Default Apps 2023
(Saw this on on Chris Coyier’s blog who saw it on Matt C.’s blog who joined the trend from Tracy Durnell and following suit.)
📨 Mail Client: Spark (Private), Outlook (Work)
📝 Notes: Notion & Microsoft Loop (Work), Notion & Obsidian (Private) - Currently trying to streamline
✅ To-Do: Todoist ❤️
📷 Photo Shooting: iPhone 15 Pro
🎨 Photo Editing: n/a
📆 Calendar: Busycal via Setapp (Private), Outlook (Work)
📁 Cloud File Storage: Mostly: Google Drive. For iOS apps: iCloud Drive
📖 RSS: Reeder, nuzelettr.email (shameless plug!)
🙍🏻♂️ Contacts: iOS contacts
🌐 Browser: Desktop: Arc (MacOS), Chrome (Windows); iOS: Safari
💬 Chat: In order of quantity: WhatsApp, Signal, Google Chat, Microsoft Teams, Discord
🔖 Bookmarks & 📑 Read It Later: Raindrop.io, Notion Web Clipper - Trying to streamline
📜 Word Processing: None, if forced Microsoft Word or Google Docs
📈 Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
📊 Presentations: Google Presentations
🛒 Shopping Lists: Bring
🍴 Meal Planning: Coopes
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Finanzguru (I assume only available in Germany)
📰 News: nuzelettr.email (shameless plug again!)
🎵 Music: Spotify
🎤 Podcasts: Pocket Casts
🔐 Password Management: 1Password (Work), Enpass (Private)
🧑💻 Code Editor: VS Code, as scratch-pad: QuokkaJS
✈️ VPN: NordVPN
📝 Blogging: Strapi & self-built frontend w/ SvelteKit SSG
🎸 Playing music: Garage Band for iPad
Others: ChatGPT (You’ve heard of it), TablePlus (Databases), Basecamp (Hobby Project Management), Setapp (Subscription app store alternative for MacOS)
Meta
Something I noticed while compiling this list is that there seem to be different strategies regarding app landing pages:
- Have a dedicated landing page and a dedicated url for the application; Examples: Basecamp, TablePlus and most others
- Overlapping url for landing page and application - depending whether you’re already signed in to the app you’ll be routed to the app or to the landing page instead; Example: Notion;
- No landing page at all (?); Example: Spotify
The two latter patterns I found to be extremely irritating. Yes, they are pretty known brands and products but I don’t think that justifies this behaviour.