Tech on Søren's Blog

Default Apps Update

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:00:00 +0200

A more or less yearly tradition. We all started in 2023, did an update in 2024, and now it’s time for the third round. Because, there are changes.

📨 Mail Client: Fastmail A big change. I used Apple Mail for a long time, but stumbled upon Fastmail when reading what others are using as default. It comes with a lot of neat features, and is not too expansive. Love it. The downside I see is that it’s US based. I may try Migadu.

📮 Mail Server: Fastmail The switch of the Mail Client came after the switch of the Mail Server. After many years of using the mail server my Hoster provided, I am on Fastmail now.

📝 Notes: Apple Notes Currently back to Apple Notes. Big fan of Obsidian but Apple Notes is less stress when sharing Notes with family. I may move the important ones (journal?) back to Obsidian.

✅ To-Do: Reminders.app No update. I don’t like paying for a todo-app. This should come out of the box. And reminders is ok-ish.

📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app No update. Looked at the camera app from Leica once, saw the price and was healed immediately.

🟦 Photo Management: Ugreen Photos I used iCloud Photos for the past two years. Liked how easy it is to have photos on all devices and share a library with family. At the same time, always annoyed when the monthly bill came. I bought a new Ugreen NAS for the general backup, iCloud for the most recent photos.

📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar & Calendars My go-to App, Calendars 5, was phased out. I worked with Apples Calendar, but miss colored events (not calendars). Luckily, a new version of Calendars 5, simply called Calendars was launched. Currently using both.

📁 Cloud File Storage: Ugreen Drive NAS.

📖 RSS: Reeder + iCloud Reeder stayed. Best RSS reading app. I use iCloud as the server.

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts.app No update.

🌐 Browser: Safari Arc is out, back on Safari, though not super-happy with it. Anyone with a good recommendation?

💬 Chat: Signal, WhatsApp No change.

🔖 Bookmarks: Apple Reminders Not good, but works for me now. I created a new list in Reminders called „Follow-Up“, add links to it, and sporadically go through them and mark them as „completed“ once read.

📑 Read It Later: Apple Reminders See Bookmarks, I use a dedicated list in Apple Reminders.

🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple Reminders No change. Reminders works perfectly for us. No need to load another app.

🍴 Meal Planning: no app Not doing that. Any suggestions?

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: none Honestly, I don’t have a good overview about our budget right now. Something I should tackle again. Any recommendations?

📰 News: Sueddeutsche Zeitung No change.

🎵 Music: Spotify To save costs, I am back on the Spotify Family Plan. I miss Apple Music.

🎤 Podcasts: Castro No change. Love the app.

🔐 Password Management: Enpass No change.

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Focus: Kids-Time

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 23:00:00 +0000

We‘re addicted to our phones. I know. I set notifications to a bare minimum - but still when I am enjoying time with family, a few seconds of idle time and I tend to reach for the phone in my pocket. I want to change this.

The mighty internet recommends leaving the phone in another room when playing with kids, but this doesn’t work for me. The phone is my camera and with kids there are a lot of situations where I am glad I have a camera handy.

My idea is to make the phone dumber.

I created a shortcut „kids time“. Activated with the action button. Simple. All it does is:

turn of mobile data
turn of wifi

This way, people can reach me if something is urgent (= call), but if I feel the urge to check the phone, nothing new will be presented to me and if I open an app, it won’t work. Hope that’s enough to let it rest it a while.

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Centralization

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Roughly ten years ago I ditched GMail, and started the journey of hosting important software myself. The shutdown of Google Reader made it clear to me how dependent I became on Google and their services.

I tried different web hosting services - but always came back to uberspace. They are a small German company, offer SSH access to the server, have an incredible support team and their “pay what you want” policy is really great.

Over the years, I hosted miniflux as an RSS reader, tinyurl as an URL shortener, NextCloud for contacts, calendars and reminders, Ghost as a blogging software, and many more.

I realised that it requires commitment to keep the lights on on all those services. I needed to check if new updates are available, run the updates, renew certificates, do OS updates on the server, … For someone experienced with this not a big task, for sure, but for me it became a burden.

Slowly but steadily, I started using managed software again.

Today, I use iCloud as the backend for my RSS feeds (although I am not super happy with performance), my calendars, contacts, and reminders. It just works and is something less I need to take care off. Thinking about it, I think email and this blog are the only services that I have not yet handed over to one of the big companies again.

Of course I am aware that I am dependent on providers - again - and especially get more and more caught in the walled garden that Apple so nicely creates for us. For now, it works for me.

I have changed my tech stack multiple times in the past. It could very well be that at some point my personal evaluation between comfort and dependency swings in the other direction and I’ll start hosting once more.

Garrit has similar thoughts.

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Three Years with M1 MacBook Air

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 19:00:00 +0100

Like Kev, I own a M1 MacBook Air since three years. And like Kev, I am still impressed.

This thing is absofuckinglutely phenomenal. (Kev)

It’s not the most expensive laptop I owned, but definitely among the top 3. With great invest, comes great expectations.

Changing the main operating system after 20 years felt risky. Before the M1, I only used a MacBook once as a work-machine.

But what can I say. Switching keyboard shortcuts between the private and work laptop is not ideal (I use Windows for work again), but I am still impressed with the speed and battery life of the M1. It can handle everything I request from it, boots in the blink of an eye and the battery lasts longer than in my most optimistic expectations.

Like Kev, after three years with the M1, I don’t feel like upgrading any time soon. It may be like the experience I made with mobile phones - the Apple devices are not the cheapest, but they last much longer in my service than other manufactures.

In general, I think I have never been this happy with an “outdated” tech stack before. The M1 is three years old, my iPhone is past its third birthday and my iPad is from 2017. The iPad is the only device where I recognize the age. It feels slow and I thought about upgrading it a couple of times. Not sure, however, if I will. I never found the niche for the iPad. It is too big for an everyday-carry and iPadOS has too much limitations to replace a proper laptop. If it was 100€, I wouldn’t think long about a replacement, but for the actual price tag, hm, I will most likely keep using it as long as possible.

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My Default Apps as of mid 2024

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 19:00:00 +0100

Last year, we all shared our default apps. Robb compiled a list of all responses. Thank you. This helped a lot.

Today, roughly seven months later, I wanted to give an update. What apps did I exchange and why?

📨 Mail Client: Mail.app This hasn’t changed. I am happy with Apples build in mail app, although it could get a facelift and a new feature or two. However, not the ones promoted by Apple on this years keynote.¹

📮 Mail Server: uberspace.de No update on this one. Scrolling through the other responses, I thought about trying Fastmail or Migadu but was too lazy to do so until today.

📝 Notes: Obsidian Obsidian has replaced Apple Notes. I like the markdown syntax and theming. It allows me to focus more on writing. Need to improve sticking to my journaling.

✅ To-Do: Reminders.app No update. I don’t like paying for a todo-app. This should come out of the box. And reminders is ok-ish.

📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app No update. Looked at the camera app from Leica once, saw the price and was healed immediately.

🟦 Photo Management: Synology Photos No change, although I was thinking about upgrading the NAS under the desk to a more powerful version.

📆 Calendar: Calendar.App & ? I used Calendars 5 as my main calendar app but it will become end of support in a few days. I didn’t find a replacement yet. What Apple showed at the WWDC may be enough for me, but not sure. Coloring events (one calendar, multiple colors) is a must and I don’t saw that in Apple’s presentation.

📁 Cloud File Storage: Synology Drive No update, but maybe new machine.

📖 RSS: Reeder + iCloud Reeder stayed. Still the best RSS reading app from my perspective, but miniflux has been replaced with iCloud. It has more hiccups, for sure, but I don’t need to maintain it.

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts.app No update.

🌐 Browser: Arc Last year, Safari was my default browser. This event introduced me to Arc. And while I needed a couple of trials - I am now convinced that Arc is my new standard, once two things are shipped: an iPad app and the Noir extension.

[Update - 2024-06-20]:Arc has a dedicated iPad version now ✅

💬 Chat: Signal, WhatsApp No change. I have Telegram Threema, and Matrix - but barely use them.

🔖 Bookmarks: currently everywhere. Need help 🫠 Unfortunately no update. May need to investigate more.

📑 Read It Later: Omnivore Omnivore replaced Pocket. It comes without ads. Nothing else to add.

🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders.app No change. Reminders works perfectly for us. No need to load another app.

🍴 Meal Planning: no app Still, no dedicated app. I tried Mela for recipes. It has a planning function. We may try it one day.

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: python + Excel Currently, trying to come up with a new standard. Probably a Python or R script populating an Excel or Dashboard.

📰 News: Sueddeutsche Zeitung No change but smaller subscription.

🎵 Music: Spotify To save costs, I am back on the Spotify Family Plan. I miss Apple Music.

🎤 Podcasts: Castro No change. Love the app.

🔐 Password Management: Enpass No change - but I like that Apple is building a dedicated app for this. I will try it out once released.

Anything changed on your defaults?

I don’t need AI writing, nor auto-sorting. ↩︎

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All the phones I owned

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 19:00:00 +0000

I paused blogging for a while, because re-starting work and having a sick baby at home took more of my energy than I thought. Hopefully, I can find more time soon again, because I miss it. 🙂

This one is in the backlog for quite some time, inspired by Kev’s blog type about all the motorbikes he owned. When I read it, I thought this is a cool idea! I should do something similar. But, I never owned a motorbike and technically not even a car. Thinking about things I did collect over the years, mobiles phones sounded interesting. I thought I remember all my phones, but it took investigation in my email inbox to get all the names and dates.

1) Nokia 3310

bought: December 2021, lastet: a couple of weeks

This was the toughest phone I ever had. The internet is full of jokes on this. It was robust, had great battery life, and I could type text messages without looking at the screen below my desk at school. And of course … Snake! Unfortunately, our joint journey was short. I owned this phone a couple of weeks, until it was stolen in school. Bad. I think we could have had a great time together.

2) Siemens SL42

bought: ~2022, lastet: one year

After the 3310 was gone, I needed a new phone. Having internet at home was not yet common. ICQ becoming my main way of communication years into the future. Being reachable via text message (we never did phone calls), was crucial. I wanted something that looked more elegant than the plastic design of the 3310 and went with the Siemens SL42. It was a cheaper version of a business phone, Siemens released earlier, and had great games preinstalled. We had a short joint time. Back then I lived in Dresden and later that year we had the “Jahrhundertflut” (the flood of a century). On my way home from school, the phone got wet and didn’t took it well. It was functioning, but the 1 key was no longer working. For people knowing how to type on these keyboards, you may understand that it was usable (the “.” was missing) - but who wants a broken phone?

3) Nokia 3650

bought: ~2023, lastet: five years

A good year after I bought the Siemens, I switched back to Nokia and bought the 3650. After I had bad luck with the first two phones, this one sticked around a while and accompanied me on my first trips abroad as well as the work and travel experience to Australia and New Zealand. Nokia built robust phones back then. Although made of plastic, falling down didn’t cause major demolition. The design of the 3650 was polarising (it’s part of collection “ugliest” in the mobile phone museum). The dial like on old landline phones needed more space and was a little cumbersome to type on, but I liked owning something extraordinary. This was a phone that was unlikely to be confused accidentally.

4) Nokia E65

bought: April 2008, lastet: 1.5 years

After five years of extensive usage, the 3650 reached its end of life. To be honest, my demands changed, too. I wanted something smaller, with more features. The possibility to manage your calendar on the phone was the hot shit. And it was the time, that newer phones had a camera allowing you to actually identify what you took a photo off. I went for the Nokia E65, because a friend of mine had and recommended it. Plus, how cool is it to extend the keyboard using a swipe up gesture?

5) iPhone 3GS

bought: September 2009, lastet: 3.5 years

I think the Nokia E65 and I could have become good friends for a long time, but in 2009 Apple decided to improve the iPhone significantly. S meant speed. Beginning of 2009, I bought an iPod Touch, liked it, but quickly understood that this device - without a permanent internet connection felt like binding its hands behind it’s back. I needed to have the iPhone and after long arguments with myself I bought it for a huge amount of money.

6) Google Nexus 4

bought: January 2013, lastet: ~2 years

The 3GS was a loyal companion. I loved it and the form factor was perfect for me. However, after years of intense usage the battery got week and the phone slow. In January 2013, the iPhone 5 was out, it was time for a new phone. I wanted to try something new and since Android had improved a lot, I bought a Nexus 4. Manufactured by LG but sold by and through Google. The phone was super big compared to my beloved 3GS, but average size for today’s standards. The camera was a tremendous improvement (was that the only thing that mattered to me?). But when I try to remember how I felt about the phone, I think we never bonded. Maybe because of our short time together. Roughly two years later, when I handed in my masters’ thesis, I dropped it in front of the university building, the display broke. Not usable anymore.

7) Motorola Moto G (2014)

bought: March 2015, lastet: ~1.75 years

Although I was just ok with the Nexus, I liked Android back then. That’s why I replaced it with another Android phone. My wife was using a Motorola phone at that time and was satisfied with it. So I bought one. I liked it more than the Nexus, one reasons being the form factor. In retrospective, I do not remember why I only had it for a short time.

8) OnePlus 3T

bought: December 2016, lastet: ~1 year

The 3T was a power house. It had 6GB of RAM and it felt like THE fastest smartphone I ever owned. It was running on Vanilla Android without any bloatware and could run dozen of apps at the same time. Awesome! This was the time when I was really into Pokemon Go and while it was giving my previous phone a hard time, it was no problem for the 3T. I could even write messages while having Pokemon Go running in the background.

Yet, it seems I have to make the same error multiple times, before I finally get it. The phone was just too big for my hands. I was commuting with the train a lot that time and always had to pause walking while checking on which platform I need to transfer, because I needed two hands to hold the phone and couldn’t carry the suitcase anymore.

9) iPhone 7

bought: December 2017, lastet: ~3.5 years

When the iPhone X was released, all my colleagues owned iPhones, while I was unsatisfied with the too big 3T. The X was too expensive for me, so I bought a used iPhone 7 with 500GB of storage. I was in love, the moment I had it in my hands. Everything was perfect - for three and a half years. Slowly, but steadily I recognised that the pre-used battery got weaker and weaker. Besides, all the cool kids had phones with more than one camera now. It was time for a new one again - however, the 7 is still used until today in the family.

10) iPhone 12 mini

bought: June 2021, lastet: still in use

I am not so happy with the edgy design of 12, but wanted to support the idea of building smaller smartphones. It looks like it needs to last for a very long time since Apple stopped producing the “minis” already. But, I am happy. If I don’t break it, the plan is to upgrade only when at least the 17 is out.

Fun Fact

It might not be the case for everyone, but at least for me it looks the iPhones are more sustainable. While I had the three Android phones for roughly 1.6 years each, my average iPhones usage was 3.5 years.

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💻 My First Mac

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 10:00:00 +0100

The Mac celebrates its 40th birthday and with that comes another bandwaggon I’d like to jump opon. Everyone is writing about their first Mac.

I joined the party quite late. My first Mac was a 2019 MacBook Pro 13" that I got from work and used intensively during Corona lockdowns. It still had four Thunderbolt ports, the only thing I am missing on the M1 MacBook Air.

I was a Windows Users since I had my fist computer about 20 years ago, with some short excurses into the linux world, but always wanted to try out one of those “cool kids” notebooks. The company I worked for in 2020 offered a MacBook as a company notebook and I thought this is the perfect chance to try it out. You all know how this ends. I was impressed. Everything was so fast, the search did find what I was looking for, the keyboard shortcuts are so much more finger-friendly. The only down-side was that the company was using Microsoft 365 intensively and the Mac versions of Outlook and Excel - being honest - lack some functionality.

Nevertheless, even before I had to return it, because I changed jobs, I bought the M1 Air privately and didn’t miss Windows ever since. Using GeForce Now, it is also a great gaming device 🕹️ I do not see me changing systems any time soon.

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My default apps at the end of 2023

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:00:00 +0100

I stumbled upon this by reading Kev’s great blog but it seems there are a bunch of people currently sharing their default apps.

For me, always looking for a new app to improve my workflow, this is great. However, I had to notice that many people - like myself - stick with the default apps of their operating system. But, I will scroll through most of the other contributions to check if there is something to try out for me.

I won’t let you wait any longer - here is my list:

📨 Mail Client: Mail.app

📮 Mail Server: uberspace.de

📝 Notes: Notes.app, and just trying out Obsidian.md

✅ To-Do: Reminders.app

📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Camera.app

🟦 Photo Management: Synology Photos

📆 Calendar: Calendar.App & Calendar 5

📁 Cloud File Storage: Synology Drive

📖 RSS: miniflux + Reeder

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Contacts.app

🌐 Browser: Safari

💬 Chat: Signal, WhatsApp

🔖 Bookmarks: currently everywhere. Need help 🫠

📑 Read It Later: Pocket

📜 Word Processing: Word

📈 Spreadsheets: Excel

📊 Presentations: PowerPoint

🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders.app

🍴 Meal Planning: no app, discussions over dinner

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Excel

📰 News: Sueddeutsche Zeitung

🎵 Music: Apple Music

🎤 Podcasts: Castro

🔐 Password Management: Enpass

You can get the full list of participants from here: https://defaults.rknight.me/ and also use the opportunity to add some new blogs to your RSS reader.

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