Default Apps 2025

This is a follow-up to default apps from december, 2023.

SourceThis little exercise was inspired by Chris Coyer, who was inspired by Matt C... who was inspired by Tracy Durnell and the HomeBrew Website Club. I think it'll be fun to make another list like this next year and compare with this one.

Read Default Apps - from 2023 to 2025 to see what changed.

Defaults

📨 Mail Client: Apple Mail
📮 Mail Server: Google :(
📝 Notes: Obsidian and Concepts when I think in pictures
✅ To-Do: Obsidian (tasks), Apple Calendar (time-boxing), Be Focused Pro (🍅 timer, so I don't lose track of time and take breaks)
📷 Photo Shooting: iPhone 12 Pro, Fujifilm XT-2, Virginia (I had a chance to use it a few times this year!)
🎨 Photo Editing: Capture One, Affinity
🎧 Audio Editing: Audacity
🎥 Screencasting, streaming: OBS
🏗️ UX (wireframing, prototyping): Concepts, Figma
📹 Video Editing: DaVinci Resolve
🎮 Game engine: HTML + pixi.js replaced Unity this year, toying with Godot
✍🏼 Journaling: Ensō
🧘🏽 Meditation: Sit.
🎨 Drawing: Procreate, Concepts
📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar, Calendly
📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive, Google Drive
📖 RSS: Inoreader
🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: MacOS Contacts
🌐 Browser: Safari (and I'm happy with it!), Firefox, Chrome only as a dev tool (even less often than in 2023)
💬 Chat: Signal, Telegram, Discord, iMessage
🔖 Bookmarks: Safari, trying to use Obsidian Web Clipper to manage my newsletter notes better
📑 Read It Later: Safari Reader
📜 Word Processing: Obsidian, Pages
📈 Spreadsheets: Google Sheets, Numbers, Jupyter Notebooks, Claude/Cursor (sort of), Raycast (Tools That Replaced Spreadsheets for Me)
📊 Presentations: Keynote (almost no need for that this year)
🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple Notes, Obsidian
🍴 Meal Planning: N/A (Obsidian for managing recipes, like this Chilli for Your Mom)
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: nothing, I stopped using Wallet.
📰 News: RSS (Inoreader), Bluesky
🎵 Music: Spotify, Soundcloud, musicForProgramming();, YouTube
🎤 Podcasts: Overcast
📚 Reading: actual, physical books, then Apple Books, Kindle if forced to
🧑‍💻 Code Editor: Cursor
🖥️ Terminal: Ghostty
🕹️ Games: Mac, Mac with CrossOver, PS4, Switch, Itch.io, Steam for new stuff

Stuff that doesn't fit above:

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a giant foot-shaped snail with a house on its back. the house is still in construction, with a big crane towering above it The image is a stylized black-and-white illustration. In the lower left corner, there is a small, cozy-looking house with smoke rising from its chimney. The smoke, however, does not dissipate into the air but instead forms a dark, looming cloud. Within the cloud, the silhouette of a large, menacing face is visible, with its eyes and nose peeking through the darkness. The creature, perhaps a cat, appears to be watching over the house ominously, creating a sense of foreboding or unease.