Best Software for Learning on a Mac

I have a Mac (running OS 10.7 Lion), and am just starting to learn to play chess. What would you recommend as the best software for learning on a Mac?

I have Fritz 9, which I can run on an old machine running Windows. It's ok, but it also seems a bit clunky and awkward with its interface (besides simply looking dated -- which I can handle, since it's free for me -- some of the commands are not where I expect them to be, and don't always function the way I would expect).

I've been trying out the trial of Shredder Classic 4, but find I miss some of the "newbie" features in the old Fritz 9 software. That's even more the case with Stockfish, which is great for a free app, but doesn't have much (beyond the game itself, of course) for someone new to chess.

So my question is: am I best off with Shredder or Stockfish, and simply doing the best I can to learn from books, or would I still be better off with Fritz 9 on an old computer? I'm open to buying another Windows chess software, but it would need to be VERY GOOD for beginners to convince me to buy software for an OS that I don't really use anymore.

Sadly, Mac's are very much lacking in terms of having good chess software available for them.

Yes, that's what I've concluded. Thanks, Kingpatzer.

What I do, for what it's worth, is I have vmware fusion installed on my mac with a  windows 7 bootcamp partition that I use to run my chess database, chess engines, and training software.

This was a reasonable option for me since my oldest kid is at university, so I was able to get very, very reasonable student pricing on the VMWare and Windows licenses that I needed. But if you have to pay full retail for those two things, it's probably better to just get a cheap windows laptop for chess.

The one thing I like about doing things this way over having a seperate chess laptop is that I only have to take one laptop with me when I travel. 

Well then I think you can just start by playing with people first, after all, PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT! Also, I don't think you need an amazing chess program to aid learning chess. Without it, resources like chess books or videos is decent enough to learn and improve on chess anyway.

There's lots of great computer based chess instructional material out there. Fritz Trainers, books in chessbase format, tactics trainers, and on and on. 

Not all of it is good, and none of it is necessary, but many people would prefer those tools to a book. Not to mention that if you play folks on FICS or ICC the clients for windows are superior to the mac clients as well. 

I've got a Mac and while there are many great chess programs for it like Shredder, Hiarcs, Deep Junior and Stockfish, there's not much in the way of database programs and training programs.

I recommend Kingpatzer's suggestion to run a virtual Windows machine like VMware's Fusion or Parallels and just using Windows XP or 7 for stuff like CT-Art, the other Convekta training programs and Chessbase and Fritztrainer stuff. It works great and you don't miss out on any programs for windows.

That is the great thing about the Intel Macs. With something like Fusion or Parallels you can run anything for Windows either in a window on your computer or go full screen and pretend that you have a windows pc. It works really really well.

SCID really is a pretty sad excuse for a database compared to Chessbase. And for real database functionality, yoiu need CA and the integreated CQL capability. SCID will collect your games and allow the most basic searches. 

But really, it is pretty much as low as one can go on the functionality scale and still be called a chess database in a meaningful way.