/ JOURNAL
Default apps 2023
A very end-of-year post, inspired by a Chris Coyier post, which in turn was inspired by mattcool.tech.
I’m an inveterate switcher, so I’ll doubtless have changed all of these by the time I hit publish.
📨 Mail: Apple's Mail, everywhere. As my interest in social media has waned I’ve spent more and more time in my inbox reading newsletters. While I like Mimestream and love Michael Leggett’s clever Simplify for Gmail, I just cannot bring myself to go all in on Google. So, Fastmail and Google, side by side in Mail it is. For now.
📮 Mail server: Google and Fastmail. I don’t think Gmail is close to being the best email service, but its overall utility as an account, means Gmail often tends to win out. However, Fastmail’s a superb service with good values, and its Masked Email is a genuinely useful thing.
🌍 Browser Arc on desktop, Safari on iOS. By default, I’m a Safari person: it’s overall minimalism and tight integration with Notes and Apple Pay makes it an easy choice. But Arc is where all the interesting ideas are right now and it’s just fun to use. As a company, The Browser Co’s cadence is incredible. What ‘working in the open’ done really well looks like. Can’t wait for Arc on iOS dropping really soon.
📝 Notes: Apple’s Notes. I’ve abandoned everything else for Notes. Over the years, it’s got smarter and more useful without losing that speed from ‘having a thought’ to ‘writing it down’. It’s where everything from recipes to drafts, from research notes to saved web pages go.
🗓️ Calendar: Fantastical The best native experience for me across Mac OS and iOS. It’s Apple’s Calendar but a tiny bit better, and that’s enough, even on a non-premium account.
📖 RSS: Feedbin in the browser, but mostly consumed via Silvio Rizzis’s Reeder. I never gave up on RSS, but more than ever it’s where I do most of my reading.
🎧 Music: Apple Music. It’s not close for me. I do miss the social currency of Spotify, but it's Music that does a better job of nudging me towards discovery rather than conservative nostalgia. Music’s consistent playlist structure for artists: ‘Essentials’, ‘Deep Cuts’, ‘Influences’, ‘Inspired by’ really works for me, and it’s doing ever more interesting things with its art direction. Simon Collison did a great job a while back of summarising the pros and cons.
🎧 Podcasts: Pocket Casts Noticeably better audio quality than Apple’s Podcasts, an unfussy layout, and it works well across Apple/Google ecosystems.
☑️ Tasks: Things. Extremely opinionated about workflow, wins on craft and polish.
💬 Messages: WhatsApp I think this is the year I finally went all in on WhatsApp because that’s where everyone else is. iMessage lost its place on my phone’s home screen some time ago. Fascinated at just how differently this has played out in Europe compared to the U.S.