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Drew McCormack writes in “The Ideal Software Bundle for Scientists?”:

“Software bundles like MacHeist have become a regular feature of the Mac landscape of late. There are plenty of good deals to be had, and plenty of discussion about the ethics of such bundles. But leaving all that aside, what would be your ideal bundle for science?

Here’s the list I came up with: OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, Bento, TextMate, Papers, DataPlot, GraphClick, Scrivener

That comes to a total price of around $400. Give me that for $50, or even $100, and I would be a very happy — and productive — scientist.”

(see comments to Drew’s blog post for more suggested applications)

I would love to see such a bundle. Currently I am still exploring what software to use on a Mac, and trying to use open-source and cross-platform software, but there are some Mac-only applications that are hard to beat.

My bundle wishes include: OmniGraffle, DEVONthink Pro (plus DEVONagent), reference management software (Bookends or Papers), a text editor (TextMate, also wondering about Mellel), an outlining application (Process³ or OmniOutliner), Scrivener.

Some other interesting software yet to explore: EagleFiler (archive and search mail, web pages, PDFs, chats, and more), Curio (note taking, mind mapping, brainstorming, and project management), CopyWrite (a project manager for writers of all kinds).