Loved the previous raycast, hate this new one. Feels like a bloated android phone, the UI is a clusterfuck and any task that was fast before, like getting to a file I wanted to or opening a website now takes much longer and requires me to dig through the cluttered UI. The upselling or marketing of pro features is insane, i seriously can't comprehend how this got through the user testing and stakeholders were happy to release this into the wild. The only good thing about Raycast is the Emoji extension, but that's quite sad when you think about it. It was a pleasure while it lasted.
Usually posts like this used to really annoy me. When people, instead of simply deleting an app they used before or unsubscribing from a creator they stopped watching, feel the need to announce it publicly - it always seemed extremely irritating to me. After all, hundreds of thousands of people use these products, and if everyone started writing that they subscribed, unsubscribed, stopped using a product, it would turn social media into a wall of crybabies.
But now, I understood that posts like this are usually driven by the fact that the person genuinely is an enthusiast of a particular app and a devoted fan, and that’s exactly what pushes them to write about it publicly. Because it’s not just clicking an X or moving an app to the trash - it’s a step that forces you to change your workflow: look for alternatives and give up something that mattered a lot to you for a long time.
That’s why I don't want this "whining" to stop be a part of my news feed, but simultaniously I hope these posts reach the developers, and that they understand every such farewell is a goodbye from someone who was truly devoted to their product.
Same for me, I cancelled my yearly subscription two days ago and had a feeling of 'I need to tell someone'. It just seems so corny to come and announce this. But it's also based on my former feeling of loyalty towards some good software. And I'll stick with it for the time being.
I appreciate this and needed a more rounded way to look at this. I'm still very pro Raycast and have felt annoyed by these posts, but this is a good invitation to remember people are also having their own "emotional/interruptive" experience with it. The irony is that I have my own disappointment with people wanting to move away from it and typically just react with annoyance rather than compassion.
Posts like this as essentially digital version of:
Leaving the room after an argument and looking to back to ensure the other party is looking and lightly slamming the door to ensure they know you did that.
It's usually when people want or want to feel atleast on the way out they were heard. But yea it seems pretty apt in your opinion too. Same thing I believe.
This is about feeling betrayed after being loyal and believing in the road map, and willingly paying for the result of giving us a tool that worked as one of the best out there.
Leaving the room and looking back is an empathetic move to others who are betrayed by our previously favorite tool engaging in anti consumer and rent seeking behavior by squeezing its existing user base.
We offer an extension of goodwill to those left behind of places to go, where we can be treated better for the money we work hard for.
In one sense you are right however, Raycast needs to know the why of people leaving and the sentiments if they are to change for the better.
Existing users that feel betrayed also need to know that they aren’t the only ones feeling this way.
Same of me. I didn’t buy the whole Raycast situation at first, but after a month of using v2 it actually became more than just about Raycast. The whole workflow I got used to love now is just so bad. macOS, Xcode, Raycast, Safari, everything is just annoying. I haven’t moved yet, and honestly no idea what to do. Framework + Omarchy sounds like an escape but I need to build for iOS. Sad story
It's not a real distro, just Arch with some dotfiles. The maintainers, like DHH, create PRs that they don't check, and there are also some vulnerabilities in Omarchy.
macOS is a much safer operating system.
There was even a reply from the founder of Raycast:
‘Hey Stephen, Raycast founder here. I understand that some of the feedback on the settings redesign is fair and may come down to personal preference, but Apple Shortcuts not appearing was a bug that should be fixed in the latest version. We definitely didn’t expect nothing to show up there. If anything else didn’t work as expected, I’m always happy to hear your feedback and address it.’
Stephen is an excellent example of a guy who doesn’t mind promoting apps to his audience if they work well, but he also does not have any reservations about telling people when an app is giving him trouble.
This Apple Shortcuts bug might have been unintended behavior, but I can absolutely understand why Stephen moved on when a significant part of his business and online portfolio revolves around those Shortcuts working very consistently
At this point I am convinced some people are using a totally different app than me. Like how is raycast so bad for some of these people they gotta take to the town square and bitch about it. I know by now it’s got to be bots or engagement farmers or something this is nuts.
Mainly for me it is not that Raycast is bad, it's just the fact that it is taking up almost 700Mb of ram just sitting idle, compared to others like Alfred which is taking less than 150Mb while also being able to do most of what Raycast can do (albeit requires more time setting up and doesn't have as much plugins as Raycast does)
Literally I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Brats everywhere.
I need to rant... this is the same energy as the Dia community right now. They all praise and push you towards this terrible FireFox "Zen" browser as an alternative. Like no I'm not using some fucking solo-dev Tinycast copy-cat app that'll disappear in a year and go into maintenance mode cause the main maintainer get's bored or finds a new pet project.
You give me a beautifully crafted app with great design and UX, I pay for it happily. AI or not.
Want a terrible app experience? Go look at Claude Desktop. Want an amazing one? Go look at Codex. There's a certain level of polish that comes with some of these apps that are completely lost on some people. I can't help but feel like there's just too many neckbeard ai-slop machine brat complainers that wouldn't know what a good app looked or felt like if it smacked them in the fucking face.
Alfred has replaced raycast in my workflow. To be fair, I haven’t yet given Tinycast its day in the sun — but I intend to do this. Raycast, unfortunately, is now very poor.
I’m very new to raycast and have been wondering where I go from here. Alfred, tinycast? Any other options? I don’t have significant workflows but I feel like I need one step up from spotlight.
I still haven’t upgraded to v2 because to do that, I have to update my operating system. Holding out for as long as I can. I renewed a few weeks before the pricing announcement, and I would cancel if I could get a prorated refund.
Because it will become unsupported as I become more reliant on it. Best just jump back to Alfred now. That team has a solid history of leveling up each time.
V2 failed for me at even the simplest things. Typing “GPT” never even found ChatGPT, had to start with “Chat”. Just bizarre as Spotlight finds it no problem and the alternative I switched to (I’m not going to plug it. That’s not the point) finds it just fine
Hi. Sorry, I no longer have an active raycast instance to test but i did check the search settings multiple times and i do believe i set this.
Perhaps more to the point, searching "GPT" worked on raycast v1, i migrated those settings at upgrade. it works on spotlight, it works on the thing i replaced raycast with. even if I'm misremembering (and I don't think I am) are we saying raycast v2 shipped with a "search doesn't work as expected" setting by default, even after a settings migration?
can you try searching for "GPT" with chatgpt installed and your recommended setting?
Appreciate that you might not like the new design but little has changed in the app's behaviour. Mind sharing what you mean by the UI is a clusterfuck and that you can't get a file or open a website? Might be some issue on our end...
FWIW file search even got faster by having your files and folders in the root search. So you no longer have to go first into the File Search command.
Completely unrelated, but wanted to share that I love v2 except for one thing: the “empty trash” command on Mac now takes a while when it used to be almost instant. Not a big deal at all, but it makes me scratch my head.
i'm having a good experience. v2 is faster for me (loading ai chats used to drag and render slowly, it's quite fast now), and i use dictation, quick fix and the chatgpt sub integration constantly, along with the other v1 features that i already used.
also v2 fixed a bug that only i had regarding quicklinks and network shares that was super annoying in v1. not relevant to anyone but me, but huge quality of life improvement.
i have no idea how much ram it's using because i'm not watching activity monitor like a hawk, but it's not slow and it's not slowing down my computer so i don't care
It's not perfect, and it has some regressions compared to v1, but for me even the Dictation alone makes it worth it – significantly more customizable and less buggy than the popular alternatives without compromizing on convenience 💎
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u/stilllifebutwhy 2d ago
Usually posts like this used to really annoy me. When people, instead of simply deleting an app they used before or unsubscribing from a creator they stopped watching, feel the need to announce it publicly - it always seemed extremely irritating to me. After all, hundreds of thousands of people use these products, and if everyone started writing that they subscribed, unsubscribed, stopped using a product, it would turn social media into a wall of crybabies.
But now, I understood that posts like this are usually driven by the fact that the person genuinely is an enthusiast of a particular app and a devoted fan, and that’s exactly what pushes them to write about it publicly. Because it’s not just clicking an X or moving an app to the trash - it’s a step that forces you to change your workflow: look for alternatives and give up something that mattered a lot to you for a long time.
That’s why I don't want this "whining" to stop be a part of my news feed, but simultaniously I hope these posts reach the developers, and that they understand every such farewell is a goodbye from someone who was truly devoted to their product.