My data, any app
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Interesting post from Jim Nielsen about interoperable apps, although I’m not sure that’s the right term. When I first saw the title and screenshot I thought it would be a post about apps which work together well. Instead it’s more a post about flexible standards allowing for flexible user choices when interacting with that data.
I love RSS for this reason. I use Feedbin to hold my data and then I can choose any RSS app I want so long as it allows me to sign in to Feedbin. It’s why I’m still using Reeder Classic. Likewise with email, I use Fastmail as my data store and then I can use any app that supports IMAP or JMAP to interact with it. I’ve recently switched back to Obsidian again for this reason. The app sits on top of a structure made up of markdown files and folders. I can open the same structure in another markdown app like iA Writer and it will work (mostly) with all my data.
When you take the time to sit down and think about it, there are other systems like this. calendaring (via CalDAV) and contacts (via CardDAV) work this way as well. It would be so great to see this approach adopted for things like tasks, time tracking, and read it later apps. I’d just like a bit more flexibility on how I interact with that kind of data as well.