The apps I use

2024-01-04

Episode 97 of the Hemispheric Views podcast, called Duel of the Defaults, set of quite a trend on the web. In that episode, Martin Feld and Jason Burk compete for the coveted "Mr. Default" title, by comparing the different apps they use, and deciding who is most default (according to arbitrary decisions by judge Andrew Canion). After this, people started listing their own "default apps", which is not quite what the show was about, but a fun thing to do nontheless. Robb Knight has collected many of these on his website, and allow people to add theirs using Git pull requests (which I did). I'm a bit late to the game with this, but better late than never!

Apps

These are the apps I use personally, i.e. not for work, on both my iPhone and Mac:

• 📨 Mail Client: Mail
• 📮 Mail Server: iCloud, with custom domain
• 📝 Notes: Notes, Obsidian
• ✅ To-Do: Reminders
• 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
• 🟦 Photo Management: Photos
• 📆 Calendar: Calendar
• 📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive
• 📖 RSS: N/A
• 🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts
• 🌐 Browser: Safari
• 💬 Chat: Messages (if that's considered chat), very occasionally Slack
• 🔖 Bookmarks: Some old bookmarks in Safari, nothing else
• 📑 Read It Later: Occasionally using the Reading list in Safari, but rarely read the things I put there
• 📜 Word Processing: N/A
• 📈 Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
• 📊 Presentations: N/A
• 🛒 Shopping Lists: Notes, a shared note with my wife
• 🍴 Meal Planning: N/A
• 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Google Sheets, Zlantar
• 📰 News: N/A (I get news from websites and Mastodon, but don't use a specific news app)
• 🎵 Music: Apple Music
• 🎤 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
• 🔐 Password Management: iCloud keychain, and a sprinkle of 1Password

Conclusion

When I started going through this list I was actually surprised by how "default" I am. I'm hardly using any non-Apple apps/services at all. Part of this is because I want to stay away from Google, but also that Apple services usually work pretty damn well. Of course, there are more powerful and advanced options for every single category, but I rarely need anything outside the ordinary for my daily business, so the default apps suit me well.

If you speak Swedish, or wouldn't mind hearing me and Fredrik Björeman doing so, we've recorded an episode of our podcast Synk on this very topic.