The Best Of - 2022 Edition

Near the end of each year I note down a summary of the best apps I’ve enjoyed using throughout the year, here’s 2022.

The Best

• MeetingBar (Meetings in your menubar) - Get MeetingBar
• Reeder (RSS) - Get Reeder
• Shottr (Better screenshots) - Get Shottr
• Bumpr (Multi-browser rules for links) - Get Bumper
• Onyx (macOS customisation) - Get OnyX
• Brew (Package manager) - Get Brew
  • mas (Mac App Store manager for Brew) - Get mas
• Little Snitch (Firewall) - Get Little Snitch
  • RadioSilence (Simple Firewall) - Get RadioSilence
• Pixelmator Pro (Image/Photo editor) - Get Pixelmator Pro
• Keka (Archive/Compression tool) - Get Keka
• LaunchControl (Frontend for launchd) - Get LaunchControl
• Peek (Quicklook plugins) - Get Peek
• MusicHarbor (Track new and upcoming music releases) - Get MusicHarbor
• DaisyDisk (Disk usage inspector) - Get DaisyDisk
• Things (GTD/Notes/Lists app) - Get Thing
• BetterTouchTool (macOS automation and customisation) - Get BetterTouchTool
• Parcel (Track parcels) - Get Parcel
• Backblaze (Backups) - Get Backblaze
• MicroSnitch (Get notifications for active mic/webcam) - Get Micro Snitch
• Handbrake (Transcode video files) - Get Handbrake
• Amphetamine (Keep you mac awake) - Get Amphetamine
• Bear (Markdown/notes/web clipping) - Get Bear
• Calibre (eBook management and conversation) - Get Calibre
• ImageOptim Beta (Image compression) - Get ImageOptim
  • Note: This is a beta version, but it’s the only version that supports Apple Silicon natively, the author is working on ImageOptim 2 - A complete rewrite.
• Strongbox (Native password/secrets management) - Get StrongBox
  • Note: I will likely eventually replace 1Password with Strongbox, it’s a native app (not Electron!), currently waiting on official browser extensions.
• Stay (Window management) - Get Stay
• Firefox (Don’t run a browser from an ad company) - Get Firefox
• Fastmail (Email) - Get Fastmail
• mu-repo (Run bulk commands across git repos) - Get mu-repo

You can find all the applications I use, along with my shell config and plugins within the BrewFile which I use to bootstrap my macOS machines.

The Worst

• 💩 AWS CDK 💩
• 💩 1Password 8 💩
• 💩 Microsoft Teams 💩
• 💩 Microsoft Office365 💩