While smooth, clean, and efficient macOS has a ton of legacy applications that come pre-installed that may not be lending you any value. Apps such as Notes, Safari, iMessage, and more have received a plethora of updates over the past few years that have greatly increased their usability – unformatunately the same can’t be said for the some of the applications listed below.

1. Stickies

Stickies is an application for Apple Macintosh computers that puts Post-it note-like windows on the screen, for the user to write short reminders, notes and other clippings. via Wikipedia

We’ve actually delved pretty deep into the flaws and what Apple might want to do next with Stickies in a dedicated article, here. At it’s simplest, we suggest Apple merges Stickies with it’s recently updated Notes application.



Stickies has lost a good deal of both its utility and uniqueness due to updates made to Apple’s native Notes app over the past few years. Not only can you now add rich text to Notes, but you can also integrate lists, checklists, images and as well as other features.



The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It:Merge It With Notes

2. Dashboard

Dashboard is an application for Apple Inc.’s macOS operating systems, used as a secondary desktop for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. via Wikipedia

As it stands, Dashboard is incredibly outdated. It’s a feature many people thought Apple would kill at some point, but it’s managed to survive even after Notification Center was introduced to macOS. While the release of El Capitan saw Dashboard relegated to an application you had to open to enable (it used to be auto-enabled), it still comes pre-loaded on macOS.



While there is certainly value behind the concept of Dashboard, it’s been lost in all the updates Apple has made to macOS in the past few years. A great solution would be to open Dashboard up to third-party apps to utilize and stock.

The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It: Merge It With Mission Control and create a macOS Control Center

3. Chess

Apple Chess is a 3D chess game for macOS, developed by Apple Inc. It supports chess variants such as crazyhouse and suicide chess. via Wikipedia

This is a legacy application that should have tied a long time ago. Not only is the UI grossly outdated, but it serves as little less than bloatware for Mac OS. The past few years have seen huge expansions and updates made to the Mac App Store. Given that, and the fact that there are actually tons of 3rd party chess applications you can download, it might serve Apple well to compete on a small scale with them.



The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It: Update it and don’t ship Macs stock with it – make it a highly recommended Mac App Store download.



4. Contacts

Contacts, called Address Book before OS X Mountain Lion, is a computerized address book included with Apple Inc.’s macOS. via Wikipedia﻿

Contacts is decent as far as contact management goes, but it could be so much easier. A great example of the strange lack of UX consistency is the fact that you can’t add a contact photo from your desktop. In order for a photo to be added it needs to be part of your photo library.



There are a number of changes that could be made that would make using Contacts on your macOS device wortwhile – making it a truly powerful Rolodex.

The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It: Flesh out each contact into what Equates to a full profile; allowing you to import social links for everyone natively. Make “Contacts” into a full scale digital rolodex .



6. iTunes

iTunes is a media player, media library, Internet radio broadcaster, and mobile device management application developed by Apple Inc. via Wikipedia﻿

Rumor has it iTunes is already going away…soon. We here at TheMaccessories certainly don’t disagree with this approach and we’ve actually outlined everything wrong with iTunes in it’s won article!

The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It:Split it into dedicated applications.



7. Mission Control

Mission Control, formerly Dashboard, Exposé, and Spaces is a feature of the Mac OS X operating system. via Wikipedia﻿

Mission Control is a puzzle to me… it seems as if Apple built a basic multi-tasking function into macOS and then decided to make it into an application.



While all the functions of Mission Control are great additions to Mac OS – it might be worth Apple’s while to reduce bloat and confusion for new Mac users if the application itself was disappeared and merged with other apps, like Dashboard.

The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It: Merge It With Dashboard and create a macOS Control Center



8. Photo Booth

Photo Booth is an application where the user can take pictures of themselves. via Wikipedia﻿

There was a time when Photo Booth was why people bought Macs – it was a fun, friendly, application that entertained the whole family. Times like those have ended, and more trivial applications aren’t worthwhile to as many people anymore.



PhotoBooth is a great example of an application that it might be worthwhile to ditch entirely, or integrate into a much more powerful application, like Photos.

The ‘Crazy’ Way to Update It: Emulate the original iTunes Ping idea and create a photo-editing service/platform to rival Instagram.

Conclusion

Apple has a ton of legacy applications that either need updating…or need to go. Do you agree? Have any other applications you think need an overhaul?