- keyword based actions with arguments
- clipboard history
- menu bar item access
RIP all the clipboard apps.
Damn Apple is on a roll
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Well it’s only the first beta, but the new Spotlight doesn’'t work well for me. Plenty of bugs. Keyword actions with arguments aren’t working (they return an “unimplemented” error). Clipboard history is clunky to use. But they have a few months to get it ironed out. So far no match for Alfred.
Here’s hoping that the new spotlight makes it way to iPad fairly quickly
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Spotlight is a minimal viable product… but Alfred will remain superior as it also updates incrementally. I hope there are good automation hooks to all of macOS’ new features, so Alfred could take advantage of them immediately.
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While this is absolutely true, the bad news for Alfred, Raycast and other similar tools is that less users will be driven to them because Spotlight will be “good enough”. It’s a tough situation when Apple itself steps into your territory.
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My clipboard app of choice (Paste via Setapp) is still nicer to use than Spotlight looks like it will be. At least if Paste leaves Setapp I won’t feel the need to subscribe to it separately.
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This. Most users who would potentially want to even explore Alfred and Ray cast for minimal features like clipboard history and simple workflows, could potentially be lost by these apps.
I personally have so many people who’s workflows can be improved so much with powerful apps but they care little and are really happy with “good enough” apps.
It also works the other way though. People embrace the new Spotlight and start to wish it did more, then they come across Alfred or Raycast and can go even further.
The reality is that if people bounce off Alfred or Raycast, they were unlikely to buy it anyway.
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My clipboard app of choice (Paste
Paste is great, but a quick shout out to PastePal, my favorite since Copied disappeared (RIP).
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I feel bad for the little app Tintd, which lets you easily colorize folders, add icons and badges, etc. It’s about time that Apple added that simple feature to macOS (besides its awkward pasting of a graphic in the Get Info panel), but that feature is now completely Sherlocked. If only they would bring back CandyBar!
My intuition is that anyone who’s adopted Raycast or Alfred for more than a couple weeks still has plenty of requirements that Spotlight isn’t going to meet. Sure, there’s a low-hanging fruit of simple tasks that Spotlight is now encroaching on, but… is there a large population of people who download 3rd-party apps in order to handle low-hanging simple automation?
I would like to see Raycast implement a Liquid Glass UI!
I think this is going to be great for Raycast and Alfred. Unless Apple have a lot up their sleeve, the new Spotlight isnt going to be anywhere near those two in functionality, but it might make people more aware of what text launchers can do.
What do folks think Raycast/Alfred will be capable of that the new Spotlight won’t?
Tahoe Spotlight + Shortcuts seems like it’ll overlap with everything I can do in Raycast and Alfred.
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What could be “aggravating” is that I just purchased the Alfred Field Guide. 
Oh well, if I don’t end up ultimately using Alfred, I’ll consider the purchase a worthy contribution to @MacSparky —a small token of appreciation for all that he does for our community. 
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Snippets? I haven’t seen the presentation, so maybe snippets-like functionality is in there somewhere.
Actually working? (end sarcasm
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That’s the trick with the “+ Shortcuts” bit with my question, I guess. Shortcuts can do a lot, including snippets and templating with placeholders.
Many workflows that I use daily: shutting down all apps and the Mac…and getting Thunderbird to empty the deleted folder when it otherwise refuses to do so on shut down, automating DEVONthink searches facilitating cross-linking diary entries in Day One, Google searches in Firefox excluding AI results and results from Amazon, eBay and YouTube (and ensuring the results open in a Firefox private window) to name but three. And, of course, we shall have to see if it manages to make access to the Settings Panes any better—or whether we shall still prefer Alfred workflows for that.
Really there are any number of Alfred workflows which I can’t see Spotlight getting anywhere near emulating.
(Full disclosure: I am a moderator on the Alfred forums.)
Stephen
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I have my doubts about the speed and reliability of spotlight+shortcuts.
But setting that aside, I think one big question mark is how flexible/smooth spotlight will be to invoke all the things I currently do with Alfred. From what I’ve see so far, there aren’t the same sort of “fallback” searches or level of customizability. I certainly hope Apple makes it great—mostly because I want them to then port it to the iPad.
The key question isn’t really whether neo-Spotlight will do an automation, but whether Spotlight can launch a Shortcut that does it.
I’m not exactly sure how those three examples work, but I can imagine doing something like them via Shortcuts … and especially if you are willing to use an AppleScript action.
I belabor the point not to criticize Alfred or Raycast, but to emphasize that the competition might be about which tool can be configured to do something more easily, rather than which tool can do something.
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