My workday has been saved more times than I can remember by a small, highly focused app that helped me diagnose or solve a thorny problem. These utilities are the workhorses of the PC and Mac world. The classic Office apps - Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint - that are now part of your Microsoft 365 subscription are at the top of the list, followed closely by Adobe's Photoshop, communication tools like Slack and Zoom, and, of course, your default web browser.Įarlier this year, I shared my list of 11 big, important programs that I use day in and day out in Windows and Mac software: My 11 essential apps and services.īut those superstars of software would not exist without an army of smaller, more nimble collections of code. Those of us who work on PCs and Macs mark our days by the heavy-duty software that helps us get things done.