It is about time as it seems like everyone else is doing a 2024 update to the Dual of the Defaults so I figured I would get it in right under the wire. Again a big shout out to Hemispheric Views and their Episode 097 when this idea was hatched and to Robb who is still keeping track of all of this.

So onto the 2024 list and lets see what has changed (2023 List)…

  • ✉️ Mail Client: Apple Mail
  • 📨 Mail Server: GoogleSuite & Apple Mail
  • 📝 Notes: Apple Notes (plus Obsidian plus GoodNotes for Work) - Change
  • ✅ To-Do: Reminders
  • 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app
  • 📚 Photo Management: Photos.app
  • 🗓️ Calendar: Calendar.app
  • 🗄️ Cloud file storage: iCloud and Google Drive (still a mess but getting better)
  • 📰 RSS: Reeder with FreshRSS
  • 📇 Contacts: Contacts.app (Google Backend)
  • 🕸️ Browser: Safari (plus Chrome for Work)
  • 💬 Chat: iMessage and Discord
  • 🔖 Bookmarks: LinkAce - Change (also I blame Robb for this)
  • 👓 Read It Later: Not using anything at the moment
  • 📜 Word Processing: Google Docs
  • 📊 Spreadsheets: Google Sheets (plus Excel for Work)
  • 🛝 Presentations: Google Slides
  • 🛒 Shopping Lists: Alexa Lists 😱
  • 🧑‍🍳 Meal Planning: None - Based on what I buy we cook 🤷‍♂️
  • 💰 Budgeting & Personal Finance: Copilot - Change
  • 🗞️ News: Apple News and various sources in RSS
  • 🎶 Music: Apple Music
  • 🎧 Podcasts: PocketCasts
  • 🔐Password Management: iCloud KeyChain (Not a change but found my old KeePass file as it had some things on it I needed for my kids over break. So it is kind of in use right now as I need to migrate that in 2025 to something better.)

So overall I have had 3 changes of which my note taking apps I feel like change all of the time so that is really hard to count. So in other things I think the most sinificant is the other two as my wife and I have settled in on Copilot and have enjoyed using it for basic finance tracking. Also, even though I kind of did it on a whim and figured I would go back to Shaarli I have been enjoying using LinkAce for bookmarking. I think my only issue is every time it says there is an upgrade I forget how to do it. However, now that I think about it, it was the same for Shaarli too.