Admittedly, Chessbase’ Fritz 12 is the best program for the PC. The Fritz 12 (or even the Deep Fritz 12) engine may not be the strongest computer chess engine out there, but the Chessbase interface is able to deliver on its purpose. I use it widely when analyzing games and studying openings. I load my favorite engines like Rybka, Houdini, Stockfish, etc., to test some of the more stronger engines.
But the problem is it’s only available in PC. When oh when can they be able to make a program for the Mac? I’m a Mac convert now, and there really are a lot of Mac users who are anticipating this from Chessbase. Although I already paid for the licensed copy of Fritz 12 for Windows, I’ll be willing to shell out another for the Mac — for as long as it will natively run on the Intel Mac.
I know there are already chess programs for Mac. The closest you can get to a Fritz 12 experience are Shredder Chess and Hiarcs. I have tried tinkering with the trial version of the Shredder Classic 4 Mac, but it seems a lot are missing. The latest GUI for Hiarcs on the other hand is not yet available for Mac’s OS X Lion.
And I’ve always wanted to go with the trusted and familiar experience of a Chessbase program.
BTW, the chess UCI engines that are widely available around the internet are usually not available for Mac. They just won’t work. You need to have a Mac version of the UCI in order to have employ them to your favorite Mac GUI. So far, I can get only a Mac UCI for Stockfish, but there are no available Mac UCI engines for Rybka and Houdini.