App Ratings and Review Insights

There are just too many apps. It's like ridiculous, like the amount of options there are, how many different categories. So how do you know when to replace it with another one? How do you know which ones you should use? I probably downloaded and installed a billion apps on my phone, on my computer, but I only pick up an app nowadays if I need a new problem solved. So here's our rating scale. At the top here, we have S, which we basically think everyone should use these. These are the best apps in their category. And the bottom of the list, we have D tier apps, which are apps that we don't really think anyone should be using at all. So the first category are project management apps. No matter what career, what job, working with someone else, that is probably one of the most valuable skills you can develop in life. First up on the list is ClickUp. ClickUp has like so many features. It is extremely helpful, extremely customizable, and it is like more explicitly like projecty. It is opinionated. It's trying to get you to do project management. I found it like too fiddly. It's almost like I'm not enough of a project manager to be a true ClickUp user. To me, I like something with a bit more flexibility, even though ClickUp does have so much flexibility and customization. But I didn't like that rigid structure. But just the feel of the app is very like, I'm going to do work right now. I like apps that feel a bit more calm and more chill. Yeah, I would give this a B. I would have gone B or A, but I think I'm fine with B also. Monday.com is our next candidate. It seems nice. It seems real friendly. It's almost the opposite of what you talked about with ClickUp. where it's like you're trying to make work too fun, man. So apparently vibes matter a lot for project management. Personally, for me, vibes matter a lot for all apps that I use. Yeah, but it was never seemed compelling enough for me to ever really dive in deep. So I'd say probably like unqualified C. That's fair to me. So there's a little app called Notion that we're going to talk about next. Matty, do you have thoughts? It is the app that I personally use for running my entire business, for managing my life. for managing all my tasks, all the projects, things that I work on, regardless of whether it can do everything perfectly, which I actually don't think it can. I think Notion is one of those apps that like it can do so much and can do everything pretty good, but it's not like the best for anything. At the baseline, it's like a Word document with nothing too fancy that you can collaborate with other people. At like the top of it, it's like you're recreating a lot of the other apps that we're talking about and customizing it just just for you. So you can use it as a second brain, as a note-taking app. You can use it for all kinds of things, which I think is its downfall in a lot of ways for the average person is that that can be pretty intimidating. If you are not careful, you can easily suck hours and hours trying to build something. That's just a dangerous line to sit on. Notion is like the benchmark, probably, that we're going to measure a bunch of these other apps against. I'm going to put Notion at S tier with like an asterisk. Is S tier for so many areas of your life? But it's an asterisk when you try to start using it for every area of your life. Trello. Trello was probably one of the easiest apps to get started and just get going with right off the box. It's so simple. It's really just a Kanban board. You would just put something on it and you move them around to track your projects. Doesn't try to do more than it is. Yeah, I'm gonna put it at B just because it does what it does well, but it doesn't try to do anything else and so it can't get any higher than a B. So next one, Asana. So I bet that if you're really good at Asana, it probably does all of this stuff like just as well or better, but I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone to start using Asana. It's an app that's been around for a while. And if you've built a lot of workflows and you've used it for a long time, you probably shouldn't leave. This is probably a solid C tier. Definitely useful, but I don't know if it's the people who are leading the pack anymore. So Jira, kind of like Asana and Clicklub we're talking about, does have that very enterprise-y feel. You know what it feels like to me? It feels like when you go work somewhere and then they force you to use Microsoft Teams, whether you use it or not. But it's like the Microsoft Teams version of GitHub to me. I would probably put Jira in D tier. I don't know why you would use this. personally, unless you're in an ecosystem where everybody else is using it. Okay, so our next category is knowledge bases notion as a knowledge base, it feels a little bit cumbersome to me, I want it to basically be like, I think and then it appears like the whole way that you set up notion is basically like a whole bunch of filing cabinets that you can put links together. But that is very restricting in itself. Like you can't have something related throughout your entire knowledge base and notion, I would actually pull notion down from an S tier. If we're talking about knowledge base down to a So the next app in Knowledgebase is Obsidian. I've always actually really enjoyed Obsidian. Obsidian has like one of the biggest like network of plugins, like community plugins. All the things we talked about with Notion, but that doesn't exist, like the relational linking, like creating backlinks, super seamless, really easy to do. If you like markdown, that is where Obsidian shines. So you can like export your stuff whenever you want to. You can work offline. It's almost like a libertarian vibe to Obsidian where it's like pure freedom. Like this is it. that said that's i think it's downfall for me is like you can have a million plugins but i have to maintain it it almost feels like it's like a wordpress website that i'm having to maintain all the time and i'm having to stay up to date and you have to really like i think be a very detail-oriented almost like developer type person to get the most out of it i'd put it like a or b I want to put A tier just because I think it does lack a few things that I'd like, but I want to put it up pretty high. Poor Roam Research. They popularized linked notes. They did backlinks, which was a revolution at the time, and is now just table stakes for apps like this. Roam were the punk rockers of the note-taking space. Unfortunately, the company just hasn't really executed on its original vision, and I think a lot of other people are carrying the banner forward. I would probably have to give this one a D tier at this time. If you aren't already using Roam. I think there's much better alternatives. So RemNote, I haven't talked about this app in a long time. So RemNote is an app that Mike and I are actually helped found. We're no longer currently working in it at all. But RemNote is unique in knowledge bases where it's very student focused. So their whole philosophy is spaced repetition flashcards. It like will create using an editor flashcards for you instantly. And now I think they've even updated it where like there's AI generated flashcards that AI will just generate flashcards for you. If you want to do like flashcards and Anki style stuff, RemNote's the best in class for that. RemNote tries to do a bunch of other stuff that I think that other apps do just as well or better. Definitely worthwhile, but I'm going to put it on a C relative to its competitors. Next up on the list is Tana. So Tana is basically everything that Roam Research wanted to be and is actually happening. The cool thing about Notion that I always loved is that basically you can enter things into your databases and then you can reformat them into all these different views like they can become a kanban or they can be a gallery or they could be a list. Tana has all of that but it also has like the linking that Roam Research has that makes it very very easy to reuse your information you can put one thing in multiple places with basically a couple clicks so it's like the functions of Notion but just happening at like this really rapid pace so I'm actually like launching a channel just about Tana which is why I'm so enthusiastic so I might be a little bit biased. The one downside is that it is early, so it actually is just coming out of beta in the next couple of months. But its beta version is more impressive than a lot of apps that I've seen like coming out and being multiple iterations in. For me, Tana's up here probably through humility. It should be like knock it down to an A because it's still it's got a lot to prove. I want to pull you back down to an A just because it's still a beta boy. Like the first few months after launch is really where that gets stress test and battle tested with the with the world. I'm hyped, though. I'm hyped to see what happens with it. LogSeek. If you look at LogSeek, it pretty much looks like Rome or RemNote. It's an editor. It has bullet points that go into everything. It includes all the backlinks, all the relational linking. The one thing that LogSeek does have over most of these other apps, though, is that it's open source. Just that fact alone, I do think LogSeek has an advantage. Especially if you're a little bit more technical in your orientation, like especially if you're a developer or something along those lines, because then you can get even more power out of it. As such, like, doesn't offer like a crazy amount more. than a lot of its other competitors. That would give it probably a C. I would say C. I think it's a strong app for the right type of person. Relatively niche. So Reflect is really interesting. It was one of those Roam copycats back in the day, but then actually it's gotten, it's more simple than Roam. It reminds me of like a more advanced Apple Notes. It's a step below Notion in terms of like intimidation factor. So I'd say it's just like a very clean, solid, modern note taking app. And actually like does a great job at what a lot of these other ones I think don't do, which is like abstracting away the complexity. For me, I would give it a B tier. I wouldn't really use it personally because I am more of like a power user. Evernote. I used to use Evernote back when I was in college. Back then it was pretty simple. Like you can store notes, you can make folders, all that jazz. Man, for all of these other apps that we're talking about here with all the backlinking, relational linkings, all these other features, Evernote just to me doesn't really fill that need. And the fact that it's also just not free for what it can do for the paid versions to me doesn't seem worth it. Evernote basically invented this category that we're talking about. So it's got a lot of people who have been using it for ages, but it is now pretty outdated. It's gotten more and more expensive over time. So if you're on Evernote and it's doing the job for you, by all means stay there. Anyone else, I would say like strong D tier rating, like this, the world has continued to move and Evernote has stayed in one place. So. Mem is interesting. So they really, I think they had first mover advantage in recognizing that AI would be helpful to a note-taking app. And as such, they have like a nice early reputation for being the AI note-taking app. Unfortunately, I think they never quite got it off the ground and never quite got into a polished experience. Now AI is kind of like a standard feature in a lot of these apps or is becoming one rapidly. So I don't think Mem actually has that much to differentiate itself anymore. I think I'm going to have to D-tier it. Uh, D+. D+. I apologize, mem. Apple Notes. It's the easiest app to understand that if you have a MacBook or you have an iPhone, it's gonna sync across all your devices. And one of the newer features that they added is the fact that you can collaborate in documents now with other Apple users. It does what it's supposed to, which is basically just capture things quickly, easily in a way that you can find again quickly. You can tag things if you want, you can put things in folders if you want. But really the nice thing is if you have an Apple device, it syncs across everything. So I'd say this is like kind of like the standard and it makes like every other app have to raise their game. I agree. It's the bench, it's the bar, because it comes standard with. an iPhone. S seems overstated just because it is a simple app. I'd say solid A. So Canopio is like a super indie note-taking app. It has tons of character. It's basically original aesthetic which is carried on is like 90s internet. I think it's a very fun way to brainstorm, put a bunch of visual concepts together in a pleasing way and I just like its indie vibes. I would give Canopio a C tier. Yes, calendars. Let's hit them quick. Apple Calendar is basically the same way I view about Apple Notes. It's like, it is what calendars should do. It comes default on all devices. I'm going to give it a B tier. Google calendars are great. Like, inviting people to things is awesome. Being able to have automatic Google meetings. It does a good job of like, you can have multiple calendars and turn them on and off. I like the fact that you can import calendars into Google Calendar. I will say that the Google Calendar interface is not very intuitive. Most places you would just click on your name or you click on like... file but this one there's like a random cog to click on so like i'd end up just syncing my google calendar to any other calendar i use and then not using google calendar but using google calendar because i use gmail let's give it a c tier just to rebel against that notion calendar previously known as cron just like these other apps you can import google calendars into it and so i just use it to manage all my google calendars but the most important thing to know about notion calendar is that it does have beta-ish version of two-way sync with your notion having that integrate with your task manager has been like the biggest unlock for me. There's my productivity. It's very hotkey based. There's a lot of hotkeys, a lot of shortcuts, a lot of like cool automation things you can do in terms of like quick scheduling meetings, showing multiple time zones in your calendar with like one button. So I think just because of those little quick speeds and speed efficiency things, I would put it into an A right now. Next up. Email, huh? I'd say Gmail is sort of the standard. It's sort of bloated over time. They add all these Google features into it. There's actually like a lot of nice hotkeys and things. like you can archive reply forward like have it automatically archive when you send you can keep all of your threads all in one send in the future which used to be something you'd have to have a plug-in for i would give gmail like an a-tier rating for email personally hey i think is just like kind of marketing hype i don't i don't know that much about it it doesn't seem to meaningfully differentiate itself from its competitors i think the thing that they were trying to do is like auto categorizing your emails and having like stock responses and things like that it's It felt very gimmicky to me. So I would say like C tier. Have you used Superhuman? I'm familiar with it, but I always personally, this is personal preference. I always thought it was ridiculous to pay for an email app. So I never did it. It feels like Alfred or like Raycast for email, where it's like you're getting a little bit of an edge that you wouldn't have otherwise. I would probably put that also with C tier. Good app if you can, if you want to pay for an email. So the next category of apps that we're going to touch on here are on the creative spectrum. video editing apps. First one on the list we got is Final Cut Pro. So if anyone is a Mac user, this is like their flagship video editing app. They try to make it user friendly. You can get as granular detail as you want with things like transitions, with things like color grading. Yeah, I think Final Cut Pro is phenomenal. If you are a prosumer, if you're a YouTuber and you edit your own things, I think Final Cut Pro is fantastic. It's super easy to use, really easy to pick up. the magnetic timeline. One big downside to it, if you want to add like a lot of complex animations, it's possible, but most of the industry is in Adobe After Effects, which works better with Premiere. So if you want to become a pro editor, like do it as a living, there's a pretty significant downside to specializing in Final Cut Pro. If you want to get more advanced, I would say overall, I would give Final Cut Pro an A tier. So Adobe Premiere is basically, I would say the incumbent and even Hollywood is starting to use this app. more. It's more likely to crash on you than Final Cut Pro is, but it's also more powerful and its ability to integrate with After Effects just makes it a much more scalable solution. So if you are wanting to be a pro editor, I'd say Adobe Premiere is a really good option. I would give Adobe Premiere B just because I think it's difficult to use, has a higher learning curve overall. DaVinci Resolve. It originally was more for color grading and is still fantastic at that. It's probably the best for it. color grading specifically. It is also free. You can pay to get more stuff, but it's free, unlike a lot of these. And they've been making many improvements to just the video editing, to the point where a lot of folks who would have done Premiere or Final Cut are now using Resolve. So I'd say it's an up and comer and is a really good one to get into. if you haven't started editing yet. So I would probably put it at a B tier just because I don't know it that well. So Descript is one of those apps that they're changing the whole landscape of what video editing looks like. For most video editing software that you use, you look at a timeline, you look at your video and your audio kind of separate channels. Whereas Descript, the main focus is actually on the transcript itself. And so you can basically edit an entire video on Descript. without listening to or seeing anything. And with their whole push with AI, you can even like clone your voice simply by typing it in as you would like a blog post or a newsletter. I think it is a little bit janky in terms of stability sometimes. Just because of the stability issues at times, I would just give it an A. My hope is that everybody's forced to copy them. They're starting kind of at the like consumer casual level. And I think they could very easily go up and like eat the pro apps that we just discussed. So LumaFusion is actually the first app that I ever started editing with. Probably one of the premium experiences for video editing on iPad. Very easy to use, intuitive, great hand gestures. I would give it a solid B tier just because it's also on iPad, so you can't really get as technical or fast. And then CapCut. I have not used CapCut. CapCut feels like Canva for editing, where they just make it so easy and so intuitive and so unintimidating to get started. But if you're doing a simple editing project, it feels like a great option. I think it's got a lot of potential, but I'd put it at a C for now because I think it's got a lot of competition. Community platform. So long term, I think more and more people are going to be teachers online. Whatever area of expertise you're trying to build, as long as you're one step above someone else, then you have something you can share and you have something you can teach. First one on the list here is a app that has gained quite a bit of popularity lately is the app called School. It does a great job at exactly what it's intended to do. You can host courses on there. There's a lot of gamification aspects. inside community building, which is natively built in, like leveling up, like engagement and like heat maps to see who's active, who's not active. Very simple. You get everything if you just pay that one monthly plan. So for me, I am much less bullish on school as it is right now. As somebody who's built courses for the last decade and has seen platforms come and go, there are better or equal alternatives out there. And it feels mostly like marketing right now and mostly like excitement right now. So I'm excited to see where school goes. Right now for me, it feels sort of C tier. I have high hopes for it, but the name is behind it right now. Which leads us to Circle. I think Circle are great. They basically leveled up the idea of taking community elements seriously. It is very clean. It is easy to manage. It just feels really like the modern version of a course hosting platform with community features. And then importantly, like every single year they are improving the product, which gives me a lot of confidence in them as a product. I would put Circle at A tier in terms of a course building right now. So the next app is Mighty. I've purchased products and I've been part of communities that have been on Mighty. Mighty felt like a glorified Facebook groups with more structured courses hosting and DMs and stuff like that. I'm going to give it a C also. Next we have Discord. So Discord, the gamers brought us Discord and then now it's like a legitimate Slack alternative. Basically, if you want to do things live at like a high speed cadence and especially if you're like younger and hipper. discord might be for you i would say downside of discord is the same as its upside it's pretty chaotic lots of energy lots of chaos lots of vibes yeah i i love discord though that is where our community is hosted so to me where discord really shines is the fact that there is live chat and you can have as many live chat channels as you want there's also forums that you can create the main thing is just the ability to hop in on a call with someone like instantaneously and um just start sharing video and so that's something that differentiates it probably from I don't know if any of the other ones can do that. It's an A without the course. I mean, you technically could Frankenstein course hosting, which is what we actually tried with StudyQuest a long time ago. It was just a nightmare. Let's just go with a B. Everyone's favorite, Slack. Slack was amazing. It's still amazing. And it feels like Slack has entered its corporate era. where now it's not you don't necessarily feel good joining a slack i know slack is so like enterprisey now i view slack more so for like operational or like business if the corporate vibe actually enhances what you're trying to do then slack would be great because it's like a more refined version of discord for our purposes that feels like a c rating the facebook group i would say d tier unless that's where your audience is features aren't great it's clunky if your audience is on facebook then you'd be dumb not to be there but most people are not launching vibrant facebook you groups and there are better options so i would say d tier so kajabi to me feels like very solid almost boring but very dependable like video hosting at scale you're going to be spending a lot more time maintaining your discord than you are going to be maintaining your kajabi um even your circle is going to be a lot more work so if you've got a simple course that you just want to distribute to people on a polish platform it feels like a good option it probably does a good job i mean it's just it's just one of those apps that's like it just feels like it's so solid it's been there for a long time but it doesn't excite me at all so yeah i'd say b tier but also i haven't used it that much Social media, we're gonna take the specific lens for this one, I think, of how useful it is to someone if they have a business or a creator or are trying to use social media to like advance their career or get a job or something practical. Well, I guess we would be dumb if we didn't start off with YouTube. Is it good that you're here? You're about to find out. I love YouTube. I mean, I'm gonna say it. YouTube's great because I feel like a lot of other platforms you can get away with like making content. putting a picture of myself in a caption. So the barrier to entry of YouTube is far higher than the other ones. But the payouts are substantially better, I think, in terms of AdSense, in terms of if you're trying to convert an audience to a product or to trust you, the trust factor, YouTube is probably a better platform for that. Just because you need to get cameras, you need to understand how to edit or hire an editor. Biggest downside from my perspective is just like the time and cost and the skill that you need to do it well, because either you're already really good at creating video media or... you will have to spend a lot of time becoming good at it. Right. But once you do, it can change your life. I'd put YouTube as S tier. I think everyone should be doing it. Nice. Instagram. So this used to be the place that we put filtered selfies on. And now I'm not really sure what it is, but it is just a sort of like weird in-between space that has managed to stick around. There has been a shift in Instagram in terms of... the investment that you do have to put in there. There's so many different styles of content. You can make a story, you can make carousels, you can make posts, you can make reels, you can make videos. There's just a lot to think about. Like that's a pretty good way to build an audience and it converts better than I would say some of the other platforms. You're almost creating a variety show. I'd put this at B tier probably. Agree with you there. X, formerly known as Twitter. I have always really, really wanted to like Twitter slash X, but I just never could. And I don't know why that is. As it's become more algorithm driven. it almost had the feeling of like a more public discord for quite a while. In particular, I think the thing that's best about X right now is that if you are a someone who's doing creative work of any kind, it's the best place, I think, to like share your portfolio. So like if you're a thumbnail designer, a video editor, X is actually one of the best ways to get discovered. And people will love that you're promoting yourself and they will want to connect with you and they'll hire you from there. X is really underrated as like a career platform. You make some good points. I was going to go C, but I guess you can go B. I'd say B, possibly declining. It feels like it's moving towards C. TikTok, the place that people go to waste time on. The perfect amount of dopamine to keep you engaged of any platform. AdSense from TikTok with the creator fund is abysmal. Almost everyone who's like well-known on TikTok wants to be on a different platform. I personally would put TikTok at a solid D tier. I'm going to say the same just because I feel like I'm a cranky old man all of a sudden. So LinkedIn, the most stodgy, boring, chilling. place that you could possibly go has actually become kind of interesting lately. So they managed to incorporate like an algorithm and a newsfeed and actually a place where I might find interesting things and make interesting connections. Like basically, it's a writing platform, unlike YouTube, where you need to spend a bunch on gear, you can just get started and start getting better. Yeah, totally agree. LinkedIn is definitely that. up and comer even though they've been around forever i think still currently has the reputation of like not really for creators as much or like for entrepreneurs it's more for like networking if you're trying to like find someone who worked at another company or job so it's very much still like the traditional social media i guess a little bit business bro i'd say still c tier but heading heading up the right reddit i actually don't use reddit much anymore i used to be fairly addicted to reddit back in college yeah reddit in general is pretty aggressive against self-promotion learning or getting a second opinion i use reddit a lot as a search engine and it's an interesting way to find like less seo rigged results it's actually really interesting for like research the anonymity of it makes it seem like it's so credible it's like why would they lie the more game that every other system gets the more useful reddit is not because it's become more useful but because every other source gets more More tarnished. Yeah, I would just give it a C just because if it's just for research purposes, then yeah, I would say C. Note taking. Specifically like pen and paper, using your hand with these new apps, like you can really get creative with a lot of different ways to express yourself. We'll start with notability. It's probably like was the gold standard of note taking apps back in the day. It's very clean, easy folder management system. I like how simple it is. There's like a few pens, highlighters, lasso, move things around. You can shade, you can color. Pretty solid. I would give it a B tier. So GoodNotes 6 is the next app on this list. If you are someone more aligned with power features, you want something that can do more customization, has more control over like the fineness of your pencil tip, how many things you can have in your toolbar, GoodNotes 6 might be a better option. I'm gonna give it a B also, Concepts. Concepts has unlimited canvas. And that is something that I've wished all these other apps would just put in. Like imagine if your textbook instead of five pages was just one big canvas, you know, that's really how your brain actually thinks. And so I think Concepts, Steps just for having the unlimited canvas would push itself to an A. Freeform is a free app. This is Apple's handwriting app. You can share it with other Apple users. You can airdrop it. I don't like it as much just because the customization is a little bit limited, but it's an Apple app. It's pretty solid. I'm going to give it a C. OneNote is available for non-Apple users. It's actually a really powerful app though. This is the app that I used before I moved to the Apple ecosystem. It can upload PowerPoints, PDFs really well. You can hand draw, you can type notes on it. You can search like handwritten words as well as text stuff. Overall, I mean, I don't have anything bad to say about it. Honestly, I might get an A. Pen and paper. I use digital tools all the time and I still find myself using notebooks pretty often. That unlocks creativity in a way that's really interesting and it simplifies things and the constraints I think are helpful. It's the best option if you get distracted easily while you take notes or you write. I would put pen and paper with S tier just because I think it's so great. Let's give it an A tier. It's just like a burden to carry around. It's a burden that you can't search. Whiteboards, I feel like are basically pen and paper, but for a group. Whiteboards are one of our secret superpowers in my marriage. Like being able to visualize things on a whiteboard, I've found just to be such a good like creativity and consensus making mechanism at the same time that I have not found a single replacement for. And it's one of the biggest disadvantages of remote work. And by whiteboard, you're saying like the typical big... Giant on the wall. Yeah, like a giant. I think you can maybe see it. Like I've got a big old white part. And we've got small ones that we have hidden around the house. You can achieve the same whiteboard effect with like collaborative. Like GoodNote 6 has live time collaboration. Yeah, I guess there's something about like being in person. Let's give whiteboard B tier because you need to be with another person in the same room. Yeah, and they're a bit hard to bring around. Lightning round for browsers. Google Chrome, I'd say A tier. It's really good. It's solid. Agreed. It's great. Safari. I would say D tier. It's fine, but why would you use it over any of the other ones? I would put it a little bit higher than a D. I think it's just like native to Apple stuff. It's pretty reliable, but it's not very fun to use, I agree with you. We're gonna give it a C. We can be in the middle. Firefox. I have no opinion. I haven't used Firefox in probably a decade. Yeah, same. Let's call it D tier then. Next up is Arc. I love Arc right now. Arc is up and coming. they're a great option for anyone who likes a more fun kind of browser you can personalize you can customize you can use automations and hotkeys instead of a top toolbar like all these old school browsers it's on the left sidebar development team is amazing so i'm gonna give arc an a with a potential to go to an s in the future microsoft edge i don't know anyone who uses this i don't use it but i think that it is a browser that you could use so i give it a d2 okay design so canva So I kind of looked down on Canva for some reason. There are a lot of people who use it and swear by it. So I think I'm probably just an unsophisticated Canva user is my guess. Yeah, I love Canva. I agree with you that it is pretty simplified, but that's kind of the appeal to it is that you don't need to have design skills. You can just hop in and then there are templates and it's so easy to click and drag and build something that looks pretty good. It looks good enough. So it's like the perfect like dummies design tool, which is what I needed because I'm not a designer at all. Yeah, I want to go for a B just because I love it too. So Figma, in my opinion, is the opposite of Canva, where if you do have a design experience and you do know a bit about any kind of UI UX, this would be like, why would I ever use Canva? I would give Figma, I don't know if I would go lower than a B. Seems like a B if Canva gets a B. So next up, Photoshop, kind of gold standard shared language with other designers in a corporate setting, I think makes Photoshop and the Adobe suite hard to beat. But yeah, expensive and a high learning curve. So. I'd say A tier with the caveats of you gotta be ready. Pixlr is basically like a lighter end version of Photoshop that you can just access in your browser in a pinch. So if you have some Photoshop-esque capabilities, it can do most of what Adobe can. So it's been super invaluable to me for just doing basic graphic design, thumbnail mockups. I think it's a really solid option. So I'd give it a B tier and I think it's worth mentioning. Music apps. Spotify. Pretty much. the library of every music person on the planet and a lot of podcasts are on there. I think Spotify has a superior discovering feature for music and playlist making. It's exceptional. I would give Spotify an S tier. All the apps that have led up to this point, basically it has combined them together and does it a little bit better. As long as you pay for the premium version. Yeah. The free version is absolutely unusable. You can't search for songs or anything. Yeah. So Pandora, I haven't used in a long time, but it used to be the best way to find new music. It had like a great algorithm before algorithm based music finding was really a thing. Since then, Spotify, I think, has surpassed it in every way imaginable. So I would give Pandora a D tier. For me, Pandora is a D. But YouTube music is actually the app that I use now. Since I already pay for YouTube premium, it comes with YouTube. Do music. Sometimes you don't even want to rely on an algorithm to curate music for you. I want to rely on like a specific artist to curate music for me. And so instead of having a machine do it, I want my favorite, you know, like Fred again. I want him to compile it for me and then put a two hour set out there. And so I just let YouTube, which is creator focused, present me what they think is the best, like two hour mix or three hour mix. That's why I think YouTube is great. And also you get video with it, especially if they're doing some cool, like vibey naturey shot. Then. It's a great background ambiance as well. Different purposes for the different listener, but I would also give YouTube an S tier. So Brain.fm, the idea of this is it's a website that is supposed to get you into focus. I tried it for a while. Doesn't seem to do it. And I don't mind like progressive and trans music too, but this felt like procedurally generated. Brain.fm is very specific niche for the type of person who's like only looking to be productive and only is using music, not as music, but as noise. And so from a music perspective, it's almost insulting that you're just having like robots curate you like this brain hacking sound. I would give it a C or D. I'm offended now too. So D tier it is. Apple Music. I'm familiar enough with Apple Music. It has all the same songs and stuff, but like it just doesn't, I don't know. It's not as good. It just doesn't feel as good. I'd give it a C minus. For the same price as Spotify, it's like, why on earth would you pay for Apple Music? I haven't used SoundCloud in a long time. It used to be a cool way to find original music from people who were not yet popular. I feel like Spotify has become a place where a lot of that music gets uploaded now. I mean SoundCloud always has a soft spot in my heart just because, again, I did produce music before. But I do think it does have a use case if you are a certain type of creator, specifically a DJ, because if you pay for SoundCloud Premium you actually have access to SoundCloud's library to stream and use in mixes and stuff. Just for like casual listening, its search feature is not that great so I would give it a good old C. So quick video recordings. So Loom is the app that I feel like popularized this. Yeah, they kind of made a noun for it. Just being able to shoot off low production value, but still comprehensive videos, I think is really, really helpful. So you can save so much time. So some kind of app like Loom, I would say S tier level contribution to your life if you don't have one. Loom specifically will give an A tier because that sounds like there are alternatives. Descript does have a screen recording feature that's built into it. and it basically does exactly what Loom can do. The main caveat being that you can record a video for longer than five minutes, which is pretty great. I guess it would also get an A. I think it was A previously, so it maintains its A rank. Cool. Yeah, it maintains the A. Komodo Dex. The reason I think this is a pretty decent Loom alternative is because it is far cheaper and it also has a pay once for lifetime option. Pretty good option. I would give it, I'd just give it a B. So Screen Studio, this is the app that I use for all of my YouTube videos. really high quality screen captures. And there's AI inside of it where any mouse clicks you do or any movements you do, it'll automatically zoom in and zoom out 4K 60 frames per second screen recordings. I'm going to go with it a B just because it's a one man show and updates are a bit slower. ScreenFlow is very similar to Screen Studio, but it is a little bit older, but it is very solid, very good at recording screen footage. But it sounds like Screen Studio is better unless it's buggy or there's some other stuff with it being new. based on what I just heard, I'd probably give it a C. If you're starting fresh, it sounds like Green Studio is just a better product. Lightning round, productivity apps. Alfred is basically a suite of little things. So for example, when you copy things to your clipboard, Alfred very kindly will hold on to all of those things for you. So you can pull them back up. Alfred can also complete text for you. It is very lovely. So I never write my full address out, comma, A-D, and then my address pops in magically. Solid B. Raycast is apparently the better version of Alfred. I don't use it, so I'm just going to have to trust people. And I'm going to give it an A. TextSniper. Basically, it's just like a superior way to grab and copy paste text out of things, highlight an area of your screen, and then it will copy the text out of whatever you scan. And you can grab text out of images. It doesn't sound like it would change your life, but it probably will. So it's an A. CleanShot. You're recording and capturing portions of your screen, or you can capture like your screen scrolling. B tier. It's really nice to have, but not essential. Task management, very essential. First up on this list here is an app called Motion. Not notion, motion. You just assign priorities and then it will automatically like reposition any task if something comes up. I think it's cool in theory, but I don't want an AI to tell me what to do all the time. I'm actually going to give it a C tier. Things. I like things a lot. It's just very clean. It's got good hotkeys. It's a nice app. It's reliable. The downside of it, I think, is it's relatively expensive, especially if you want to get it on mobile and desktop. Probably a B. Todoist. My understanding is it's also solid, and it is not Mac-based, so more people can access it. Let's give it a B. Apple. Reminders. It's good. And so if you like simplicity, you're not looking for anything fancy, it does what it does well. I really like Reminders. It's the one app that I basically allow to interrupt me to make sure that I'm doing something, which I think everybody should have one so you don't have to be constantly remembering things like, take out the trash tonight. I would give it an A tier. So Structured is a pretty good app. It has an inbox, click and drag to move onto your calendar. Kind of marketed as like the ADHD person's tool. It's pretty good. I use it for a bit. but I generally don't need that much structure in my life. B. AI. Dolly. Dolly is really great. Prompting is really, really good at creating images. It's a great way to come up with mockups, to come up with designs. I do use Dolly quite often since I'm on GPT-4. It comes with a subscription for it. B tier to me, but it'll get the job done. Gemini. It's apparently better than Dolly in terms of creating photorealistic images. Sounds like B tier as well. And when we don't know, we go B. The one thing I know about Artforge Labs is the fact that it can do focus on like a theme and continue giving you the same outputs in that same theme. So for that reason, it could be more useful if you're trying to build a brand or like a mood board or something. Sounds like a solid C tier to me. So mid-journey allows you to be precise and then to iterate recursively whatever inputs you just put in, it like re-puts it in. I was really really impressed with it. You can actually upload an image as a reference and then it will create styles based on that. So you're prompting us to be less precise nowadays. I like Midjourney. I'm gonna give it an A. Very vibey. Yeah this was the definitive list for pretty much anything full stack from student to creator to professional to designer to productivity junkie. Yes these are a lot of different tools that you can experiment with as you start to build your character for this future of productivity but it also requires a lot of effort to get into them. And so It's easy to like get started, realize that the learning curve is steep and then jump ship too quickly. Give it a few weeks to see if it's the right fit. And if there are any of these apps that were especially intriguing, let us know. I will make sure Mike and Maddie get right on that. This has been a pleasure. Yeah, that went way longer than expected. I'll be honest.

I probably downloaded and installed a billion apps on my phone, on my computer, but I only pick up an app nowadays if I need a new problem solved. So here's our rating scale. At the top here, we have S, which we basically think everyone should use these.

These are the best apps in their category. And the bottom of the list, we have D tier apps, which are apps that we don't really think anyone should be using at all. So the first category are project management apps.

No matter what career, what job, working with someone else, that is probably one of the most valuable skills you can develop in life. First up on the list is ClickUp. ClickUp has like so many features. It is extremely helpful, extremely customizable, and it is like more explicitly like projecty.

It is opinionated. It's trying to get you to do project management. I found it like too fiddly. It's almost like I'm not enough of a project manager to be a true ClickUp user.

To me, I like something with a bit more flexibility, even though ClickUp does have so much flexibility and customization. But I didn't like that rigid structure. But just the feel of the app is very like, I'm going to do work right now. I like apps that feel a bit more calm and more chill.

Yeah, I would give this a B. I would have gone B or A, but I think I'm fine with B also. Monday.com is our next candidate. It seems nice. It seems real friendly.

It's almost the opposite of what you talked about with ClickUp. where it's like you're trying to make work too fun, man. So apparently vibes matter a lot for project management. Personally, for me, vibes matter a lot for all apps that I use.

Yeah, but it was never seemed compelling enough for me to ever really dive in deep. So I'd say probably like unqualified C. That's fair to me.

So there's a little app called Notion that we're going to talk about next. Matty, do you have thoughts? It is the app that I personally use for running my entire business, for managing my life. for managing all my tasks, all the projects, things that I work on, regardless of whether it can do everything perfectly, which I actually don't think it can.

I think Notion is one of those apps that like it can do so much and can do everything pretty good, but it's not like the best for anything. At the baseline, it's like a Word document with nothing too fancy that you can collaborate with other people. At like the top of it, it's like you're recreating a lot of the other apps that we're talking about and customizing it just just for you.

So you can use it as a second brain, as a note-taking app. You can use it for all kinds of things, which I think is its downfall in a lot of ways for the average person is that that can be pretty intimidating. If you are not careful, you can easily suck hours and hours trying to build something.

That's just a dangerous line to sit on. Notion is like the benchmark, probably, that we're going to measure a bunch of these other apps against. I'm going to put Notion at S tier with like an asterisk.

Is S tier for so many areas of your life? But it's an asterisk when you try to start using it for every area of your life. Trello. Trello was probably one of the easiest apps to get started and just get going with right off the box.

It's so simple. It's really just a Kanban board. You would just put something on it and you move them around to track your projects. Doesn't try to do more than it is.

Yeah, I'm gonna put it at B just because it does what it does well, but it doesn't try to do anything else and so it can't get any higher than a B. So next one, Asana. So I bet that if you're really good at Asana, it probably does all of this stuff like just as well or better, but I wouldn't necessarily tell anyone to start using Asana.

It's an app that's been around for a while. And if you've built a lot of workflows and you've used it for a long time, you probably shouldn't leave. This is probably a solid C tier.

Definitely useful, but I don't know if it's the people who are leading the pack anymore. So Jira, kind of like Asana and Clicklub we're talking about, does have that very enterprise-y feel. You know what it feels like to me? It feels like when you go work somewhere and then they force you to use Microsoft Teams, whether you use it or not.

But it's like the Microsoft Teams version of GitHub to me. I would probably put Jira in D tier. I don't know why you would use this.

personally, unless you're in an ecosystem where everybody else is using it. Okay, so our next category is knowledge bases notion as a knowledge base, it feels a little bit cumbersome to me, I want it to basically be like, I think and then it appears like the whole way that you set up notion is basically like a whole bunch of filing cabinets that you can put links together. But that is very restricting in itself. Like you can't have something related throughout your entire knowledge base and notion, I would actually pull notion down from an S tier. If we're talking about knowledge base down to a So the next app in Knowledgebase is Obsidian.

I've always actually really enjoyed Obsidian. Obsidian has like one of the biggest like network of plugins, like community plugins. All the things we talked about with Notion, but that doesn't exist, like the relational linking, like creating backlinks, super seamless, really easy to do. If you like markdown, that is where Obsidian shines.

So you can like export your stuff whenever you want to. You can work offline. It's almost like a libertarian vibe to Obsidian where it's like pure freedom.

Like this is it. that said that's i think it's downfall for me is like you can have a million plugins but i have to maintain it it almost feels like it's like a wordpress website that i'm having to maintain all the time and i'm having to stay up to date and you have to really like i think be a very detail-oriented almost like developer type person to get the most out of it i'd put it like a or b I want to put A tier just because I think it does lack a few things that I'd like, but I want to put it up pretty high. Poor Roam Research.

They popularized linked notes. They did backlinks, which was a revolution at the time, and is now just table stakes for apps like this. Roam were the punk rockers of the note-taking space. Unfortunately, the company just hasn't really executed on its original vision, and I think a lot of other people are carrying the banner forward.

I would probably have to give this one a D tier at this time. If you aren't already using Roam. I think there's much better alternatives.

So RemNote, I haven't talked about this app in a long time. So RemNote is an app that Mike and I are actually helped found. We're no longer currently working in it at all.

But RemNote is unique in knowledge bases where it's very student focused. So their whole philosophy is spaced repetition flashcards. It like will create using an editor flashcards for you instantly.

And now I think they've even updated it where like there's AI generated flashcards that AI will just generate flashcards for you. If you want to do like flashcards and Anki style stuff, RemNote's the best in class for that. RemNote tries to do a bunch of other stuff that I think that other apps do just as well or better.

Definitely worthwhile, but I'm going to put it on a C relative to its competitors. Next up on the list is Tana. So Tana is basically everything that Roam Research wanted to be and is actually happening.

The cool thing about Notion that I always loved is that basically you can enter things into your databases and then you can reformat them into all these different views like they can become a kanban or they can be a gallery or they could be a list. Tana has all of that but it also has like the linking that Roam Research has that makes it very very easy to reuse your information you can put one thing in multiple places with basically a couple clicks so it's like the functions of Notion but just happening at like this really rapid pace so I'm actually like launching a channel just about Tana which is why I'm so enthusiastic so I might be a little bit biased. The one downside is that it is early, so it actually is just coming out of beta in the next couple of months. But its beta version is more impressive than a lot of apps that I've seen like coming out and being multiple iterations in. For me, Tana's up here probably through humility.

It should be like knock it down to an A because it's still it's got a lot to prove. I want to pull you back down to an A just because it's still a beta boy. Like the first few months after launch is really where that gets stress test and battle tested with the with the world.

I'm hyped, though. I'm hyped to see what happens with it. LogSeek.

If you look at LogSeek, it pretty much looks like Rome or RemNote. It's an editor. It has bullet points that go into everything.

It includes all the backlinks, all the relational linking. The one thing that LogSeek does have over most of these other apps, though, is that it's open source. Just that fact alone, I do think LogSeek has an advantage. Especially if you're a little bit more technical in your orientation, like especially if you're a developer or something along those lines, because then you can get even more power out of it. As such, like, doesn't offer like a crazy amount more.

than a lot of its other competitors. That would give it probably a C. I would say C.

I think it's a strong app for the right type of person. Relatively niche. So Reflect is really interesting.

It was one of those Roam copycats back in the day, but then actually it's gotten, it's more simple than Roam. It reminds me of like a more advanced Apple Notes. It's a step below Notion in terms of like intimidation factor.

So I'd say it's just like a very clean, solid, modern note taking app. And actually like does a great job at what a lot of these other ones I think don't do, which is like abstracting away the complexity. For me, I would give it a B tier.

I wouldn't really use it personally because I am more of like a power user. Evernote. I used to use Evernote back when I was in college. Back then it was pretty simple. Like you can store notes, you can make folders, all that jazz.

Man, for all of these other apps that we're talking about here with all the backlinking, relational linkings, all these other features, Evernote just to me doesn't really fill that need. And the fact that it's also just not free for what it can do for the paid versions to me doesn't seem worth it. Evernote basically invented this category that we're talking about.

So it's got a lot of people who have been using it for ages, but it is now pretty outdated. It's gotten more and more expensive over time. So if you're on Evernote and it's doing the job for you, by all means stay there. Anyone else, I would say like strong D tier rating, like this, the world has continued to move and Evernote has stayed in one place.

So. Mem is interesting. So they really, I think they had first mover advantage in recognizing that AI would be helpful to a note-taking app. And as such, they have like a nice early reputation for being the AI note-taking app.

Unfortunately, I think they never quite got it off the ground and never quite got into a polished experience. Now AI is kind of like a standard feature in a lot of these apps or is becoming one rapidly. So I don't think Mem actually has that much to differentiate itself anymore.

I think I'm going to have to D-tier it. Uh, D+. D+. I apologize, mem. Apple Notes.

It's the easiest app to understand that if you have a MacBook or you have an iPhone, it's gonna sync across all your devices. And one of the newer features that they added is the fact that you can collaborate in documents now with other Apple users. It does what it's supposed to, which is basically just capture things quickly, easily in a way that you can find again quickly.

You can tag things if you want, you can put things in folders if you want. But really the nice thing is if you have an Apple device, it syncs across everything. So I'd say this is like kind of like the standard and it makes like every other app have to raise their game. I agree.

It's the bench, it's the bar, because it comes standard with. an iPhone. S seems overstated just because it is a simple app. I'd say solid A.

So Canopio is like a super indie note-taking app. It has tons of character. It's basically original aesthetic which is carried on is like 90s internet. I think it's a very fun way to brainstorm, put a bunch of visual concepts together in a pleasing way and I just like its indie vibes. I would give Canopio a C tier.

Yes, calendars. Let's hit them quick. Apple Calendar is basically the same way I view about Apple Notes. It's like, it is what calendars should do.

It comes default on all devices. I'm going to give it a B tier. Google calendars are great. Like, inviting people to things is awesome. Being able to have automatic Google meetings.

It does a good job of like, you can have multiple calendars and turn them on and off. I like the fact that you can import calendars into Google Calendar. I will say that the Google Calendar interface is not very intuitive.

Most places you would just click on your name or you click on like... file but this one there's like a random cog to click on so like i'd end up just syncing my google calendar to any other calendar i use and then not using google calendar but using google calendar because i use gmail let's give it a c tier just to rebel against that notion calendar previously known as cron just like these other apps you can import google calendars into it and so i just use it to manage all my google calendars but the most important thing to know about notion calendar is that it does have beta-ish version of two-way sync with your notion having that integrate with your task manager has been like the biggest unlock for me. There's my productivity.

It's very hotkey based. There's a lot of hotkeys, a lot of shortcuts, a lot of like cool automation things you can do in terms of like quick scheduling meetings, showing multiple time zones in your calendar with like one button. So I think just because of those little quick speeds and speed efficiency things, I would put it into an A right now. Next up.

Email, huh? I'd say Gmail is sort of the standard. It's sort of bloated over time.

They add all these Google features into it. There's actually like a lot of nice hotkeys and things. like you can archive reply forward like have it automatically archive when you send you can keep all of your threads all in one send in the future which used to be something you'd have to have a plug-in for i would give gmail like an a-tier rating for email personally hey i think is just like kind of marketing hype i don't i don't know that much about it it doesn't seem to meaningfully differentiate itself from its competitors i think the thing that they were trying to do is like auto categorizing your emails and having like stock responses and things like that it's It felt very gimmicky to me. So I would say like C tier. Have you used Superhuman?

I'm familiar with it, but I always personally, this is personal preference. I always thought it was ridiculous to pay for an email app. So I never did it.

It feels like Alfred or like Raycast for email, where it's like you're getting a little bit of an edge that you wouldn't have otherwise. I would probably put that also with C tier. Good app if you can, if you want to pay for an email. So the next category of apps that we're going to touch on here are on the creative spectrum. video editing apps.

First one on the list we got is Final Cut Pro. So if anyone is a Mac user, this is like their flagship video editing app. They try to make it user friendly.

You can get as granular detail as you want with things like transitions, with things like color grading. Yeah, I think Final Cut Pro is phenomenal. If you are a prosumer, if you're a YouTuber and you edit your own things, I think Final Cut Pro is fantastic. It's super easy to use, really easy to pick up. the magnetic timeline.

One big downside to it, if you want to add like a lot of complex animations, it's possible, but most of the industry is in Adobe After Effects, which works better with Premiere. So if you want to become a pro editor, like do it as a living, there's a pretty significant downside to specializing in Final Cut Pro. If you want to get more advanced, I would say overall, I would give Final Cut Pro an A tier. So Adobe Premiere is basically, I would say the incumbent and even Hollywood is starting to use this app. more.

It's more likely to crash on you than Final Cut Pro is, but it's also more powerful and its ability to integrate with After Effects just makes it a much more scalable solution. So if you are wanting to be a pro editor, I'd say Adobe Premiere is a really good option. I would give Adobe Premiere B just because I think it's difficult to use, has a higher learning curve overall. DaVinci Resolve.

It originally was more for color grading and is still fantastic at that. It's probably the best for it. color grading specifically. It is also free. You can pay to get more stuff, but it's free, unlike a lot of these.

And they've been making many improvements to just the video editing, to the point where a lot of folks who would have done Premiere or Final Cut are now using Resolve. So I'd say it's an up and comer and is a really good one to get into. if you haven't started editing yet.

So I would probably put it at a B tier just because I don't know it that well. So Descript is one of those apps that they're changing the whole landscape of what video editing looks like. For most video editing software that you use, you look at a timeline, you look at your video and your audio kind of separate channels. Whereas Descript, the main focus is actually on the transcript itself.

And so you can basically edit an entire video on Descript. without listening to or seeing anything. And with their whole push with AI, you can even like clone your voice simply by typing it in as you would like a blog post or a newsletter. I think it is a little bit janky in terms of stability sometimes.

Just because of the stability issues at times, I would just give it an A. My hope is that everybody's forced to copy them. They're starting kind of at the like consumer casual level.

And I think they could very easily go up and like eat the pro apps that we just discussed. So LumaFusion is actually the first app that I ever started editing with. Probably one of the premium experiences for video editing on iPad.

Very easy to use, intuitive, great hand gestures. I would give it a solid B tier just because it's also on iPad, so you can't really get as technical or fast. And then CapCut.

I have not used CapCut. CapCut feels like Canva for editing, where they just make it so easy and so intuitive and so unintimidating to get started. But if you're doing a simple editing project, it feels like a great option. I think it's got a lot of potential, but I'd put it at a C for now because I think it's got a lot of competition. Community platform.

So long term, I think more and more people are going to be teachers online. Whatever area of expertise you're trying to build, as long as you're one step above someone else, then you have something you can share and you have something you can teach. First one on the list here is a app that has gained quite a bit of popularity lately is the app called School.

It does a great job at exactly what it's intended to do. You can host courses on there. There's a lot of gamification aspects. inside community building, which is natively built in, like leveling up, like engagement and like heat maps to see who's active, who's not active.

Very simple. You get everything if you just pay that one monthly plan. So for me, I am much less bullish on school as it is right now. As somebody who's built courses for the last decade and has seen platforms come and go, there are better or equal alternatives out there.

And it feels mostly like marketing right now and mostly like excitement right now. So I'm excited to see where school goes. Right now for me, it feels sort of C tier. I have high hopes for it, but the name is behind it right now.

Which leads us to Circle. I think Circle are great. They basically leveled up the idea of taking community elements seriously. It is very clean.

It is easy to manage. It just feels really like the modern version of a course hosting platform with community features. And then importantly, like every single year they are improving the product, which gives me a lot of confidence in them as a product. I would put Circle at A tier in terms of a course building right now.

So the next app is Mighty. I've purchased products and I've been part of communities that have been on Mighty. Mighty felt like a glorified Facebook groups with more structured courses hosting and DMs and stuff like that.

I'm going to give it a C also. Next we have Discord. So Discord, the gamers brought us Discord and then now it's like a legitimate Slack alternative.

Basically, if you want to do things live at like a high speed cadence and especially if you're like younger and hipper. discord might be for you i would say downside of discord is the same as its upside it's pretty chaotic lots of energy lots of chaos lots of vibes yeah i i love discord though that is where our community is hosted so to me where discord really shines is the fact that there is live chat and you can have as many live chat channels as you want there's also forums that you can create the main thing is just the ability to hop in on a call with someone like instantaneously and um just start sharing video and so that's something that differentiates it probably from I don't know if any of the other ones can do that. It's an A without the course. I mean, you technically could Frankenstein course hosting, which is what we actually tried with StudyQuest a long time ago.

It was just a nightmare. Let's just go with a B. Everyone's favorite, Slack. Slack was amazing. It's still amazing.

And it feels like Slack has entered its corporate era. where now it's not you don't necessarily feel good joining a slack i know slack is so like enterprisey now i view slack more so for like operational or like business if the corporate vibe actually enhances what you're trying to do then slack would be great because it's like a more refined version of discord for our purposes that feels like a c rating the facebook group i would say d tier unless that's where your audience is features aren't great it's clunky if your audience is on facebook then you'd be dumb not to be there but most people are not launching vibrant facebook you groups and there are better options so i would say d tier so kajabi to me feels like very solid almost boring but very dependable like video hosting at scale you're going to be spending a lot more time maintaining your discord than you are going to be maintaining your kajabi um even your circle is going to be a lot more work so if you've got a simple course that you just want to distribute to people on a polish platform it feels like a good option it probably does a good job i mean it's just it's just one of those apps that's like it just feels like it's so solid it's been there for a long time but it doesn't excite me at all so yeah i'd say b tier but also i haven't used it that much Social media, we're gonna take the specific lens for this one, I think, of how useful it is to someone if they have a business or a creator or are trying to use social media to like advance their career or get a job or something practical. Well, I guess we would be dumb if we didn't start off with YouTube. Is it good that you're here?

You're about to find out. I love YouTube. I mean, I'm gonna say it.

YouTube's great because I feel like a lot of other platforms you can get away with like making content. putting a picture of myself in a caption. So the barrier to entry of YouTube is far higher than the other ones.

But the payouts are substantially better, I think, in terms of AdSense, in terms of if you're trying to convert an audience to a product or to trust you, the trust factor, YouTube is probably a better platform for that. Just because you need to get cameras, you need to understand how to edit or hire an editor. Biggest downside from my perspective is just like the time and cost and the skill that you need to do it well, because either you're already really good at creating video media or... you will have to spend a lot of time becoming good at it. Right.

But once you do, it can change your life. I'd put YouTube as S tier. I think everyone should be doing it. Nice.

Instagram. So this used to be the place that we put filtered selfies on. And now I'm not really sure what it is, but it is just a sort of like weird in-between space that has managed to stick around.

There has been a shift in Instagram in terms of... the investment that you do have to put in there. There's so many different styles of content.

You can make a story, you can make carousels, you can make posts, you can make reels, you can make videos. There's just a lot to think about. Like that's a pretty good way to build an audience and it converts better than I would say some of the other platforms. You're almost creating a variety show.

I'd put this at B tier probably. Agree with you there. X, formerly known as Twitter.

I have always really, really wanted to like Twitter slash X, but I just never could. And I don't know why that is. As it's become more algorithm driven. it almost had the feeling of like a more public discord for quite a while. In particular, I think the thing that's best about X right now is that if you are a someone who's doing creative work of any kind, it's the best place, I think, to like share your portfolio.

So like if you're a thumbnail designer, a video editor, X is actually one of the best ways to get discovered. And people will love that you're promoting yourself and they will want to connect with you and they'll hire you from there. X is really underrated as like a career platform. You make some good points.

I was going to go C, but I guess you can go B. I'd say B, possibly declining. It feels like it's moving towards C. TikTok, the place that people go to waste time on. The perfect amount of dopamine to keep you engaged of any platform.

AdSense from TikTok with the creator fund is abysmal. Almost everyone who's like well-known on TikTok wants to be on a different platform. I personally would put TikTok at a solid D tier.

I'm going to say the same just because I feel like I'm a cranky old man all of a sudden. So LinkedIn, the most stodgy, boring, chilling. place that you could possibly go has actually become kind of interesting lately.

So they managed to incorporate like an algorithm and a newsfeed and actually a place where I might find interesting things and make interesting connections. Like basically, it's a writing platform, unlike YouTube, where you need to spend a bunch on gear, you can just get started and start getting better. Yeah, totally agree. LinkedIn is definitely that.

up and comer even though they've been around forever i think still currently has the reputation of like not really for creators as much or like for entrepreneurs it's more for like networking if you're trying to like find someone who worked at another company or job so it's very much still like the traditional social media i guess a little bit business bro i'd say still c tier but heading heading up the right reddit i actually don't use reddit much anymore i used to be fairly addicted to reddit back in college yeah reddit in general is pretty aggressive against self-promotion learning or getting a second opinion i use reddit a lot as a search engine and it's an interesting way to find like less seo rigged results it's actually really interesting for like research the anonymity of it makes it seem like it's so credible it's like why would they lie the more game that every other system gets the more useful reddit is not because it's become more useful but because every other source gets more More tarnished. Yeah, I would just give it a C just because if it's just for research purposes, then yeah, I would say C. Note taking.

Specifically like pen and paper, using your hand with these new apps, like you can really get creative with a lot of different ways to express yourself. We'll start with notability. It's probably like was the gold standard of note taking apps back in the day.

It's very clean, easy folder management system. I like how simple it is. There's like a few pens, highlighters, lasso, move things around.

You can shade, you can color. Pretty solid. I would give it a B tier.

So GoodNotes 6 is the next app on this list. If you are someone more aligned with power features, you want something that can do more customization, has more control over like the fineness of your pencil tip, how many things you can have in your toolbar, GoodNotes 6 might be a better option. I'm gonna give it a B also, Concepts. Concepts has unlimited canvas. And that is something that I've wished all these other apps would just put in.

Like imagine if your textbook instead of five pages was just one big canvas, you know, that's really how your brain actually thinks. And so I think Concepts, Steps just for having the unlimited canvas would push itself to an A. Freeform is a free app.

This is Apple's handwriting app. You can share it with other Apple users. You can airdrop it.

I don't like it as much just because the customization is a little bit limited, but it's an Apple app. It's pretty solid. I'm going to give it a C. OneNote is available for non-Apple users.

It's actually a really powerful app though. This is the app that I used before I moved to the Apple ecosystem. It can upload PowerPoints, PDFs really well. You can hand draw, you can type notes on it. You can search like handwritten words as well as text stuff.

Overall, I mean, I don't have anything bad to say about it. Honestly, I might get an A. Pen and paper.

I use digital tools all the time and I still find myself using notebooks pretty often. That unlocks creativity in a way that's really interesting and it simplifies things and the constraints I think are helpful. It's the best option if you get distracted easily while you take notes or you write.

I would put pen and paper with S tier just because I think it's so great. Let's give it an A tier. It's just like a burden to carry around. It's a burden that you can't search. Whiteboards, I feel like are basically pen and paper, but for a group.

Whiteboards are one of our secret superpowers in my marriage. Like being able to visualize things on a whiteboard, I've found just to be such a good like creativity and consensus making mechanism at the same time that I have not found a single replacement for. And it's one of the biggest disadvantages of remote work.

And by whiteboard, you're saying like the typical big... Giant on the wall. Yeah, like a giant.

I think you can maybe see it. Like I've got a big old white part. And we've got small ones that we have hidden around the house. You can achieve the same whiteboard effect with like collaborative.

Like GoodNote 6 has live time collaboration. Yeah, I guess there's something about like being in person. Let's give whiteboard B tier because you need to be with another person in the same room.

Yeah, and they're a bit hard to bring around. Lightning round for browsers. Google Chrome, I'd say A tier. It's really good. It's solid.

Agreed. It's great. Safari.

I would say D tier. It's fine, but why would you use it over any of the other ones? I would put it a little bit higher than a D.

I think it's just like native to Apple stuff. It's pretty reliable, but it's not very fun to use, I agree with you. We're gonna give it a C. We can be in the middle. Firefox.

I have no opinion. I haven't used Firefox in probably a decade. Yeah, same. Let's call it D tier then. Next up is Arc.

I love Arc right now. Arc is up and coming. they're a great option for anyone who likes a more fun kind of browser you can personalize you can customize you can use automations and hotkeys instead of a top toolbar like all these old school browsers it's on the left sidebar development team is amazing so i'm gonna give arc an a with a potential to go to an s in the future microsoft edge i don't know anyone who uses this i don't use it but i think that it is a browser that you could use so i give it a d2 okay design so canva So I kind of looked down on Canva for some reason.

There are a lot of people who use it and swear by it. So I think I'm probably just an unsophisticated Canva user is my guess. Yeah, I love Canva. I agree with you that it is pretty simplified, but that's kind of the appeal to it is that you don't need to have design skills.

You can just hop in and then there are templates and it's so easy to click and drag and build something that looks pretty good. It looks good enough. So it's like the perfect like dummies design tool, which is what I needed because I'm not a designer at all.

Yeah, I want to go for a B just because I love it too. So Figma, in my opinion, is the opposite of Canva, where if you do have a design experience and you do know a bit about any kind of UI UX, this would be like, why would I ever use Canva? I would give Figma, I don't know if I would go lower than a B.

Seems like a B if Canva gets a B. So next up, Photoshop, kind of gold standard shared language with other designers in a corporate setting, I think makes Photoshop and the Adobe suite hard to beat. But yeah, expensive and a high learning curve. So. I'd say A tier with the caveats of you gotta be ready.

Pixlr is basically like a lighter end version of Photoshop that you can just access in your browser in a pinch. So if you have some Photoshop-esque capabilities, it can do most of what Adobe can. So it's been super invaluable to me for just doing basic graphic design, thumbnail mockups. I think it's a really solid option. So I'd give it a B tier and I think it's worth mentioning.

Music apps. Spotify. Pretty much.

the library of every music person on the planet and a lot of podcasts are on there. I think Spotify has a superior discovering feature for music and playlist making. It's exceptional.

I would give Spotify an S tier. All the apps that have led up to this point, basically it has combined them together and does it a little bit better. As long as you pay for the premium version. Yeah. The free version is absolutely unusable.

You can't search for songs or anything. Yeah. So Pandora, I haven't used in a long time, but it used to be the best way to find new music. It had like a great algorithm before algorithm based music finding was really a thing. Since then, Spotify, I think, has surpassed it in every way imaginable.

So I would give Pandora a D tier. For me, Pandora is a D. But YouTube music is actually the app that I use now. Since I already pay for YouTube premium, it comes with YouTube. Do music.

Sometimes you don't even want to rely on an algorithm to curate music for you. I want to rely on like a specific artist to curate music for me. And so instead of having a machine do it, I want my favorite, you know, like Fred again.

I want him to compile it for me and then put a two hour set out there. And so I just let YouTube, which is creator focused, present me what they think is the best, like two hour mix or three hour mix. That's why I think YouTube is great.

And also you get video with it, especially if they're doing some cool, like vibey naturey shot. Then. It's a great background ambiance as well.

Different purposes for the different listener, but I would also give YouTube an S tier. So Brain.fm, the idea of this is it's a website that is supposed to get you into focus. I tried it for a while.

Doesn't seem to do it. And I don't mind like progressive and trans music too, but this felt like procedurally generated. Brain.fm is very specific niche for the type of person who's like only looking to be productive and only is using music, not as music, but as noise. And so from a music perspective, it's almost insulting that you're just having like robots curate you like this brain hacking sound.

I would give it a C or D. I'm offended now too. So D tier it is. Apple Music. I'm familiar enough with Apple Music.

It has all the same songs and stuff, but like it just doesn't, I don't know. It's not as good. It just doesn't feel as good.

I'd give it a C minus. For the same price as Spotify, it's like, why on earth would you pay for Apple Music? I haven't used SoundCloud in a long time. It used to be a cool way to find original music from people who were not yet popular.

I feel like Spotify has become a place where a lot of that music gets uploaded now. I mean SoundCloud always has a soft spot in my heart just because, again, I did produce music before. But I do think it does have a use case if you are a certain type of creator, specifically a DJ, because if you pay for SoundCloud Premium you actually have access to SoundCloud's library to stream and use in mixes and stuff. Just for like casual listening, its search feature is not that great so I would give it a good old C. So quick video recordings.

So Loom is the app that I feel like popularized this. Yeah, they kind of made a noun for it. Just being able to shoot off low production value, but still comprehensive videos, I think is really, really helpful.

So you can save so much time. So some kind of app like Loom, I would say S tier level contribution to your life if you don't have one. Loom specifically will give an A tier because that sounds like there are alternatives.

Descript does have a screen recording feature that's built into it. and it basically does exactly what Loom can do. The main caveat being that you can record a video for longer than five minutes, which is pretty great.

I guess it would also get an A. I think it was A previously, so it maintains its A rank. Cool.

Yeah, it maintains the A. Komodo Dex. The reason I think this is a pretty decent Loom alternative is because it is far cheaper and it also has a pay once for lifetime option. Pretty good option. I would give it, I'd just give it a B.

So Screen Studio, this is the app that I use for all of my YouTube videos. really high quality screen captures. And there's AI inside of it where any mouse clicks you do or any movements you do, it'll automatically zoom in and zoom out 4K 60 frames per second screen recordings.

I'm going to go with it a B just because it's a one man show and updates are a bit slower. ScreenFlow is very similar to Screen Studio, but it is a little bit older, but it is very solid, very good at recording screen footage. But it sounds like Screen Studio is better unless it's buggy or there's some other stuff with it being new.

based on what I just heard, I'd probably give it a C. If you're starting fresh, it sounds like Green Studio is just a better product. Lightning round, productivity apps. Alfred is basically a suite of little things.

So for example, when you copy things to your clipboard, Alfred very kindly will hold on to all of those things for you. So you can pull them back up. Alfred can also complete text for you.

It is very lovely. So I never write my full address out, comma, A-D, and then my address pops in magically. Solid B. Raycast is apparently the better version of Alfred.

I don't use it, so I'm just going to have to trust people. And I'm going to give it an A. TextSniper. Basically, it's just like a superior way to grab and copy paste text out of things, highlight an area of your screen, and then it will copy the text out of whatever you scan.

And you can grab text out of images. It doesn't sound like it would change your life, but it probably will. So it's an A.

CleanShot. You're recording and capturing portions of your screen, or you can capture like your screen scrolling. B tier. It's really nice to have, but not essential. Task management, very essential.

First up on this list here is an app called Motion. Not notion, motion. You just assign priorities and then it will automatically like reposition any task if something comes up. I think it's cool in theory, but I don't want an AI to tell me what to do all the time.

I'm actually going to give it a C tier. Things. I like things a lot.

It's just very clean. It's got good hotkeys. It's a nice app.

It's reliable. The downside of it, I think, is it's relatively expensive, especially if you want to get it on mobile and desktop. Probably a B. Todoist. My understanding is it's also solid, and it is not Mac-based, so more people can access it.

Let's give it a B. Apple. Reminders. It's good.

And so if you like simplicity, you're not looking for anything fancy, it does what it does well. I really like Reminders. It's the one app that I basically allow to interrupt me to make sure that I'm doing something, which I think everybody should have one so you don't have to be constantly remembering things like, take out the trash tonight. I would give it an A tier. So Structured is a pretty good app.

It has an inbox, click and drag to move onto your calendar. Kind of marketed as like the ADHD person's tool. It's pretty good. I use it for a bit. but I generally don't need that much structure in my life.

B. AI. Dolly. Dolly is really great. Prompting is really, really good at creating images.

It's a great way to come up with mockups, to come up with designs. I do use Dolly quite often since I'm on GPT-4. It comes with a subscription for it.

B tier to me, but it'll get the job done. Gemini. It's apparently better than Dolly in terms of creating photorealistic images.

Sounds like B tier as well. And when we don't know, we go B. The one thing I know about Artforge Labs is the fact that it can do focus on like a theme and continue giving you the same outputs in that same theme. So for that reason, it could be more useful if you're trying to build a brand or like a mood board or something.

Sounds like a solid C tier to me. So mid-journey allows you to be precise and then to iterate recursively whatever inputs you just put in, it like re-puts it in. I was really really impressed with it.

You can actually upload an image as a reference and then it will create styles based on that. So you're prompting us to be less precise nowadays. I like Midjourney. I'm gonna give it an A. Very vibey.

Yeah this was the definitive list for pretty much anything full stack from student to creator to professional to designer to productivity junkie. Yes these are a lot of different tools that you can experiment with as you start to build your character for this future of productivity but it also requires a lot of effort to get into them. And so It's easy to like get started, realize that the learning curve is steep and then jump ship too quickly.

Give it a few weeks to see if it's the right fit. And if there are any of these apps that were especially intriguing, let us know. I will make sure Mike and Maddie get right on that.

This has been a pleasure. Yeah, that went way longer than expected. I'll be honest.

Transcript for:App Ratings and Review Insights

Transcript for:
App Ratings and Review Insights