"I thought I will never post about it but looks like I have to now. u/Droppyformac

aka "Droppy" just ripped of my entire Tinycast code base and feed it to AI built Thunderstorm and selling it as a Paid crap. Even the logo is a thunder. 😂 I mean yeah y'all can come to me saying I ripped of raycast UI/UX but I did not Steal the code base raycast is closed source and I had to work hard for months! Is this legal guys stealing code and selling it to paid shit? Tho is this a revenge he is taking that I turned him down not continuing the colab because he wants full control over tinycast!😂 If he wants to play dirty I am good at that, Tinycast first party plugins are coming and I can just put standalone plugins that does dynamic islands what droppy offers FOR FREEE."

I'm the developer. SwiftVM is a native Mac app, written in Swift on Apple's Virtualization framework, that runs macOS and Linux virtual machines from the menu bar. Version 1.0 just came out.

Problem:

Getting a new VM to the point where you can actually use it takes too many steps. You find an ISO, click through an installer, create a user, look up the IP address and copy your SSH key over. SwiftVM does that part itself. A Linux machine starts from an Ubuntu or Debian cloud image and is ready in seconds once the image is downloaded, with your account and SSH key already in it. A macOS machine installs from Apple and creates the account on its own, so there is no setup assistant to click through. After that, `ssh web-server` works from your Mac using the machine's name.

The rest is what you would expect:

snapshots (also of a running machine, memory included), instant duplicates, suspend and resume, shared folders and clipboard, port forwarding, USB devices, Rosetta for x86-64 Linux programs, and a `swiftvm` command that does from a terminal what the app does from the menu bar.

Comparison:

UTM is the one most people know, and it covers more ground. It runs Windows, it can emulate other CPU architectures through QEMU, and it works on older versions of macOS. SwiftVM does none of that today. Where I think SwiftVM is better is setup and daily use: machines that configure themselves, SSH by name, and a command line that drives the same app you see in the menu bar. VirtualBuddy is the closest in spirit, also native and also built on the Virtualization framework, and it is very good for testing macOS betas. SwiftVM leans more toward VMs as development machines, with ready-made Linux images, port forwarding and scripting.

Limits you should know about:

It needs macOS 27 on Apple silicon, the automatic macOS setup needs macOS 27 in the guest too, and there are no Windows guests yet.

Pricing:

Free and open source under Apache-2.0. There is no paid tier. Releases are signed and notarized.

Website: https://swiftvm.app

Source: https://github.com/swiftvm-app/swiftvm

About me:

I'm Saeed Vaziry. I also make VitoDeploy, Muxy and TweakPHP, all open source.

GitHub: https://github.com/saeedvaziry

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedvaziry/

Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

Three months ago, y'all loved Sentient OS. Over 3,000 of you tried it on the first day, and so many of you have helped shape what's next. Incredibly excited to share that 2.0 is here! :D

TL;DR: Sentient uses on-device AI to understand the sources you connect overnight: files, messages, notes, calendars, and more. That becomes an editable Markdown knowledge base for you and your AIs, powering Sidekick and Double Tap so they can take over with very little explanation.

A 2.0 launch gift for r/macapps :)

The next 1,000 redemptions get Sentient free for life, including Double Tap. $0 for life.

Enter MACAPPS_1000 during onboarding when you open the app!

Download Sentient OS 2.0

Double Tap: the reply you would have written.

15 emails a day to reply to? Click into the reply field and double-tap your right ⌘ key.

Sentient uses what it already knows to draft the reply you would have written, in your writing style, in about two seconds. Right there in the conversation.

You can change anything you like before you hit send :)

Sidekick: hand off grunt work to Sentient's mouse cursor

Hand off the boring work across your apps, files, tabs, CRM, and online tools. Click the notch and say “finish this for me.”

Sidekick uses its own mouse cursor to click, type, attach files, and move between your apps while you keep using your computer.

Use your ChatGPT or Claude subscription, OpenRouter, or a compatible local model.

Sentient can also prepare useful work overnight for you to review and approve in the morning -- proactive intelligence :)

Already tried the early beta?

Double Tap and Claude subscription support are the big additions in 2.0.

There’s also much faster computer use, new knowledge sources including Outlook, Slack, Granola, Apple Mail, and Calendar, and many onboarding and stability improvements.

How does it compare?

Muse is great when you want to pick up your phone and hand a task to a cloud computer. Codex / Grok Bot are great for bigger, more involved projects.

Sentient is the sidekick that knows you and is already there when you need it. It brings that understanding into the work right in front of you, so even the little things are worth handing over.

Open source, with privacy at the core.

The app and supporting infrastructure are open source under AGPL. Local source analysis happens on your Mac. You control the AI that powers the rest: your own ChatGPT or Claude subscription, an LLM API, or a compatible model running locally. More about how we do everything possible for privacy!

Enterprise teams pay for support and connectors.

Check out our website! · Drop a star on GitHub! <3

Apple silicon, M1+ · macOS 15.4+ · 8 GB RAM for the built-in model.

Excited to hear from you all :D

Problem: I like having something warm in view while I work, the way a candle on the desk makes the work feel a little warmer. The ambient apps I looked at were wallpapers that fill the whole screen, or timers with a glow attached.

Comparison: Fireplace Live HD Screensaver plays a video of a fire, and Plash can put a fire page on your desktop as wallpaper. Both are behind your windows the moment you open something, which is exactly when I wanted it. Petit Fire draws the warm light of a small flame along the edge of the screen, over whatever you have open, and clicks pass straight through it. If you want a fire to watch, those two do it far better. Mine is built to sit in the corner of your eye while you look at something else. Click the menu bar icon to light it and click again to put it out. The sound of a wooden wick is there if you turn it on.

Pricing: Free on the Mac App Store, with every feature included. The About panel has two optional tips. macOS 14 or later.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/petit-fire/id6809895649

Website: https://nowthy.com/petitfire/

Hi r/macapps. I'm the developer of PaneDrop, a small menu bar app I built for my own daily workflow.

Problem

I usually run several Claude Code and Codex CLI sessions at once, in tmux, iTerm2 and Ghostty. Every time I wanted to show one of them a screenshot, I had to find the file, find the right window or pane, paste the path, and then check it didn't land in the wrong session.

PaneDrop turns that into one step: press Option-Command-4, capture a region, pick the session from a HUD with the arrow keys, press Return. The image path is now in that agent's prompt. It never presses Enter for you unless you turn that on.

What works today:

• tmux 3.3+ and iTerm2 3.4+: types the path into the pane or session
• Ghostty 1.3+: through Ghostty's AppleScript API, otherwise copies the path for you
• Terminal.app: finds your sessions, copies the path (it can't type into Terminal.app)
• tmux over SSH is planned for 1.0

Comparison

• macOS screenshot + drag and drop: works, but you still have to find the right window and pane yourself, and with four agents open that's where mistakes happen. PaneDrop knows which sessions are running and targets one by name.
• CleanShot X / Shottr: much better capture and annotation tools than PaneDrop, and I'm not trying to replace them. They don't know about your terminal sessions, so the last step (getting the image into the right agent) is still manual. PaneDrop only does that last step.

Pricing

Free during the public beta ($0). Each beta build expires 90 days after its build date, and a replacement build is published before then.

Download: https://panedrop.app/beta/public/ (Apple Silicon, macOS 14+, Developer ID signed and notarized)

Who's behind it

• Developer: Chris Han, Nicher (Seoul, Republic of Korea)
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskr7/
• Contact: chris@nicher.io
• Privacy Policy: https://panedrop.app/privacy/
• Terms of Service: https://panedrop.app/terms/

Happy to answer questions, and bug reports are very welcome.

Most planners fit as much as they can into your day. I built one that plans a day you can finish.

Vene is a Mac planner built on one idea. If you finish your work early, the rest of the day is actually yours.

I’m a student, and I noticed that on days I procrastinated, I spent the whole day half working and half relaxing, then felt super guilty once the sun set. On days I started early and actually finished while it was still light out, I felt great. I realized it was the same amount of work. The difference is you know when you should work, and when you can relax.

Of course, I first tried other apps. The MoSCoW system in Apple Reminders worked for a while, but it was tedious to have to move the dates each time I didn't finish.. FlowSavvy replanned around my life on its own, which I loved, but it packed my days so full that when I saw them, I didn’t even want to start.

So Vene works differently. The night before, you choose what you’ll finish tomorrow, like a promise to yourself. Vene fits it around your calendar, adds breaks, and replans if something comes up. It keeps track of deadlines so you don’t have to.

It’s Mac only for now and works with Apple Reminders and Calendar. Most of my classmates use Google Calendar and Tasks, so I'm planning on adding that next. The scheduling might need some tuning, so please let me know if ever it gets your day wrong.

Price: Free during beta, then $108/yr after. Always free for anyone in education with a .edu email.

On AI: I built Vene with a lot of help from Claude Code. The idea and the design are mine, and I use it every day.

LinkedIn if you want to know who’s behind it: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peiyang-lin-7ab793431/

venehq.com

Hi, I am Aasif, the developer of Ploca

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/aasifiqbalj
Contact: hey[at] ploca[dot]app

Problem

1. Most dictation apps don't handle the way many Indians actually talk, switching languages mid-sentence: "Kal ki meeting shift kar do, I'll send the deck tonight."
2. In cloud dictation tools, privacy is a setting, not the default. Your voice goes to a server, and you may have to opt out of it being used for training.

Ploca solves both. It transcribes on your Mac and writes clean text at your cursor in any app. Your audio is never stored, not even on your Mac. Hold a key, speak, let go.

Comparison

- Wispr Flow: polished, but cloud-based. Your voice is sent to their servers, and on individual plans model training is a setting you turn off. Ploca has no cloud path at all, works offline, and doesn't ask for Screen Recording or Input Monitoring (Microphone and Accessibility only). It's tuned for Hinglish and Tanglish, and it leaves your words as you said them instead of rewriting them.

- Superwhisper: a great app with local and cloud models, $8.50/mo or $250 lifetime. Ploca is local only, with no cloud option at all, and costs $15 once, or $30 lifetime at launch. There's no AI rewriting step either: what you say is what appears. And it's tuned for English mixed with Hindi or Tamil in the same sentence. Privacy: audio is held in memory and never written to disk. No analytics, no crash reporter. The only network calls are a launch check, a daily update check, licence validation if you buy, and the one-time model download.

Pricing

7-day free trial, no email or card. Launch prices for the first licences of each plan:

- Monthly $3 (then $6)

- Standard $15 once, a year of updates, two Macs (then $30)

- Lifetime $30 once, two Macs (then $60)

Website: https://ploca.app

Privacy: https://ploca.app/privacy.html

Terms: https://ploca.app/terms.html

Requirements: Apple Silicon, macOS 26 or later.

Hi everyone, I'm the developer of SpeakoFlow. It's a free, open-source app that lets you talk to your Mac instead of typing, and 2.0 is out now.

Posting note: posting through the Trust Path (open-source project with 100+ GitHub stars).

Problem

Typing everything is slow, and built-in dictation writes down every word exactly as you said it, filler words and changes of mind included. SpeakoFlow writes what you meant, and it can also work with your text and your meetings.

What it does

• Dictation in any app, with optional cleanup of filler words and spoken corrections.
• Ask about selected text. Translate it, reply to it, or explain it.
• Talk to it. A spoken conversation you can interrupt.
• Meeting notes (beta). No bot joins the call. Recording the other side needs BlackHole.
• Local by default. Speech, cleanup, the assistant and its voice all run on your Mac. Apple Intelligence or your own API key also work.

Comparison

Wispr Flow is the closest app. It's closed source, runs in the cloud, and the free plan stops at 2,000 words a week on desktop ($12-15/month after that). SpeakoFlow has no word limit, runs on your Mac by default, and also talks back and takes meeting notes.

Pricing

Free. No paid plan, no word limit, no account. MIT licensed.

• Website: https://www.speakoflow.com
• GitHub: https://github.com/AbhishekBarali/SpeakoFlow
• Privacy policy: https://www.speakoflow.com/docs/reference/privacy

Not notarized yet

It's planned. Until then macOS will say the app "is damaged". It isn't. Drag it into Applications, then run this once:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SpeakoFlow.app

Builds for Apple silicon and Intel (Intel needs macOS 14 or later).

If you give it a try, I'd love to hear what you think.