As we enter 2024 I finally completed my inventory of App Defaults.
Few things of note.
- I’m currently evaluating note taking / writing apps after being disappointed with Obsidian on iOS. Currently I’m leaning towards Bear which is a fantastic looking writing app, but I’m also actively testing FSNotes. So things are bit in flux in this category.
- I always prefer native apps over Electron / web-apps. This strongly reflects my app choices.
- I try to avoid Chromium based browsers, not the least because of Google’s increasing privacy-hostility.
Let’s get to it:
- 📬 Mail Client: Apple Mail.app
- 📮 Mail Server: Migadu
- 🗒️ Notes: Bear, Apple Notes.app for shared notes
- ✅ To-Do: Things, Apple Reminders.app for shared to-dos
- 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Apple Camera.app
- 🌅 Photo Management: Apple Photos.app
- 📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar.app
- I occasionally test Calendars and Fantastical, but keep getting back to stock Calendar app
- 📦 Cloud file storage: iCloud Drive
- 📖 RSS: Reeder 5 backed by Feedbin
- 👥 Contacts: Apple Contacts.app
- 🌐 Browser: Apple Safari, Arc at work
- MS Teams 🤢 is crippled on non-Chromium browsers
- 💬 Chat: iMessage, Signal, Matrix
- 🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
- 📑 Read It Later: Omnivore
- 📝 Word Processing: Bear
- 📈 Spreadsheets: Apple Numbers, MS Excel (for work)
- 📊 Presentations: Apple Keynote, MS PowerPoint (for work)
- 🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple Reminders.app
- 🥘 Meal Planning: Mela
- 💸 Budgeting & Personal Finance: YNAB
- 🗞️ News: RSS, various news sites and Mastodon
- 🎹 Music: Apple Music.app
- 🎙️ Podcasts: Castro
- By far the best podcast app for iOS, but unfortunately seems neglected. Suffered also major outage this winter.
- 🔑 Password Management: Strongbox
- I was early user of 1Password, but since their app switched to Electron and they also ended support for self-hosted vaults, I started to look alternatives. I decided to choose Keepass vault-standard based client with good integration to Apple ecosystem. Strongbox has been great.
Extras
- 🎨 Photo Processing: Lightroom
- I wish there was something else as powerful as Lightroom as I’m not that keen on paying Adobe subscription.
- 🖌️ Image Editing: Pixelmator Pro
- New addition from Black Friday sale.
- 🚀 Launcher: Raycast
- Didn’t use any 3rd party launchers before, but Raycast with all its extensions has become one of the most valuable apps for me
- 🐘 Social Media: Mastodon with Ivory app
- 🔎 Search: Kagi
- Paid search engine, but oh my it’s so good. And privacy respecting too.
- 📘 Code Editor: BBEdit on macOS, Textastic on iOS
- 📸 Screenshots: Shottr
- 🎥 Video Player: Iina on macOS and Infuse on Apple TV
- 💿 Media Library: Jellyfin
- 🖥️ Terminal: Kitty on macOS, Blink on iOS
- 📝 Blog: Self-hosted Ghost
- I’ve been using static site generators years ago (Jekyll, Hugo) and perhaps will return to those one day. Ghost keeps expanding to newsletter / membership craze, which I don’t care at all. But the core blogging functionality is still there and works.
- 📦 Package Manager: Homebrew
- Must have and one of the first things I install on fresh macOS.
- ⛴️ Containers: Colima
- I’m just happy I don’t need to run Docker Desktop anymore.
- ▶️ YouTube: ytdl-sub, Vinegar
- 🗜️ File Compression: Keka
- ❌ Ad-blocker: Wipr
- 🖥️ Virtual Machines: UTM