Adobe's ever-popular image editing app for the Mac (and Windows). Having long ago set the standard in professional image editing, it has even become a verb, as in "that's been Photoshopped."
Photoshop web site
- Acorn from Flying Meat, Inc, is an easy-to-use image editor that provides plenty of punch with its powerful features and amazing tools.
Acorn web site - GraphicConverter is one of those go-to tools that everyone should keep in their image editing bag of tricks. It allows you to easily open, view, edit, and convert image formats. GraphicConverter has earned its reputation as the Swiss Army Knife of image editing and file conversion.
GraphicConverter web site
Enter the Best Image Editor Voting Booth
The Best Mac Home Theater App or Product category nominees are listed below in random order. This category covers any app or device that allows you to use your Mac or other Apple device in a home theater setup.
The Best Mac Home Theater App or Product Ballot
- AppleTV is an easy-to-use media player for a home theater. It can stream content from iTunes, Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Vimeo, MLB, and more. You can even use your iOS device as a remote control for the AppleTV.
AppleTV web site
- Plex is media center software that can turn your Mac into the center of your home theater experience. Plex can play a wide variety of video and audio formats, as well as display images.
Plex web site - XBMC is a media center app for the Mac. Once it's installed, you can use your Mac to stream many different video formats to that big HDTV that's anchoring your home theater system. XBMC can also turn your Mac into a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) to record live TV.
XBMC web site
Enter the Best Mac Home Theater App or Product Voting Booth
The Best Mac Peripheral Reseller category nominees are listed below in random order. This is the second year for this category, one that proved very popular last year. This category is open to any reseller that carries Mac-related products, such as RAM, drives, accessories, or what have you.
The Best Mac Peripheral Reseller Ballot
- Other World Computing has been a Mac peripheral reseller since 1988. It provides support for Mac users by creating products that just aren't available anywhere else. OWC's catalog is a large one, and covers most of the upgrades and specialty services a Mac user will ever need.
- Small Dog Electronics is a Mac reseller that started business in 1994. Besides selling Macs, Small Dog has a large catalog of Mac-related peripherals, as well as a large collection of, you guessed it, dogs. Small Dog is an online and brick-and-mortar retailer with three locations in Vermont, and an open policy about bringing pets to work.
- NewEgg is an online retailer that carries a wide selection of electronics, computer peripherals, and other goodies that are commonly sought after by Mac enthusiasts.
Source...