I have no use for Sip really but, wow, that website…beautiful
For me I continue to be impressed with Obsidian and Keyboard Maestro, but my unexpected one is Paletro. A little utility that really speeds things up whenever I use it. My “not so much” is perhaps Freeform. The UI just doesn’t work for me, and I often find myself preferring either Obsidian Canvas or Mindnode.
Oh, and I also need to call out the Bookends folks for some really useful improvements this year!
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My brand-new, unexpected winner as of today: BetterMouse!
I use Logitech MX-series mice. I couldn’t figure out why my MBP M1 battery ran down so fast yesterday. LogiOptions+ had used almost all the battery in two hours! There have been so many complaints online about needless battery use. And it was just updated for the umpteenth time without a fix. It’s terrible software.
Today I replaced it with BetterMouse for $7.99. It’s truly top-level, everything a Mac power user could want. Completely granular controls. And setting all the buttons on my mice is very easy after a short learning curve. My button settings:
- Forward: Page forward (CMD+right arrow)
- Back: Page back (CMD+left arrow)
- Thumb: Mission Control
- Scroll wheel press: App Exposé
- Top button: (TBD)
- Ctrl+Top button: Close window (CMD+W)
- Ctrl+Forward: Three finger swipe left (moves between desktops)
- Ctrl+Back: Three finger swipe right (moves between desktops)
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Surprised Craft has not been mentioned. To me the best part of using Craft is the ability to share a page publicly. I had an enclosed back porch built last year and wanted to record all related expenses, vendor contacts, options, etc. and being able to share it with neighbors wishing to do the same was very useful.
- Drafts for short term notes and default bucket.
- Craft for notes I wish to share publicly. Apple notes’ lack of MD support is a deal breaker for me.
- DevonThink as my archive and paperless system. # 1 all time favorite Mac App
- Now that Bike is part of Setapp, I’ve found it useful for creating pseudo code and outlining in general. Simple and elegant editor which reminded me how delightful Ulysses was when I first tried it years ago - Bike is that.
Obsidian just doesn’t work for me after two attempts I’m done
nvUltra I’m this close from giving up on it, but clinging to the hope it’s been worth the wait.
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I’ve already given up. Not because they won’t release it (I’m sure they will) but because they do not seem to have the bandwidth for it. 
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there is an older soulver version which runs on iPhone also. I’ve stuck with that one which runs on iPhone, mac, and iPad
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WorkOutDoors is a great app. Good nomination for this thread. But what does pairing it with HealthFit give you? WorkOutDoors can already sync to Strava (not sure about the others). Would love to hear your thoughts about HealthFit if you have a moment.
Doesn’t seem to get much love here, but in case it’s useful … Bitwarden can do all those things as well and is much cheaper (US$10 / year).
I especially like it because of the optional open source backend Vaultwarden.
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You are right about WorkOutDoors natively synching with Strava. I should not have included that one in my list. I currently use HealthFit to send workouts completed on to TrainingPeaks (for my coach) and to Intervals.icu.
Years ago HealthFit was the only way to get Strava workouts back into Apple Health, IIRC. I’m not sure if that is still a need or if that is now standard capability. I don’t use Apple Health for workout tracking so don’t pay attention to that end of data integration.
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My very unexpected winner: Matter’s premium version.
Its first iteration (way back in 2021) didn’t offer anything that persuaded me to switch from my go-to read-it-later app, GoodLinks, or my go-to RSS reader, News Explorer. (Neither are subscription apps; News Explorer is part of SetApp as well.) Once Readwise Reader came along to fill the epub / PDF / note taking gap, I’d assumed I was done with the general category of Read-All-Your-Stuff-on-Your-Screens apps. Then I stumbled across Matter’s latest iteration while searching for something else altogether. (PSA: do not go on an app quest anywhere near Black Friday or Cyber Monday … )
And … I’m still not using Matter as a read-it-later or RSS service. It certainly hasn’t (and frankly, can’t) replace Readwise Reader as the space where I consolidate my intentional reading and note taking. And it doesn’t have GoodLinks’ invaluable option to export a saved article as a beautifully formatted markdown file. GoodLinks also doesn’t hoover up my data.
So, what do I use it for? Podcast transcription and text-to-speech.
Readwise Reader’s text-to-speech capabilities were recently upgraded, but still aren’t quite as good as Matter’s. If there’s an article in my Reader queue that I’d like to listen to while my hands are busy, I’ll add it to Matter and do my listening there. (Note: to the best of my knowledge, neither app can do text-to-speech on a PDF. )
Reader doesn’t (yet) transcribe podcasts, although that functionality is apparently on the road map. I listen to a lot of information-dense podcasts, and being able to supplement them with a transcript really helps me digest the audio into meaningful notes. Matter produces a complete text transcript I can highlight, take notes on, and export. Whatever AI it’s using also produces time-stamped “chapter summaries.” (Although they are sometimes so hilariously wide of the mark they’re “not even wrong,” to channel Wolfgang Pauli.)
My search for stand-alone text-to-speech and speech-to-text services didn’t turn up anything for an equivalent price that was substantially better or more straightforward to use than Matter’s tools. At some point I suspect that will change, but for now Matter does what I need well enough.
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I use the Training Today app, it’s good as far as it goes. However it’s just measuring variability in HRV data. This brings up two questions 1) Does the Apple Watch measure this well and 2) Is HRV strongly correlated with your readiness to workout.
The data on later seems mixed. I’ve read a few academic papers that say “meh”. My own experience I’ve had a day that it rated ‘3’. I went down to row 10k and hit a personal best. I did feel low afterwards.
YMMV
A very neat visual summary of a hike or walk, complete with a photo of my choice, to go in my Dairly journal!
Incidentally, I’ve learnt not to trust WorkOutDoors for anything longer than about 6km. It can freeze when the gps track gets too long for it. My unexpected winner this year has been David _Smith’s Pedometer++. It looks and is extremely simple on the surface, but I have found it outstanding to keep maps and records of longer walks and hikes: not surprising when the developer is a genuine long-distance walker who likes to go off the beaten track.
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My unexpected winner was the Notebooks app on iOS & MacOS. It is the sweet spot between DevonTHINK and Obsidian for my use case: I can link all thinks into markdown but can store my notes and files where I want. Also, it as customisable as Obsidian which will save me hours of time 
(MPU disease I guess). In conjunction with Apple Notes for some shared stuff, this is pretty ideal for me.
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TextEdit - I used it extensively to edit generated SQL code from .CSV files during the huge database refactoring and conversion project for the American Black Welsh Mountain Sheep Association. I had some tools to turn .CSV into insert or update statements but they invariably messed up NULL vs empty cells. I used text edit to clean up the code before running it to create or update the new database.
Keyboard Maestro - I still think I could make it work but it was going to take a huge amount of time to configure and get it working for me so I’ve put it on hold. I may resurrect the project eventually.
Obsidian is my most useful one is one but I’ve been using it for a while so not unexpectedly useful. Obsidian is continuing to improve and expand and I’m finding more and more I can do with it. A big task for me this next quarter while farming work is minimal is to go through all the old tools that Obsidian has now replaced, be sure I have all their data moved into Obsidian and then delete the apps.
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Honestly I’d have to say the Arc browser. Usually I’ll try a new browser and it’ll last a week and i’m back on Safari or Chrome depending on the device. I’ve been stable with Arc now for 3-4 months and eagerly counting down the days I get to demote Microsoft Edge on my work PC.
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Arc has totally stuck for me. While there’s much to like about Safari (especially since it’s well integrated with the OS), there’s more to like about Arc for my use cases. Safari has become a secondary browser.
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