What are some cool niche applications you use and recommend?
What are some cool niche applications you use and recommend?
Well, basically the title. I love trying out new apps across the whole ecosystem, but searching for them in the App store is not fun, and a bunch of apps I have used I found by accident in some posts or comments on the web.
So, the question is, what apps that are not widely known you use and recommend? Mac, iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS.
From me: WatchOS: TimeGlance that serves as date and time complication.
iOS/WatchOS: Duffy that serves only as a glanceable steps meter, with no fancy additions that many apps there have, and simple clean complications in watch.
iOS: Ermine, mainly serves me as a calendar widget that is better than the built in one, showing dots over the days that have some events and highlighting holidays.
iOS: Wristy, a widget to show my wrist temperature (requires Watch 8)
MacOS: Numi, a somewhat “natural language” calculator.
MacOS: Warp, a rich wrapper on the terminal.
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Whenever I get a new computer I install these right away.
Used everyday:
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Alfred: customizable productivity tool. It's a launcher, file searcher, web searcher, clipboard manager, snippet manager, script runner, etc with a robust community making scripts.
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Textpander: a text replacer I've been using before Apple's and Alfred's solutions.
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Bettertouchtool: customize keyboard and trackpad shortcuts
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Notational Velocity/nVALT + Obsidian: note taking synced across my devices. NValt for quick notes while Obsidian is for long form and personal knowledge management. Just plain text files in a communal vault somewhere.
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Dropbox: mainly used to sync settings for apps and notes across devices.
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1Password: password generation and management for me and my girlfriend. A little pricey, but I love it. been researching alternatives.
Also handy:
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Better Rename 9: rename files. Replace characters or strings, add in number sequencing, convert casing, etc. I have a lot of photos and work with a lot of images so this comes in handy
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Copyqueue: file copy. Enables a queue for file copy.
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Hidden Bar: menu bar management
For my watch:
- App in the Air: is a nice airport companion that visually shows the airplane phases (boarding, flight duration) with accompanying info (like gates and delays)
I've used a bunch of password managers over the years and 1Password is by far the best.
Sounds like you haven't tried Strongbox yet. Uses a KeePass2 database as the backend and integrates into Apple's auto-fill system. So works everywhere where Apple's built-in password manager works. And you can use the same database with KeePassXC on other platforms.
I’ve been a long time 1Password user, but it has been getting worse and more expensive at the same time. I’m using Minimalist, but iCloud Keychain is getting better every year and I‘m probably soon going to switch over. The only thing I’m missing are other secure things like passports, bank accounts etc.
And having a dedicated app for it is would also be nice.
1Password does a good job of allowing both me and my partner to use logins. I’m excited to try out the new keychain stuff, but it would need this ability for me to switch and stop paying for 1Password.
iOS 17 has keychain sharing of I remember correctly
+1 for alfred, 1password, and dropbox.
I've been using Bear for notes forever, syncs across all apple devices, and is super nicely designed. My only gripe is that encryption doesn't work with files attached to the text.
I use bartender to manage my menu bar. Not super happy, might check out hidden bar.
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