I can’t imagine life without a password manager like 1password.
Apps like Omnifocus and Overcast (as a podcast reviewer) make my life so much better but I don’t even what I would do without a password manager at this point.
I volunteer at a library giving tech support mainly to seniors and not knowing logins is arguably the most common problem that occurs.
I’m in need of a new laptop to replace my dying 2012 MBP 15". A part of me wants to go 13" so I’m not lugging around a 15". I’m actually a little surprised that the weight of the 15" laptops has not changed significantly. (Not sure why I’m surprised.)
Anyway, why I’m replying here is that I went to the Apple store the other day to look at laptops. I talked about Sidecar and the non-genius basically told me that it’s nice to know it’s available but in practice one probably wouldn’t use it that much. Kinda silly for a salesperson to say that.
I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a 13" laptop and using Duet/Sidecar when needed. I also have a 30" monitor at home that I can use when I really need space. But something like Duet/Sidecar forces me to then carry an ipad with my laptop which sorta defeats the purpose.
It seems that you use Duet a lot. Do you use it even when you don’t necessarily need it? Or has it become second nature to plug it in?
FileMaker Pro 
For me, Keynote is my most used app. I also should give a shout out to Things, which is my essential go-to app for anything planning related. It is my external brain and I find it a pleasure to use every day. I wish more apps had an interface as well designed and intuitive. I tried Omnifocus again this summer and found it was not to my taste. Things combined with Shortcuts for contexts (as app icons) is the winner for me.
There are three apps I have used for over 10 years. They are the first things I install. I have looked into competitors, but have found nothing better. They are Divvy, Evernote, and LastPass. It’s hard to pick one of these three.
MacBook, iPad, iPhone, and Windows PC.
Bit Warden password manager. Works in MacOS, IOS, Linux and Windows. I could not function without it. With 500+ passwords to so many systems, apps and accounts, I would be helpless. Not a very comfortable place to be. My second brain is shared between evernote and devonthink.
Quicken 2019 for Mac. I never found a replacement that worked for me, so I’d have to call it essential.
I’d like to call 1Password essential, but there are workable alternatives. Perhaps Hazel because it gets used constantly (in the background) and it would be difficult to replace.
Pole Position - For all devices it’s 1Password. I sign up for EVERYTHING so I need capable password management and I track all my software licenses through it.
iOS Utility - is Copied. Bummed about no updates but Copied is still my go to for saving snippets of text. Perhaps Drafts will eventually replace it but for now it’s still serving me well.
Future - DevonThink 3 will be my future app for mind dump mass collection with Drafts as a front end.
If I walked into the Apple store to buy a brand new phone and I could only install one app before having to head home it would be the official Twitter app. I open that more than any other on my phone. After that it would be a toss up between Audible or Overcast.
Phrased that way Audible wins for me. …or Libby one of the apps my library subscribes to.
Yes, I changed my mind, Libby wins based on numbers and offering both written and audio formats.
I love the library, there are so many perks.
Things by Cultured Code / The best iPad keyboard centric app on the iPad bar none. My life is in there.
No surprise here, but my answer is Tinderbox. If I didn’t have a Mac, I would get one in order to use it.
Some replies veered your thoughts slightly. I thought a lot about it and thanks for the way you phrased the question @RichardC , It was interesting. I would have to put a Password manager as ‘most important’ at any given time or, maybe, any text editor as a lot of fok have said. That wasn’t quite your thought though? It was “…what keeps one on Mac”. I suppose the router software is ‘most important’ in some sense and one can get lost in the question?
BUT what keeps me ON MAC now, which was what you asked, when I really thought about it, are DEVONthink and Keyboard Maestro.
I am very ‘meh’ about the newer MBPs which I think scarifice too much for ‘thin’. I have no use for the touchbar, over large touchpad and the keyboards! What is most important and what keeps one on Mac are, in other words, not quite the same. Nice question really and made me think and helped me think about my IT in an useful way.
I will go for an iMac when my 2014 dies, so I will be Mac for years yet anyway but my main reason for doing that now is partly familiarity (ironically the reason some folk give for stayng with Microsoft!) and Keyboard Maestro in particular, followed closely by DEVONthink. I am learning regex really through and via Keyboard Maestro too and really expanding my powers that way. In fact Keyboard Maestro is starting to replace Launchbar for me. I use Text Expander and like it, but I have a lot of snippets on Keyboard Maestro and could, at a push, put all of them there. I just don’t want to overload KM since snippets consume a lot of space there relatively. I could probably manage though.
I’d say Twitter cos I’m addicted. Google Maps cos every year when I accidentally decided to give Apple Maps another chance it will take me to some place totally crazy and weird (three days ago it took me to the highway beneath the ramp that I’m supposed to park).
However, for an essential app that you probably never heard of, I created a journal app that have made journaling actually easy like tweeting. It’s called ZenJournal.
I don’t have one single app, but I love what I call the Indie Trifecta of Scrivener, iThoughts and Aeon Timeline. They all sync with Mac, which means that whatever I put into them is available anywhere.
Before Scrivener - I was writing a story with 3 arcs running in parallel. All I knew in those days was Microsoft Word, and I was using the built in Document Map to see the big picture. However, in order to track that the 3 arcs were getting equal time and creating mini cliffhangers before each switch, I had to put all the scene titles into Excel. Excel! Of course this was not maintainable. With Scrivener you write each scene in any order you want, and track their status with metadata, color codes, icons and so on. I won’t go back to writing long form in Microsoft Word.
iThoughts - MindMap but also documenting hierarchical structures like game avatar skeletons, as well content pipeline conversions, packing and to do lists. Any MindMap app will do these things, iThoughts is the one I love.
Aeon Timeline - created for science fiction authors, used for all kinds of other things such as event planning, program management, legal cases, pen and ink database, product comparisons. Nothing else like it.
Re Apple apps, I use the map search a lot. You go to a town that you last went to a few years ago, want to eat at the same restaurant but forgot the name? No problem if you took a photo there, you can find it on the map.
@Diane, agree there are clusters of apps that work together they feel like one essential app.
Earlier @TudorEynon used this cluster.
For me Ulysses, WP Editor, Halide, MindNode, and Terminology see use on most projects.
I want to avoid app comparisons and find out about an individual’s essential app or essential cluster.
Yeah that is, in many ways, a more interesting question.
That is my opposite day favorite App I guess! I have deleted all my social media including Twitter which was my favorite too.