Idea: New macapps format: "Weekly dev battles/friendly app throw-downs", Opinions?

I just had an epiphany (yeah, I actually have those sometimes).

In almost every post on this subreddit there will be questions like “How does this app compare to X or Y?" or "How is this better/worse than toilet paper?"

Hence, I was thinking about a new format. A "Weekly dev battles/friendly app throwdowns" (just a working titles) with strict rules of sportsmanship to prevent the thread from turning into toxic self-promotion.

# A bit of context:

A lot of users (myself incl.) get overwhelmed trying to choose between similar apps (1st world problems), like clipboard managers, window managers, or note-taking apps.

Sure, there's u/Mstormer Google sheet overview...However, I think it would be incredibly engaging to have a friendly, structured "Weekly Dev Battle" where we pit 2,3 or even a few more popular apps in a category against each other, but with strict rules to keep it healthy and constructive.

Maybe a 1 week before have the community vote for the top apps to wiggle it down to 2 or 3 or 5.

# How it would/could work & some pot. rules:

Matchup: For example, Clipboard App #1 vs. Clipboard App #2 vs Clipboard App #3
Mandatory humility: To participate or in round #1, each developer must publicly state one feature or design choice they genuinely admire in their competitor's app that their own solution doesn't currently provide, or something along those lines.
Standout pitch: They then get to pitch what they believe is their own absolute standout feature that they do better than anyone else.
Community Q&A: Users can chime in with questions, and the devs can openly discuss their differing philosophies on privacy, native vs. electron, UI, etc.

Number of upvotes could be used to select the winner, but I'm not sure if that's a good metric though. Or maybe no winner at all?

# Benefits to the sub & the community:

1. Cuts through the noise: Instead of endless "Which app is better?" threads, users get a definitive, side-by-side comparison straight from the creators.
2. Promotes healthy dev relationships: The "admire your competitor" rule keeps the vibe collaborative and positive rather than toxic. Maybe some dev will fall in love with each other after the event 🤣
3. Better(?) engagement: Gives us a front-row seat to how their favorite Mac software gets made.

Do you think this would be a good format/idea? What are things to consider? Am I forgetting something?

Maybe there should be some rules for the participants as well, because this sub can get toxic sometimes as well...Hell, I throw out a snarky comment every now and then 🙈

Edit 1:
Based on some of the valid comments about it potentially being too "adversarial" for the dev.

What if, say in round #1, the devs cannot promote their own app, but have to promote their competitor's instead? They would have to do some research beforehand.

This would be a bit more fun and turns it into a "friendly" format. Of course there would be a few more rounds of similar fashion...Again, not fully fleshed out...

https://redd.it/1tiq8hw
@macappsbackup

Switch your desktop contents with hotkeys - InfiniDesk 3

https://redd.it/1tip22i
@macappsbackup

Notch - voice-following teleprompter that floats anywhere on screen (Mac + Windows, $8.99)

https://redd.it/1tiue5m
@macappsbackup

Telegram new mac app look wonderful!!

As I last posted and trashed Telegram mac UI (compared to its iOS version), they updated their mac UI and it look way better than before and give sidebar a special touch that match with mac element. They also added swipe left and right gesture to this chat.

Thank you Telegram Team!

https://preview.redd.it/pj4w3cigqb2h1.png?width=1052&format=png&auto=webp&s=a68508578dfb81ea04b2c6b96575c033a96d6318



https://redd.it/1tirxu9
@macappsbackup

[macOS] Chronoid - Automatic Time Tracking & Productivity - May Updates
https://redd.it/1tiqrsi
@macappsbackup

I made App Trust Preview - a Mac app that explains whether a downloaded .app looks reasonable to open

https://redd.it/1tj0ako
@macappsbackup

What is the best window switcher?

I've been using Alfred for a long time to launch apps. I recently got a new computer and since switching to it, I've been averaging 95 launches per day. Anyway, I'm trying to use my mouse less, so I've been experimenting with Homerow, made by the same developers as Superwhisper, which I love, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I've now run into the challenge of switching between per-app windows. I'm not entirely sure what workflow I want, but I'm wondering whether I should download a dedicated app, use Alfred, or try something else entirely. Open to any suggestions!

Thanks in advance!

https://redd.it/1tj4pqv
@macappsbackup

[OS] [Update] simplebanking 1.50: SEPA transfers, wider EU/UK bank support, still free and open source

https://redd.it/1tj7jhv
@macappsbackup

Saving the work environment

Dear r/macapps,
I'm looking for a tool for Mac that lets me restore or manage my workspace. For example, I’d like to have XCode on the screen at a specific window position I’ve set, and in the same size as when I last exited XCode. At the same time, I want to place Upnote at a specific screen position and maybe have Textastic somewhere on the screen as well. Is there a tool like that?

https://redd.it/1tjbxxs
@macappsbackup

ShakeToFocus - when you need to dim the background apps and you like the traditional settings window, not a sidebar

I've been learning Korean for a while now. Daily Anki sessions, trying to stay consistent.

The problem: I'd open Anki, see a browser tab in the background, and that was it. Not even a notification: just the visual presence of something else being there. Five minutes of Korean turned into thirty minutes of whatever that tab was.

I like Anki small and tight in the corner. Full screen is not an option.

I built ShakeToFocus. Shake your mouse → dark overlay covers everything except the window you're in. Switch apps → it follows. Shake again to turn it off.

So

https://reddit.com/link/1tje8c6/video/6fgstp76bg2h1/player

Now I open Anki, shake, and there's literally nothing else on screen to look at.

Comparison with other apps: (Updated)
\- Monocle: ShakeToFocus has plain dim overlay, no blur rendering, so near-zero CPU, zero GPU overhead at idle. Price the same.
\- HazeOver: HazeOver doesn't have shake trigger
\- blurred (free OSS): effectively abandoned.

No Screen Recording, no Accessibility permissions — nothing. Built in Swift.

Who am I:
I'm a solo dev, trying my best to finally pass Korean exam and playing with stuff around. Wanted to try to write something on MacOS for a long time already, so here it is.

https://redd.it/1tje8c6
@macappsbackup

Keylume v2 - Cheatsheets for your app hotkeys

https://redd.it/1tjgjme
@macappsbackup

[App] Promta — MacOS + iOS app to instantly reuse AI prompts anywhere (Free Tier / iCloud Sync)

https://redd.it/1tjibab
@macappsbackup

Searching for an App which was posted here (App to mute audio when tilting the screen)

So just wanted to ask for an App I thought I saw here.

It was one you can use to mute music, etc when you close the lid of a macbook slightly. Thought I saw it here but did not find the post about it. Was it removed or am I misremembering the subreddit? Don't find it in the thread of the banned/warned users/apps. I think it had something like tild or tilt in the name but the search doesn't help me.

And if it was removed then I atleast know that I don't need to search for it or install it.

https://redd.it/1tjhr97
@macappsbackup

Marked 3 Is the Markdown Companion a Lot of Mac Writers Have Been Waiting For

https://preview.redd.it/g63tc2lfci2h1.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ccc9f9dc0a0911530f1a1a66f5dce4f34cac4d49



Brett Terpstra has released Marked 3, and this is not just a routine update. It’s one of those releases that makes you stop and think about where a tool actually fits in your workflow. If you write in Markdown on a Mac, there’s a very good chance Marked has been the missing piece all along.

For years, I lived in Microsoft Word for anything that wasn’t email. That was the EdTech world: Word was the standard, `.doc` and `.docx` were the expected formats, and no one wanted to hear about alternatives. Never mind the huge app footprint, the licensing mess, the cost, or the absurdity of the entire Office suite when all you really needed was a word processor.

And whenever someone in tech tried to suggest something leaner — OpenOffice, Google Docs, anything that didn’t come with Microsoft baggage — the pushback was immediate and emotional. In 2015, we were literally one day away from canceling our Microsoft contract when the superintendent made a late-afternoon phone call to my boss with a $100K purchase order to renew. That was the kind of environment it was.

So yes, I value the freedom to choose my own tools now.

Plain text has become the backbone of the way I work. Obsidian handles notes and longer writing. Drafts is where quick capture happens. Blogging tools and publishing platforms fill in the rest. Markdown wasn’t hard to learn, and once it clicks, it’s hard to go back. But Markdown has one weakness: the writing experience is only as good as the tools around it.

That’s where Marked comes in.

# Marked Defined

Marked is not an editor. That’s the first thing to understand. It works alongside your editor, taking Markdown and rendering it live so you can actually see what your writing looks like without breaking your flow.

It also works with HTML and OPML files, which makes it more flexible than a lot of people realize. And beyond rendering, Marked can convert documents to PDF, HTML, DOCX, and RTF. It also brings prose analysis, syntax checking, and integration with all sorts of writing and outlining apps.

# Who It’s For

The short answer: anybody who writes.

If you’re a coder or a technical writer, you get a lot of useful extras:

Syntax highlighting for code blocks
MathJax and KaTeX support
Mermaid diagrams
MultiMarkdown, YAML, and Pandoc metadata support
CriticMarkup

That’s useful, sure, but it’s not really why I care about it.

For the kind of writing I do, the most valuable features are the ones that help me clean up my prose before I hit publish:

Spelling and grammar checking
Sentence simplification tips
Word count, sentence count, and sentence complexity
Reading time
Grade-level scoring

That’s the real value. Write where you’re comfortable, then let Marked tell you what the page actually looks like.

# The Little Things That Make It Better

Marked has a bunch of features that sound minor until you actually start using them regularly. Flexible search. Automatic table of contents generation. Bookmarking. A visual document overview. Collapsible sections. Keyboard access almost everywhere.

It’s also a very nice Markdown reader, even when you’re not editing. Auto-scroll is there. So is distraction-free mode. And if you want to read faster, there’s even an RSVP-style overlay with adjustable WPM.

If you work with outlines or mind maps, Marked supports embeds from popular apps and can even turn an outline into a mind map directly. That’s a niche feature, but a genuinely useful one if your brain works that way.

There are also browser extensions for sending page URLs or selected content straight into Marked 3, which is a nice touch if you spend any time collecting notes from the web.

# Integrations Matter

Marked works the way good Mac software should: it gets out of the way and plays well with the tools you already use.

That means it fits alongside Scrivener, Word,

MarsEdit, Bear, Ulysses, Obsidian, and other writing apps. In v3, Scrivener rendering with live preview is new, and Bear and Obsidian callouts are now fully supported.

And for the automation crowd, there’s CLI support and AppleScript. That alone makes it much more interesting than a typical “pretty preview” app.

# Final Thoughts

If you have a Setapp subscription, Marked 3 is already there. Otherwise, you can download it directly for a free trial or pick it up from the Mac App Store.

The lifetime price is $69.99, which is a little steep, though not outrageous for a serious utility you’ll keep using. The subscription option is $2.99 per month, which is much easier to justify.

Marked 3 is the kind of Mac app that quietly improves everything around it. It doesn’t try to replace your editor. It makes your writing workflow better by giving you a clearer view of what you’ve actually written, and that’s a pretty compelling trick.

And in classic Brett Terpstra fashion, it’s built by someone who clearly understands the people using it.

https://redd.it/1tjnp96
@macappsbackup

Proxly 1.7.0 - Link History, mailto routing, JS Transformation updates, rule exclusion patterns and more - $5.99
https://redd.it/1tjo2ts
@macappsbackup

Alfred 6 is compiling a warning 💀
https://redd.it/1tjs1ce
@macappsbackup

Paid Wring: 12 offline developer tools in the macOS menu bar

Hi r/MacApps, I’m Ashwani, the maker of Wring.

Problem:
I kept opening browser tools for small developer tasks like decoding JWTs, formatting JSON, testing regex, generating hashes, converting timestamps, comparing text, and managing .env values.

That felt annoying for two reasons:

1. It broke my flow while working in my editor or terminal.
2. Some of that data can be sensitive, and I did not want to paste tokens, JSON, secrets, or .env values into random web tools.

So I built Wring, a native macOS menu bar app with 12 offline developer tools.

It includes:
JWT Inspector, JSON Formatter, Regex Tester, Hash Generator, Encoder / Decoder, Text Diff, Timestamp Converter, Cron Parser, Color Converter, UUID Generator, .env Manager, and Load Monitor.

Comparison:
The closest alternatives are apps like DevUtils and DevToys.

Wring is different because it is focused on being a small menu bar utility drawer rather than a larger toolbox window. It is built around quick access, local processing, and privacy.

There is no account, no app analytics, no telemetry, no cloud sync, and no app network access. .env values are stored in the macOS Keychain.

Pricing:
Wring is a one-time purchase on the Mac App Store.

Price: $4.99 USD, with local App Store pricing depending on country.

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wring-developer-tools/id6767224580

Website:
https://getwring.app

I’d love feedback from Mac developers here, especially around what tools or workflows would make this more useful day to day.

https://redd.it/1tjtqwi
@macappsbackup