Our unexpected winners of 2023

[Rob_Polding]

@Pupsino

Which app turned out to be unexpectedly useful this year for you, and why?

The JetBrains suite of tools (I use DataSpell, Pycharm, CLion and WebStorm) has released its own chatbot that is integrated into the IDEs. It is nothing short of a miracle for my workflow. I can copy code from one IDE and paste it into another and it converts language. Also, refactoring is much better than ChatGPT4 as it is trained on much better data. It automatically writes GIT commits, adds documentation and error handling to code and makes great suggestions for improving code. A close second is Adobe Creative Cloud’s AI; in particular, the image generation in Illustrator has allowed me to design media for presentations and saved me so much time in dealing with the media department where I work.

@Pupsino

Bonus question: which app did you think would be very useful, but then not use much?

I’ve really wanted to get into using a read it later apps and when Readwise Reader came out I thought it would be the app that makes me want to save articles from the web. However, I never use it as I read articles when I see them and never need to save them (if I need anything for research, it gets saved into DEVONthink). In the end, I saved a grand total of two articles and ended up removing the app as I really do not need a service like that when I keep all my research in DT.

[rkaplan]

@Rob_Polding

The JetBrains suite of tools (I use DataSpell, Pycharm, CLion and WebStorm) has released its own chatbot that is integrated into the IDEs. It is nothing short of a miracle for my workflow. I can copy code from one IDE and paste it into another and it converts language. Also, refactoring is much better than ChatGPT4 as it is trained on much better data.

Very interesting - I will give that a try- thank you for the suggestion

[jayelevy]

Thanks for this. Not familiar with the app… I will check it out

[SebMacV]

@AppleGuy

Generally speaking, as a huge music fan with a fairly large range of tastes and albums in my “collection”, I can’t stand Spotify.

I could not agree MORE! The Spotify UI has gone downhill for years now. I am old enough to have grown up with mixed tape cassettes; to have a CD collection; saved lots of MP3 in lovingly curated folders; and so on – and so the new ways in which S likes to promote new services (podcasts; audio books; concert tickets); and their general ‘organisational’ features, make it a very bloated app that’s unpleasant to use to me,

I’ve also been a subscriber for many years, in part because I am lazy and can’t face moving my stuff to Apple Music. I’m listening to a ‘Deep Work Jazz’ playlist at present (of my own making). And when I just wanted to change over a tune, this popped up and it says it all really:

I recently bought a refurbed iPhone 12 for my other half and she expressed an interest in changing over to Apple Music so perhaps it’s now finally on the cards.

[Mag99]

The unexpected winner for me is an app that has not been released yet and it’s currently in beta. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to disclose any details about it, but it has replaced Ulysses for my long-form writing and iA Writer for short-form. I believe many users of this forum will be very happy with this app.

Apart from that, I’m really enjoying using FS Notes. It’s very fast and keyboard-friendly—two features that most note apps seem to be lacking these days.

[Bmosbacker]

but it has replaced Ulysses for my long-form writing and iA Writer for short-form.

Will you let us know about it when you are able? As a Ulysses user, I’m interested.

[jslp]

Just commenting because I’m in the same boat. Would love to know what it is, I’m really interested now.

[Bmosbacker]

Me too; I like Ulysses a lot, so I’d be surprised to find something even better.

[karlnyhus]

@Mag99

an app that has not been released yet and it’s currently in beta. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to disclose any details about it, but it has replaced Ulysses

Sounds like nvUltra!

[Mag99]

Sorry folks, it wasn’t my intention to create suspense. It’s the new app from Literature & Latte: Something New: Beta Testers Needed | Literature and Latte

Unfortunately, they are not accepting new beta testers for now.

[Bmosbacker]

Suspense can be fun.

I heard something about that. This will be interesting as I’ve gone back and forth between Ulysses and Scrivener, but have settled on Ulysses. But, I’m open to a new Scrivener app if it is as good as Ulysses on BOTH Mac and mobile.

[jslp]

Before you replied, I went down a rabbit hole searching for this mysterious unreleased editor and happened to find that one! I ended up signing up for email notifications, thanks for the suggestion.

[karlnyhus]

@karlnyhus

Sounds like nvUltra!

Dang it! So no nvUltra yet, huh? I’ve kind of given up on it. I had high hopes for the next Markdown editor from Terpstra and Penney, but if those two can’t agree on how to build it, what hope is there for any of us?

Is there anyone who is using the beta of nvUltra and who is not sworn to secrecy and can give us an update?

[MevetS]

Maybe you could try it yourself?

At the bottom of this blog post by Mr. Terpstra:

Brett's Favorites 2023 - BrettTerpstra.com

Is this bit:

" nvUltra
I know, I know. It’s so close. The beta is very, very stable, we’re just working on a couple of refinements (and some MAS purchase issues) before release. If you’re reading this and you’re not on the beta already, contact me to get added."

Have fun!

[tomalmy]

@Pupsino

Which app turned out to be unexpectedly useful this year for you, and why?

Two that I had been using but this year had me getting rid of two others (since the fewer the apps the better!):

• Alfred – I now use its Snippets feature and have removed Textexpander.
• VirtualBox – I only have limited use of virtual machines, but I’ve moved all my VMs here from Parallels (which I had been using since Version 1). I have a pile of old Mac minis that I can use to run VMs when I go Apple Silicon.

I’m also using Notes more, but I don’t trust it as I’ve lost some notes in the past.

@Pupsino

Bonus question: which app did you think would be very useful, but then not use much?

This year the only new app I’ve bought is DEVONthink, which I’ve only had a couple of weeks, so really just getting started. I was attracted to it after looking at and rejecting Obsidian.

Major “Mac Power Users Recommended Apps” that I tried and abandoned in the past couple years include:

• Obsidian
• Keyboard Maestro, even though I love the keyboard, this looked like way too much of a time sink.

[karlnyhus]

@MevetS

Maybe you could try it yourself?

Thanks for the link. That’s more recent info than I found on the official nvUltra website. I’ll wait to try it out when it is released. Truth to tell, I was being a little facetious. nvUltra will be entering a crowded app space. I already own and use NotePlan, BBEdit, Byword, and Typora so the competition for a place in my Applications folder will be stiff.

[Synchronicity]

Drafts continues to be a winner in my book as well. There’s nothing like it on any other platform, and it’s one of the apps that make me want to keep using Apple devices.

My experiment earlier this year with Logseq—which I liked for tasks, projects, and short-term notes—failed due to severe iCloud syncing problems, including data loss. I plan to revisit it after the database version is released.

It’s nice that the Mac version of Typora is native (unlike the Linux and Windows versions), but I was disappointed in it. The biggest issue for me is that in live preview mode, hitting the return key automatically triggers a double return for paragraph separation, and there’s no way to disable that.

It’s also very difficult to customize if you aren’t fluent in CSS. (I can open a CSS file in VS Code and do a few things like change the font, but that’s about it.) None of the available themes is exactly what I want, and there’s nothing like Obsidian’s Style Settings and Minimal Theme Settings plugins to tweak them.

Obsidian, which continues to be one of my favorite apps of all time, still doesn’t work with .md files outside a designated vault, and I still haven’t found a general-purpose markdown editor I’m happy with. iA Writer comes the closest, but as I’ve said here, I really dislike the heavy-handed way it renders the markdown asterisks around bold and italic selections, so I avoid using it for anything with much formatting. Zettlr shows promise, but it shares the customization issues I have with Typora, and it’s lacking some essentials for me, like a command for highlighting text. (It recognizes ==, but you have to type it manually at each end of the selection.)

I’ve never liked Apple Notes, and the latest features have done nothing to change that. The only thing I use it for is sharing notes and lists with family members.

But I’m mildly interested in the new Journal app. It will never replace plaintext for a more formal written journal or for interstitial journaling, but I like the idea of using it to quickly add context to photos with a few sentences.

[Mathew_T_Mitchell]

Thanks for sharing this. I must have missed the initial announcement … otherwise I would have signed up. I realize I may need to wait until 2025, but this new app sounds perfect for me. I’ll just be patient.

I do like (and have) Scrivener but it simply has too many bells & whistles for my everyday needs. The new app sounds like it will fit my needs like a well made glove. I already appreciate the detail given to Scrivener.

Share with us what you can, whenever that may be.

[Topre]

The unexpected winner for me is Fluid app. This little tool that let you run website like a standalone app works really well in my multi monitor set up. I can now have an icon/app for Mac Power Users, one for Threads and one for Gmail. Then, I can use KM to always open these app in certain monitor. What I like about Fluid, aside from being free, as compared to just using Safari, is that I can then hide individual app/website instead of hiding the ALL Safari windows when I do a CMD-H.

Also, Fluid let you configure whether you want the website to be display as a iPhone or Mac app. So, if I configure it to be an iPhone, then I can see MPU as though viewed from an iPhone, for example:

Another benefit of Fluid is that I can run the website as a menu bar app. This feature is particularly useful for me to access the OpenAI ChatGPT website quickly. By pressing Ctrl-Alt-G, I can open ChatGPT just like it is a standalone application. However, in reality, I am actually running it through a web browser. As a result, I have access to the entire history of my queries within the ChatGPT website. This is different from using a third-party app with an API key, which does not retain any history):

[rlivingston]

@KVZ

They added a feature (this year, I think) to pin a screenshot in an always-on-top window. This is very useful to me when I need to refer to something in one window while working in another. Just grab a shot of it and make it float.

There is a dedicated app ScreenFloat which offers this functionality as its sole reason to exist. This is a fantastic app IMO. Easier to use than CleanShot for this purpose. It has additional features. I use it many many times a day.