Steve Jobs development advice and how to pull ahead in the vibe clone age.

https://reddit.com/link/1wfi95q/video/whxjx5o1icph1/player

I came across this WWDC 1997 Steve Jobs clip today, and it resonated strongly as I look at the shift in quality and user experience with apps in 2026 (irrespective of vibe coding). Here's the heart of it:

>"One of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work back to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try sell it." - Steve Jobs

Having moderated well over 10,000 posts/comments here in the last year, if I'd give one piece of advice, it is this: Focus on making one thing incredible from a user experience standpoint, and keep refining it. Once it is excellent, adding more will be well-received, provided you maintain the same principle. And don't just do this blind. Make sure you tested at LEAST the top 3 competitors you could find.

The inverse can also be true: If you keep delaying release and run out of steam, you can miss opportunities entirely. Find a healthy balance that doesn't strangle development. Many devs keep up such a rigorous development pace, shipping new features, that they don't stop to ask if they have done it well, or even if they should.

A mistake I see devs making here over and over again here is that they come up with what they think is an incredible idea. 10-apps-in-1, perhaps, or a new feature every week, but do it with such little design sense or taste, that it creates friction or doesn't take off. This causes discouragement, and many a project is abandoned in six months.

This is not the apple way. You can do better, and I challenge you to keep these things in mind. I get that many do not have design experience. Even so, anyone can look at exemplary apps and try to incorporate similar design principles. Apple design standards exist for a reason.

Example: I've seen maybe three apps now where when the accessibility permissions step included a drag and drop experience to add the app if it was not listed. In another app this year, I noticed a settings menu had a little animation where it fades in 10px from the right over maybe 150ms when switching sections. These little background details are what we need more of. The mindset behind them result in a degree of excellence that stands out and ripples to everything else.

Where do you agree or disagree?

Challenge: Comment with 2 apps (at most, and not your own) that you think fit this user experience philosophy amidst the many options available. Apps you feel are excellent exemplars for design and user experience imitation.

Bonus points if you note the aspect or function that most impressed you.

P.s. Unpopular opinion: No promotional post should need to be longer than this, or half of it.

https://redd.it/1wfi95q
@macappsbackup

iOS/Macos 27 can basically let Claude become a Siri extension ❤️


iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate have private hooks for Siri Extensions.. You can use Chatgpt and Claude.. this is honestly so cool.

https://preview.redd.it/n9nqxmm2ybph1.jpg?width=1312&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea0367830522a84971a7a40657e1cb5dec111403

https://preview.redd.it/6wmy4nz2ybph1.jpg?width=1204&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac45f58b31560e95ef1f032aa31cb2455a40f2eb



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

Where did you land on privacy vs being able to reach your users?

I built my app without accounts, without collecting emails, without analytics, simply because that’s what I want from the software I install.

The only built-in way I have to communicate with users is through Sparkle update notes. No signup, no email on download, no tracking.

I liked how clean that was until I started to see the flip side.

If someone emails me about a bug, obviously I can reply to that person when it’s fixed. But if I realize the same bug affects a bunch of other users, I have no way to tell them. Same thing when I ship something useful. Most users only hear about it if they read the update notes. Price changes, features that get dropped, migrations, or anything else they might actually need to know all have the same problem.

Now I’m wondering if I went a little too far with that one.

For those of you building apps, what do you prefer? Taking an email at some point in the process, even if it’s optional? Or keeping that relationship completely anonymous and being OK with the fact that it’s harder to reach users later?

https://redd.it/1wfhd4a
@macappsbackup

Best File manager

Is there any best file manager other than Finder on MacOS? It's really very counter intuitive. Coming from Windows file explorer, i see many limitations here. Most annoying thing is, I can't just navigate to folders within folders easily/ copy any file/folder path.

Ex: I have a path c://program files/a/b/c/d .. on Windows explorer, i can just click on b to get to see or copy whichever path i want from directly the top file path. But Finder cannot fo it.

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

Raycast 2 went cross-platform. If you left it on Mac, what did you switch to?

Raycast 2 got me thinking about this again.

I understand the business argument for sharing more code between Mac and Windows. One team, faster development, fewer things to maintain.

But with Claude/Copilot/etc. making implementation work much faster now, I wonder if maintaining native apps for each platform is actually becoming more viable rather than less.

Anyway, I'm mostly curious about people who actually used Raycast and then left it:

What are you using now?

Alfred? LaunchBar? Tinycast? Spotlight + smaller utilities? Something else?

And more importantly: what's genuinely better than Raycast, and what's the one Raycast feature you still miss?

I'm especially interested in people who've used their replacement for a while rather than just tried it for a day.

https://redd.it/1wfy0mb
@macappsbackup

ProcessSpy - Advanced process monitor for Mac

https://redd.it/1wfxx4r
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[OS] Lap — 6 months later: 2.3k stars, 10k+ users, 200+ issues fixed (v0.3.2 major update)

https://redd.it/1wg1nis
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I built MacGuard, a motion alarm for Apple silicon MacBooks (free Mac app, optional $9.99 companion)

https://redd.it/1wg1a3y
@macappsbackup

Kinship Vault 3.0: shared vaults, password folders, and a dead man's switch, none of it running through a server of mine (Free tier, paid plans, lifetime option)

https://redd.it/1wg5nj4
@macappsbackup

[OS] [FREE] EnviousWispr 2.5.0 - Monthly Update - 2000+ Downloads - Snippets + Live Preview + File Transcription & Lots More!

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

Accessibility permission renamed to "Device control and Data access"
https://redd.it/1wgqqhs
@macappsbackup

I built a menu bar app that turns off your MacBook's screen without closing the lid
https://redd.it/1wgvsxk
@macappsbackup

Parendi: a finance app for the Mac that reads your bank statements offline and never phones home ($34.99, one-time)

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