A while back I made these two blog posts “Why I prefer physcial notebooks over software-based” and “Writing my notes by hand”. This resulted in me getting a few emails about note Apps I should try for both mac and Linux which totally would get me to drop the physical notebook. Well it has not, I tried Notion for Notes & Docs but it simply is not me. Honestly, I still prefer Emacs with org-mode if I have to take notes on a computer. Now, I actually also got some questions about what applications do I use and mainly I was asked for macOS. So I this bog post I will cover which Apps I cannot live without on macOS and later I will make a similar post for Linux. So let us get started!

Emacs

Emacs is my drug of choice and by the application I use the most. Not just on macOS but also on Linux. Although it is an old text editor, it can be modernised quite a lot through modifications and plugins. I use it for writing blog post for this blog, writing my books, coding, note taking using org-mode and more. It is my multi-tool and I love it.

I will ammend here that the learning curve is quite steep and I might not recommend vanilla Emacs to most people. There are alternatives such as doomeacs which suites modern people a lot more. Although I have not made that leap yet myself… I have actually considered setting up a virtual machine and testing how much I like it.

Apple Pages

For the rare occasion where I need something written which I need in .docx format I do not use Microsoft Word, I use Apple Pages. But why do I use Pages over let us say OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or ONLYOFFICE. Well first of all! I honestly dislike Microsoft Words user interface. I find it very confusing and very unintuitive, which from the get go removes ONLYOFFICE. Then there is {Open,Libre}Office and while LibreOffice is my go to on Linux, I find it really unstable on macOS doing some very weird things from time to time. But, that is not the only reasons I use Pages. I also use Pages because:

  • The UI is simply
  • It does what I need
  • It is stable
  • I have iCloud sync between my personal devices (even my Linux machine(s))
  • The online editor when I need it is reasonably good, and miles a head of Google Docs and Office 365.

It is a solid what you see is what you get editor and it never surprises me which I really, really like. Here I particular scowl at Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.

Apple Music

I do not understand the hatred people have towards this application. Did I prefer it when it was called iTunes and the layout was less website like… YES! But do I hate it? No! Apple Music lets me listen to my music and that is really all I want from it. I only really use the Apple curated play lists I do not use custom play lists so much… Yet.

Additionally, I love the automatic synchronisation between my phone, tablet, and computers. Side note here! For the blog post on Linux applications I will talk about Cider which I use to listen to Apple Music on Linux.

Things

I am a todo alcoholic and I have been a heavy user of Apple Reminders and I love it. However, I need a more sophisticated app with some feature in terms of note taking for a todo in the todo app. Enter Things. I had been eyeing this app for quite a while and people promised it would beat Apple Reminders by miles and quite honestly it does. The organisation of projects and areas are unparalleled compared to any app I have tried both on Linux and Mac. I was lucky to get it for iPad, macOS, and iPhone last year at black Friday and I have not regretted buying the App.

So that is the apps I cannot live with out.

./Lars