"Baked in" Apple Apps or Third-Party Alternatives for Productivity?

[Rufus1998]

Hey everyone,

I've been somewhat agonizing for a few weeks now about maximizing my personal productivity and the big question on my mind is should I use the Apple Stock Apps (Calendar, Notes, Reminders, etc.) or should I use theoretically more robust Third-Party Alternatives (replace Calendar with Fantastical, Reminders with Todoist, etc.)? I'm curious how many of you out there stick with the "stock experience" versus immediately going to a different app from the App Store.

I've been watching a number of productivity YouTubers lately (namely Ali Abdaal), and I find the amount of productivity based apps out there to be vast and overwhelming. Notion, for example, can be essentially anything you want it to be, but why would I set up a task list or calendar in Notion (for example) when Reminders or Apple Calendar is perfectly capable and right there? But I do recognize that Notion is a great program for establishing many different forms of productivity and feel like it IS valuable, even if I don't quite know how to use it yet (I'm willing to learn).

Perhaps I'm getting caught in the weeds of usability versus potential features on these third party alternatives. Like, I know the Apple apps are somewhat limited, however they're baked into the cake and ultimately I feel like I'd just use the most basic features of whatever app I would choose. However, maybe I just use the most basic features because that's what I've been presented.

This has been my on my mind for a few weeks now, back and forth. Hopefully you can see why I'm eliciting opinions on this.

For reference, I'm a school teacher and my loadout is a 15-inch MacBook Pro 2018 (2.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7), a iPhone 13 Pro Max, M1 iPad Pro 11" 2021, Apple Watch Series 6 - I obviously have no issues with compatibility or "speaking" between devices.

I'm just curious what everyone thinks here. If you do use a third-party alternative, I'd love to hear it along with why the Apple App Equivalent doesn't meet your needs.

 

[NoBoMac]

I voted mostly stock, but reality is closer to 50/50 really. Generally, my needs are basic, so do not chase some unicorn app that does everything and more. And helps avoid the dreaded subscription.

Calendars & Reminders has been the problem child for like a decade now. When Apple split those functions into two programs, HATE that I no longer had one screen with everything on it. Switched to Fantastical until they went subscription/nagware, Calendar 366 these days on iOS, keeping Fantastical on Mac for now (but that has been buggy of late).

But even before split (and post), the iOS versions trailed Mac capabilities for years. For example, took years to get setting a timezone for an event, custom recurrences (eg. On the 3rd Thursday). Even today, Calendar on iOS only allows adding/editing of two alerts vs infinite on Mac, so 3rd party apps that had/has these features.

Used to have a list app, as Reminders rework to be a list app is a failure in my book. But ditched the list app for Notes as it's evolved over time to handle my list needs (basic stuff like grocery list; use tables for list with a note type thing, folders for organizing, and does not show up in my calendar apps).

On iOS, free Office over Pages etal. Downcast instead of Podcasts as it allows "sideloading" of episodes (keep downloads on external drive, sync to app when more episodes needed, keeps from wasting space on iPhone). Mac, LibreOffice, but keep Numbers around as that can handle encrypted xlxs files.

Use stock Contacts, Weather, Mail, Music, Safari, Maps (rarely need GPS).

ADD: and probably like a good majority of folks here, 3rd party password manager on both. Keychain is fine, but lacking in some ways and single point of failure should it get corrupted.

ADD2: in a nutshell, trying to get by with what's stock, and if not able to, trying to avoid subscriptions and anything that has a self-hosted cloud component or proprietary format, should the app/company fail, have data corruption, making it a pain/impossible to export data out to some other solution.

 

[James_C]

There is not really a right or wrong answer to this as everyone has their own requirements and preferences. This is what I use and why. Hopefully it will give you some help to consider what might be useful to you.

Some context I have been looking at ways to make my personal and business life as far as computing is concerned as productive as possible. I am all in as far as Apple's ecosystem is concerned I have a MBP and an iMac as well as an iPad, iPhone and  Watch. So as far as possible I prefer productivity apps and utilities that operate across platform as far as is practical.

I use Apple notes extensively for taking notes and making lists, primarily because it syncs across all my devices and does everything I need.

I use Reminders for shopping lists as I can share it with my family as well as across my devices. I have a HomePod in the Kitchen and use Siri to add items as I see we are running low to my shopping list in Reminders (Much quicker than opening the app and typing).

I use the Apple calendar for my personal appointments, for work I use Outlook ( Part of Office 365). I did buy Fantastical but Apple's App is simple and basic and does everything I need.

For task management I use OmniFocus - I have been using it for years, probably overkill for most people, but it follows Getting Things Done principles.

From the OmniGroup I also use OmniOuliner to create checklists and outlines. I also use OmniGraffle for flow charts and org charts (Similar to Microsoft Visio).

For Screenshots I use Cleanshot X, an amazing App that allows you to take screenshots, has great annotation tools, creates a floating thumbnail that can be easily dragged into whatever App you want.

I use 1Password as my password management utility it works in Mac OS and iOS and syncs across your devices. Not everyone's favourite password Management tool, as it moved to a subscription model several years ago. But I have used it for years, they are always developing new features and ensures that it is kept updated, and worth the small annual subscription price to have all my passwords protected.

I use Textexpander to save me typing regularly used text. Rather than manually typing my email address I just type mmail and it will automatically replace it with my email address.

Hook is also worth taking a look. Hook is a tool you can use to connect all the parts of a project together: documents, notes, emails, web pages, and even to-do items in your favorite task manager. It does this by using file system bookmarks and a database to create links between these items. Hook’s only interface is a menu bar item and hotkey-triggered popup window that you can use to connect files or access anything connected to a file—whether you’re copying links, opening files, or revealing files in Finder.

Finally I use PDFPen Pro to edit PDF Files. It can also export a PDF file into an editable format and export to Word or Excel File.

Anyway I hope the list above is of help.

 

[GerritV]

I faced the same situation. Here's my take on this matter (YMMV):

1. You should start with defining a workflow, and only thereafter find the tools that fit best.
2. Youtubers like Abdaal are often more concerned about the number of likes they get as about your productivity. Also, they often seem to go with the flow (hence the gigantic hype around apps like Notion).
3. It's easy to get caught in the rabbithole of 3rd party productivity apps. If you are, prepare for a massive amount of time you'll spend testing and switching. This not only comes at a direct cost, but you loose time that could have been spent on actually getting things done.
4. Indeed, being productive is not about fiddling with a bunch of apps. It's about doing the work.

I stopped using 3rd party apps a while ago (Things, Fantastical, Asana, GoodNotes, Noteshelf, Notability etc.) and focused on the native Apple apps only. I took some inspiration from Carl Pullein (his Apple Playlist), but of course what I said about Abdaal could be said about this person too. So best take it with a serious grain of salt.

Many people will tell you that the Apple native apps are too simple and offer only limited functionalities. But that is no longer true. Check out the previews of the upcoming iOS, and you'll see yet another series of productivity improvements on the Apple suite.
Need I say that any 3rd party app will also have its own limitations at some point?

Finally, I include analog resources in my workflow (pen and paper, journal).

Best of luck.


shameless plug: check out my video on how to build and use a bullet journal with the Apple suite.

 

[XboxEvolved]

Stock apps are fine with me. I generally use Notes, Pages, Reminders, iMovie and sometimes calendar. The only nonstock app I really use is Spark.

 

[unrigestered]

solely depends on your own requirements.
If the stock apps don't cripple your workflow you don't need additional stuff.
Only if you need more then it's time to use something else, but then you probably already know when Pages, Calendar or Mail don't have some specific feature that are key to your workflow.

Of course there's nothing wrong if someone goes Excel, Outlook, or Photoshop from the get go, but most people actually don't need these, unless for compatibility reasons inside their teams, or familiarity since they were using these apps for so long that switching would require some big re-learning of sometimes even basic things.

you also have to keep in mind that there are people you do insanely awesome stuff on just MS Paint, so it's often not the tools that hinder you, and Paint is actually one of the "worst" (basic) apps i can think of at the moment.

edit: what i'm using outside of the macOS software bundle:
- music sequencing software (digital audio workstation): Reaper, as Garageband is way too basic for me
- photo editing: Affinity Photo when i need more than color correction
- video player: VLC as it has a lot more features and supports more codecs

other than that it's stock for me and most of them already do everything (and more) than i'd actually need as i'm no Excel or Outlook expert which of course offer a lot more "professional" features that corporates or some power users might depend on.
the calendar app could have one or two more features, but i can still get along nicely with it that it's not justifying a third party app (with maybe worse privacy practices) for me.

 

[Bodhitree]

I think it’s a really interesting question. I haven’t spent a great deal of time exploring the non-Apple apps because my needs are actually very limited, and I still do a lot of things with pen and paper (and sticky notes).

Where I do do things on my computer, I find that Calender across all my devices is very useful for tracking appointments, I use Contacts to do things like track the birthdays of all close family, Notes for keeping and organising collections of data that I keep longterm, Keychain for passwords, Pages for writing, Numbers for the occasional mathematical model, and Music and TV and Safari.

I had Microsoft Office but I actually largely found it overkill, too many features and too much complexity, it’s only when you do big projects and dig into those things that you find value in it I remember from the past, and these days I don’t have much call to do that.

 

[throAU]

The stock apps are mostly OK, but iWork doesn't really compare to office.

 

[unrigestered]

of course it doesn't (fully)
question is: do you really need those features, or does iWork already cover all your needs (and more)

 

[Bodhitree]

What really interests me is, for those of you who do use a lot of third-party apps, what exactly is is that you do with those third-party apps which you can’t do with Apple’s default apps?

I’m always looking for ways to do things better, or to see if I can make my life easier in some way.

 

[EdwardC]

Use a PC as well as a Mac in my office. I have Office on my PC and use Outlook for my email with an Outlook account. I also have Office for my Mac (both 2021) but prefer to use the stock Apple apps. I have my Outlook account set up as an exchange account so my Apple calendar and mail work flawlessly. On my PC Office is great but it does not seem to be as great on the Mac version so I choose to go with Pages.
YMMV........Ed

 

[Rufus1998]

I faced the same situation. Here's my take on this matter (YMMV):

1. You should start with defining a workflow, and only thereafter find the tools that fit best.
2. Youtubers like Abdaal are often more concerned about the number of likes they get as about your productivity. Also, they often seem to go with the flow (hence the gigantic hype around apps like Notion).
3. It's easy to get caught in the rabbithole of 3rd party productivity apps. If you are, prepare for a massive amount of time you'll spend testing and switching. This not only comes at a direct cost, but you loose time that could have been spent on actually getting things done.
4. Indeed, being productive is not about fiddling with a bunch of apps. It's about doing the work.

I stopped using 3rd party apps a while ago (Things, Fantastical, Asana, GoodNotes, Noteshelf, Notability etc.) and focused on the native Apple apps only. I took some inspiration from Carl Pullein (his Apple Playlist), but of course what I said about Abdaal could be said about this person too. So best take it with a serious grain of salt.

Many people will tell you that the Apple native apps are too simple and offer only limited functionalities. But that is no longer true. Check out the previews of the upcoming iOS, and you'll see yet another series of productivity improvements on the Apple suite.
Need I say that any 3rd party app will also have its own limitations at some point?

Finally, I include analog resources in my workflow (pen and paper, journal).

Best of luck.


shameless plug: check out my video on how to build and use a bullet journal with the Apple suite

Appreciate your insight - Thanks for recommending Carl Pullein! I don't know if it's FOMO or the idea that I could be MORE productive, but it just started eating at me a few months ago. I'm a school teacher and summer is when I "recalibrate" my personal systems since I have time to breathe.

I think I'm like you - simple is better and while there is a lot of added features (often at a cost) with the third-party alternatives, the Apple suite works just fine for me. I don't do a lot of collaboration with others, and even if I did Apple has put in a lot of those features.

Other than maybe Fantastical that shows your reminders plus events in the day, I'm not really sure I know what I'm looking for. Probably should keep it simple.

 

[ian87w]

For calendar, email, contacts, I use the stock macOS apps. They support syncing with most services and do the job fine so I don't see a need to find alternatives.

For Notes, it's all over the place since nobody is using any standard protocols (is there even one?). So I have all of them. Apple Notes for syncing with my iPhone. Google Keep via browser for checking notes from my Android. And MS OneNote for notes I need to be on all platforms. It's annoying since I really like Apple's Notes. MS OneNote is overkill for basic note taking, but Google Keep is too barebone. And yeah, Samsung Notes, you suck, you pretended like you can sync with OneNote, but it's not syncing with the real OneNote Notebooks.

For productivity such as word processing and spreadsheet, I use MS Office. Simply because, let's face it, everybody else in the world use Office. Using Apple's iWork will be a pain when it comes to file sharing. And by extension, my main cloud storage of choice is OneDrive.

For internet browser, and as an extension, passwords, I use Brave.

 

[ipponrg]

I have a mix of first party and third party.

For task management (e.g todo), I use OmniFocus. I actually coded a plug-in to leverage Alfred for macro commands.

I replaced stock Spotlight with Alfred because you can create workflows or syntax sugar for doing various things. For example, I can hit command + space and type “todo goto market #home @Tomorrow at 3 pm”, and it will autopopulate OmniFocus with details auto filled in the app and sync across all my other macs

For spreadsheets/docs, I use MS office. The stock pages/numbers just is not portable enough across pc/linux/mac

For coding, I primarily use VScode or sublime for non-Swift/ObjC projects.

For Notes, I use my iOS notes to sync with my fam for very basic lists, but for work i rely more on MS OneNote since it’s more capable. For travel and trips, I use Google Docs instead for portability

For video editing, I use first party FCPX

For photos/design editing, I use Affinity.

For reading pdfs or viewing photos, I use stock Preview

For browsing, on iOS I use stock Safari. But on desktop, I use a mix of Chrome/Firefox/Canary/Brave/etc. Safari has been inconsistent on desktop for various websites and portability.

For calendar, I have it synced with Google Calendar. Again, portability is key here. Stock calendar by itself is inconsistent with saving and sharing across a multitude of platforms with others

For email, I use Outlook at work, or a browser for personal. Stock Mail does not work with LDAP at my work nor does it work with push from Gmail.

For screenshots, i use stock MacOS shortcuts. But for layering arrows and such, i use Skitch. For creating animated gifs, I use Giphy mac app

Generally, I used to be a big believer in stock Apple apps way back, but it’s been a struggle to use them beyond anything basic or for portability.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I used to be huge on 3rd party apps. But after everything went subscription it got expensive to maintain all those apps and I felt obligated to use them because of the subscription. So I dumped all of them and it was amazing. I went back to a stack of lined post-its on my desk and a clipboard with high end printer paper for my liquid ink pens for note taking during work/personal calls/whatever. If I want to save what was written I can use my iPhone to scan it into iCloud. It was so relieving to not have to pay for a subscription and not feel obligated to use something because I was paying for it.

Yes, I use Apple Notes for digital notes - shopping lists with my wife, how to guides with my friends, etc. I use Reminders for things that I need to remember and I use Apple Calendar for birthdays and appointments I need to recall. What I love about the Apple stock apps, I can access them on my iPhone, Watch, and Mac.

I've found a lot of enjoyment in going back to the basics over the last year or so. I'd use more apps (and did back in the day) if they weren't blood draining subscriptions.

 

[GerritV]

[snip] I'm a school teacher and summer is when I "recalibrate" my personal systems since I have time to breathe.

I think I'm like you - simple is better [snip]
[snip] Probably should keep it simple.

First of all, congratulations on your "recalibrate" project. Shows a lot of motivation 👍

Secondly, and funny enough, you keep using the word "simple" when referring to the Apple Suite apps. Please don't do that - at least not in a condescending way. The apps make for a smoothly integrated ecosystem, with smart folders, tags, hyperlinks etc.
So rather think "simple" as in easy-to-use apps that allow you to work effective and direct, without the frills and whistles that would take you hours of setting up (and maintaining) complicated "productivity structures". 😎