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Default Apps 2023

Published 2023-12-13 14:22. Updated 2023-12-13 17:16. #Links #Tools #Personal 

My personal applications picks for digital life in 2023.

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)

📮 Mail Server: 1blu, GMail, ...

📝 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.