Recommended Apps
Last Updated: February 5, 2024
I’ve spent the last 15 years testing apps and finding the ones that work the best for me and my use cases. Below you’ll find my current crop of best-in-class apps for your iPhone, iPad, and Mac in alphabetical order by category.
Assume that any app listed in the iPhone section is also used on the iPad and the Mac unless otherwise stated.
iPhone
Automation
Shortcuts
Not that there is really any other option on iPhone for automation of any kind but Shortcuts is awesome and gets better with each update. Simple enough to make customizing your home screen but powerful enough to allow you to do crazy things.
Bible
ESV Bible
I’ll say it: I don’t like the YouVersion Bible app. I think it’s cluttered and ugly. The ESV Bible app is much better looking and more well designed from top to bottom. It doesn’t have as many reading plans as the YouVersion app, which is fine with me, because the ones it does have are quite good. Obviously if you prefer another translation this app isn’t for you but it’s my favorite Bible app by a long shot.
Calendaring
Calendar
Podcasts
Snipd
Reading
Books
This is a choice based on being firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem. If Kindle was noticeably better in UI or feature set I wouldn’t mind switching. Both Apple Books and Kindle integrate with Readwise too, so switching wouldn’t cause me to lose the ability to review my highlights in Readwise.
Reading Review
Readwise
One of my two favorite app discoveries of 2021. Readwise gathers highlights from Apple Books, Kindle, Instapaper, Pocket, Twitter, Medium, Airr, Hypothesis, Goodreads, Command, Feedly, and Inoreader. It can export those highlights to Notion, Evernote, Roam Research, Mailbrew, CSV, and Markdown. In addition to all of that, you can review your highlights each day and share them in well designed images to various platforms. Readwise is amazing.
Smart home control
Home
A friend of my introduced me to The Athletic about 2 years ago and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I grew up with ESPN as the only real sports news source outside of the local newspaper and radio stations. As a result I didn’t realize what I was missing. The Athletic is proper sports journalism, without ads, and a UI that actually makes sense and doesn’t want to make me cry like the ESPN website and app do. The journalists interact with readers, you can tailor the sports and teams you follow, and they have their own podcasts as well. I’m happy to pay the yearly subscription fee for this great service.
Task Manager
Things
This is a fast, secure browser and it’s great on battery life. Yes, please.
Website management
Squarespace
WordPress is too much. Squarespace strikes the balance between overhead and simplicity far better. Good looking templates that you can customize and NO STUPID UPDATES that break everything. Full on e-commerce options as well. Just a solid, easy to use platform to get your work on the Web.
White Noise
Portal
Portal is a white/atmospheric noise app. It is REALLY pretty with stunning visuals of where the audio was recorded and spectacular sounding audio. My favorite portals are Amazon Thunderstorm and Pacific Waves. As an added plus my daughter loves this app too. Her favorite is Nighttime Aquarium which she affectionately refers to as ‘the Jellyfish one’.
Writing
Obsidian
If you’re not on the Obsidian train yet, consider this your formal invitation to try it out. It’s built completely off plain text files, supports Markdown, has all the PKM bells and whistles you want, and can sync via iCloud across devices. Oh, it’s also insanely customizable so you can make it exactly what you want it to be.
iPad
Catching up with family
FaceTime
Grandparents that live 5 hours away want to see their granddaughter a lot more than such a distance allows. FaceTime is a win for all parties involved.
Photo editing
Lightroom CC
Mac
Audio editing
Logic Pro X
I’ve been podcasting for about 6.5 years. Logic is what I use to edit those podcasts. It has everything I need to make quick work of those edits, which is made even more efficient by the Nectar 3 plugin from Izotope.
Audio McGuyvering
Audio Hijack and SoundSource
Need to record any audio on your Mac? Audio Hijack is the right tool. You can build pretty complex recording paths if you want or you can just hit record and get what you need.
SoundSource acts as a full on mixer for the audio output on your Mac. It allows you to choose, on a per application basis, which speakers to use, what volume to play at, what EQ to use, and whether or not there should be an added volume overdrive. It’s pretty neat. Not a necessity by any means but darn useful.
Photo Editing
Lightroom Classic
There are other options out there that are quickly becoming competitors but until they surpass Lightroom in quality, stability, and feature set then i’ll stick with what I know.
Spotlight replacement
Raycast
Like most of the apps I prefer, Raycast does one thing really well and then goes away. It has a bunch of customizations and power that I don’t use but that doesn’t detract from my use of it.
Video Editing
Final Cut Pro X
This is a simple utility that I use on my Mac mini that is attached to a 4K display. It allows me to set predetermined window sizes and locations and assign them to hotkeys. I have one that resizes windows to 1920x1080. Another that sets the chosen app to the left 2/3 or the screen and another that sets an app to the right 1/3 of the screen. You can do more than that but thus far these 3 are all I’ve need to take advantage of the screen real estate and keep it uncluttered.