What applications do I use?

I was recently thinking of what applications I use every week. Why I use them, when I use them, should I use them and so on. There are plenty of applications out there now, all trying to find their way onto our home screens. Just because there are a lot of applications, doesn't mean that they're all good.

If you think about it, there are loads of applications on the App Store for iOS devices. But how many of them are of a decent quality? How many of them are worth downloading? In my experience, for every good application, there's a few bad ones.

So I thought I'd share in this post, a list of the applications I use across all my devices and why. You might find a few that you might want to try yourself!

Signal

Out of all the online messagning applications out there at the moment. Signal should be the one you should use.

• Uses end-to-end encryption
• No ads
• No trackers
• Not owned by Facebook
• Works on Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and Linux!
• You can see their applications on Github
• Free!

Do check it out, it's a fantastic application!

Discord

If you're looking for a community and speak to others, then Discord is the application for you!

• Great design, consistent across platforms
• Lots of communities
• Free!

Microsoft To Do

Out of all the to do applications out there, I like what Microsoft has created.

• Nice design
• Works on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS
• Sync your lists across devices
• Each list can have it's own theme
• Print, Email and share lists
• Free!

Spotify

An application that needs no introduction, a great application for listening to music and podcasts!

• Lots of songs and podcasts available
• Available on the web, mobile and desktop
• Good design
• Free tier available!

Apollo for Reddit

I've used plenty of third party Reddit applications. I've even used the official Reddit application. However, none of them can beat Apollo!

Developed by former Apple employee, Christian Selig, this is a fantastic application to view Reddit.

• Built from the ground up for iPhone and iPad
• Great performance
• Regular updates
• Fantastic UI
• Free, with paid tiers (it's worth paying to show support!)

If you use Reddit, you'll want to download Apollo! Out of everything on this list, Apollo is my most used application.

Tweetbot

An iOS exclusive application, now on version 6! It uses a subscription model that won't be for everyone's taste, but I'm happy to support the developers.

• Great design!
• Works well on iPhone and iPad!
• No ads!
• Lots of themes and settings. From the font, font size and behaviours.

1Password

I used to be a fan of LastPass but then I discovered 1Password and I haven't looked back. If you're in the market for a new password manager (or even looking for one to begin with), you may want to take a look at 1Password.

There is no free tier for 1Password, but I think it's worth it.

• Available on mobile, browsers, and desktops
• Really good design that's consistent across platforms
• Stores your 2FA keys!
• Has great features such as sharing passwords securely within a link to those who don't have 1Password

Visual Studio Code

How could I not include this here? I'm a fan of VSC! In fact, I wrote a post about my setup last year!

• There's an extension for everything
• Regular updates
• Big community
• There's a web version available too!
• Free!

Firefox

My current web browser of choice is Mozilla Firefox. It's performance has improved greatly over the years and it has some great features such as picture in picture mode.

• Good features such as picture in picture and screenshots
• Lots of extensions available
• Good performance
• Free!

DuckDuckGo

I'm not a fan of Google. So my search engine of choice is DuckDuckGo!

• Doesn't follow you with adverts
• Has a good mobile browser too!

Bear

I've been using this recently and Bear is a very powerful note taking application. A lot of the features are locked behind a paywall but I think it's worth looking into if you're wanting a decent note taking application.

• Optimised for Mac and iOS devices
• Can export to MD, PDF, HTML, DOCX and more!
• Lots of themes
• Syncing with other devices
• Apple Pencil support on iPad!
• It's bear-y good (sorry)

That's a wrap!

If you have any application suggestions, why not post them on the tweet I shared or on the LinkedIn post?

Thanks for reading! 👏