Install Applications

While Mac OS X includes many applications, as I pointed out earlier in this chapter, you’ll probably buy or download other software for your Mac. Installing applications on the Mac is easy, and there are two ways to do so. The first is the simplest: many applications tell you just to drag their icon or folder into your Applications folder. You don’t need to run an installer, and you can launch the application immediately afterward.

Other applications use an installer, either Apple’s Installer application or other installer programs. If you need to use an installer to install an application, you must usually be an administrator—the installer asks you for an administrator’s password, and if you don’t have this password, you can’t go any further.

Many Mac applications come in disk image files. (See Chapter 5 for more on disk images.) Double-click the disk image file icon to mount its disk image, which you can then double-click to see its contents (see Figure 13-12).

Figure 13-12: A disk image file and a mounted disk image at the top, with the contents of the disk image in a window at the bottom

In the following example, there is a package file, with a .pkg extension, which is a special file used to install programs. Some disk images contain applications, and you just drag them to your Applications folder.

To install a package file, double-click it; the Apple Installer opens. Follow the steps as the installer moves you from screen to screen, reading any special information, agreeing to a user license, choosing the destination disk if you have more than one, entering your administrator password, and then finally installing the software.

Some software installations require you to restart your Mac after they are finished. If this is the case, the installer warns you before installing. But you can install many applications without needing to restart.

Installing updates to Mac OS X and its applications can be a little different, and I’ll tell you how to update your Mac OS X software in Chapter 22.