Launch multiple apps in a single command in OS X

I think using Applescript would be the best way. First open up your AppleScript Editor.app then type in the following:

tell application "Mail" to activate
tell application "iCal" to activate

Of course that's just a show of concept, customise it as you see fit. Then save it as an application. Now you can either double click it to launch all your applications or use a launcher like Quicksilver or Launchbar.

In terminal you could do:

open -a TextEdit ; open -a Safari

To open both TextEdit and Safari, or same with Applescript:

do shell script "open -a TextEdit"

do shell script "open -a Safari"

You can then save the Applescript as an App you can click on.

Or you could use launcher application like Launchpad, Another Launcher or Quicksilver.

I decided to look on how to run multiple applications and I found out that you have to split it – for example

tell application "Calculator"
tell application "Calculator"   
    run
end tell

wouldn't work, so it took me a little bit but then it hit me so then I did this to make it work:

tell application "Calculator"
    run     
end tell

tell application "Calculator"
    run
end tell

and it worked.