I don’t believe so. I use Apple’s stock apps on all my devices for all my work, both professional and personal.
That said, third party apps often offer more features and are sometimes easier to use, but I have found that:
Many underestimate the capabilities of Apple’s stock apps and never invest the time to learn their many features and to create efficient workflows and muscle memory.
The deep ecosystem integration, including with Siri, is excellent.
There is no additional cost.
The new Apple Intelligence and Siri will make the stock apps even better, especially search.
Are they best in class? No. Are they good? Yes. Can you run your personal and professional life with them? Depending on your specific needs, yes.
I use a lot of the stock apps. Safari, Mail, Calendar, Notes, Journal, iWork, and Terminal. But I’m also a heavy DEVONthink user, and very invested in the Omni Group’s apps, especially OmniFocus. I’ve tried switching over to Reminders a few times, but OmniFocus works the way my brain works. It’s the one reliable system that I always know is there for me.
I switched over to Passwords from 1Password a couple years ago and haven’t looked back. I accept that it’s a risk if Apple ever screws that up, but I’ve got backups so I feel like the risk is mitigated somewhat. The overall user experience with Safari is very good.
Every time I see this headline I think it’s talking about a stock-tracking widget lol
I think the only stock apps I still use regularly are Contacts, Preview, Finder, Disk Utility, Messages, TextEdit and occasionally GarageBand. That’s about it, and it’s mostly utilities.
That’s true, but with a caveat. Feature upgrades are generally (and unnecessary in many cases) tied to operating system updates. To get feature upgrades your device needs to be able to run the latest OS version. Older devices, even those which still receive security updates, will not get them.
Most third party apps have lengthy backwards compatibility. The intention is to sell more Apple devices when there is little hardware differentiation, clearly, and it’s fine if you’re on the device replacement treadmill.
It’s unusual, but I remember I couldn’t update Apple Notes on any of my devices at one point because I had an iPad that couldn’t be updated to the latest OS. I wasn’t about to spend hundreds of pounds to enable linking between notes! A third party app was much less expensive!
All that said, Pages works well, and I now use Notes, Passwords and other stock utility apps. I wish pages used an open standard for its file format, though!
I agree, Pages works well and is sufficient for many users. But its proprietary format limits its practical use in many work environments. Pages can import and export Word formats, but it is easier to just use Word. This is beyond my technical knowledge, but it is theoretically possible for Pages to use the international OOXML standard without “becoming Word,” correct?
True, but whether tied directly to the OS or not, virtually all actively developed applications will at some point stop supporting new features unless the application and/or the OS is updated. Large tech companies and indie developers cannot indefinitely support new features and updates on legacy systems.
This is not unique to Apple. If I understand Microsoft’s policy correctly, Microsoft supports Microsoft 365 for Mac on only the three most recent major versions of macOS. (I use MS Office at work occasionally, but I am not deeply embedded in the MS suite, so I may not be completely accurate.) At some point, maintaining compatibility with older operating systems becomes impractical and expensive, with diminishing returns.