Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Matthew Bischoff (they/them), a software designer and developer in New York City. I co-founded and help to run Lickability, a small studio where we craft delightful apps for our clients and ourselves. A few times a year, I'll give a talk at a conference or appear on a podcast about the work I do.
In my spare time, I enjoy mixing classic cocktails, going to the theatre, reading and editing Wikipedia, and volunteering with Trans Lifeline. I'm proudly bisexual, trans, and nonbinary. Oh yeah, and one time I was on Jeopardy!
What hardware do you use?
Most of my work takes place on my 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro in Space Gray which is spec'd out with a 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, 32 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of flash storage. It's connected to an LG UltraFine 5K Display, Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and a RØDE Podcaster when I'm guesting on podcasts.
I'm lit by an El Gato Key Light Air, write with a Pilot Hi-Tec-C or Lamy 2000, and keep track of my daily writing habit with the Every Day Calendar. All of these objects are often within reach on my Artifox Desk 01 or sometimes packed in a black leather Hard Graft backpack.
When I'm out and about or (more often these days) lounging in my apartment, I use a Pacific Blue iPhone 12 Pro or a Space Gray 11" iPad Pro to check-in on social media and get work done and a Kindle Voyage to read books.
I'm most often wearing a pronoun pin from Gamut Pins, a 44 mm Stainless Steel Apple Watch Series 5 with a Solo Loop band in Deep Navy, Tom Ford lip color in Cherry Lush, Glossier Boy Brow in Clear, Escentric 03 perfume, denim from Nudie, and Atoms sneakers. I carry AirPods Pro plus my cards and keys in a wallet and pouch from Hard Graft.
Pleasure is as important as work. I brew coffee from Bottomless ground by the Baratza Virtuoso with a Chemex, tea from Harney & Sons in the Joey Roth Sorapot, and mix cocktails with equipment from Cocktail Kingdom. My sex toy collection is extensive, thanks in part to being married to a sex blogger who always knows what's good; I like the stuff from Njoy and Fun Factory.
And what software?
I have an often obsessive, love-hate relationship with software as someone who's been using it and making it for most of my life. I feel like I've tried it all, with 242 applications currently on my computer and 465 on my phone. Here are just some of the things I use technology to do and the apps I use to do them:
Work
- Get things done with OmniFocus
- Design in Sketch and hand-off with Zeplin
- Code in Xcode and Nova, commit in Tower, and push to GitHub (PS: Drop ICE)
- Track bugs in Linear and build times in Buildwatch
- Pay people with Justworks, invoice with Harvest, and bookkeep in Xero
- Schedule meetings with Fantastical and Calendly
- Share documents with iCloud Drive and Google Drive
- Email in Mail.app
- Collaborate on work in Notion and communicate day-to-day in Slack and Hangouts Meet
- Build websites with Jekyll and publish with Siteleaf to GitHub Pages
- Automate my work with Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, Zapier, and TextExpander
Creation
- Write in Ulysses
- Take notes in Roam Research
- Make slides for presentations in Keynote
- Shoot photos in Halide, edit in Darkroom, and manage in Photos
- Record audio with Piezo, video with QuickTime, and screencasts with ScreenFlow
Consumption
- Browse the web in Safari and bookmark the best stuff on Pinboard
- Block ads and trackers with 1Blocker and spam calls with CallProtect
- Read news in Brief, RSS feeds in Reeder, newsletters from Substack, and longer articles in Instapaper
- Watch videos on YouTube and Apple TV
- Listen to podcasts in Overcast or via PodcastMenu on the Mac
- Support my favorite creators on Patreon
- Read books via Kindle and review highlights in Readwise
- Socialize on Twitter, Instagram, Letterboxd, Goodreads, Reddit, and (regrettably) Facebook
Miscellaneous
- Launch apps with Alfred
- Plan for the day's weather using Weather Line
- Track flights in Flighty
- Maintain healthy habits with Streaks, Fitness, WaterMinder, and Gyroscope
- Budget in Copilot
- Store passwords in 1Password and 2FA codes in Authy
- Manage windows with Moom, AirPods with AirBuddy, and menu bar items with Bartender
- Keep in touch with friends via Messages, Discord, and FaceTime
What would be your dream setup?
Technology that serves us, rather than the other way around. Hardware that just works™ consistently, without all the fuss. Software that is fast, designed for the platform it runs on, and gets out of the way. In a phrase, don't make me think.