What are some of your daily use/most important apps?
I just got a new phone, and I opted to download all the apps I usually use manually, rather than having them transfer over automatically. It's like a nice cleanup thing that I get to do every couple of years. I feel like I partially should just have a list somewhere of the apps I usually use and was wondering what people would download first (plus if I forgot anything)
For me, this was my process yesterday:
Password manager - Bitwarden - mostly so I can copy/paste my logins for everything
Authentication - Not listing these but ya know
VPN - MozillaVPN - just something for hostels and travelling
Browser - Firefox Beta or Nightly - for downloading my new wallpaper and general use (including Tildes!)
Sleep + Alarm - Sleep as Android
Car things - My car app, EVGo/Electrify America - getting around and things
Rideshare - Uber and Lyft - When I'm in a new city!
Food - Doordash, Grubhub, asian specific food apps - to eat when I'm lazy!
News - Boston Globe, AP News, BBC - Kinda obvious what they're here for
Todo - TickTick - Checklists and all that
Fitness - Fitbit, my smart scale app, and my gym app - general fitness stuff
Language Learning - Duolingo and Lingodeer!
Banking + Investment + Payments + Insurance - not listing these but yeah!
Music + Podcasts - Spotify
Streaming - D+, Netflix, Vudu, Peacock, Max, Movies Anywhere, Dropout, Hulu, Prime Video, Twitch - General Streaming
Books - Kindle and Audible
Messaging and Social Media - Signal, Beeper, Messenger, Discord, Slack, Instagram, etc. - just daily entertainment and connections
Games - Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, Nonograms, Don't Starve, Cards of Terra, Bloons, etc.
Bonus Q: I've been thinking of trying to add Obsidian to my general day to day, how? Might ask a question about this later though!
Google Keep is my most used productivity app. I wish it had more features but I love how simple it is.
Daily Art for...daily art. Their widget keeps my homescreen way more interesting.
Fender Tune helps me tune my guitar on the regular.
Microsoft Lens to scan documents.
Stellarium for the night sky.
Windy for weather.
Always a possibility, but as an avid user of Keep I'm not too worried about it. Google is massive, has killed a lot of products, but has a greater number that keep going, and there's zero indication of any individual item being killed until it's announced.
Yeah, but it's simple, and since they're just text lists that are well enough integrated into other stuff, there's no reason to swap until that is actually happening.
Do you look at the night sky often? Curious on what a night sky app does for you!
I use GuitarTuna for my tuner, I feel like it's pretty good! Would recommend
I've used GuitarTuna for ages but the really spammy subscription pop-up it's started doing every time you open it (where you have to click 'continue' as if you agree to join and then find and press the little x in the top left) makes me very displeased
Have you tried gStrings app? It's not as slick as some others, but I never needed to sign up for anything and it doesn't ask. Very functional design and can tune other things as well. One time purchase of $10 isn't unreasonable either.
Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out! I'm thrilled when I can pay a one-off, reasonable fee for a fully functional app not filled with distractions and abusive UI tactics...
Ah I never noticed that, honestly I haven't tuned my guitar in a while (pretty decent relative pitch lol), which is why I didn't even list it in my initial list!
Not OP, but I love knowing what's visible in the night sky, planets, constellations etc.
And it's a neat conversation starter if you're out at night with other humans.
Sorry, I missed the notification from your response.
It's a very casual thing but I like to spot the planets and constellations for fun! It's a reminder of how I live on a tiny rock and grounds me, ha!
I don't find myself requiring many apps at all. Most things that have an app also have a web-based option and I just use that instead of installing another app. I'm pretty well integrated into the Google universe. All of the apps I use are preinstalled on vanilla Android. I use a Pixel.
Google Keep - I have used it since it began and keep notes on every job/client/network I tend to. I have found nothing that works as well.
Google Voice -
Google Drive - For scanning every check I receive from a customer and scans of serial numbers of hardware and software keys for each client location.
YouTube Music -
I keep seeing Google Keep but for some reason for me I can't seem to get too into it. To be fair though I'm also generally pretty bad at note-taking in general.
I use it as simply a piece of paper when I don't have one. If I'm at the dr and they start rattling off stuff I just pop it open and start jotting. So for stuff like that it fits the bill well as it is up in a sec and in the cloud right away if I even need thst.
Note taking is pretty important in my job. I like to quickly type in notes for each job so I can back and refer to them if/when I return. I'm not great at note taking either and have to make myself do it and Keep helps because it's just simple. I don't want to tap through a bunch of menus to do what I want.
Besides the usual suite of Slack, Discord, Messenger, Kindle, Youtube, Wikipedia etc I have
Orion - a browser with great builtin adblocking. Made by the same people as the Kagi search engine
PocketCast - podcast app with the usual features but syncs with a desktop app which I find quite useful
DayOne - journaling
Letterboxd - keep track of the movies I watch and find new ones. Makes it easy to find what is available on different streaming services
Todoist - todo lists and reminders
Forest - enable screen time block of apps and grow virtual trees to motivate me to stay away from my phone for a while
I love the idea of Letterboxd but honestly half the time it feels like more work haha. The act of opening the app, searching a movie, and marking it is even too much sometimes, or I just forget
It is still time well spent for me compared to before where I would just scroll through the streaming catalog for an hour before rewatching Frasier or Star Trek for the 100th time…
I'm currently running throuh like my 5th runthrough of Modern Family so I totally feel that lol
I use it on the browser instead of the app and find pretty simple. Open firefox, enter website, search movie and give score.
I just use to keep track of what I watched.
This is far from a complete list. I am just going to post apps that haven't been said yet.
Callsheet - If you ever use the IMDB website or app to look up actors in a show or movie, download callsheet and never look back. It is seriously good.
Albums - This is an album focused music player that plugs into Apple Music. Very well done app.
Pcalc - Very good calculator app. I use it because I really love RPN.
Tempo - Gives a really good stats dashboard for runs tracked with an apple watch.
Due - Reminders app that reminds you incessantly until you do something. Essential for my ADHD.
Mixel - Cocktail recipe and bar tracking. I don't have my bar stock up to date, but I use it for all my alcohol recipe tracking needs.
iCatcher - I needed any app that could sync audiobooks to the apple watch and keep progress in sync with the phone app. I tried pretty much all of the options. I don't really like iCatcher as an app, but its fully featured and was the only app that reliably kept progress synced. I still use Overcast for podcasts because its a much nicer app in my opinion.
Planta - Tracks houseplant watering and feeding schedules. It really needs due integration or due-like reminding features. Most of my plants are somewhat neglected right now.
Callsheet sounds awesome, unfortunately it's iOS only ☹️
https://www.caseyliss.com/2023/8/7/callsheet
IMO it's awesome in part because it's iOS only, and therefore leans very heavily into the system's UI aesthetic. It feels like if Apple made an IMDb-type app, similar to how Apollo felt like if Apple made a Reddit client. In a time when many third-party apps are just web apps adapted to run outside the browser, a truly native app is refreshing and beautiful.
ooh absolutely seconding Planta, even the free version is excellent and it's the only reason my plants don't wither and die (I also have ADHD lol)
I jumped on Android after quite a few years. My currently installed and used apps are:
Yes, I don't use Chrome. Yes, I have uninstalled Youtube.
Kudos for VLC :)
What do you use for watching Youbue? I myself have NewPipe installed.
If I have to wacth Youtube, I do so in browser. Youtube became behemoth that is no more consumer friendly (too many ads and shoving shit into people faces like many many shorts videos that has no real value/information and contain copyrighted material about which Youtibe doesn't give a shit), so I tend not to visit it anymore.
I use VLC when I have the need to do so. This means watching/listening to stuff I downloaded from Jellyfin for offine use. For videos that I take with the phone I use standard Google Photos.
A diary would be an option. If you're studying there's also a couple flash card/spaced repetition implementations you could try out.
SyncThing or some cloud drive for keeping your vault available across devices.
I've currently set a habit tracker for the last 15 minutes of my day, to just write a sentence or two down for what I did in the day! I feel like that might help. I use Anki sometimes for spaced repetition.
I feel like If I do end up using it more, I wouldn't mind paying for Obsidian Sync!
I use syncthing as a diary/journal.
I sync a folder and write my entries there in the YYYY/mmdd.md format
iCab Mobile is a desktop-quality iOS browser with power-user features: gestures, plugins, view source, adblocker, extremely customizable. I only use Safari when I absolutely have to.
Also, RIP to the best iPad RSS reader ever (Mr. Reader), which still works fine but was pulled from the App Store years ago and now apparently has some niggling incompatibility that makes iOS refuse to launch it. I've got the IPA saved and am tempted to dive into iOS development purely to reverse-engineer, update, and sideload it for personal use.
im a youtube fiend, and the best stock browser ive found on IOS for me is brave because of the lockscreen playback and it blocking player ads where other browser may only block page ads. also, you mentioned plugins, can i get sponsorblock for this browser?
would you mind helping me out and checking out if icab can do these things for me?
thanks a ton for the rec, im still trying to find the best browser for my needs on ios since moving from android. :)
It doesn't have a full-fledged open plugin system like Firefox or Chrome, but does have over sixty toggle-able "modules" that implement custom and third-party services. No Sponsorblock, but it does have a native YouTube adblocker module you can set to run automatically when the browser user agent (another cool feature) is set to desktop.
I generally try a lot of apps but my currently used most/must install first list includes :
Vivaldi - the android version (I'm big fan of PC version) took some getting used to
Whatsapp/Fiber/Messenger /zalo
Infinity+/Tildes
Aquamail
Aves Libre/Simple gallery pro
Musicolet
Time passages
Trip view
Chomp
Twilight pro
Fastboot
Inkpad
Todoist
Why Twilight pro, may I ask? I feel like nowadays android comes with nightlights right?
I'm an Android user who also has Twilight Pro. What I like:
I just checked the built-in blue light filter, and I think I can only have one schedule, and the only setting I can control is "opacity". So yeah, I prefer Twilight Pro.
I use an LG V20 - while a great older device, it had issues including burn in/ghosting issues (something to do with the thin layer of thermal paste used). Using Twilight (or something like it - its common with this phone) helps offset it to a degree if only so visually.Its on Android 7.0 - dont think it comes with anything like nightlights (will check later).
Musicolet is the best music player there is. Glad it's free and has no ads.
Aves is really good too.
Here are my recommendations on a few categories.
Fitness: Fitbit, Samsung Health, Renpho (Scale), Stronglifts, Zero (Fasting), ErgData, Five3One
Notes: Obsidian, Syncthing, LogSeq, OneNote
Gaming: Chwazi (super useful), Mini Metro, Mahjong, Cribbage Pro, Shattered Pixels, Poker Alfie
Driving: Google Maps, Waze, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Audible, Smart Audio Books, Motoscan, Ford App
Browsing: Substack, Materialistic (Hacker News Client), Fedilab, Lagrange, Brave
Photos: Photopills, Snapseed, Layout, Google photos
Messaging: Google Messages, Discord, Teams, Whatsapp, Telegram, Google Meet
Misc: Tailscale, Bitwarden, Fluid, JuiceSSH, NewPipe, Google Rewards
Bolded are the ones I think you should get that I rarely see mentioned.
+1 to chwazi. If you regularly play boardgames it's a must have. It randomly picks a person after everyone puts one finger on the screen. Replace all faff about who is first player with chwazi instead.
I have recently started using obsidian for research and I really appreciate the way its tag and link system creates an index. There is a learning curve and a hunt for articles and videos that are at an introductory level, but this is a very sophisticated tool for storing and categorizing any type of content for later use.
Signal and Discord.
the Kindle app
That's what I've been hoping to use it for eventually, but I always seem to fall off of note-taking in general. My therapist says I overthink so I should write things down physically in a notebook to keep my mind in the present, but I haven't been able to keep up with that for a while. I dunno what Obsidian would improve that for me, but I've decided to start by putting daily summaries on there.
I use it specifically for storing things I might want later, for me it might be names of songs and artists/bands, or poems or information about particular topics. Articles or paragraphs from articles useful to my research.
I didn't bother to learn the fine distinction between links and tags, I just use both as a belt and suspenders approach so I can be sure to find something later. I might put five or ten identifying labels on a bit of content, just like we use tags here on tildes. Like I said it builds an electronic index.
Any thoughts on how Obsidian compares to Notion, if you have any experience with that? Obsidian looks like it could be more what I’m looking for out of a note taking application… the graphing/tagging etc. and it also seems to be able to handle projects/todos
I am a beginner with Obsidian and I haven't tried Notion.
I will say that I was very impressed by the variety of things Obsidian can handle within one app. I personally only use a few functions so far but it is quite a sophisticated tool.
Termux -- I probably use this app the most
Event Flow Widget -- very useful calendar widget
Fennec (via F-Droid) -- custom extensions still work if you turn on Dev mode
CARFAX app -- vehicle history and info. quite useful app
Syncthing Fork -- found this to be a bit more reliable
Tasker -- automation app. I use it to delete songs from my device when I click the next song button in my car or when riding my bike (via neckband bluetooth speaker) with Tasker:Termux integration. More info here: https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/122j0f3/after_over_15_years_of_ripping_and_downloading_my/jdu11x8/
GBoard -- pretty good keyboard
MX Player -- not as nice as mpv but it gets pretty close. If Termux X11 could work on Android without root I would probably just use mpv.
Universal Clipboard -- allows copying content even when text is not selectable
Clipboard Actions -- convenient actions for what to do after copying text: translate, share, etc
CalcTape -- calculator app that shows history like a tape calculator
Survival Manual -- tips on survival skills and first aid
Merlin -- identify birds from sounds or photos
Are there any interesting things you use Tasker for? I set it up once to send my mom a text when my phone is basically dead but that's basically it
Sure, I just ninja-edited my previous comment to fill in the details: https://old.reddit.com/r/termux/comments/10h5j56/im_new_to_termux_so_suggest_me_what_cool_stuff_to/j57f9a8/
Oh for sure! I use it too. The above list is Android-specific.
For Termux I keep track of things that I've installed and use here:
On Linux I've played around with a lot of different desktop environments but I've settled on this:
kitty -- https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/
KDE
trash-cli -- https://github.com/andreafrancia/trash-cli/
unar -- https://theunarchiver.com/command-line
cb -- https://github.com/niedzielski/cb
https://old.reddit.com/r/fishshell/comments/1655b4e/cb_clipboard_tool/
xsv, sqlite-utils, ffprobe, ffmpeg, osmium, gdalwarp, ogr2ogr...
fish shell -- https://fishshell.com/
I write a lot of fish functions because the built-ins
funcsaveandfuncedmake editing the system really fast--perhaps a bit like Alan Kay's smalltalk system. I even expanded on the OOBE by creating my own funcmv to rename functions, funccp to duplicate functions, and funcdel to delete functions.I also blaspheme some POSIX elders by rewriting some slight modifications to core commands like the
mvcommand sometimes makes things move to places that I don't want. I like the behavior of blob store tools so I changed it to be like this. By creating a new folder for the parent it preventsmvfrom renaming the file in cases where the desired behavior is ambiguous:I keep track of useful programs in a similar way to on my phone, using functions like these
which write to these files:
and I handle my shell abbreviations in a similar way:
Password manager: 1Password
May switch to Vaultwarden once I have my self-hosting setup fully going.
Calendar: Fantastical
I even subscribed to premium after fighting it for years. Nothing beats it that I've found.
Mental health: Finch
Keeps me grounded. I love my little birb!
Meditation: Waking Up
I've been doing this for years. I still haven't decided how effective it is for me. Sometimes, it helps. Other times, I just think/worry my way through my meditation session. 🤷♂️ Try to do it every day though in hopes that someday it will click (or I will magically be fixed).
Fitness: Adidas & Nike Training apps
I want something more hands-off than these. I was using Copilot until my trainer left. Followed my trainer out the door until Copilot sent him and cease and desist for violating his non-compete. Then, I tried Future. Loved it until they increased my price by 60% in a single month. I've gone through every other app trying to find something that isn't either a glorified spreadsheet or hundreds of dollars per month, and this is the best I've got for now.
Messaging: Signal
98% of my messaging goes through here.
Email: Fastmail
Migrated from Google a while back, and it's been great! I still use the iOS mail app for my work email and this for my personal email, which creates a nice separation.
Umm… internet?: Reeder
I am my own algorithm. 😎
Podcasts: Overcast
I've been using it for years and have no good reason to switch!
Work stuff: Discord, Slack, Zoom
Can you expand on how Finch helps your mental health? I'm curious! The concept looks interesting.
Sure! Part of it is the personality of the virtual pet. He's so pure, curious, and caring. He reminds me of the parts of childhood that many of us forget and the parts of adulthood that can be easy to let slip in our weakest moments. He also reminds me of raising my daughter, which was a difficult time but also full of incredible feelings — the love and admiration paired with the innocence of a young child. It's hard to explain, but if you're a parent of a child who has already grown out of that stage, I think you might understand. Not to say that tween and teenage children don't love you, but it's definitely a lot more complicated and they tend to evolve from a place of humility ("I know nothing and want to learn everything I can!") to a place of hubris ("These stupid parents don't know anything!"). Your birb mirrors the innocent curiosity of young childhood. Every day, he goes on an adventure and comes back with an observation. The observations are very cute and give you an opportunity to shape their personality by how you choose to respond. Taking care of my birb reminds me of raising my daughter and takes me back to that simpler time.
On top of that, the app connects you to real people you know who use it and reminds you that those real people care about you. I'm totally on my own right now. I've been on the road since March, and in that time, I've only spent a couple of weeks around any people I know. One of the daily tasks you'll likely undertake in Finch as part of building up your daily energy so that your birb can explore is to send them to visit the birbs of your real-life friends. You'll get visits as well, but they're not just birb-to-birb visits; their birb will remind you that, whatever the emotion they're carrying with them is from owner to owner too.
The other things you'll do to build your energy are basically journaling or mental wellness activities: you'll journal about your sleep or how you're feeling, do anxiety exercises when you're not feeling well, share something you're grateful for, do some stretches… all things that you should probably be doing but might not if not to build the energy to send your birb out on their daily adventure.
Maybe it sounds silly, but it's very effective for me. It grounds me in the curiosity of childhood, reminds me to let the people I care about know that I care, reminds me of happy times and that I'm not alone, and prompts me to care for myself in various other ways. It makes me smile every day — even the bad ones!
For language learning I like Drops a lot. It's vocabulary-only, so it should be supplemental to something else, but its format is really fun & productive.
Obsidian - it's my journal and second brain. I use it for work as well (separate vaults)
Aegis - best 2FA app out there not attached to the big companies
Miniflux - my favorite of the selfhosted RSS readers
Wallabag - Read-it-Later and partner in crime to Miniflux
Bitwarden - I love the app for managing my passwords of course but also for random secure notes.
Quillpad - Google Keep clone that syncs to Nextcloud and supports Markdown
Seafile - super fast file syncing between my server, and all of my devices.
Immich - self hosted Google Photos replacement. It's very good.
I'm curious on how you use Obsidian as your second brain! Looking for inspiration, I'm starting by using as a random recipe vault and a daily notes reflection thing
I capture anything that seems vaguely important. Then I worry about organizing it later. A recent example is keeping track of projects I'm working on with my server and the various apps I'm self hosting. I'll read about them, and jot down the highlights. Then implement what I've learned and organize later. Adding tags and or back links as needed. I do similar at work. All meeting notes, new software deployments, other projects get captured then organized. I found myself worrying too much about "which folder this should go in?" To the point that I'd lost that train of thought.
I think the important thing is to learn the basics of what Obsidian can do, then find which workflow and organization works best for you. The book is a good starting point. But ultimately I'm not using it in the same way the author prescribes, and that's fine, and I'm pleased with how it's going so far.
Thanks for the strong immich rec I'm looking for a Google photos replacement like how nextcloud could replace drive for me.
Have you learned anything, tips or tricks, you could pass along?
YNAB - a great budgeting app that I can sync my cards and accounts with. It's a little pricey, but it has easily saved me more money than it costs.
Color Note - I've been keeping notes in this for years across multiple phones.
Google Calendar - I couldn't function without it
Tinder/Bumble/Hinge/OKCupid - to be honest, I think I just enjoy swiping. It's a nice way to casually chat with people too, but I rarely meet up with anyone.
Other frequent apps:
Chrome/Drive
Instagram
LinkedIn
ESPN Fantasy
Discord
Spotify
BBC News
AP News
Local News Apps
Slack/Teams/Outlook
Android User with a Samsung Galaxy S9+. The stuff I've downloaded separately that I use the absolute most:
I don't heavily use my phone for more than you have, but if I added on to your list I have:
Tailscale - VPN to get to services running at home when I am off my LAN.
Obtanium - found this one on tildes threads, but its a way to get and update non play store apps.
Sleep - This is my alarm app, not really using the other features but it is a very good alarm app for me.
AntennaPod - podcast app of choice
Stashcook/paprika - recipe app, I don't do major cooking but have a few recipes. I was liking stashcook but I think they are going full ad whore so will probably swap to paprika.
Moonreader - liked this one for ebooks.
Keep - preferred note app
That's it besides what you listed out!
Ooooh I also use Sleep for my alarms, I'll add that to my list.
I also use Spotify for my music and podcasts, can't believe I forgot to add that too.
How do you like Paprika? I was looking into using it but I feel like I've been trying to get into Obsidian some more, and it feels like it could fulfill something similar
Not many
Some apps I'm experimenting with
ColorNote
I use it for lists (ToDo, Groceries, etc.), budgets, planning. I like that it's simple and does what I need it to.
I see you already have an app for this. But I figured I would throw this is because I use it so much
oh wow that looks like an interesting one!
I'm curious, how do you use this for budgets?
It's a basic breakdown of monthly expenses, how much is allocated to them, and how much is remaining. When I spend money, I edit the remaining number. It's tedious, but a good practice. A reminder that I'm spending real money and not to go over. It also keeps me from forgetting the streaming services I have.
I often have a preference to doing things manually. To help me keep track of my installed/fav apps, I use List My Apps. You can save the list as TXT, HTML, Markdown and/or others:
F-Droid Link
Google Play
Good to know! I actually just made an obsidian vault and rewrote my list in there haha
Supershift and TickTick are the ultimate combination for keeping my life in order. I still can’t find a better calendar than Supershift and tick tick handles task lists wonderfully. The feature that keeps me locked in though is the ability to have note based lists alongside standard task lists.
and most importantly, I really like the extra options fish shell brings to my machine
Librera FD for reading ebooks. It has fantastic feature called 'scroll mode', which slowly scrolls down page as I read.
For music, I use Harmony Music. It’s an open source YouTube Music client built with the Piped YouTube frontend. It’s on fdroid and GitHub.
On iPad I use Safari and the Camera all the time, I try to avoid anything else although I have a bunch of apps that I use much less than daily. For instance I have the Phillips Hue app but don't need to use it very often because I have good switches for my Hue lights. (I just picked it up to turn the strip over my computer light red) I have a bunch of apps to control devices I own but don't otherwise use apps to engage with brands. That is, I shop at Target enough to have a Redcard but I did not install their app.
Fitnotes - all my lifts are there, been using for years
Heliboard - free foss and lightweight keyboard
KeepassXC
Syncthing - syncs my passwords, music and some other folders
Aves - awesome gallery app, it helps tremendously with my job because I need to take pictures of places in the city and I can see the location of every photo on a map
FatSecret - calorie counting
Musicolet - super complete and free music player
Mixplorer - the best file explorer there is
Notally
Podcast Addict
Merlin
Spotify
Proton Pass
RevolutionIRC
Hermit
F-Droid
Shazam
Tile
JuiceSSH
Chargie
Nextcloud
Material Files
Wireguard
FillUp
ChubbyClick
Tuner
F-Droid
Firefox
Insight Timer
ASR
Strobify
Scrambled Exif
Collabora Office
Google Calendar,
Google maps...