Anatomy of a Mac App

  • Menu bar and window toolbars
  • Sidebar/source list
  • Preference windows
  • Touch Bar support
  • Contextual menus
  • Tooltips
  • Multi-column tables
  • Field editors
  • AppleScript
  • Tabbed windowing
  • Multiple windows
  • Standardized color picker and font panels
  • Pop-up menus
  • Time machine/versioning
  • Compact control sizes
  • Resizable split views
  • Outline views
  • File-system access
  • Scroll bar elasticity (often missing in non-native apps)
  • Selectable text where you would expect 
  • Customizable toolbars
  • Honors general system preferences (e.g. button color prefs) and default apps 
  • Support for Services
  • Drag and drop support

Source: Apple, Marzipan, Delight | Becky Hansmeyer