For all of the charms and affordances that come with using iPad and iPadOS, the Mac continues to offer some of the most capable and interesting software available to GUI enthusiasts. This is a love letter from a longtime Mac user to some of the very best software on the Mac for what is a quotidian feature–app switching–but which, to my mind, makes using the Mac a blast.

Finder: Command-Tab

Typing command-tab is the system default for switching applications in Mac OS X. You hold down the command key and tap the tab key to expose a horizontal list of running applications. Each tap of the tab key will advance a selection to each consecutive application. You can mouse over the palette of applications as well, and spinning your mouse’s scroll wheel. Releasing command-tab will activate the last selected application. Bonus: holding down the shift key moves the selection from right to left.

SwitchGlass

SwitchGlass is a new application from Internet-famous John Siracusa. John’s book-length reviews of Mac OS X remain legendary, although he decided to stop writing them in 2015.

SwitchGlass resurrects behavior previously found in an application called DragThing, which developer James Thompson retired. There are enough preferences (vertical alignment along the left or right of the screen, size, color and transparency, and more) to satisfy any power user, and it is a focused, delightful app to use.

LaunchBar

LaunchBar appears to be a humble launcher application– but there are is a raft of features that delight and add value. One of my favorite features is the application switcher. Unlike SwitchGlass, the menu is only available when invoked:

• Invoke LaunchBar
• Type Command-R
• From the resulting list of active applications, you can:
  • double-click
  • arrow down/up and press enter
  • type the name of the application and type enter

LaunchBar exposes additional functionality when it’s available. You can at the very least see the application package contents, but in applications like the Finder, you can navigate through the file structure. It’s another example of how deep and powerful LaunchBar’s feature set is.

Keyboard Maestro

Keyboard Maestro is a powerful utility that provides you with a number of ways to automate behavior on your mac by typing custom keystrokes. It also provides an app switcher, as well as a list of running applications, called the Applications Palette, a la SwitchGlass.

I like Keyboard Maestro’s palette just fine, but there’s no way to obscure it when you’re not using it. On a large display, this might not matter much, but to my mind it’s always in the way at some point–and there’s no way to toggle its status via keystroke (which seems like a strange oversight for an application whose raison d’etre is automating such things).