I believe someone has come up with a text editor for Windows that’s capable of using TextMate bundles. So, actually, there is a kind of equivalence there, I suppose …. although I feel bound to add that TextMate is a superb program. There’s no other text editor on the Mac that even comes close – and it’s all pure cocoa (unlike some so-called OSX editors) and is currently being rewritten in Objective-C 2 to boot. No one else puts as much work in as the TextMate guy.

I’d dispute that iWork is way ahead of Office or OpenOffice.org. It’s indubitably more aesthetically pleasing and nicer to use, but it is lacking in power. I doubt you’d find many physicists, accountants, and other professional users doing spreadsheets in Numbers.

Among my favorites are the Omni Apps, TextMate (even if v2 is taking veeery looong), TaskPaper, Skitch, iWork, Scrivener, Notebook and DEVONthink. Good luck finding anything equivalent for Windows.

I think the way things are right now, Mac users couldn’t be more fortunate. I believe the Mac shareware scene is much livelier than on Windows and the quality and professionalism of many apps is nothing short of amazing. And because the Mac software market is so diverse and not controlled by a dozen or so large corporations, it’s thriving. Let’s hope it stays that way.