Default Apps 2023

I saw this floating around and thought I’d join in.

Mail Client: Airmail

Mail Server: Fastmail

Notes: Obsidian (longer term working notes) and Drafts (short term temporary notes–nothing lives in Drafts long-term, it is more like Grand Central Terminal). Public notes get posted to https://notes.cagrimmett.com/

To-Do: Things

Photo Shooting: Daily: iPhone 14 Pro. When shooting photos for real: Canon EOS 6D Mark II.

Photo Editing: Mostly: Photos. Heavier editing: Pixelmator.

Calendar: Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.

Cloud File Storage: Dropbox, iCloud Drive, and Google Drive for various files. Backblaze for full computer backups.

(I’m not happy with this approach that has been cobbled together over time. If anyone has a better one and has done consolidation migrations, I’d love to chat.)

RSS: Mostly FeedLand, occasionally NetNewsWire

Contacts: macOS Contacts

Browser: Desktop: Chrome. iOS: Safari and DuckDuckGo

Chat: Slack, Messages, Texts, Signal

Bookmarks: Larder and my own website via IndieBlocks

Read It Later: Larder and Friends with Post Collections and Send to e-reader

Word Processing: Google Docs primarily, Pages if I must

Spreadsheets: Primarily Google Sheets, occasionally Numbers. Special mention to Datasette for exploring CSVs in more detail.

Presentations: Primarily Google Slides. I don’t give presentations often, but if I did, I’d probably use Nick Diego’s WP Block slide approach

Shopping Lists: Reminders on iOS and macOS, in a shared list with my wife

Meal Planning: When we do it, it is mostly on an index card at home that we stick to the fridge. Occasionally a shared Reminders list.

Budgeting and Personal Finance: Google Sheets for high level tracking over time, otherwise we don’t track closely. We follow a 50/30/20 approach (50% of income goes to fixed expenses, 20% to savings and investment, 30% to everything else) and automate the 50 and 20, so we don’t have to closely track the 30.

News: RSS, social media.

Music: Spotify

Podcasts: Overcast

Password Management: 1Password

Code Editor: VS Code

VPN: Work: OpenVPN. Personal: Private Internet Access.

Special mentions:

Raycast – macOS utility (clipboard manager, search, quick commands for tons of apps, automations)

iTerm2 – Terminal replacement

Transmit for file transfer

TablePlus for local databases

Carrot Weather for weather on both macOS and iOS. Can pull in data from my own weather station.

Dark Noise – different kinds of white noise

CleanShot X – number one screenshot app on macOS by far