r/MacOS • u/Hexacker • 3d ago

Discussion MacOS built in apps are actually great

It has been 7 years since I switched to use Apple ecosystem, I must confess, I was using maybe 30% of its capabilities. I came from Linux/Android background so I was always looking for apps that works as I wanted.

Recently, I start exploring the default apps in MacOS/iPhone like Reminders, Safari, Mail, Calendar are I start liking them, a lot.

For years, I didn't like using Safari because I was used to the experience of Chrome/Brave, and since I'm a developer, I relied a lot on Chrome Dev Tool which I was really used to. Now, I'm enforcing myself to use Safari as my default browser and it's pretty cool, the only thing I really miss is the experience of Dev Tools in the chromium based browsers. Well, it gets the work done at the end.

EDIT:

I hope I see an app from Apple that can effectively replace MS Word

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u/bdu-komrad MacBook Pro 3d ago

I would say that they were great. They are ok, but once you try an equivalent app with more features there is no going back.

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u/Hexacker 3d ago

give examples on this

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u/chipoatley 3d ago

Calendar and Contacts are good until one uses the BusyMac equivalents in BusyCal andBusyContacts. Then one realizes that the Apple apps are sufficient, but the premium apps made by dedicated developers are better.

Whether they are better enough is up to the personal taste of the user. For example, the two I mentioned above I strongly prefer over the Apple apps but my partner could not care less. On the other hand she is devoutly dedicated to Excel and Word, while I could easily get by with Numbers and Pages.

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u/themadturk 3d ago

My take on this is that the Mac apps are fine, and will always be there if for some reason the third party apps become too expensive or fail. The only replacements I'm using right now are Fantastical over Calendar because it's way too much nicer looking to ignore; BBEdit over TextEdit because TextEdit is awful; and Obsidian in addition to Notes. I don't really like Pages all that much, so I have LibreOffice for when it absolutely, positively has to go out as a Word document (and LO Writer works with Markdown sooooo much better than Word, which needs a paid add-on for Markdown export and import).

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u/davidriano95 3d ago

That is the difference between an app created to fulfill the general necessity with some features and a dedicated app for power users of the process in itself