Apple is finally starting to pre-install some useful software on its machines, as users are reporting as their new Power Mac G4s arrive. Apple touts the new offerings as part of its description of the new Power Macs. The pre-installed software reads like a hall of fame for shareware OS X applications: applications so useful that, if you don’t think you can justify buying that new dual-1GHz G4 just to get this software, you’ll want to download and register these apps for yourself.
There’s Art Director’s Toolkit, which includes tools for identifying fonts and colors and converting units, Caffeine‘s PixelNhance image editing software which includes some of the features left out of iPhoto, the amazing Snapz Pro X screen capture software, the longtime shareware favorite Graphic Converter (which I use a lot here at the PowerPage), Omni‘s OmniGraffle charting software and OmniOutliner, and PCalc 2 scientific calculator (a must-have since OS X’s calculator remains largely unchanged for over a decade), in addition to the usual much-maligned app FaxSTF and some trial software. Office v.X is still not included. However, having these shareware gems pre-registered is a nice touch — one which will hopefully also show up on the PowerBook G4. Side note: fans of Graphic Converter will want to sign up for a third-party PDF being translated to English now that will better document this powerful graphics tool; preorders available on Lemke’s site.
