Apps

(last updated 03/07/26 - dd/mm/yy)

We all use apps every day to do all sorts of things in our lives, some extremely important, some just for fun, sooooo… Here's a collection of all my favourite apps, their uses and why they're my favourite.

This thought is going to be split into three categories:

Productivity, Utility and Fun.

• Productivity will be the apps that I open and directly utilise every day to do work.

• Utility will be the apps that I have in the background making life generally easier and nicer.

• Fun will be the, well, fun apps that I enjoy using and are more gimmicky.

So, lets get started with productivity. Productivity apps are probably the most important category of app out there, they make those mundane tasks everyone has to do all day every day ever so slightly more bearable and sometimes even fun. The list of the productivity apps I choose to utilise to help with these tasks are:

Notion

I think that Notion may be the single most important productivity app for me. It has saved me countless times from completely forgetting important assignments and is what I use every day for my task management (notably, reminding me what the hell I'm actually supposed to be doing). Notion is what I use as a sort of extension for my mind - a place to put everything I'd forget otherwise and to write notes on topics I am struggling to remember, so certainly a useful app.

Proton Mail/Pass

Proton Mail is my mail app of choice, a slightly less mainstream one compared to the likes of Gmail and Outlook, but, I think that's a good thing. I enjoy my online privacy, and, whilst I accept that you're never truly private online, it's nice to have some sort of privacy in the areas you can mitigate some of the risks. Also, I quite enjoy the app design for Proton's apps, plus, I have the Proton Unlimited subscription for Pass and Drive, so, why not use Mail? Proton Pass is also great, I've tried a few password managers: Bitwarden, 1Password, NordPass, etc. However, the only one I've stuck with is Proton. It's just packed full of great features: password generator, dark web monitoring, email aliases (for that extra privacy), passkeys, 2FA and more. It's great to use everyday; has a great iOS App (I can't speak for Android as I only have an iPhone), a great browser extension, this great feature on the Windows app that autofills passwords into those annoying desktop apps that always ask for your password, even though they aren't in the browser. Overall, two great products.

Dia

Dia is my browser of choice, a less well-received product generally compared to its predecessor, Arc, however, I still think it's a strong browser and the design does just make it better to use than other mainstream browsers, like Chrome. I personally quite like Dia's AI implementation (the main source of controversy surrounding Dia, other than the fact Arc was dropped for it), it feels more personal than that of Perplexity's Comet, which felt like it was really forcing the AI down your throat, using Perplexity for every search query, which made it more of a hassle having to switch to use a normal search engine each time compared to that of Dia, which auto-switches between AI chat and standard search engine depending on whether you are asking a question, which is generally extremely convenient for me and makes the browsing experience pretty chilled.

Right, those are my most used productivity apps, so, shall we move on to utility? Utility apps are also very important to the everyday, the apps that just sit in the background, being less-noticeable but still just as impactful as the other, more obvious apps. These are the apps that allow my MacBook and iPhone to just work.

Raycast

There is so much I could say about Raycast, it's truly one of the best apps I've ever used, it really does just sit in the background, doing all the heavy work and never begging for your attention. If you've never heard of it (which I'm sure won't be the case if you've bothered to read this far), it's a launcher app for macOS (and Windows now!) that replaces Spotlight Search and improves upon it 10x, making launching apps as easy as physically possible and gives the easiest access to AI physically possible.

Alcove

Another one of my favourite apps for macOS, bringing the feature set of the Dynamic Island to Mac, allowing for easy (not necessarily the easiest, but certainly the most engaging) way to access music, calendar and other live activities. It even adds lockscreen widgets like a battery indicator and a media player (now with the pretty beautiful liquid glass on Tahoe), allowing for easy access on the lockscreen. Whilst it is more attention-grabbing than the alternatives might be, it is an extremely polished app that is a joy to use, with it really integrating into macOS and become less like a standalone app and more like an OS feature that feels like it should be there already. What's even more impressive is the fact that it's made by a single developer, truly impressive. Props to Henrik.

Wick

In a similar vain to Alcove, Wick is one of those apps that just adds convenience and beauty to your desktop (and lockscreen!). Nate (the developer) is a great guy and he really knows how to make an app. Wick is incredibly polished and feel as if it could be part of the OS, it's a fully native clock app that is better than macOS's built in one and it includes menu bar widgets, lockscreen widgets and is a great addition to your Mac generally. All this, made even better by the fact it's free. Apps like Wick add the little things that you don't notice whilst you're using them, but you'd notice if they weren't there anymore.

Apple Music

My music app of choice. It has a great feature set: great UI on iOS and now macOS (as of macOS 27), Hi-Res lossless (which, despite introducing lossless, Spotify is yet to catch up to), Dolby Atmos, Automix (which I LOVE) and more. It's the classic Apple saying; it just works. I had used Spotify my whole life before switching to Apple Music and I don't regret it.