Personal: Default Apps 2023

“Apps I’ve been using regularly this year.” Heavily inspired by Matt Stein. Catalogued by Robb Knight’s App Defaults

🌐 Browser: Vivaldi + Polypane
🔍 Search: Kagi
📝 Writing: Obsidian + Grammarly
📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive + Syncthing
💬 Chat: Apple Messages, Discord, Slack, Telegram
📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar
📆 Scheduling + Booking: Cal.com
📹 Video Calls: Cal.com + Zoom + Meeter
🎵 Music. : Apple Music + Spotify
🎤 Podcasts: Overcast
🔐 Password Management: 1Password
🧑‍💻 Code Editor: Sublime Text
🗃️ Version Control: Tower
🐚 Terminal: iTerm2
✈️ VPN: Tailscale
🔖 Bookmarks: Raindrop.io
📑 Read It Later: Raindrop.io
📨 Mail Client: Mimestream (Gmail only)
📮 Mail Server: Fastmail + Gmail
🚀 Launcher: Alfred 5
🖼️ Screenshots: Xnapper
👔 Menu Bar: Bartender
🤖 Containers: Docker Compose + OrbStack
🎒 Backups: Backblaze

Commentary

My most significant trend in 2023 was dropping tools from several big tech companies like Google and Microsoft. I dropped Chrome for Vivaldi and Google Search for Kagi. I stopped using VS Code because of instability issues, and the search was much slower than Sublime Text.

For 2024, I will shift more of my mail from Gmail to Fastmail or something like mailbox.org since several friends have recommended the service to me.

My second major trend was shifting back to a desktop Mac and using my Mac Book Pro as my couch and traveling computer. I’m using a desktop Mac Studio at my office and a Mac Mini Pro in my home office. This forced me to look into file-syncing solutions, and Syncthing has been flawless for me. I have three Macs and one Intel NUC (Linux) that keep everything in sync within seconds of hitting save.

I’m using Tailscale to glue everything together privately and securely. Connecting to a computer in my house or the office to copy a file or VNC to the desktop is transparent and has almost no delay.