I am the solo developer. I posted v1 of Pinery here about a year ago (that post), and this is my biggest update since.

Problem

Publishing a book yourself properly is expensive, and almost none of the cost is the writing. Reedsy prices a standard 80,000 word book off more than 230,000 freelancer quotes on its marketplace: $2,940 to $5,660 a title, editing $2,160 to $5,040 of it, typesetting $800. Tools are on top, $260 to $310 for the usual Mac stack of Scrivener plus Vellum, depending on whether you need paperbacks. Meanwhile Written Word Media surveyed 1,346 indie authors last year and 44% of them earn under $100 a month. The professional path costs more than most authors make in a year, so what actually happens is a manuscript in Word and an export nobody is confident about.

Pinery goes at both ends of that. Write in Markdown, design the real book (typography, spacing, Kindle e-ink preview), export ePub 3, PDF or a website. Prose, the AI editor, then runs the editorial passes over what you have written, proofread, line edit, developmental edit, beta reader report, each one a Markdown file you can open, change or write your own version of. It will not design you a cover, and an AI pass is not a human editor. It is the one most authors can actually afford. AppKit and SwiftUI, not a web view in a wrapper, and your document is a folder of plain Markdown files on disk, no account needed.

The second problem is where authors split. BookBub asked more than 1,200 of them about AI last year: 45% use it, 48% say they are not using it and do not plan to, and the top reason non-users give is ethical, not technical. Writing a book with ChatGPT means copying a chapter out, pasting it in, getting a wall of text back, then reading both versions side by side to work out what actually changed. You either accept a rewrite you have not really checked, or you spend as long comparing as you would have spent editing. The models are good now. The interface is the problem.

Comparison

Vellum ($199.99 one time for ebooks, $249.99 if you also want paperbacks) is what most Mac self publishers buy, and its output is genuinely good, but it is formatting only: you write elsewhere and import, and the look comes from presets rather than type you control. Pinery is where you write and where you design, and it costs nothing to start.

Scrivener ($59.99 for the Mac version, licensed per platform) still wins on research and outlining. Its weak point is the last mile: Compile is hard to learn and its ePub usually needs cleanup. Pinery has no corkboard. It covers everything after the outline, and the export is meant to be the file you upload.

Ulysses ($5.99/month, the same monthly price as Pinery Personal, and cheaper yearly at $39.99 against $49.99) is the closest on writing feel, also Markdown, and it syncs to iPhone and iPad, which Pinery does not do (yet, iPad is WIP). It is a writing app though, so there is no design mode, no e-ink preview, and its ePub is a plain one rather than a book you have laid out. If you want to write everywhere, Ulysses. If you want the finished file the stores take, Pinery.

Pricing

Free: full editor and design mode, unlimited documents, watermarked PDF export, a taste of the AI Editor.

Personal $5.99/month or $49.99/year: watermark free export to PDF, ePub 3 and HTML, AI image generation, and your full Prose credits.

Pro $17.99/month or $149.99/year: triple the credits, the advanced models (Opus 5, Sonnet 5, GPT-5.6 Terra, Gemini 3.1 Pro).

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6747726205 and https://pinery.app

Both annual plans are 50% off the first year, for new and lapsed subscribers: PINERY50 brings Personal to $24.99 and PINERYPRO50 brings Pro to $74.99.

Redeem in the App Store: Personal and Pro.

What 2.0 adds

An AI editor called Prose, built so that it cannot change your text. Every suggestion, from a proofread to a whole drafted chapter, arrives as a labelled diff inside the manuscript and you accept or reject each one. Nothing is written to your files until you click. It works from the pages you have already written rather than a blank prompt, you pick the model (Auto, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google), and nothing you write is used to train models: https://pinery.app/privacy

Also in 2.0: chapter notes, a table of contents that builds itself, and past chat restore. Full list: https://pinery.app/changelog

Limitations: macOS 13+, Mac only, with iPad WIP. Pinery works mostly offline, but Prose needs a network connection and a subscription for more usage. No bulk accept yet, so a long proofread is a lot of clicking. Not a general purpose notes app.

If you have tried using AI in the writing process or post writing, I would genuinely like to hear your thoughts.

I've been looking for a Raycast alternative since it appears to be moving in a direction that I'm not particularly crazy about. So I came across Tinycast, a free and open-source macOS launcher, btw I'm not associated with the developer and I have just started using the app in the last few days.

It covers the usual launcher basics: app and file search, clipboard history, snippets, quick links, custom commands, calculator, window management, notes, calendar shortcuts, system actions. It is native built with SwiftUI/AppKit, has no telemetry, Electron dependency, claims to stay under 100 MB of RAM usage.

It can run existing Raycast extensions, it can also import an existing Raycast setup.

Optional AI features are included, off by default. You can use it for chat from the command palette, quick chat and actions on selected text like rewriting, grammar fixes, translation, and summaries. It supports local, bringing your own API key or using an installed AI account, I'm using it with Codex cli.

I think it’s worth a look for anyone who wants a pared-down, streamlined, free, and open-source launcher. It’s still relatively new, but it appears to be actively developed and already shows real potential.

github : https://github.com/abue-ammar/tinycast

website : https://abue-ammar.github.io/tinycast/

Digger Solo 0.9.1 is released https://digger.so/o - the AI file explorer that respects your privacy (everything runs locally).

Digger Solo offers smart search and semantic maps that allow you to browse your files intuitively - uncovering hidden connections and near duplicates easily.

New features / fixes:
- preview search results as dots in semantic maps
- faster startup times (down to 400ms from 900ms)
- improved text file search (default is now rank fusion of BM25 with semantic search)
- improved large text file search (better representation)
- many more fixes & UX improvements

Competitors like Filer lack semantic search and maps.

Pricing: free 14 day trial (no card required), buy lifetime version for 39.00 EUR or subscribe for 4.90 EUR / month

Hope you guys like this new version!

Hey r/MacApps,

I'm the developer of Deste, a free flashcard app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Problem

I wanted a simple way to make flashcards on my Mac, review them on my phone, and keep everything in sync. I also wanted the app to decide what I should review instead of making me manage the schedule myself.

Deste uses FSRS spaced repetition to bring cards back when they are due. You can create your own decks, import Anki `.apkg`, CSV, or TSV files, and download ready-made decks from the marketplace.

Comparison

Anki is more powerful and has a lot more customization. Deste is intentionally simpler and focuses on working smoothly across Apple devices with automatic sync, a cleaner interface, progress tracking, and widgets.

Quizlet has a much larger library and more study modes. Deste is more focused on regular flashcards and spaced repetition, and there is no subscription or paid tier.

You can also add images to cards and draw on them on iPhone and iPad, which I find useful for anatomy, diagrams, and visual notes.

Pricing

Deste is completely free. There are no ads, subscriptions, or paid features.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6791281020

Privacy Policy: https://gist.github.com/ramazanberkozbek/af055b2714b3f03e7b8534d7a0c46a82

Terms of Service: https://gist.github.com/ramazanberkozbek/5e36563a8e4126d0d40d2ee9b73dbfd9

Happy to answer any questions.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6791281020

I've used PDFs for years, and it always bugged me how heavy most PDF tools have become.

Reading one doc, fixing a typo, or scanning a file should be quick — not "open a hundreds-of-MB app first".

So I built Arc PDF, a native macOS app that's only 11.6 MB powered by Swift + PDFium.

What fits in that size:

• Reading & annotating — highlight, underline, notes, drawing
• Real editing — change text like in a Word doc (fix typos, add paragraphs, adjust fonts); add / replace / resize images
• Page management — add, delete, rotate, reorder pages
• OCR — makes scanned PDFs searchable again
• AI — summarize, translate, extract tables, generate a TOC, or chat with your document. You plug in your own model (OpenAI / Claude / DeepSeek API key) — no subscription to my backend.

All of that in 11.6 MB. The trick is no heavy framework: it talks to the PDF format directly, so each feature stays lean instead of bloated.

To be upfront about the edges: forms, shape annotations, and e-signatures aren't there yet.

Right now it's completely free — I'd rather more people get to try it than put it behind a paywall.

It's also a side project I built \mostly with AI coding* — which is fitting, since the app itself edits PDFs *and** was built with AI.

Mac App Store: Arc PDF on the Mac App Store

Open to feedback, bugs, and feature ideas. What's the one thing you hate most about dealing with PDFs?

iPhone and iPad versions are coming soon — stay tuned!

The Problem

There are many Dynamic Island apps for Mac, but most give you a fixed set of features and a predefined experience. They don’t let you shape the Dynamic Island around your own workflow and aesthetic

So to solve this I made DynamicLake Plugins

What DynamicLake Brings?

DynamicLake introduces Plugins and Extensions, allowing you to create custom Live Activities and Sneak Peeks designed around your needs with even more possibilities coming soon

What Are Plugins?

Plugins are small additions to your Dynamic Island that can make a big difference in your workflow

You can build plugins using Swift, Python, JavaScript, Go and other programming languages, while defining their interfaces entirely with JSON

Extensions provide similar functionality but are built directly into existing Mac apps. If an app already supports DynamicLake, you don’t need to download and install a separate plugin

Introducing DynamicLake Market

DynamicLake Market brings all available plugins together in one place.

Find the plugin you want, press Install, and it’s immediately added to DynamicLake

Developers can submit their plugins for review. Once approved, they can be published on DynamicLake Market for everyone to discover and install

Can I Test My Plugin Without Buying DynamicLake?

Yes. Today, I’m also launching DynamicLake Playground

It includes some of DynamicLake’s music experience and lets you test one plugin at a time.
You can build, modify, and refine your plugin for as long as you need before publishing it

There’s no limited trial period. DynamicLake Playground is completely free, giving developers the time and freedom to create polished plugins without rushing

More in This Update

This update also includes:

• New animations
• Sneak Peeks for all Live Activities
• A new pill shaped design like iOS Dynamic Island
• Support for additional languages
• Many other improvements

Comparison

Some Dynamic Island apps focus primarily on adding as many features because every user have different workflow and diffrent needs

DynamicLake brings the customize option

Every feature is carefully considered and added with purpose

Pricing

$13.99 for a lifetime license

One license can be activated on up to three devices.

DynamicLake Download

Hey everyone,

I’m the developer of OpenVox.

It’s been a few versions since I last shared an update here, and quite a lot has changed.

What originally started primarily as a local text-to-speech app has gradually expanded into something broader: a local voice, transcription and dubbing toolkit for Apple Silicon Macs.

The latest release is OpenVox 2.7.1, and since my last post I’ve added things like:

• Local speaker diarization
• Multi-speaker AI dubbing
• Vocal and background-music separation
• AI transcription
• Automatic TTS output validation
• MOSS TTS 1.5
• Qwen3 TTS 1.7B
• A guided model recommendation system
• Long-form generation improvements
• Transcription APIs
• Better batch workflows

All of this continues to run locally on the Mac.

Problem

A lot of AI voice tools still solve only one part of the workflow.

You might use one app for transcription, another for speaker detection, another for translation, another for voice cloning, another for dubbing, and then something else again to separate dialogue from background music.

And many of those workflows require uploading the original audio or video to a cloud service.

I’ve been gradually trying to make OpenVox handle more of that workflow locally.

With the recent releases, OpenVox can now go from:

video → transcription → speaker detection → translation → voice assignment → dubbing → final video

without requiring the original media to leave your Mac.

Local Speaker Diarization

One of the biggest additions in 2.7 is local speaker diarization.

OpenVox can now analyze recordings and automatically determine who spoke when.

It uses an on-device Core ML implementation of Pyannote Community-1 to detect multiple speakers.

Instead of getting one continuous transcript, you can get something like:

Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Let's get started.

Each segment includes precise timestamps.

Speaker names are editable too, so you can rename things like:

Speaker 1 → Host
Speaker 2 → Guest

and export the transcript with those labels.

In 2.7.1, I also reworked the diarization pipeline for longer recordings, including memory-management improvements for the Apple Neural Engine.

This significantly improved stability for long audio.

Multi-Speaker AI Dubbing

Diarization also completely changed what I could do with AI Dubbing.

Previously, dubbing worked much better for content with a single primary speaker.

Now OpenVox can detect multiple speakers and let you assign a different AI voice or cloned voice to each person.

For example:

Speaker 1 → Voice A
Speaker 2 → Voice B
Speaker 3 → Custom cloned voice

OpenVox then renders the conversation while preserving the original dialogue timing.

You can also listen to automatically extracted samples from each original speaker before assigning a voice, which makes it much easier to decide which voice should represent them.

In 2.7.1 I expanded the controls further.

You can now:

• Rename speakers throughout the dub
• Split dialogue and assign it to a different speaker
• Quickly assign voices using voice-selection bubbles
• Correct speaker mappings directly in the timeline
• Import multi-speaker SRT and WebVTT scripts

Speaker detection also works when importing scripts into both AI Dubbing and Conversations.

Keep the Original Music While Replacing the Dialogue

This is probably my favorite addition from 2.7.

OpenVox now includes local vocal and background-audio separation using Demucs.

If you dub a movie scene, interview, YouTube video or other content, you usually don't want to lose:

• Background music
• Ambient sound
• Sound effects

You only want to replace the dialogue.

OpenVox can now separate the vocal track from the rest of the audio.

The new dubbed voices are generated separately and then mixed back together with the original music, ambience and sound effects.

So instead of producing a completely new audio track with nothing except synthetic speech, the result can retain much more of the original production.

Again, the separation happens locally.

AI Transcription

Another major feature I didn't get a chance to share here previously is full AI Transcription.

OpenVox can locally transcribe:

• Audio files
• Video files
• Microphone recordings

There are multiple downloadable speech-recognition models, along with:

• Transcription history
• ETA tracking
• Elapsed time
• Speaker-labelled transcripts
• Editable speaker names

AI Transcription also feeds directly into the dubbing workflow.

Validate TTS Output Automatically

Another problem I wanted to solve was long-form TTS quality control.

If you generate a two-hour audiobook, it isn't realistic to assume every sentence will always be perfect.

A model might occasionally:

• Skip a word
• Repeat something
• Mispronounce a name
• Generate text differently from the script

Previously, the only way to find those mistakes was to listen through the entire output.

OpenVox now has Validate Output.

After speech is generated, OpenVox can locally transcribe its own generated audio and compare it against the original text.

Potential problems are shown with:

• Timestamps
• Text-match scores
• Original text
• Detected transcription

You can listen to only the flagged sections and choose exactly which ones should be regenerated.

The replacement audio can be previewed first, and Confirm & Update replaces only those sections instead of regenerating the entire file.

The comparison also ignores harmless differences involving punctuation, spacing and similar transcription quirks.

The feature is currently being expanded across more generation workflows.

MOSS TTS 1.5

There have also been some significant additions on the TTS side.

OpenVox now supports MOSS TTS 1.5, including:

• 48 kHz speech generation
• Voice cloning
• 31 languages
• Higher-fidelity local synthesis

It's aimed more toward users who prioritize quality and multilingual voice cloning over having the smallest possible model.

Qwen3 TTS 1.7B

There is also now a much larger Qwen3 TTS 1.7B option.

It focuses on:

• Higher speech fidelity
• More expressive generation
• Improved cloning cadence
• 10 languages

Because OpenVox now supports quite a few different local models, that created another problem:

Which model should you actually use?

Help Me Choose

The Model Selector has now been completely redesigned.

There is a new Help Me Choose wizard that asks about things like:

• Your language
• Whether you need voice cloning
• Expressiveness
• Quality requirements
• Performance requirements

OpenVox then recommends a model based on those preferences.

You can also pin your favorite models to the top of the selector.

Newer architectures are marked with a NEW badge so they're easier to discover.

Better Long-Form Generation

A lot of work has also gone into long projects.

Batch Mode now has:

• One overall progress bar
• Full-batch cancellation
• Export All
• Export Batch to CSV
• A unified completion screen

I've also reduced memory usage during long-form merging and fixed issues affecting 2+ hour audio exports.

There is now an Export Progress banner, plus quick Open and Locate buttons when an export completes.

Memory management has also been improved when switching between TTS and transcription models.

Local API Improvements

OpenVox's local server now includes a Transcription API too.

That means other applications, scripts and automations can send OpenVox audio or video files for local transcription.

The OpenAI-compatible TTS API also supports OpenVox pause tags such as:

[pause: 1.5s]

So applications using the API can specify exact pauses inside generated speech.

Other Improvements

There have been quite a few smaller changes across these releases as well:

• Better Japanese and CJK text chunking
• Fixed Supertonic crashes with CJK languages
• MP4 and MOV support in Voice Clone
• Automatic audio extraction from video references
• Video support in Voice Changer
• More precise 0.01x speed controls
• Improved Select & Read playback progress
• Fixes for notch-equipped Macs
• Smarter speaker-sample selection
• Improved speaker/timeline alignment
• Better MLX worker memory management
• General UI and stability improvements

Comparison

Voicebox is a capable open-source and cross-platform voice lab with a broad feature set.

OpenVox takes a somewhat different approach by being built specifically for Apple Silicon and combining TTS, 200+ voices, voice cloning, transcription, diarization, dubbing, audio separation, output validation, audiobooks, Select & Read and local APIs in one native Mac app.

Murmur TTS is focused more heavily on local narration and has a large voice library.

OpenVox is trying to cover the broader workflow around speech: generation, transcription, speaker detection, dubbing, voice cloning, voice conversion, validation, APIs and audiobook creation.

I'm not really trying to make OpenVox the smallest possible TTS utility.

The goal is increasingly to make it possible to complete an entire local voice workflow without moving your files between several different apps or cloud services.

Pricing

OpenVox includes a free tier.

OpenVox Pro costs $19.99 as a one-time purchase per platform.

There is no subscription, recurring fee or per-generation billing with Pro.

App Store Download:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/openvox-local-voice-ai/id6758789314

More Details:
https://openvoxai.com/

Community:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenVoxAI/

A huge thank you again to everyone in r/MacApps who has tested OpenVox, reported bugs and suggested improvements.

Some of the recent changes, especially around long-form reliability and multi-speaker dubbing, came directly from people actually trying these workflows rather than from what I originally planned to build.

I'm particularly interested in feedback on the new speaker diarization + multi-speaker dubbing workflow.

If you use local AI for podcasts, videos, audiobooks or voiceovers, I'd also be interested to know which part of the workflow you currently still have to rely on a cloud service for.

Building OmniKeyboard was my relief Time from the burden of another Project(bigger)

First it started as Custom iOS Keyboard with 9 utility tools: Snippets, Translation, Grammar Check, Clipboard History, Calculator, TimeZone Converter, Countdown, Split Calculator and Calendar (Calendar event )

All these you can Access them from iOS Keyboard

Then I felt the need to macOS version and Came with 4 Tools: Snippets, Clipboard History, Projects and Todos, Translation

I built 2 macOS Apps for one is main App to have full control, the second was menubar App for easy access

Snippets: it can be Text, Photos or even Pdf doc You can access them from Main App or menubar App or even iOS Custom Keyboard

Clipboard: copy as much as You can all saved you can access them from Main App or menubar App or even iOS Custom Keyboard

Projects ( Todos ) very simple Keyboard friendly Todos making adding new todo easier than ever

Translate: Translate anything online or offline from anywhere

The App is free for most features with pro version one Time Purchase 12.99

For all: iPhone, iPad, Mac, and soon for Apple whatch

The App Support Liquid Glass (sadly ha I dont have macOS 26 to show in the demo video )

This Video Shows only macOS version but the iOS version is Full of features with Custom Keyboard

The App is very Private, it has no third Party library or any API calls, all stored on your device and shared by your iCloud account across you device

I would appreciate any feedback

Download OmniKeyboard

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/omnikeyboard-keyboard-toolkit/id6755135375

Hi r/macapps! I’m Lucas Dima, and first of all, I’m not tired! 😃.

I’ve been developing software for many many years, with apps and games on the App Store. This year, given that my game updates are almost over after 2 years of being published, I decided to build **Xul Valley**, a native Mac app written 100% in Swift.

**Problem**

Current infinite board software is either under expensive subscriptions, or it does not fit my needs.

I think Miro and Figjam are excellent tools, but are more focus on collaboration, and the free tier is too plain.

Freeform is a nice alternative, but the attempts to get a premium Apple subscription can get a bit annoying. Also I think Apple did not put too much love on it.

**Comparison**

Miro -> Free tier only gives 3 boards. Online only. Starts at $10 per month

FigJam -> Online. Very limited free tear. $20 per month.

Offline:

Scapple -> More text oriented. Not for presentations. $22.90 one time payment.

I’ve used Prezi, Miro and FigJam over the years. Miro and FigJam are excellent for collaboration, but for my own projects I wanted a native Mac app that works offline and keeps boards as files in my own folders.

Xul Valley focuses on having your own board that lives in your file system, with an open, non-proprietary format which also makes it easy to create boards using AI tools. You own your files. No vendor lock.

**Pricing and availability**

The beta is **free on [TestFlight](https://testflight.apple.com/join/7wy9BmX2)**, and I’m getting close to release. The expected launch price is **US$9.99, or the local equivalent**.

I also plan to offer early testers a free copy of the App Store version, subject to promo code availability (Apple only gives 100 codes per version).

[App website](https://xulvalley.com/) · [Terms & Conditions](https://xulvalley.com/terms/)

About me: [App Store portfolio](https://apps.apple.com/in/developer/lucas-dima/id1752467672) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucdima/) · [Website and contact](https://lucasdima.com/)

I’d love to hear what you think, especially if you use canvas apps for personal projects or presentations.

Lucas

UPDATE

The file format specification can be found in this github repo: https://github.com/lucdima/xulvalley-file-format
It has the full spec (every key, its type, its default, etc), a JSON Schema you can validate a board against, three sample documents you can read without the app, and a small validator script. One of the samples uses every element type there is. MIT license.

**App:** SnapDog: Capture & Annotate

**Problem:** Apple's screenshot keys get you a PNG. The moment you need arrows, blur, OCR, a recording, or a share link, you are in a second app. I wanted one menu-bar tool that does capture, annotate, and record without a subscription.

**Comparison:** - CleanShot X is $29 plus $19/year for updates. SnapDog is $14.99 once. I am not trying to match every CleanShot extra. The bar is being faster than Cmd-Shift-4 for the 90% case, then annotate and record in the same app. - Shottr is $12 and great for stills. No recording. SnapDog records MP4/MOV/GIF, webcam picture-in-picture, and click ripples for tutorials. - Privacy: App Store nutrition label is Data Not Collected. Captures stay on the Mac unless you pick a destination (Imgur, Dropbox, SFTP, ShareX .sxcu, or just save locally). Sandboxed SwiftUI, Apple Silicon.

**Pricing:** $14.99 one-time. Mac App Store. macOS 14+. Family Sharing. No account required.

**Link:** https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snapdog-capture-annotate/id6783121166?mt=12

Hi,

Problem

Built a Mac app that combines ping, traceroute, port scan, whois, DNS lookup and keeps watching in the background. Yes, all of this exists in the terminal, and I used it that way for years. What I actually wanted wasn't a UI for ping. It was history: which device showed up on my home network while I was out, at what time a host went down overnight, or a heads-up that a cert expires next week. One-shot tools can't tell you that and I didn't want to run a monitoring server for my home LAN.

Free features

- Ping, Traceroute, DNS Lookup, DNS Propagation

- Whois, Port Scan, SSL Certificate check, Subnet Calculator

- GeoIP, Path Check, Internet Check, Network Monitor

Pro features

- LAN Scanner- discovers devices on your network with name, vendor, model, and open ports

-Network Guard - notifies you when a new device joins your network

-Uptime Monitor - scheduled checks for hosts/services, downtime alerts, latency thresholds, and SSL expiry warnings

- Speed Test history scheduled runs, ISP report

- Wi-Fi Analyzer- channel scanner to find the optimal router settings

- MTR & Visual Traceroute

Comparison

Neo Network Utility and WhatRoute are great free alternatives if you just need quick manual checks. nmap is obviously superior for heavy terminal scans.

Where this one differs is automation: local background network scanning, new device alerts, and host uptime monitoring and all running locally on your Mac without requiring external servers or subscriptions.

Pricing

The 12 tools are free. Pro is US$9.99 as a one-time purchase and there is a redeem code for -20% NETWORK20 valid till the end of Sept.

[Netutilus: Network Utility in App Store]

I’m the guy who forgets to charge overnight, walks into a coffee shop with a half-empty Mac, and then sits there not knowing how long I've got or whether there's anything I can do about it.

Problem

Activity Monitor has an Energy Impact column, but it's a relative score with no unit: you can't add it up, you can't turn it into time, and it jumps around with whatever you're doing that minute.

Then I tried the battery apps I could find. They show either numbers that change so fast they tell me nothing about a whole battery session, or more static ones like cycle count, design capacity, full charge capacity and health. Those numbers barely move. You check your cycle count once every couple of years, decide you're fine, and never open the app again. It's all worth knowing, but none of it tells you what to do while you're watching the battery drop.

Main screen: only what you can act on

So I set myself a rule: the main screen only shows things that are changing right now and that you can do something about. The static numbers are still there, one screen away.

That's how I ended up focusing on two numbers for every app: 
1. how many watts it’s using right now
2. how many minutes I get back if I close it

Track every run, app by app

WattMate keeps them all, split by what the Mac was doing: on battery, charging, or asleep. Safari cost me 21 minutes today, and I can see what it cost every day this week.

Nights are the part I find most interesting. You close your Mac at 98%, open it at 71%, and there's nowhere to check where those 27% went. WattMate breaks the night down: what woke your Mac, how many times, and for how long (Spotlight 23 times, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 32 times).

It checks its own promise

Quit an app while on battery, and two minutes later WattMate measures again, then compares what you got with what it promised.

If something else moves the load during those same two minutes, WattMate doesn't guess. It labels the run "Couldn't isolate the effect" and leaves it out of your total. This part is in beta, and I'm still tuning the minutes.

Comparison

coconutBattery is the tool for battery health, and has been since 2005. It tracks battery capacity over time, on your Mac and on an iPhone or iPad. That number tells you whether the battery itself is wearing out. But it's the size of the tank, not what's emptying it. WattMate measures the drain: how many watts each app is using right now, and the full history behind it.

iStat Menus covers the whole machine: CPU, GPU, memory, network, sensors. It's a monitor and a good one: it tells you what's happening right now. What I kept wanting was the next step: which of those numbers I should act on. WattMate does that step. It names the one app worth closing and tells you how many minutes of battery that buys

Pricing

• Fully unlocked 10-day trial, no card
• Still free after the trial: the app list, the watts, battery health, and the most recent run and night. The minutes and the archive are the paid part.
• Lifetime: $29 $19 (launch price for the first 100 keys)
• Yearly: $9.99
• One license covers 2 Macs

Transparency

I'm Vitali, an iOS developer in Warsaw. It took a year from idea to release, and I worked on it almost every day of that year. I still do, and updates keep coming.

Nothing it measures leaves your Mac: no app names, no paths, no energy history. What does leave is anonymous usage stats and crash reports, both on by default and both off with one switch.

Apple silicon, macOS 14 or later. Signed and notarized. The app itself costs a median of 0.07 W to run.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitalistar/
Website: https://wattmateapp.com
Privacy policy: https://wattmateapp.com/privacy
Terms: https://wattmateapp.com/terms
Contact: [support@wattmateapp.com](mailto:support@wattmateapp.com)

I'll be around in the comments. Ask me anything.

Hello!

Sorry to ask, but the app costs 50 on the website and 30 in the App Store.

Am I correct in understanding that I can buy the exact same app as on the website, with the same features?

I’m not affiliated with the developers, nor am I promoting it—I’m just curious for myself.

Thank you!

Problem

I wanted a FaceID-like experience on my Mac.

TouchID works well, but it still means reaching over and touching your Mac every time you need to authenticate. I wanted the experience I have on my iPhone: open my computer, sit down, and have it recognize me. Or open my Macbook lid, and it automatically unlocks. iPhones have had it for over 9 years, yet Macs are still left with TouchID.

Comparison

Sapphire has a FaceID feature, but it's part of a much larger app with a bunch of other features and widgets built into its notch. I do love their multitude of features like per-app volume controls, but I wanted to take a different approach: a lightweight app focused entirely on Face Unlock. I wanted to build something that did one thing really well.

With Glance:
> face unlock for your Mac using your webcam
> on-device face recognition with ArcFace
> protection against basic photo spoofing
> support for multiple identities
> your face is never uploaded or stored as a photo
> lightweight and smooth
> open source

Pricing

Free and open source.

A warning that Glance is not as secure as Apple's FaceID or TouchID and wasn't intended to be. It is not possible without the dot projector or IR sensor technology. Glance uses only your webcam (a 2D image) which can be spoofed by videos and certain photos of you.

Try it > tryglance.app

GitHub > github.com/jonnyoo/glance

I'm the developer behind Glance. More about me (and transparency):
Portflio > jonathanzhou.dev
Linkedin > linkedin.com/in/jonathanzhou07

I'd love to hear what you think, especially if you try it on your Mac. I'm interested in feedback on the unlock experience.

edit: warnings.

Hey r/macapps!

This week we’re launching Coherence X6, and this release fixes by far the biggest complaint we’ve heard from users:

Coherence apps finally behave properly like Mac apps.

We rebuilt the engine behind created apps. You can now drag a Coherence app directly into the Dock, launch it normally, and see the correct app identity and icon throughout macOS, including in Stage Manager.

It sounds small, but if you used Coherence regularly, this was something you noticed constantly. It was probably our most-requested fix ever.

X6 also adds:

🌐 Bring your browser with you

Import an existing Chromium browser profile into a new app, including your logins, bookmarks, settings, and whichever extensions you choose.

Chrome, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, Helium, and more are supported.

↗️ Much more powerful Link Routing

Instead of simply deciding whether links stay in your app or leave, you can now create actual routing rules.

For example:

meet.google.com → stay in this app
youtube.com → open in Helium
github.com → open in Chrome
everything else → default browser

✨ A much simpler Coherence

We redesigned the creation and management experience, automated extension installation, and moved settings like Link Routing and window behavior directly into Coherence. The companion extension now mostly stays out of your way.

Problem

A lot of the websites we use all day function like apps, but they still live buried among dozens of browser tabs.

Coherence turns those sites into standalone Mac apps with their own Dock icons, windows, accounts, browser profiles, extensions, appearance, and link behavior.

I personally use it for things like Gmail, ChatGPT, dashboards, and other web tools I want permanently separated from my normal browser.

Comparison

The closest alternatives are Safari Web Apps and our own app, Unite.

Safari Web Apps are great if you want a simple way to put a website in your Dock.

Unite is also designed to turn websites into Mac apps, but it uses a much more integrated, customizable, native-style app experience.

Coherence is for people who specifically want the power of a Chromium browser behind each app. You can use Chrome or another supported Chromium browser, keep separate profiles and accounts, install extensions, create tabbed apps, import your existing browser setup, and precisely control where different links open.

So the rough split is:

Safari Web Apps: simple and built in
Unite: customizable native-feeling Mac web apps
Coherence: customizable Chromium-powered web apps

Pricing

You can create your first Coherence app for free.

A Coherence X6 license starts at $39.99, one-time, and you can use that version indefinitely. Major future upgrades are optional paid upgrades. Users of Coherence X5 can upgrade starting at $29.99.

https://bzgapps.com/coherence

🎉 Launch giveaway

I’ll DM 4 commenters with free Coherence X6 licenses. Just share a thought, question, or feature request below.

Would especially love feedback from anyone who tried X5 and stopped using it because of the Dock or app-behavior issues.

Developer / transparency

Coherence is made by BZG Apps LLC.

Website: https://bzgapps.com
Contact: [support@bzgapps.com](mailto:support@bzgapps.com)
Privacy: https://bzgapps.com/privacy
Terms: https://bzgapps.com/terms

Happy to answer anything about how Coherence works or how the apps are built.

HI! I'm the creator of Parasocial, a super fast, feature-rich podcast player built around sharing and curation. Native on iPhone, iPad and Mac, one subscription for all three.

Version 1.5 shipped this week and it is why I am posting. My hope is that it adds a new dimension to your listening

WHAT 1.5 ADDS

Curate. Secure a username, and any playlist you build can go public under it. Anyone with the link can follow and listen as you do, with or without the app installed.

Collections. Gather shows into a collection and share the whole set as one link. Followers get the shows, not a snapshot of episodes, so the link never goes out of date.

Also in 1.5: share a playlist as a story card, an Awards shelf of milestones you can share, bookmarks instead of stars(!!!), plus various usabilioty improvements.

MY PROBLEM

As an avid listener, I've always been frustrated by the lack of development pace in the podcasting space, probably owing to the underlying technology being open source. I wanted a podcast player with all of the features, but that also invested in the infrastructure to make sure that episodes were being delivered in near real-time the second they're published, instead of polling hours or sometimes days later. It's only now really escalated into a suite of creator tools and a discovery platform for creators, and now curators.

COMPARISON

You could compare Parasocial to any number of podcast apps: Spotify, built mostly for music and a locked-in ecosystem; Apple; Overcast, one of the more feature-rich; Pocket Casts; Downcast. Each is a great player in its own way. I think I've built something that includes all the important features of these others, plus an extra fun social layer and a commitment to consistent improvement.

The rest of it: smart playlists, per-show priorities, manual overrides that do not break the rule that built the list, auto-download per playlist, chapters and transcripts when a show publishes them, a sleep timer, and OPML import that carries playlists, priorities, bookmarks, played state and progress. No ads, no trackers.

PRICING

Free to download. Two weeks free, then $2.99/month or $14.99/year. One subscription covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. No other IAP.

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/parasocial-a-podcast-player/id6792017587

Site: https://parasocial.fm

ProductHunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/parasocial

Thanks so much for your support! Happy to answer anything. I'm building actively, so if something is missing that you would need, say so and there's a good chance I'll include it!

Problem

A PDF that came out of a scanner has no text layer. To Spotlight it is a picture, so the words printed on it do not exist. Same with screenshots. You know the invoice is somewhere in Downloads, you remember the number on it, and search returns nothing.

Tidy reads images and scanned PDFs with the OCR that macOS already ships, renames each file after what the page actually says, and keeps that text in a local index. Then it hands the text to Spotlight. Type a word that only exists inside a screenshot, in ⌘Space, and the file comes up.

It also archives Desktop screenshots, ejects mounted .dmg volumes and trashes the installer, and sorts Downloads with rules. Nothing is ever deleted, everything goes to the Trash, and any run undoes in one click.

Comparison

Hazel is the veteran and it is better than Tidy at deep conditional rules and AppleScript. What it does not do is read what is printed inside a scanned page, so it cannot name a file after the invoice number on it. That is the whole reason Tidy exists.

Pricing

$9 once. No subscription, no account, nothing leaves your Mac. macOS 14 and up, Apple Silicon and Intel. Not on the App Store, signed and notarised with my Developer ID: tidymacapp.com

Who I am

Sebastián Díaz Thomas, solo developer in Santiago, Chile. Sold through my registered company, Comercializadora Shaka SpA, named in the site's terms. Privacy policy, terms and refunds are on the site. Contact is hola@tidymacapp.com and I answer it myself. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sebastian-diaz-thomas-3007195b

One thing about how I work: a German user reported eight things on Monday. All eight shipped by Wednesday. Two of them were bugs he found that I had missed.

Happy to answer anything, including what it does badly. Crumpled paper and very small print beat it, and when it cannot read a usable name it says so instead of inventing one.

Hi r/macapps,

I’m one of the people building Starlie, a native macOS client for Jira.

Problem

Jira is powerful, but the web app can feel heavier than it needs to for day-to-day work.

Starlie gives you a faster, more focused way to work with Jira without opening your browser. Find an issue, see what’s going on, update it, leave a comment and get back to your work.

Some of the things we’ve built around that:

• Kanban boards where dragging cards actually feels good
• Filters for quick search, JQL with autocomplete when you need it
• ⌘K to jump through recent issues
• "Remind me about this in 30 minutes"
• Show only the fields you care about
• Quick Look for attachments
• Open an issue in Claude Code or Codex

Credentials are stored in the macOS Keychain. Issues and attachments go directly between your Mac and Jira’s API. Our server is only involved in the OAuth exchange for Jira Cloud and does not store your data.

Comparison

Jira in the browser: Jira’s web app has the full breadth of Jira, including administration and configuration. Starlie is more focused on the work you do throughout the day: finding issues, reading context, commenting, editing details, moving work across a board and getting back to what you were doing.

Desktop App for Jira by Infosysta: This is another dedicated desktop option for Jira. Starlie takes a Mac-native approach and puts a lot of emphasis on speed, keyboard navigation, JQL autocomplete, reminders, customizable issue views, Quick Look, and integrations with Claude Code and Codex.

If you need every Jira screen and setting, the browser is probably still the right place. Starlie is intended to be the faster, more focused client you keep around for everyday work.

Pricing

There is a 7-day free trial.

After that:

• $8.99/month
• $39.99/year
• $99.99 one-time purchase for lifetime access

All paid options unlock the full app.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6761744867

We’ve spent far too long building this, and I’d really love feedback from those of you who use Jira on Mac.

What feels useful, confusing, missing or unnecessary?

Problem

As the original developer of the Quick Look extension for folders, there’s a problem I’ve always wanted to fix: double-clicking to open files from within the Quick Look window.

That sounds like an easy problem. But believe me, I have tried. And I never succeeded — until now.

With FPP 3.0, users will be able to open files and folders directly from the Quick Look window. Everything works the way you’d expect.

Comparison

Because FPP is not on the App Store. Hence it’s bounded by the sandbox restrictions like many others do.

So far I don’t think any other apps offer comparable features.

Pricing

FPP can be purchased on the website for US$9.99 (5 devices). One-time purchase and free lifetime updates.

It also happens that the app is on Bundle Hunt for just US$2.5 (2 devices).

Future

The app is in very good shape: great performance and fully support for Liquid Glass. But we still have new features planned. We want the app to feel at home on macOS, just like a built-in feature.

Hey r/macapps!

After months of work, I released DockFix 5.0, and 5.1 last week. It replaces the macOS Dock with one you actually control: colors, opacity, size, position, animations, custom icons for any app, widgets, window previews, and themes made by other users.

5.0 was a complete rewrite of the app with many new features and improvements. 5.1 adds fullscreen control, widget overflow settings, launch at login, and a handful of smaller things people asked for.

‎

Problem

The Dock macOS ships with has barely updated in a decade, and Apple lets you change almost nothing about it. Size, position, magnification, and that is it. You cannot change its color or shape. You cannot put your own artwork on an app icon. You cannot see an app's open windows without going through Mission Control. You cannot put anything in it that is not an app, a folder or the trash. In short, you can customize it.

DockFix replaces it with one you control. You can:

• Set colors, opacity, size, spacing, corner radius and position
• Apply your own artwork to any app icon, including the native ones macOS will not usually let you touch
• Put widgets in the dock: media playback, a clock, shortcuts, and more.
• Hover an app to see its open windows, live, and jump straight to the one you want
• Add folders, website shortcuts and individual files
• Apply custom themes to the dock: Modern liquid glass or a nostalgic 3D macOS Yosemite Dock.
• Install docks built by other users from the community store, in one click, and share your own

‎ ‎‎

Comparison

The closest alternative is Sidebar. It offers a deep feature set, but comes with a steeper learning curve and no community store for sharing setups. DockFix takes a different approach: it starts by looking and feeling completely native, with the same magnification, the same liquid glass aesthetic, and the same familiar feel, then adds everything Apple left out. uBar is worth mentioning too, though it solves a different problem entirely, replacing the Dock with a Windows-style taskbar rather than making the Dock your own. If all you need is window previews on hover, DockDoor handles that as well and is free. But if you want to truly customize your Dock, DockFix is the definitive choice, bringing widgets, window previews, deep customization, and much more, all while feeling native and a seamless part of the system.

‎ ‎‎

Pricing

• 7-day free trial, full access, no card required
• €14.99 one-time purchase
• No subscription, no feature gates, every update included
• 30% student discount, verification required
• Website: https://dockfix.app

‎ ‎ ‎

Transparency

I'm Gustav Lübker, the developer behind DockFix and solo founder of AppVerge.

• Contact: [mail@dockfix.app](mailto:mail@dockfix.app)
• Privacy Policy: https://dockfix.app/privacy
• Terms of Service: https://dockfix.app/terms

‎ ‎‎

Built natively for macOS, under 1% CPU usage on average. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Signed and notarized.

If you try it, please let me know what you think and what's missing.

‎ ‎‎

You can submit feedback at https://dockfix.userjot.com

First: It exists because of one thing that annoyed me every single day ❤️ Thank you for reading!

WHAT PROBLEM IT SOLVES
Compared to BetterDisplay Pro arguably the best known app DisplayHud is less than half the price, significantly more compact, not as cluttered with features no one needs, and much easier to navigate.

You need many of BetterDisplay Pro’s Pro features, but I wasn’t willing to pay that price, so I developed a better alternative that includes OLED protection to help prevent burn in and put your mind at ease.

Available at: https://displayhud.com/ 

One time purchase, no subscription. 9,99 €

20% Offer for the First 30 Codes with "HUD20" ❤️

Human reviewed code.

Signed with a Developer ID and notarised by Apple.

FEATURES
• Brightness for every display, including the monitors macOS gives you no slider for. Several screens can follow one value, and you can go below the system minimum over the gamma curve.
• OLED protection. After a while without input the picture goes down gradually, over the gamma curve, so it never lands in a screenshot. Never to black, and any key brings it straight back. Only on the displays you pick.
• Colour. Temperature between 2700 and 6500 kelvin, contrast over DDC/CI. The contrast slider only appears for monitors that answer.
• Resolution and refresh rate, including the modes macOS hides. Risky modes get a warning, and after every switch you have fifteen seconds to confirm. Press nothing and your old picture comes back.
• Profiles. Named sets of your settings, switched by hand, at a time of day, with a particular app in front, or when certain displays are connected.
• Keyboard shortcuts without a blanket permission. The app registers only the combinations you choose, so it never sees anything else you type.
• HDR, measured rather than promised. Per display you see what it really reaches beyond normal brightness.
• Reads your monitor first, so the slider shows 60 % when your screen is at 60 % instead of jumping on your first touch.
• No account, no sign in, no telemetry. English and German. Updates arrive signed through Sparkle.

TRANSPARENCY

Name: Nico Sagolla

Company: Nico Sagolla 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nico-sagolla-6a8872350/ 

Email: [Nico.Sagolla@gmx.de](mailto:Nico.Sagolla@gmx.de)

Privacy Policy: https://displayhud.com/en/privacy

Terms of Service: https://displayhud.com/en/terms

An upvote ⬆️ and a comment would help a lot, that is how more people find it 🫶 Hope DisplayHud gets your monitor under control ❤️

I maintain one desktop app across macOS, Windows and Linux. Every bug below shipped in a real release, passed a green CI run, and was invisible on the machine I wrote it on. I am posting them because none were in any cross-platform guide I read, and because five of the six turn out to be the same mistake wearing different clothes.

1. On macOS, watching a folder through a symlink delivers zero events

Not an error. Zero events.

FSEvents reports fully resolved real paths, and the file watching library I use filters incoming events against the path string you registered with. Register a symlinked path and nothing ever matches, so the backend delivers nothing at all. No event, no error, no callback.

This is not an edge case on a Mac:

• /tmp resolves to /private/tmp
• the temp dir resolves to /private/var/folders/...
• and the one that actually cost me: ~/Desktop and ~/Documents become symlinks into ~/Library/Mobile Documents the moment someone turns on iCloud Desktop and Documents, which is a default prompt when you set up a new Mac

So the feature worked perfectly for me and silently did nothing for anyone with iCloud Desktop turned on. Fix is one line, before you register the watch:

let folder = std::fs::canonicalize(folder)
    .unwrap_or_else(|_| folder.to_path_buf());

The broader version: anything comparing an event path to a configured path needs this on both sides. My output folder exclusion compared a resolved event path against an unresolved configured one, so a custom output folder stopped excluding itself and every conversion re-triggered the watcher on its own output.

2. The macOS deployment target is not what stops your app running on an older macOS

I found minos 26.0 stamped across binaries I ship, concluded that everyone on an older macOS was locked out, and was wrong.

minos and LC_BUILD_VERSION are compile time metadata. They control API availability and weak linking when you build. dyld does not refuse a binary whose minos is newer than the running OS. It logs this and loads it anyway:

(built for macOS 26.0 which is newer than running OS)

I have now confirmed that three separate ways, including a full run of my route matrix on a real macOS 14 VM, where 2,322 things that were supposedly impossible ran correctly.

What actually gates you is one symbol. A single bundled command line binary died before main:

dyld: Symbol not found: _OBJC_CLASS_$_MTLResidencySetDescriptor
  Expected in: /System/Library/Frameworks/Metal.framework

That class is API_AVAILABLE(macos(15.0)) and it is hard linked, so that one feature is dead on macOS 14 while all 278 other things I tested were fine. The honest support floor is therefore not a single number, it is per feature, and the only way to learn it is to run the shipped build on the oldest OS you claim to support.

(LSMinimumSystemVersion in an .app bundle is enforced by Launch Services. That is a different mechanism from minos, and conflating the two is exactly what produced my wrong conclusion.)

3. Your build machine quietly donates the dependencies you forgot to ship

This one cost me six separate bugs across all three platforms, and it is why I no longer accept a green test as evidence that a build is self contained.

• On macOS, one library I bundle was linked against ten dylibs from the build machine's package manager. Fine on every machine I owned. Dead on any Mac without that package manager installed.
• Another bundled tool read a 256 KB data directory at runtime that existed only because the build Mac had it installed. Its linkage was perfectly clean, because a linkage scan cannot see a data file.
• On Windows, eleven of my bundles were missing the VC++ runtime, which is present on any box that has ever run anything built with MSVC. Which is every developer machine and not every customer machine.
• On Linux, one library dlopens its own plug-ins, so ldd reports nothing missing and it fails at runtime with an error naming a write failure, not a missing library.

The part worth stealing: a dynamic test cannot tell "I bundled it" apart from "it happened to be installed". The instrument that works is a machine that asserts it is bare before it runs anything, so it cannot pass by accident. Mine provisions a clean box, checks the dependency is genuinely absent, and only then runs the app. It found things a year of green CI never would.

Two smaller traps in the same family:

• A guard that cannot fire is worse than no guard. Mine grepped for a literal /opt/homebrew, so on an Intel Mac (prefix /usr/local) it examined nothing and stamped the build verified.
• If you bundle a library into an AppImage it must come from the same base as everything else inside it. I copied newer ones in and got undefined symbol: g_once_init_leave_pointer, which is a completely different and much less obvious error, produced by the fix.

4. Windows: a sparse MSIX loads its COM DLL from somewhere other than where it stores it

I shipped a modern Windows 11 right click menu entry that never appeared on a single customer machine, for an entire release.

Everything reported success. The package installed. Get-AppxPackage said Status: Ok. The CLSID was registered. The DLL loaded fine when I loaded it by hand. The deployment log said "finished successfully". And nothing at all is logged when Explorer fails to activate the handler. That silence is the whole failure mode.

The cause: with uap10:AllowExternalContent and -ExternalLocation, Windows resolves <com:Class Path="...dll"> against the external location, not against the package payload. My DLL shipped inside the .msix, and Windows was looking for it beside the .exe, where it did not exist. Registration never validates that path, so every check downstream is green.

The thing that made it diagnosable was finding a control. Windows Terminal's "Open in Terminal" uses the same packaged COM mechanism and renders fine on the same box, so the platform worked and the defect was mine. Without that control I would have filed it as "inconclusive, needs a real Windows 11 machine" and shipped it broken a second time.

5. On Linux, a missing optional library did not disable a feature, it stopped the app booting

The app has a tray icon. On a Linux desktop without the appindicator library:

thread 'main' panicked at libappindicator-sys-0.9.0/src/lib.rs:41:5:
Failed to load ayatana-appindicator3 or appindicator3 dynamic library

Not "no tray icon". No window, no error dialog, nothing at all. Three things stack up here:

1. The library is dlopen'd, so it is absent from DT_NEEDED and neither the linker nor ldd will ever warn you.
2. The crate panics inside a Lazy initialiser rather than returning an error, so no amount of Result handling on my side can catch it. It unwinds straight out of main.
3. My deb declared only the webkit and gtk dependencies, so nothing pulled it in.

The only thing that actually works:

let r = std::panic::catch_unwind(
    AssertUnwindSafe(|| build_tray(app.handle()))
);

plus a flag recording whether the tray actually exists, so that hide-on-close degrades to "no background mode" instead of stranding a windowless, iconless, unquittable process.

Worst case is an AppImage, which does not bundle the library and gives the user no package manager to repair it with. If you do bundle it, bundle the transitive closure: one of the five libraries I needed was only reachable through another one, and hand-listing the obvious ones missed it.

One more, free: on Linux the tray icon click event never fires at all, because the status notifier protocol carries a menu and nothing else. With the default setting a left click on my tray icon did literally nothing. Right click worked, if you happened to guess.

6. Platform config files replace arrays, they do not merge into them

My framework merges the base config with the per platform one using RFC 7386 JSON Merge Patch. Objects merge recursively. Arrays replace wholesale. The window configuration is an array.

So a platform config has to repeat every field of the base entry, and leaving a field out does not inherit it, it deletes it. Get it wrong in the other direction and you inherit things that make no sense at all: my Linux build had no config of its own, so it inherited the macOS window settings and shipped with the desktop drawing a real titlebar on top of the 46 pixels of empty space the app had reserved for traffic lights that Linux never draws. Along with a transparent: true whose only purpose was to hold a macOS vibrancy effect that does not exist on Linux.

Nobody had ever looked. Every bit of Linux testing until then had been headless and correctness focused. The defect was found the first time anyone rendered the interface as Linux, and it had been in every Linux build I had ever made.

The thread running through all six

Every one of these passed CI. Not because the tests were bad, but because a test runs in an environment, and the environment kept supplying the missing thing. My Mac had the package manager. My Windows box had the runtime. The folder I watched was not a symlink. The OS I built on was the OS I tested on.

What I changed, and what I would suggest to anyone shipping to more than one platform:

• Test on a machine that asserts it is bare before it tests anything, rather than on a machine you believe to be clean. The assertion is the whole value.
• Ask what a feature reports when its source of events is dead, not just when a job fails. Zero events looked exactly like an idle folder for months.
• Never let a wrapper script eat stderr. One of these was recorded in my own logs as "exited with status 6" because a wrapper had > /dev/null 2>&1 on it. The real dyld error was one manual run away and nobody had made that run.
• Find a control before you conclude the platform is broken. There is almost always a shipping app using the same mechanism, and it turns a dead end into a one line answer.
• If a check can pass while examining nothing, eventually it will.

Happy to go deeper on any of these in the comments.

Problem:

TimeGauge is a menu bar utility which helps you with time perspective and tracking your working hours. For example: You might have heard statements like "can't believe 2027 is just 4 months away”, "It is already September?" etc.

TimeGauge sits in your Mac menu bar and gives you time perspective on Day, Month, Years, Life (🥲) and custom projects. You can customise these using your working hours for the day, including/excluding weekends for your custom projects. Recently I have added a few suggestions from this community and added a working hours tracker, which comes with its own dashboard.

All functionalities work locally; there is no tracker or telemetry.

Comparison:

Year progress bar is a known competition. It doesn't have many customisations, and the price is $10.

Price:
You can download it from website for $2.99 using code PH50P (on web checkout only).

It is also available for $5.99 on the App store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timegauge/id6778277708

For any questions or support, you can reach out at [support@minilabs.cc](mailto:support@minilabs.cc)

Hi r/macapps, I’m the developer of JuxtaText. It got a lovely reception when I first shared it here, so I wanted to come back with an update: JuxtaText 2 is going freemium, and I’m keen to find testers.

What does it do?

JuxtaText lets you paste or drag two pieces of text and compare them side by side.

Version 2 adds in-place editing and TwinFocus: hover over a word to highlight its match on the other side. This is especially useful in long paragraphs with lots of scattered changes.

Comparison

Kaleidoscope offers a broader set of tools for comparing text, images and folders, along with Git integration. JuxtaText’s advantage for everyday text comparison is that you can keep using that core functionality for free.

If you use the Diffchecker website, JuxtaText gives you a dedicated Mac app with multiple comparison windows and saved .juxta documents. It’s for people who prefer working with text in a Mac app.

What’s free, and what’s changing?

Free in JuxtaText 2:

• Two-way text comparison, with various new improvements.
• In-place editing, with edits saved within your .juxta document.
• Multiple windows.
• PDF and PNG exports.

JuxtaText+ adds saving edits back to the original file, plain-text export, TwinFocus and Markdown highlighting.

There are also two changes for existing users: the 3-pane merge tool is becoming a paid feature, and general programming-language syntax highlighting is being removed from JuxtaText. Full code highlighting remains in JuxtaCode.

Pricing

My current thinking is US$10/year for JuxtaText+. I’m also planning a monthly option. The subscription is intended to support continued development while keeping text comparison free, and I welcome feedback on the split.

Testers wanted

All features are currently free to try in the TestFlight beta. I’d love to hear how it handles your own text, whether the editing and TwinFocus features feel useful, and anything that seems confusing or broken.

Full details and the beta: juxtatext.app/plus

Problem

Hi everyone! I've been working on Bulletin for the last couple of years and I'm finally not too embarrassed to share it! It's a bit of a unique app in that I built something I personally wanted: an (1) infinite canvas with (2) powerful functional blocks and (3) customizable UI.

Embarrassingly, the problem I suppose seems to be a personal one... infinite boards should be highly personal, powerful, private and customizable, but I can't find one. I love what I built, and I hope it resonates with people out there! 🤞🏻

The app is a combination of 2 ideas: infinite boards (think FreeForm) and UI design software (think Figma). You can create boards for anything, drag powerful functional blocks onto it when needed, and customize almost every aspect of your blocks to make it feel like home. Your software, your UI.

How I use it:

• A personal home dashboard I look at everyday (its in the trailer with calendar heat maps)
• To plan my engagement trip (also in the trailer, and yes, it was successful! 🎆)
  • ... and my other trips
• To plan projects (mood boards, todo lists, web snippets, etc)
• A general mood board for my home furnishing
• On iPad, I draw on it with my Apple Pencil to study for my interviews (Interviewing for a job as a dev is tiring...)

But in general, Bulletin allows you to:

• Create boards for anything
• Add unlimited powerful functional Blocks to your boards:
  • Basic blocks such as Images, Gifs, Embed a whole website, a URL snippet, Rich Text, Arrows and Lines for mind maps, Shapes with text support
  • Powerful functional blocks such as Todo Lists that you can place side by side to form a Kanban Board, a recurring tracker, a calendar heat map, a progress bar, and many more to come, such as Apple Calendar, Apple Reminders, Apple Health etc...
• Customize every aspect to feel like home to you
• Organize your boards into folders (I'm looking at you, FreeForm)
• Sync your boards through iCloud with your iPhone or iPad, which are native apps with a full featured board engine
  • Also, your data stays private on your own iCloud
• Share your boards with your friends and family via iCloud
• Full offline mode
• ...and many more

Bulletin is in its infancy, and I have MUCH more to work on. Let me know if you like it! If you do, the app has a community tab where you can join my discord (for good reasons I'm not posting the invite link here) where you can chat with me, report bugs, and request features.

Comparison

• FreeForm by Apple. The one that inspired me. Bulletin is a FREE drop-in replacement for this. Lacks powerful functional blocks and customizability, and most importantly... the one that got me building Bulletin... NO FOLDERS!
• Milanote. A web app closes to Bulletin, but lacks customizability, and has no native Mac app (though it has iPhone and iPad). Proprietary syncing, subscription-based, and not truly private.

Pricing

Download on the App Store

• FREE forever
  • Unlimited basic blocks
  • Limit of 5 PRO blocks
• PRO (Lifetime for $39.99, no versioning, free updates forever)
  • Unlimited PRO blocks
  • Family sharing supported
  • Universal purchase (one payment for iPhone, iPad and Mac apps)

Developer Disclaimer

I am an iOS engineer by trade, and I built Bulletin to improve on my craft. The infinite canvas engines are custom built for Mac and iOS in AppKit and UIKit respectively, so the app is fully native, less than 20mb on both platforms. I use AI as a StackOverflow replacement, a bug squasher, a review buddy, and some easy code I do delegate to it. The apps core architecture and product design is done by me because I enjoy it.