Sparton

My family’s home computer was a MacMini (running Mavericks). As a high schooler at the time, I loved the simplicity of navigation and creation. My first smartphone was an iPhone 5s.

I stuck with them for my undergrad because I didn’t know otherwise. Windows felt like a downgrade at the time and gnu+linux or bsd were not on my radar.

I loved the hardware. I loved the integration between my mac and my phone. I learned to use the command line and make my mac incredibly powerful and fast. Its the hardware and software I used throughout my undergraduate and graduate programs and I continue to use it in my career in the museum field.

I now hop back and forth between macOS and FreeBSD, but it’s all on Apple hardware.

The first and foremost thing for me is aesthetics. I love being able to customize all of the colors and blur effects and button layout. Additionally, I like the gesture support within the UI. Lastly, I love how it integrates with Last.fm so all of my scrobbles are synced up without needing to scan.

I would not consider it a must have, but it makes so many quality of life improvements for apple music listeners.

macOS: iTerm - terminal emulator Alfred - application launcher (and a lot more) Spark - email client DevonThink - finder replacement FuzzyTime - show time in menu bar rounded by 5 minutes Bartender - organize menu bar LosslessSwitcher - automatically switch sample rate and but depth based on music playing SoundSource - easily control sound input/output and levels PDFExpert - PDF editor Reeder - RSS reader Affinity Creative Suite - Rastor/Vector/Photo/Print enditor

iOS: Timepage/Actions - Calendar and task manager Marvis Pro - Apple Music client Authenticator - FOSS authentication app MusicSmart - lists details of songs and albums not otherwise mentioned or credited Aftership - simple and free shipment tracker Carrot Weather - A great weather app PCalc - a customizable calculator Overcast - a better podcast player

iPadOS: Mela - Recipe browser and ingredient checklist maker Procreate - iPad 2D art at its best Affinity Photo - Great port of a really powerful photo editor PDFExpert - Edit PDFs but with the addition of an Apple Pencil and little niceties as well as good for note taking all in one space.

I keep things simple and use Spotlight for most navigation.

Sitting on the front porch and watching people and cars drive down the street while drinking a beer

Going to live music in the park on the weekends

Storm/weather watching

Going for a drive to just drive, no real destination.