This is an update to 2023-11-21 with somewhat interesting changes.
3rd party, roughly in descending order of use
| Keyboard Maestro | keyboard shortcuts & macros across all apps |
| Default Folder | rapid navigation in open/save dialogs |
| iStat Menus | keeping me informed about network & CPU activity |
| Command X | ⌘-x (followed by ⌘-v) in the Finder |
| BBEdit | all unformatted editing |
| GraphicConverter | graphics Swiss Army knife, occasionally helped by Pixelmator |
| Reeder | daily news on topics I find interesting |
| Houdah Spot | Searching → Finding! Better than Spotlight |
| PDF Squeezer | PDFs much smaller without visible loss, can also export images(!) |
| ImageOptim | image optimiser for jpg, png |
| Vinegar | YouTube without hassle |
| SilentKnight | daily check on security (and other) updates |
| Jekyll | static CMS for all websites I author/maintain |
| iReal Pro | making music |
| Guitar Pro | making music |
| MacGiro | accessing my bank account securely |
| Zotero | science: citation management |
| OcenAudio | editing & transcoding audio |
| ↓ Faded out ↓ | |
| Alfred | Butler → Alfred → Keyboard Maestro |
| BusyCal/Contacts | due to high costs, I fell back to the built-in solutions |
| Strongbox | Sherlocked by Apple |
| CopyClip | Sherlocked |
| Al Dente (pro) | soon to be Sherlocked |
| UPDF | too pricey (same for PDF Expert) |
Apps from Apple
| since several decades | |
| Safari | browsing, of course; keep Firefox, Chrome, etc., always in the dock too |
| Pages | half of my (formatted) editing in Pages, especially layouting |
| Calender | good enough |
| Contatcs | good enough |
| Notes | quick notes, quick lookup; tried Obsidian |
| Numbers | some of my spreadsheet work |
| Keynote | for (nearly) all my (>900 so far) presentations |
| Preview | poor name, good capabilities |
| Passwords | markedly improved, now fulfills all my needs |
| Books | for reading & audiobooks. HORRIBLE interface, getting worse every year, keeps getting worse |
| Maps | by now nearly eye-level with Google Maps |
| Music | good, though annoyingly pushy with ads, interface getting worse every year |
| Home | (too) slowly improving, still not improving |
| Photos | good |
| QuickTime Player | still my preferred video editor |
| Time Machine | markedly improved, slow over WLAN (helped to switch to the 5 GHz band) |
| Xcode | good for programming |
Unrelated – Adam Engst’s great collection of “fn” or 🌐 key shortcuts
| 🌐-A | Selects an item in the Dock, after which you can use the arrow keys to select different items and press Return to switch to the app |
| 🌐-⇧-A | Opens Launchpad |
| 🌐-C | Opens Control Center |
| 🌐-D | Starts dictation (or set a modifier key to do this when you press it twice) |
| 🌐-E | Opens the emoji picker (same as choosing Edit > Emoji & Symbols) |
| 🌐-F | Toggles full-screen mode |
| 🌐-H | Hides current windows to reveal the desktop; a second press restores them |
| 🌐-M | Selects the ⌘ menu, after which you can use the arrow keys to navigate menus and activate the selected command by pressing Return |
| 🌐-N | Displays Notification Center |
| 🌐-Q | Starts a new Quick Note in Notes |
| 🌐-⌫ | Forward delete on keyboards without a Forward Delete key⌦ (or use ^D) |
| 🌐-⏎ | Equivalent to the Enter key on the numeric keypad, which is slightly different than Return⏎ in certain contexts |
| 🌐 ↑ | Scroll up one page (same as the Page Up key) |
| 🌐 ↓ | Scroll down one page (same as the Page Down key) |
| 🌐 ← | Scroll to the beginning of a document (same as the Home key) |
| 🌐 → | Scroll to the end of a document (same as the End key) |