Defaults (2025)
It has been more than 2 years (😱) since Episode 097 of my podcast Hemispheric Views, where we held a Duel of the Defaults! competition.
Two years on, where do I stand now?
If there is a change from my list last year, I’ve indicated it with a leading ✨.
| Change? | Category | Default | Comment on Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✨ | Mail Client | Fastmail | Goodbye Fmail3 |
| Mail Server | Fastmail & Apple Mail | iCloud is there, but I don’t actively use it | |
| Notes | Obsidian for Work; Apple Notes for Home | ||
| To-Do | OmniFocus | ||
| iPhone Photo Shooting | Camera.app | ||
| Photo Management | Photos.app | ||
| Calendar | BusyCal (plus Calendar.app) | ||
| Cloud file storage | iCloud (plus OneDrive) | ||
| RSS | Reeder with FreshRSS | ||
| Contacts | Contacts.app | ||
| ✨ | Browser | Safari | Despite trying Vivaldi and Firefox, I always come back to Safari |
| Chat | Signal | ||
| Bookmarks | Safari | Goodlinks is gone; back to basics | |
| Read It Later | GoodLinks | Rarely used now; very few worthwhile things to read (later) on the web | |
| Word Processing | n/a | I don’t process words | |
| Spreadsheets | Numbers (plus Excel) | ||
| Presentations | n/a | I don’t do presentations | |
| Shopping Lists | AnyList | ||
| Meal Planning | AnyList | ||
| Budgeting & Personal Finance | Actual Budget on PikaPods | ||
| ✨ | News | RSS & NYTimes | |
| Music | Apple Music | ||
| ✨ | Podcasts | Castro | I got bored with PocketCasts |
Four changes this year from 23 categories. 8 of the 23 are true defaults.