gobino's bites

My app defaults for 2026 πŸ“±

Default app lists. I love these kind of posts! While at the start of 2025 I saw many of those lists, unfortunately, for this year, it's been a lot less. I only found the defaults of Gabz, and that's it.

But that doesn't have to stop me, right?
Here's my list, the update version from what I listed at the end of 2024:

2025 was the year I learned a lot (about myself) and shifted away from decision I made in 2024, or platforms I had used for many years.

I moved away from Google, taking my online protection more serious with Proton and even started using email aliases. If anything I advise people to do today, is to use aliases and never give away your main account to everyone. I now use SimpleLogin, but other solutions are also available.

While last time, I mentioned that I cared more aesthetics of my todo app and would be ok with only using it on my phone, that did not turn out to be completely true. I need access on all devices as well as quick entry, which I found trough Todoist. Every night, I now have an empty todo list, either completing everything or re-scheduling, which I never did this consistently before.

Last year I discovered mood.camera, allowing to use recipes for photos which I fell in love with. While I still kept using Halide to shoot raw and edit photos afterwards with Lightroom, I now moved to direct jpg output via mood.camera only. And most tweaking is now done through Darkroom (free version), adjusting brightness and applying some vignette.

I also (re)started using a NAS for self-hosting files and photos, reducing the dependency and cost of other tools, having it all managed at one central place within the Synology stack.

For photo sharing I stopped using Bluesky as that wasn't a platform I actively used. On top I started publishing daily snapshots to bits.gobino.be, and I love it.

I tested many browser but in the end went back to Safari, as many applications (1password, Noir,...) have a good integration with it.

Ulysses is an excellent writing tool, but it was too much for what I used it for. Especially as I didn't use it on Mac. Nowadays I do my writing with IA writer or Obsidian, where all my writing is stored in.

I still enjoy the social.lol mastodon community and recently started using Iphanpy as an iOS client and I like it very much.

For podcast listening, I went back to the basics with Pocket Casts. I don't need additional features, just my feeds and the option to increase playback speed. No AI summaries needed.

Drafts has become essential in my workflows. I use it to update Obsidian, search online, open apps, groceries, keeping lists, add notes to Bear,... It made things a lot easier when I started to embrace its true power. It also made me realize I don't need fancy apps for keeping up with progress of things (books, movies,...). A simple file with that information works just fine.

A final note to add on health tracking. I do still check my vitals via Gentler streaks, but as I became more focused on my overall fitness combined with my running I started to use and enjoy Bevel (to check my recovery, food intake,...) and intervals.icu (to see how my fitness is progressing in the long run).

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

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#2026 #2026-02 #app-tech #article