Default Apps 2023
This is the kind of thing that I find interesting when I look back and see how it changes from year to year so when I saw other people posting their lists I thought I’d join in and keep a record here. I’ve answered with 🖥️ desktop and 📱 mobile icons where they are different, if no icons then I use the same things on all platforms. I started trying to answer just from a mobile point of view, but the list wasn’t nearly as useful to me that way. I feel if I’d done this a few years ago there would have been more Google and these days I’ve gravitated to using the Apple version of apps where I don’t have any pressing need for better versions.
This is the categories from the original list:
- 📮 Mail: Gmail, but I’ve hated it since they trashed the inbox version, I’ve recently retried Spark for a better unified mailbox and I think it might stick
- 📝 Notes: 🖥️ Obsidian, 📱 Apple Notes
- ✅ To-Do: 🖥️ Obsidian, 📱Apple Reminders
- 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
- 🟦 Photo Management: Apple Photos
- 📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar
- 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud
- 📖 RSS: 📱Reeder 5
- 🙍🏻♂️ Contacts: 📱Apple Contacts, which I kind of forget is actually a thing that there might be alternatives to
- 🌐 Browser: 🖥️ Arc is my new best friend, 📱 Safari
- 💬 Chat: iMessage, Discord, Slack
- 🔖 Bookmarks: hmm, nothing beyond browsers or putting things into Obsidian really
- 📑 Read It Later: see Bookmarks, I should probably figure out a better setup for both of these categories
- 📜 Word Processing: Pass
- 📈 Spreadsheets: Numbers, some Google Docs still
- 📊 Presentations: Pass
- 🛒 Shopping Lists: 📱Apple Reminders
- 🍴 Meal Planning: 📱Paprika 3 but mostly as recipe storage, very little planning happens
- 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: YNAB
- 📰 News: no apps, just websites
- 🎵 Music: 📱Tidal
- 🎤 Podcasts: 📱Downcast
- 🔐 Password Management: 1Password
And a few other things that I use enough of that it seemed worth recording them for posterity.
- 🧮 Code Editor: 🖥️ Nova
- 📍 Navigation: 🚙 Google Maps, 🚲 Cycle.travel
- 📚 Reading: 📱Apple Books, until recently lots of Libby but my current local library doesn’t support it
- 🔎 Search: DuckDuckGo not an app, but I have it as my everywhere default search engine
- 🤷🏻♀️ Social Media: 📱Ice Cubes for Mastodon
- 🌤️ Weather: Apple Weather (RIP Dark Sky, I miss you)
