App defaults, early 2026

Hello 2026, and hello Bored Horse readers. It's been a minute, hasn't it? Why not kick off the new year with some app defaults, as that's something other cool tech people are doing. Here are mine as of today, January 12th 2026.

📨 Mail Client: Fastmail apps on Mac and iPad/iPhone.

📮 Mail Server: Fastmail, although I still use both iCloud and Purelymail for various purposes.

📝 Notes: Apple Notes.

✅ To-Do: Reminders and Basecamp.

📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: I rarely use the iPhone camera, when I do, it's the default app.

🟦 Photo Management: Photos.

📆 Calendar: Calendar using Fastmail's calendar.

📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud.

📖 RSS: I use Feedbin as a backend, Unread on iPad/iPhone.

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts, barely.

🌐 Browser: Brave and Safari.

💬 Chat: Signal and Telegram, although I'm sometimes elsewhere too.

🔖 Bookmarks: The built-in feature in my browser(s).

📑 Read It Later: Instapaper.

📜 Word Processing: iA Writer and Pages.

📈 Spreadsheets: Numbers.

📊 Presentations: Keynote.

🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders.

🍴 Meal Planning: Nope.

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Numbers.

📰 News: RSS using Feedbin, Guardian, Economist, Reddit, SvD, and a slew of other newspapers on rotation.

🎵 Music: Apple Music, and vinyls.

🎤 Podcasts: No thank you.

🔐 Password Management: 1Password.

I've done two of these posts in the past, the initial one late 2023, and one late 2024.