Digital and Work Setup, 2026 edition
Back in 2021 I wrote up my digital and work setup, and reading it back is a lovely little time capsule: a 13” MacBook Pro, Atom (RIP), Sublime Text for the big files, Authy. Five years on, almost everything has changed, so here’s the 2026 edition.
Hardware
The laptop era is over for me. My machine is now a Mac mini M4 Pro paired with an Apple Studio Display, and honestly this combination has ruined me for anything else. The Mac mini is silent, never breaks a sweat, and cost less than the display sitting on top of it.
Input-wise I’ve gone half Apple, half Logitech: the Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID (the fingerprint sensor alone justifies it, no more typing passwords) and the Logitech MX Master 4, continuing my long streak of MX Master mice.
Sound has had a proper upgrade too. A pair of Edifier M60 speakers on the desk for music, Sonos Ace headphones for when I need to block the world out, and my trusty AirPods Pro 2 for everything else. The AirPods are the oldest bit of kit on this list, and I may update them at some point, but they refuse to give me a reason to.
Software
The 2021 list had five code editors on it. It’s down to one: VS Code, still. I gave Zed a proper go and wanted to love it, but I found it frustrating and limiting in practice, so back to VS Code it was. Atom is gone (as is Atom itself, sadly) and I can’t remember the last time I opened Sublime.
Terminal work is still iTerm2, now with a proper Zsh, Starship and mise setup that lives in a dotfiles repo, which I’ve written about separately.
Design is still Sketch. I’ve tried Figma and Mural along the way and keep coming back; Sketch just fits how I work. And there’s still a pencil and paper on the desk for doodling out ideas first.
For everything else: Bear has taken over for markdown notes and drafting posts, 1Password and Apple Music remain the two things I can’t live without, and Apple Mail still handles email just fine. Side work gets logged and invoiced in Log Book, which I can safely say is my favourite app on this list, mostly because I wrote it.
The biggest change is photography. Lightroom and Photoshop are gone from the Mac entirely; since I shoot mostly on iPhone these days, I edit on the phone too, using a handful of mobile apps. It turns out the best photo workflow is the one that happens on the device the photo is already on.
Online Services
Trimmed down to the essentials: GitHub Pro, Cloudflare and Digital Ocean. Heroku and Google Suite have fallen away since last time. On the personal side, Apple Music has grown into a full Apple One subscription, which quietly hoovers up music, storage and the rest in one bill.
Five years from now this list will read as quaintly as the 2021 one does today, and I’m quite looking forward to that.