What’s In My Core App Stack
There are tens of thousands of apps in the Apple App Store. All of them are vying for your attention and, in many cases, your hard-earned cash.
Followers will know that I’m an a huge advocate of productivity apps, and I’ve used my fair share of the them.
However, cost-cutting is the name of the game, and we’re all tightening our belts to make our money go further.
So I decided to see out any existing subscription and and move to the stock Apple 'core' apps; those that come included on every Apple device.
Apple Reminders
I used to be a big user of Todoist. For years. It’s a great app and if it wasn’t for their rather limiting free tier, I’d still be with them.
Their limitation? It is not possible to set a reminder on the free tier of Todoist! A reminders app that doesn’t remind you! Go figure!
I decided to move to Apple Reminders.
This is a solid app, does exactly what you expect and has some nifty functionality too. I especially like the Smart Lists, which give you much control over how your reminders are managed.
I also make a lot of use of the templates feature. It works flawlessly and in conjunction with Smart Lists, I have everything perfectly controlled.
Apple Notes
What to do? There are so many note-taking apps.
I love Bear, and I’ve used Goodnotes, Obsidian and more, including Evernote in my early days.
Of these, Bear is my absolute favourite. It looks good, works well, but it’s £30 per year.
Over the years, Apple Notes has improved quite considerably, and I have made the change to use this in place of Bear which, in my opinion, is one of the best apps.
But it’s all about saving money, and I’m happy to say that Apple Notes does manage to meet the majority of my needs.
I’m a huge fan of using tags to store and manage my notes. Whilst Apple Notes has tags, the only real organisation available is folders.
However, by using the Smart Folders feature means you can create folders that are ‘populated’ automagically through the use of various criteria, one of which is tags.
Apple Calendar
This isn’t new to me. Once upon a time I was a huge fan of Fantastical. It really is a great app, but at £60 per year, it was far too rich for my humble being.
I’ve been using Apple Calendar for a while and it might not be prettiest, it is functional and does what it says on the tin!
Not only that, but the most recent update means Reminders can now set from the Calendar app, and can also be displayed on your calendar. Personally, I don’t do this, but it’s great to see development hasn’t stagnated.
Apple Mail
This is not my favourite email app. That rests with Spark Mail but, like Fantastical, it has quite a high price attached; and before you tell me the free version is good, I cannot bear the constant ‘upgrade’ messages.
Apple Mail is functional, and since the latest versions, with the Categorisations of mail, again another Apple app that has received some love.
There are differences between iOS and macOS versions; mainly the way you can set rules for emails; this can’t be done on iOS, but that’s OK.
It took me a while to get used to the Categories; to be honest, I’m still not sure about them, and I can turn them off if I desire.
What are your core apps? Are you all with Apple (if you’re not on Android, of course).
If you are on Android, what are you base productivity apps of choice?
Which are your favourite core apps?