After Quicksilver, I went to LaunchBar, a fine app. It seemed to lose momentum after a while… I tried going built-in with Tahoe's upgraded Spotlight, a big improvement compared to the original. But it wasn’t enough.
I resisted Raycast since it seemed like the Mac bloggers and podcasters were using it. But I finally gave in.
Now after giving Tuna a try, I realize what's been missing since Quicksilver: some whimsy; a Mac-assed[1] launcher. As capable as Raycast is, it has no personality; it’s just a tool. It's not fun to use.
Compared to the others, Tuna is fun to use. It looks right at home on the Mac.
This composability was also a defining feature of Launchbar.
I loved it, but eventually found that Raycasts approach of having predefined plugins for each use case is more performant , discoverable and usable.
Kinda like how the unix philosophy was beaten by integrated full-stack applications.
* since anything can be composed, everything must be in the same search index. This slows down the index, and means you need to sift through more irrelevant results.
I'm a big fan of your other app Leader Key: it's the closest equivalent to the Windows+number keyboard shortcuts that I use all the time on my other computer (but better since you're not limited to 10 apps and you can use mnemonic shortcuts). Does the release of Tuna mean that Leader Key is now deprecated/unmaintained?
If this is to replace Alfred (the replacement for Quicksilver), you need to list the details of all features. Currently, the website looks too polished, as if the demo is “too good to be true.”
I started teaching my daughters to use Alfred because my multiple attempts at staying native with Spotlight has failed despite its recent advancements.
Looks nice! You have a good foundation in modal input order. How’s your file indexing and search compared to Alfred’s? RayCast struggles with this. Alfred’s is solid, especially stands out with `in` search.
Custom search query strings/results is important, too. I couldn’t tell how you support that from the marketing site.
Great work — this looks really impressive. I’d love to give it a proper try sometime. For now, though, I’m still happily using Raycast and it covers my needs well.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 54.3 ms ] threadGreat work.
Loved Quicksilver back in the day.
I resisted Raycast since it seemed like the Mac bloggers and podcasters were using it. But I finally gave in.
Now after giving Tuna a try, I realize what's been missing since Quicksilver: some whimsy; a Mac-assed[1] launcher. As capable as Raycast is, it has no personality; it’s just a tool. It's not fun to use.
Compared to the others, Tuna is fun to use. It looks right at home on the Mac.
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/03/20/mac-assed-mac-a...
I loved it, but eventually found that Raycasts approach of having predefined plugins for each use case is more performant , discoverable and usable.
Kinda like how the unix philosophy was beaten by integrated full-stack applications.
* since anything can be composed, everything must be in the same search index. This slows down the index, and means you need to sift through more irrelevant results.
I started teaching my daughters to use Alfred because my multiple attempts at staying native with Spotlight has failed despite its recent advancements.
https://brajeshwar.com/2026/alfred/
Custom search query strings/results is important, too. I couldn’t tell how you support that from the marketing site.
As others have mentioned, a clear list of features would be useful.
The only sign of modernity noticed is leaving good old stuff behind:
> macOS 15 Sequoia or newer required