I borrowed this from Marc Amos who borrowed it from a number of other folks he listed in his blog post. I'm a sucker for a good list and enjoy seeing what other folks use on a regular basis to stay productive, especially if they are freelancers, entrepreneurs, or work primarily from home. Without further ado, here's the default apps list for me with just a few months remaining in 2024...

• 📨 Mail Client: Hey
• 📮 Mail Server: Hey.com
• 📝 Notes: Notion
• ✅ To-Do: Things 3
• 📷 Photo Shooting: iPhone for personal work, Canon R6 Mark II for professional work
• 🎨 Photo Editing: ON1 Photo RAW for large commercial projects, Affinity Photo for everything else
• 🖼️ Screenshots: Xnapper
• 📆 Calendar: Fantastical (using a mix of Google Calendars, iCloud, and Outlook accounts)
• 📁 Cloud File Storage: Dropbox, unfortunately
• 📖 RSS: Lire
• 🙍🏻♂️ Contacts: Cardhop
• 🌐 Browser: Safari for almost everything, Arc when "Chrome" is required
• 💬 Chat: Apple Messages and Discord
• 🔖 Bookmarks: Safari
• 📑 Read It Later: Safari’s Reading List
• 📜 Word Processing: Pages
• 📈 Spreadsheets: Numbers
• 📊 Presentations: Keynote
• 🛒 Shopping Lists: Pestle
• 🍴 Meal Planning: Pestle
• 💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Bonsai for client/freelance billing, my actual banking app for everything else
• 📰 News: Apple News
• 🎵 Music: Apple Music
• 🎤 Podcasts: Pocket Casts (Sonos integration is clutch!)
• 🔐 Password Management: 1Password
• 🎒 Backups: Backblaze
• 🧑💻 Code Editor: I don't code anymore, but it would be Nova if I did
• ✈️ VPN: Apple Private Relay

Very Apple-heavy with a few notable exceptions here and there. Below are a few that are either niche or industry-specific, but ones I couldn't live without regardless:

• MacWhisper for transcribing both audio and video files
• Raycast for app launching, window management, clipboard history, pomodoro, snippets, timers, and so much more
• Camo Studio for anything webcam related
• An incredible workflow combo of the following apps, in the exact order I use them:
  • Post Haste to make repeatable project folders organized depending on the type of project
  • Offshoot to make exact card/drive duplicates
  • EditReady to generate proxies when working with RAW files
  • Parashoot to prep cards for the next shoot
• Screen Studio for recording professional tutorials