Homebrew and mise-en-place are the only must have apps for me (both of which are not .app applications). Everything else is pretty well context-dependant and/or built in.
For Homebrew - having used Nix, Macports, and pkgsrc, I found Homebrew easier than everything else. I would like to get into Nix, but there is too much mucking around for it to be worth it to me.
mise-en-place has such a unique feature set that I can’t compare it to anything else. I started using it as a replacement for pyenv and sdkman, and found it so helpful.
For me, the better-than-you-think built in apps are:
- Reminders - I haven’t gone all in on any other task management software, but I don’t bother because Reminders does everything I need
- Mail - it is fiddly and idiot proof to a fault, but provided you don’t have an exotic setup and can deal with only average search capabilities, it works well
- Calendar - it’s a calendar. Only thing I don’t particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events, and that’s mainly because I like my Sunday-Saturday format
- Terminal - it’s tidy and works well. Many swear by iTerm2; I find Terminal good
- Safari - does what it says on the tin and does it well, I like Safari. (Edit: I use Wipr2 for Adblock which is necessary)
- Passwords - having been a medium-long term user (2-5 years) at various times of both Keepass and Password Store, I ended up transitioning to Passwords because of its good integration with Safari and its sync in iCloud, which is good for family. However the app itself has improved over time as well and I call it good
- TextSoap (clean text with various cleaners [regex etc] that can be saved and invoked on selected text, entire files, or batches of files throughout the system)
- Klack is fun to add typing sounds (helps me stay in the zone)
- Dark Noise for background noise (stay in the zone) — although MacOS has some background noise generation built in now
- 1Blocker (ad and tracker blocking; also for iOS)
- Voice Dream Reader (read articles / any text aloud)
- Default Folder X (set defaults for how files get saved — e.g., which directory to default to for a given file extension)
- Rectangle
- Fantastical (calendar with lots of thoughtful additional features)
- Karabiner Elements (to turn Caps Lock into a hyper key; right Command key + hjkl into arrow keys; sky's the limit)
- TextExpander
- Homerow or Shortcat
- HoudahSpot (great file search utility; can save searches, save templates, and export Smart Folders)
Homebrew to get a package manager that is not managed by Apple and its many restrictions and high fees.
AltTab and Rectangle to have more features to manage windows.
Ghostty can replace Terminal.app though I think it leaks memory.
Zen Browser is Firefox with an Arc inspired interface. It's slow and heavy but it blocks ads and trackers a bit better than Chromium based browsers, or Safari.
Honestly its not huge and most are probably obvious, but those are what I immediately install on my machines. Looking forward to seeing alternatives or new must-haves.
