Back at the end of 2017 I made a post called State of the Apps with the apps I was using the most as a part of my professional workflow, thought it would be fun to revisit it and do a new version fresh for the start of 2026.
Pages & Numbers
With some much software being subscription based I have to take the opportunity to praise Apple’s Pages and Numbers applications which are available for free. I use both apps for running my business, from sending out invoices to making budgetary or booking spreadsheets. They are invaluable to me running a small business and they are completely free, here’s hoping it stays like that.
Photoshop & Photo Mechanic
Time marches on but certain things don’t change. My two primary work applications remain Photoshop and Photo Mechanic. Photo Mechanic recently moved to being a subscription based app and that really sucks because it’s hard to see where that money is going. The UI is so out of date and so out of place on a Mac. I also for the first time had a lot of problems with Photo Mechanic last year. I hd a period where it was crashing regularly. So much so that I had to reach out to them and see if they could help. Luckily an update to the app brought back stability.
As for Photoshop, I think it remains an application I have a love hate relationship with. Over the Christmas break I was using some of the AI features and I got hit with a popup telling me I needed to purchase credits to continue using the feature. So I pay a yearly subscription to use Photoshop and now they are building in features which require you to purchase additional “credits” to use them.
So foul … lets just leave it at that so I don’t have to type ant swear words.
There is a lot of talk about “vibe coding” these days and it sure feels like there is an opportunity for someone to vibe code an app that combines Photo Mechanic and Camera RAW.
DaVinci Resolve
I found myself having to make some videos again, the first time in a real long time and I turned to DaVinci Resolve. I had wanted to get Final Cut Pro, as I learned it pretty well back when I was studying, but I did not want to pay nearly 4000 :- for it not knowing if I would use it beyond the few videos I needed to make. DaVinci Resolve came to the rescue, it’s completely free and a really robust video editor.
Visual Studio Code
For coding I finally moved away from BBEdit. Now BBEdit has been reduced to being a plain text editor, used for making code replacement files. I can’t say I love Visual Studio Code, but it is free and it gets the job done. At some point I really need to sit down with some tutorials because it seems like it can be customized in a million different ways. So I am sure I can probably fix some of my gripes with it.
Chat GPT
I have to mention GPT. I use Chat GPT all the time, I pay for the pro version and it is absolutely invaluable to me. From having it write stuff, to translating, or helping with coding problems. Simply put it is a technology that is nothing short of revolutionary.
Backblaze
Not really an application I use, but a service that runs in the background. Backblaze will back-up your computer and any attached external hard drives to the cloud. It costs just 9 dollars a month. At that price it’s an absolute steal. I have lost track of how many times Backblaze has saved my butt and helped me restore files I accidentally removed.