Category Archive: Apps We Love

If you are into Notion at all, you’ve probably heard about Notion’s latest round of updates. If you are a power user, you are probably losing your mind, because these updates are insane. The release email and recap video made my day. »

Notion has recently introduced a new feature; Charts. In this article we'll take a look at a few use cases and learn how to build them. »

Ulysses, one of our favorite apps, has several features that make it ideal for writing and organizing short and long projects. The app has several features that make it a great tool for accomplishing your writing goals. Let’s start by examining the toolbar options above the editor. »

The most notable update to Notion in the last few months has got to be the Notion Home Page. In the past, if you wanted something in Notion, you had to build it. I’ve spent lots of time building Notion dashboards and personal “Home Pages”, but they are debuting new native templates, page types, and […] »

One of the main things that attracted me to Notion was that it is a visual tool. I can add beautiful and inspiring images and awesome emojis that make me want to use Notion more. Looking at a pretty picture of a European coffee shop while also staring at a task list makes it more enjoyable for me. »

Over the past 6 months, Notion have added several major features to the app and its functionality, and they also launched a Calendar app. In this article, I will be reviewing some of the newer updates that have hit the internet. »

One of the things that makes Obsidian unique is the ability to extend its capabilities with third-party plugins. In this post, we share a bunch of our favorite Obsidian plugins to help you take your personal knowledge management game to the next level. »

Calendars are in a weird metamorphosis period right now. How we use calendars is changing, this is clear. But where calendars are going is hard to pinpoint — we’ve seen calendar apps with to-do lists, AI integrations, and even full-on email applications built in. I’m not sure I can stand here and define what the winning calendar combination will be. »

Bezel is a very simple app that lets you connect your iPhone, iPad, or even iPod Touch to your Mac through a wired connection and mirrors your screen to a window on your Mac that looks like your phone or tablet. »

How many days is it until your next trip? How about until your anniversary? Or maybe that movie you’ve been waiting to see comes out? You can of course put all of these events on a calendar and find them that way, but that doesn’t really make it easy to see how long it is until that thing happens. That's where Up Ahead comes in. »

Over the years I have devised different systems for my family's Christmas. I love receiving gifts, but I also love giving gifts. It’s become a bit of a sport for me. I used to use the Notes app on my iPhone, then a spreadsheet to keep track of what I bought people. But the last few years I’ve used Notion to create a user-friendly, fun Christmas list. »

Before embarking on this journey of creating the Ultimate Notion Habit Tracker, I did some research. There have been some great updates to Notion semi-recently (such as repeating tasks, templates, and improved buttons), and I wanted to take full advantage of them. I also looked around the internet to see what was out there and saw lots of great templates, including Notion’s own Habit Tracking template. »

It’s time we compare Apple Notes and Bear once again. Apple Notes vs. the new and improved Bear has made for some interesting experiments over the last few weeks. Perhaps our findings below will help others dial in their note-taking app choice once more. »

Mimestream is a native Mac app built by Neil Jhaveri, who worked on Apple Mail at Apple for several years, and it shows in this new project. Gmail in Apple Mail just isn’t that great, and Mimestream feels like the answer to the question, what if you took all the good things about Apple Mail and then made it sync quickly & reliably, made it work with all of Gmail's proprietary features, and wrapped it in the fasted app on your Mac? »

We share our best tips and templates for getting started with Notion and also cover the basic elements and common use cases for getting the most out of it. »

It was nearly a year ago that I first wrote about Raycast here on The Sweet Setup, and few apps have seemed to gain as much momentum in recent years in the Mac enthusiast crowd than this new app launcher. In fact, I don't think I've seen this many Mac nerds change their app launcher since 2010 when Alfred first hit the scene. »

There’s been a battle brewing over the past year or so between Matter and Readwise Reader over which is the better brand-spanking-new read later service. Here at The Sweet Setup, we try to pick the best apps and services in every category we can, but the TSS crew is split on this one, so today Josh and Matt are going to make their case for why they prefer each of these apps. »

If you’ve been around here at all, it’s no surprise to you that I am excited about Notion’s newest update to the button feature. As soon as it came out, I was already trying to figure out how to create Notion buttons to help automate my workflow and the workflow of my teammates. »

A couple of months ago, we were in a Blanc Media staff meeting and we were talking about one of our resources, an e-book called Procrastinator’s Guide to Progress. And I asked, “Do we have a central place to easily find all of our resources with source files and links?” Well, the answer was.... “um, I don’t think so”. So then I had the idea to track down all of our resources, PDFs, slide decks etc. and drop them into one place. So our Master Resource Database in Notion was born. »

Here are some of our favorite Lock Screen widgets thus far. »

As Matt so wisely put last week, we’ll quickly run the risk here of replicating each The Sweet Setup contributor’s must-have productivity apps. By the end of this little series, you’re likely to see a few commonalities, such as Notion, Fantastical, Ulysses, 1Password and perhaps Things. Each of these apps rock in their own right. And we as a group have a great taste in productivity apps. »

When you create a productivity system or find a new app, the goal needs to always be the same. Does this system or app serve me and my goals? I am definitely guilty of spending time perfecting my system to the point that it becomes so rigid that it’s unusable. Or I just end up […] »

If you’ve been around here at all or are a fan of the Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) world, you’re no stranger to the term “Quick-Capture”. Quick Capture is an essential component of a good PKM system. Since Notion is my go-to app for pretty much everything, I’ve worked out a few ways to create a good system for quick capture in Notion. »

What’s so great about relational databases? We have been big fans of Notion for a while now, and relational databases are what makes Notion, well Notion. If you had a lot of organized spreadsheets next to each other that would be great, but in Notion your organized spreadsheets talk to each other. Relational databases connect […] »

RSS has been an important part of information workflows for many years, but read-it-later apps (and the RSS services many of them are based on) desperately need some inspiration and innovation. Enter Readwise Reader, an app that attempts to combine your RSS, newsletters, web highlights, and more into a single location. »

Notion is constantly coming out with new features, which as an avid user, I greatly appreciate. One of the most notable new features is sub-tasks and dependencies. This is a fantastic new feature for those who work on a team in Notion, making it an even stronger contender with Asana. The dependency feature lets you […] »

My system for shopping and figuring out what people want for Christmas has evolved over the years. I used to just have a running note on my iPhone, then a spreadsheet. Last year when I was just getting into Notion, I created a simple little setup. But this year I took it up a notch. »

I recently came across an app called Book Tracker that helps you catalog your library and manage your reading list. As a Bookworm myself, I had to give it a try. »

In addition to giving you a distraction-free writing interface to help you get your words out onto the page, Ulysses also gives you several tools that will help you keep your writing organized. »

Here are a few ways our team and colleagues of ours use Loom to save time each day and add some flair to their communication. »

Earlier this year, I attended the Macstock Conference & Expo where I saw Mike Rose share about a few tools to give better live software demos. One of the apps he mentioned was an app called Mouseposé, a simple macOS utility by Boinx software that I had somehow never come across before. »

The Elgato Stream Deck is a USB peripheral that gives you a grid of customizable buttons that you can assign to actions on your computer, like controlling Hue lights or muting your audio in Zoom. You can assign individual actions to physical buttons, and an LCD display allows you to customize the appearance of each button with an icon or text that you specify. So instead of trying to perform finger gymnastics to hit the right keyboard shortcut in the middle of a video call, you can just press a physical button instead. »

Alfred version 5 is the first major update to Alfred since May of 2019. And while on the surface it may not look like there's a whole lot new, the Workflow editor has been completely rewritten from the ground up. This improves on the flagship feature of Alfred (the custom workflows) in almost every way, making them faster, more efficient, and (most importantly) more user-friendly. »

In this article, I am going to go over how to create a wishlist and how to share it with others, which can be a bit more complicated and nuanced than you would think. »

For the days when I have nothing interesting to write down, or when I just don’t feel like writing in Day One, I’ve got two easy ways to “phone it in” so to speak. »

Irvue is a lightweight menu bar utility that automatically changes your wallpaper on macOS, using Unsplash as a source for the images. »

I’ve used the built-in macOS keyboard shortcuts to take screenshots for years, but cleaning up screenshots can be a pain — especially if you have a messy desktop. Enter CleanShot X — a simple utility that offers several tools to make taking screenshots on the Mac easier than ever. The Quick Access Overlay Once you […] »

One Switch lives in your menu bar and provides — you guessed it — one click access to a variety of settings. The app is customizable and even comes with hot key customization, ensuring you don’t even need to click to toggle certain system settings. »

If you want Windows 11-level window management on macOS, you’ll need a third-party app. Many folks like Moom or BetterSnapTool, but I use Magnet for window management on macOS. Best of all, Magnet goes far beyond what you find as default in Windows 11. »

I recently came across a fantastic little utility called Open In that allows you to modify the default application for browser, email, and call links. Yes, there are other apps that have done this sort of thing in the past, but Open In is built for Apple Silicon and does a whole lot more than any other app like this that I've seen. »

For as long as I can remember, TextExpander has been the de facto solution for magically expanding text shortcuts into longer snippets on macOS and Windows (and even iOS). The service has grown and become more popular among individuals and teams, and that brought with it the dreaded subscription pricing model. Whether you're trying to cut down on subscription costs or you're interested in trying alternatives, allow me to introduce Espanso. »

Version 3.6 introduces Fantastical Scheduling, which is a fantastic implementation of two powerful scheduling tools: Openings and Proposals. »

The iPhone is a much more popular product than the MacBook Pro, so naturally the discussion around the iPhone X’s notch was much larger than the discussion around the MacBook Pro’s notch. If we were discuss them relative to one another, I think more words have been spilled on the MacBook Pro’s notch. »

If you have a Mac, iPad, or iPhone, 2022 is going to be fun. Here are a few apps we recommend installing on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone to kick off the 2022 year with the best foot forward. »

It’s that time of year once again when we like to bring you a few of our top app and gear picks to get you through the holiday season in one piece. This handy list has a little bit of everything, whether you’re looking for some neat gift ideas or you’re simply in need of […] »

An app for finding out about new albums from artists you actually want to follow. »

Affirmations is a simple app with a singular purpose — to provide compliments and reminders to help make self-care a little easier. »

The fourth core element of Craft — and one that sets it apart from most other note-taking apps available — is the ability to collaborate with others. »

We're big fans of Things, OmniFocus, and all sorts of task managers here at The Sweet Setup. While the task manager app is certainly an important choice and cornerstone of any healthy GTD practice, it's also less important when compared to the practice itself. While we've already written the proverbial book on using Things for managing your tasks, we're also keenly interested in how other task managers accomplish similar goals and meet the needs of millions of people across the globe. »

Alfred recently got an update to version 4.5. This update is a pretty big one, adding a Powerpack feature called Universal Actions which allows you to take text, URLs, or files and perform actions on them directly using a dedicated Alfred Universal Action hotkey. »

Our first impressions after 24 hours using the new photo sharing app, Glass. »

I’ve bounced around daily note-taking apps for the last 18 months or so. The search started with Roam Research, then moved over to NotePlan 3, and now rests in Craft. Each has its own intricate set of features and shortcomings, and I’m still not perfectly jumping for joy with any option. »

Obsidian is a phenomenal notes app, but with a few free community plugins installed, it can become pretty much whatever you want it to be. In this article, we're going to show you how to install community plugins if you're not familiar with the process and share some of our favorites. »

An all-new app with an interface made from scratch to take advantage of the iPad's larger form factor. »

Timery (our pick for the best time tracking app) was just updated to version 1.2. The iOS version received some nice additions, like time entry suggestions, global keyboard shortcuts to start and stop timers, multi-window support, duration rounding, and a sidebar on the iPad. But the real star of the show in our opinion is […] »

Cardhop has been my preferred contacts app since it came out. There’s nothing wrong with the native contacts app on iOS or macOS per se, it’s just not that great. Adding and updating contacts requires lots of clicks or taps, and it never felt like a good place to start trying to contact someone. This […] »

Today we updated our best habit tracking app pick for 2021, and it’s a doozy. The updated article now has over 6,000 words in an increased effort to help you find the perfect habit tracker for you. It’s only been a year, but a lot has happened. First, we’ve gotten the addition of widgets in […] »

Learning guitar is challenging and a lot of fun, but hand-written music sheets make the learning process easier and more permanent. »

Ten of the top app (and cloud service) subscriptions as voted on by TSS readers. »

As summer draws ever nearer to a close, it comes high time to review a bunch of the photos you shot over the summer. Whether you choose to edit, share, or publish the photos will be up to you, but I often find myself printing off my favorites each September, and I've been very pleased with how Artifact Uprising makes the intangible tangible on each print run. »

NotePlan 2 combines your tasks and your calendar, so if you love time blocking like I do, you're going to be excited about this application. It does all this in a system that any Bullet Journaller will recognize. »

Pixelmator Photo’s latest update brought the power of Pixelmator Pro’s ML Match Colors from the Mac to the iPad, promising the ability to match the color palettes between sets of photos. ML Match Colors is wonderfully implemented, quickly performed, and easy to use. It promises to use all the powers of the iPad. »

One of the sad realities of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak is that social distancing is the new normal. Though it pains us to say it, we all have to face the fact that we're in this for the long haul. An interesting side effect of all this is that workforces around the world are now partaking in a “work from home” experiment of unprecedented scale. Millions of people are suddenly finding themselves trying to carve out the space and time to get their work done outside the office, with no friends or coworkers to chat with in person, all while dealing with the everyday distractions of home and making sure the kids — who are also now stuck at home — are fed, schooled, and generally occupied all day. »

When it comes to mind mapping on Apple hardware, there are lots of great options available. But two apps rise above the others as the true cream of the crop: MindNode, with a stunningly beautiful user interface, and iThoughts, with powerful features and impressive flexibility. Both of these apps are great, but they take very […] »

One of the things that makes the new Fantastical app so great is that you now have features like Calendar Sets available on all your devices. There's a big emphasis on parity and bringing all the formerly Mac-only features to all platforms, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing new for Mac users. »

Fantastical just got a HUGE update to version 3. There's a ton that's new here, including a more polished user interface, improved scheduling tools, and an updated pricing model. »

It's a fine time to be an iOS musician. There are a ton of great apps out there that can help you refine your craft and even perform live music in new and interesting ways. »

We’ve revisited our review of the best app for using an iPad as an external display and it’s clear that Sidecar is the best option for some, while others should still consider Air Display 3. »

For those of you with new Macs, here is a list of recommended apps for jump-starting your macOS experience. »

Have a new iPad? Check out our recommendations for unique and essentials apps to get you started. »

A list of apps we consider absolutely essential for every iPhone, as well as a range of apps that are simply better than their first-party counterparts made by Apple. »

2019 was an incredible year for gaming on the iPhone and iPad. Many of us who pay attention to this market had sadly begun writing off the App Store's gaming section as fading into obsolescence, thanks to the glut of “freemium” titles that lure you in with flashy visuals and addictive gameplay before using every trick in the book to nickel-and-dime you into the ground. »

Our goal here at The Sweet Setup is to help you find the best apps and hardware for your Apple devices. We spend an inordinate amount of time using and recommending the best apps and workflows for Apple users like you. This year, the whole TSS staff got together to vote for our very first […] »

In early September, I put myself up to the task of converting all my third-party apps in these categories to Apple’s own stock apps. After a few months, it's time to check in and see what Apple apps made the cut over my favorite third-party apps. »

Released just over a month ago, Dark Noise is a simple yet powerful ambient noise app for iPhone and iPad created by first-time iOS developer Charlie Chapman that offers exactly what you'd expect: a collection of high-quality ambient noises (38 in all) to help you sleep, focus, or relax. »

GoodNotes is a powerful analog note-taking app for iOS that really shines on an iPad with an Apple Pencil. »

Sketchnoting is a powerful and visual way to take notes that helps you retain more of the information you hear. It’s an excellent way to capture ideas during meetings, workshops, conferences, and more. »

Moodnotes is a simple iOS app that helps you track and understand your emotional state. »

Reeder 4 doesn’t rewrite the playbook that made it one of the premier RSS apps for every Apple platform, but it introduces a few niceties, like smoother and more friendly animations, a refreshed and more consistent code base across iOS and macOS, a new native Read Later feature, and Bionic Reading support. »

Dieting and exercise are essential to a happy and productive life, but they can be challenging at times. Luckily, there are tools to help track and encourage your path a healthier self. »

Spark continues to evolve at a healthy pace and we’re both impressed with how far the app has come and excited to see where Readdle takes Spark next. »

We rely on certain apps to get us through the mess and come out the other side with a plan. In today's roundup, we've gathered together eight of our favorite apps for outlining, brainstorming, planning, capturing, and tracking it all. »

If you're looking to do more writing as we begin 2019, I’d like to humbly suggest that you check out Ulysses. To help you get off to a great start, here are seven links to the best articles, tips, tricks, resources, and other how-tos that we have put together. »

No matter how you use your Apple Watch, there’s always a better third-party app to complete the task at hand. These five Apple Watch apps will really help jump-start your new Apple Watch and get you hooked on the quality and utility of third-party apps. »

Snapthread is a great option for anybody looking to share Live Photos with everyone in their contacts book. »

CropSize is a single-purpose iOS utility that makes resizing and compressing images a breeze. »

Today, Live Photos have become the foundation of my love for photography. They introduce new levels of emotion to my Camera Roll, capture sounds otherwise uncapturable, and make sure I never miss the shot. »

Shawn and Josh discuss their favorite photo editing apps for iOS. The apps range from VSCO to Snapseed to Lightroom CC. »

ImageOptim is a delightful Mac utility that compresses and optimizes images (even in batches!), making them easier to share online. »

1Password is an essential, must-have app. Here’s a quick look at what all I store in 1Password and why it’s so helpful. »

Basecamp is full of small, delightful touches that make it clear just how passionate its creators are about helping people not only with being productive, but with creating healthy workflows. »

Blink makes finding, generating, and converting any iTunes, App Store, or Book Store app a piece of cake. And its ability to be maneuvered into any existing URL scheme makes it all the more powerful. »

If you unboxed a new Mac this year, it's easier than ever to get started on it. »

The Christmas season is a time that many of us unwrap new iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Anytime I get a new device, I always take a look around to see if there are any new apps that can help make my mobile computing life better. »

Transmit is a powerful, reliable, and easy to use FTP client that is well worth purchasing if you work with file servers on a regular basis. »