As a follow up to my list of default apps, I have a few non-default apps that weren’t on the original list from Hemispheric Views.
🏃♂️Fitness: As I wrote about recently, I use HealthFit (mostly) instead of Apple Fitness 🧘 Meditation: Waking Up, instead of Mindfulness 📓 Journal: Doesn’t count yet, since Apple hasn’t released their journalling app. Soon, though, DayOne instead of the default 📚 Books: Libby instead of Apple Books, mostly because of the public library integration 🎸 Listen later: MusicBox instead of the Apple Music library
Episode 097 of the Hemispheric Views podcast held a fun Duel of the Defaults! competition.
Here’s my list. I’ve really shifted to defaults over the past year. I’m conflicted about this: I really like a good indie app, yet find my needs don’t justify the complexity of using non-defaults.
✉️ Mail Client: Apple Mail 📨 Mail Server: iCloud Custom Email Domain 📝 Notes: Apple Notes ✅ To-Do: Reminders 📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.
A good show. I binge-watched it over the weekend while recovering from a nasty cold. Hiddleston and Laurie are both great
Finished reading: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson is fun. A nice break from the epic storytelling of the previous series. The Sherlock Holmes meets Western lawman vibe fits in well with the allomancy 📚
Finished reading: Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky continues a great series. Interesting and diverse aliens, cosmic scale mysteries, and against all odds, plucky humans 📚
New running shoe day! After 1,109 kms, I’m replacing the orange ones with another pair of Saucony Kinvara. I definitely don’t recommend waiting so long, just got distracted 🏃♂️
There’s a bewildering array of fitness apps out there. Here’s an attempt to document what I’m currently using.
I have some criteria when considering a fitness app:
Available on the Apple Watch, ideally as a first class app, rather than just presenting data from the phone Suitable for multisport. I’ll consider a highly specialized app, though prefer one that covers at least running, cycling, and swimming Consolidated and local data.
Finished reading: Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson is pretty good. Nowhere near as visionary as Anathem or Seveneves, though tighter than _Fall; or Dodge in Hell_📚
🍿 I enjoyed Fathom (2021), a documentary about attempts to communicate with whales. Pairs well with Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs
Discussions about transit often end up about funding. To help make these discussions productive, I was pleased to co-author a paper through the Transportation Association of Canada titled Importance of Transportation Funding: Framing the Issues.
Working on this with David Kriger, Nick Lovett, Yonghai Xiao, Vahid Ayan, Andrew Devlin, Tamim Raad, and Haytham Sadeq was delightful.
Here’s the abstract:
Transportation funding is becoming an important topic of discussion at all levels of Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) councils and committees, reflecting discussions that are taking place throughout the Canadian transportation community.
This didn’t last long. When using Apple Podcasts to listen to Apple Music radio, you don’t see album art and can’t easily add music to your library. Discovery is my main use case. So, though I like the idea of this integration, in practice it doesn’t suit my needs 🎵
As predicted, after a couple of months with the Apple Podcasts app, I’m back to Overcast.
I think that Apple’s Podcasts app is great for anyone new to podcasts, given it has a strong focus on discovering new shows. I’m looking for a podcast app that simply plays my carefully curated, short list of podcasts. With Apple Podcasts, I kept finding new episodes of shows I didn’t intend to subscribe to in my queue.
