Once again, I’m here to blog about my favourite Mac Apps for the year.

See previously:

The Standard Criteria

For my purposes, to be considered an App of the Year, the software needs to be something I used extensively, value and enjoy. I also must feel I would miss them if they suddenly went away. Of course, it also needs to be a Mac App.

OmniFocus

It’s almost to the point where this app needs to be put into the Hall of Fame, and removed from future consideration. OmniFocus continues to provide structure to my life both at a professional and personal level.

Most of this year has been spent using the beta of OmniFocus 4 in tandem with OmniFocus 3. The new version has come a long way and is closing in on release.

While there are elements that continue to frustrate me (please, can we have natural language entry?) there is still no other task manager that can filter, slice and dice tasks like OmniFocus. And of course, defer dates. No task manager can be serious if it doesn’t have the ability to set a start date for a task into the future.

Obsidian

Notes apps are my playground. I bounce between them continuously. Heck, I’m writing this post in iA Writer! This year, however, has seen me give Obsidian another try - after I stuck with Logseq for some time before it.

There are parts of it that I still don’t like, but it’s now rock solid, and the price cannot be beat. I am even putting aside the fact that it is running in Electron! 😱

I wanted to continue to use Agenda, but it’s simply too fiddly. Plain text entry is so straightforward, it is hard to beat.

Mona

2023 was the downfall of Twitter. In its place stormed Mastodon and I have enjoyed using Mona. While most of the cool kids seemed to gravitate to Ivory, for me Mona ticks all the boxes I need from a Mastodon client.

Reeder

Last year, NetNewsWire took over from Reeder as my RSS app of choice. This year, I’ve flipped back to Reeder across macOS and i(Pad)OS. It’s smooth and gorgeous, and rock solid.

What’s even better is that this year has seen somewhat of a renaissance in blogging, and with the help of the App Defaults craze, launched by our own Hemispheric Views 097, I’ve found a bunch of new voices to add to my feed reader.

Safari

Last year I used Arc. For whatever reason, this year I’ve retreated to the comfort, energy efficiency, and cross-platform syncing offered by Safari. It also makes me feel good that I’m not supporting the Chromium hegemony.

Apps That Fell Off My List From Last Year

  1. NetNewsWire: As mentioned above, it’s taken a back seat to Reeder.
  2. Arc: I’ve moved back to the default choice of Safari.
  3. MarsEdit: I continue to use it, but I could live without it if it went away. Still a great app.
  4. Launchbar: This year I trialled RayCast, but I’m back on Launchbar. As much as I like it, given there are other alternatives, it didn’t make the cut this year.
  5. Agenda: As discussed, Obsidian has trumped Agenda for 2023.