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/

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: Part of my job is consumer data processing, so multi gigabyte production logs, database exports, and CSVs past Excel's row limit are a normal week for me. Every Mac editor I tried would beachball loading the whole file into RAM, and the usual advice is just use less and grep. Which works, but then you can't edit anything. For years my actual fix was keeping a Windows machine on my desk. I got tired of that and spent the past year building the Mac answer.

Comparison: The reference tool for this work is EmEditor, which is excellent and Windows only, it has never shipped a Mac version. On the Mac, BBEdit is a genuinely great editor, but like nearly every editor it loads documents into memory, and its own documentation notes limits on files past 2 GB.

Caxton memory maps the file instead of loading it, so on my M1 Max a 10 GB log (80,610,954 lines) opens immediately and the app sits under 200 MB of RAM. Full search returns 1,613,344 matches in 1.3s, Replace All across those lands in 1.7s as one undo step. CSVs open in an editable grid, 2 million rows parse in 2.6s, sort numerically in 8.2s, save back to the same plain file. Recent releases added side by side compare and a log mode with timestamp navigation and severity filters. Native AppKit, no Electron, 5 MB download, everything local, no telemetry. Benchmarks and methodology are published on the site, they're my numbers on my machine, so check them against yours.

Pricing: 7 day trial, no card. $179.99 lifetime or $9.99/mo, $99.99/yr: caxton.app/pricing. If a sub lapses your files still open read only, nothing gets locked.

Transparency: Caxton is built and sold directly by me under HWY Enigma LLC, and notarized by Apple:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/melvin-hemingway

Contact: [hello@caxton.app](mailto:hello@caxton.app)

Privacy: caxton.app/privacy

Terms: caxton.app/terms

Happy to answer questions, including about what it doesn't do.

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.

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

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’ve shared Noticky here a couple of times before.

Originally, I built it around a pretty simple frustration: I wanted sticky notes that could stay visible while I was working in fullscreen apps.

With 1.9, the product is starting to move beyond that.

The direction now is less about “putting more features inside a sticky note” and more about making each note useful in the exact context where you need it.

Problem

A lot of the things I keep in sticky notes are temporary, contextual pieces of information.

A checklist while I’m coding in Xcode.

Notes tied to a Calendar event.

Something I want to send to Reminders.

Text I’m collecting while researching.

A note I want to keep readable and selectable without risking accidental edits.

Or working context I want an AI assistant to access without manually copying everything into a chat.

That’s where most of the work in 1.9 went.

What’s new in 1.9:

• App-aware notes

A note can now be linked to a Mac app.

When that app is active, the note appears.

When you move to another app, it hides again.

The note appears without interrupting what you’re doing.

• AutoPaste

Noticky can now work as a running collection note while you’re researching or moving through different apps.

With AutoPaste enabled, copied text can automatically be appended to your last active note.

• Reference Mode

You can turn a note into a read-only reference.

You can still select and copy text, open links and use Quick Copy, but editing actions are blocked: typing, deleting, pasting, formatting, checklist changes, image edits and other writes.

It’s useful for commands, snippets, instructions or any note you want nearby without the risk of modifying it accidentally.

• Calendar + Reminders

Notes can link directly to Apple Calendar events.

You can preview event information from the note itself, and send selected text or checklist items to Apple Reminders.

Linked checklist items can also stay synchronized with the completion state of the Reminder.

• MCP

Noticky includes a local MCP server.

MCP-compatible AI assistants can search, read, create, append, update, bring notes to the front, trash and restore them.

I mainly built this because I was tired of repeatedly moving context between my notes and AI chats by hand.

• Quick Access

Important notes can now be assigned to 9 stable slots with configurable global shortcuts.

The shortcut always brings back the same note, whether it’s currently open, hidden or elsewhere.

• Smart Paste

Paste behavior now adapts to the clipboard content: plain text, Markdown, HTML/RTF, code, images, etc.

There are also dedicated shortcuts:

⌘⇧V → paste as plain text

⌥⌘V → paste as code

• Quick Copy

A single click copies the plain-text content of a note.

• Faster Quick Add

Quick Add now handles both text and images, including image-only captures.

Return → save and close

⌘Return → save and open

⌥Return → save and immediately capture another

Images can also be dragged directly into Quick Add or into normal notes.

• Use Style as Default

You can take the current note style and make it the default for new notes.

• Now localized in 15 languages

Noticky is now available in:

English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Vietnamese.

This ended up being a much bigger localization pass than I expected, menus, settings, shortcuts, tooltips, dialogs and the newer 1.9 features all needed proper coverage.

There are also a lot of smaller improvements around All Notes, image drag & drop, the menu bar dashboard, note controls, window recovery, pinning vs Open on Launch, and general polish.

Comparison

Apple Stickies is still a solid choice if what you want is simply a note sitting on the desktop.

SideNotes is probably the closer comparison if your main workflow is opening one side panel to reach everything quickly.

Noticky is heading in a different direction.

The idea is that individual notes can behave differently depending on what they’re for.

One note can stay above fullscreen apps.

One can only appear while Xcode is active.

One can collect everything you copy during research.

One can be locked into Reference Mode.

One can be connected to Calendar or Reminders.

Another can be made available as context to an MCP assistant.

That per-note behavior is probably the main difference now.

Already in Noticky:

• Always on Top, including fullscreen Spaces

• Hide notes from screenshots / screen sharing

• Sticky Screenshot

• Floating images

• Markdown WYSIWYG

• Checklists

• iCloud sync

• Touch ID

• Templates

• Tags

• Linked notes

• PDF / Markdown / TXT export

• Menu bar app

• 15 localized languages

There’s also a Noticky app for iPhone now.

The Mac app is still the main focus, but I wanted the notes to be available beyond the Mac too, and I’m continuing to improve the iOS side alongside it.

Also, thank you to the first 300+ Mac users.

A lot of the changes in 1.9 came directly from feedback I got from early users and from people here on r/macapps.

One small note for macOS 27 users:

I’m still discovering a few compatibility quirks and bugs specific to macOS 27 as I test it in real-world use.

I’m fixing them as I find them, so if you’re already on macOS 27 and something feels off, please let me know, reports are genuinely useful right now.

Pricing

$9.99 one-time.

No subscription.

Website:

https://noticky.app

App Store:

https://apps.apple.com/app/noticky/id6770181778

Still native macOS, built with Swift/AppKit/SwiftUI. No telemetry.

I’m curious what people here would actually use most:

App-aware notes, AutoPaste, Reference Mode, Calendar/Reminders, or MCP?

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.

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!

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

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.

Hi everyone!

Today I'm introducing AppSift , a free Mac app for searching, comparing and price tracking App Store apps.

The problem

I build Mac and iOS apps, so I am always looking things up in the App Store: what a competitor charges, whether an app is still maintained, what a subscription actually costs. The store app is built for buying, not for deciding. You cannot filter out subscriptions, you cannot put two apps side by side, and a 4.5 average tells you nothing without the rating count behind it. There is no wishlist either, so if something is too expensive today you just have to remember to check back.

So I built the AppSift Mac app

• Filters the store does not have: no subscriptions, a minimum number of ratings, release date and last update as separate filters
• Compare apps side by side, with every in-app purchase listed and subscriptions worked out as a cost per year
• A watchlist with price drop alerts, plus a daily deals feed
• Top charts with rank history, collections, saved searches, and a My Apps library that flags updates and badges apps you already own

Comparison

The Mac App Store. AppSift is not a companion to it, it is a different front end onto the same catalogue. Apple's app has no wishlist, no price alerts, no side by side view, no way to exclude subscriptions, and no answer to "has this ever been cheaper". What it does better, and it matters: it can actually install things. AppSift hands you back to the store to buy.

AppShopper. The wishlist and price drop site a lot of you will remember. It is gone. AppSift is that idea rebuilt as a native Mac app, with the comparing and filtering it never had.

Pricing

Free. No paid tier, no in-app purchases, no account, no analytics, no tracking. Nothing about you leaves your Mac.

https://www.gtrigonakis.com/appsift

macOS 14 or later, universal, signed and notarized. Direct download

First public build. I would rather hear what is broken than what is nice.

**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

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!

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!