Another year has passed, and it’s time to update my app defaults. A lot has happened in the world since Andrew, Martin, and Jason of Hemispheric Views listed their defaults for the first time. I’ve tried to ditch big‑tech companies and move my data and services to more open platforms, some of them self‑hosted.

Indicated are unchanged entries (🔒) and updated entries (✨). I still use the various categories as written by Andrew:

  • 🔒 Mail Client: Mail
  • 🔒 Mail Server: posteo.net - still a secondary account on iCloud with custom domain
  • 🔒 Notes: Obsidian - Notes.app is empty now
  • ✨ To-Do: Pen and Paper - still use Remind Me Faster w/ Reminders.app (NextCloud) to capture things on the go and transfer them to my Bujo later
  • 🔒 iPhone Photo Shooting: iOS Camera
  • ✨ Photo Management: Photos - looking into ente and Immich (self-hosted) in parallel
  • 🔒 Calendar: Calendar - Data moved to NextCloud; using a couple of other apps besides, like Grila or Dato
  • ✨ Cloud file storage: Koofr, Filen.io, and NextCloud - this is a mess, have to consolidate; some app data still on iCloud because of lock-in
  • ✨ RSS: Classic Reeder and NetNewsWire with FreshRSS (self-hosted) - left Feedbin behind, was using it with Unread in between
  • 🔒 Contacts: Contacts - Data moved to NextCloud
  • 🔒 Browser: Safari
  • ✨ Chat: iMessage, Threema, and Signal - still have WhatsApp installed, but don’t start conversations there and try not to use it at all; access to contacts, pictures, etc. is blocked
  • ✨ Bookmarks: Linkding (self-hosted) - switched from Anybox
  • 🔒 Read It Later: Readwise Reader - evaluating Readeck (self-hosted)
  • 🔒 Word Processing: Pages (MS Word at work) - trying to get familiar with LibreOffice, but it’s so ugly 😢
  • 🔒 Spreadsheets: Numbers (MS Excel at work) - cf. above
  • 🔒 Presentations: Keynote - cf. above
  • 🔒 Shopping Lists: Pons
  • 🔒 Meal Planning: Mela
  • 🔒 Budgeting & Personal Finance: YNAB - already set-up Actual (self-hosted) but did not switch yet
  • 🔒 News: Mastodon, tagesschau.de
  • 🔒 Music: Apple Music - started playing around with Navidrome (self-hosted)
  • ✨ Podcasts: Overcast - back to Overcast; I’ve used Apple Podcasts and Queue in between
  • ✨ Password Management: 1Password - back to 1PW, iCloud Keychain was degraded to “backup”

Reminder to myself: I really urgently need to learn CSS, or find a different template, or “just” host my blog myself; tables would’ve been nice 🤷‍♂️