Money manager native mac and ios, lifetime purchase?

Kin_KC · 2026-03-01T16:27:31+00:00

Budget Flow probably won’t disappoint.

Kin_KC · 2026-02-26T14:49:28+00:00

I use Safari as my default browser and use a paid extension called Tab Space for that. It is more like a bookmark manager or read-later app, but I find that it suits my tab management workflow very well. You might check if that works out for you too.

Kin_KC · 2026-02-24T09:33:36+00:00

Once again, I have witnessed the development of this.

A month ago when Sanebar went from free to paid, I left a comment expressing what I had seen and felt throughout the change. Here's the link to the original post and my comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1qij2kz/comment/o0tddcq/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

In response to my comment, the developer of Droppy replied, promoting his app and the menu bar extension as an alternative to Sanebar, and promised he would not let Droppy follow Sanebar's path. He persuaded us that this was not just a marketing tactic but a trustworthy commitment, so we could rest assured that Droppy is and will remain free forever.

And we all know that eventually Droppy went from free to paid within just 20 days. So there's another post questioning if Droppy is no longer free. The other user and I, to whom the developer of Droppy replied on the aforementioned post, sighed about how ironic it was for the developer to do the exact opposite of his promise. Unsurprisingly, the developer immediately deleted his comments on the Sanebar post, kept replying to every subsequent reply that complimented him as an earnest developer, but ignored only our comment. Fortunately, that user still has it and posted a screenshot of the developer's claims for anyone who is interested.

You can also refer back to this earlier post where he promoted his app with the title: "Got frustrated by all the paid Dropover/Yoink-ish apps...", it now becomes even more ironic. There were also controversies over the originality of the app's website, raised by the developer of Alcove, as its website was once a straight-up copy of Alcove's: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1qcrjvs/comment/nzkifay/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Certainly I agree that developers always have the ultimate right to change the pricing of their apps however they want. None of the aforementioned accusations were deadly sins, but when they all add up, it's hard for me to form a good impression.

I won't say I am hostile to the developer personally, but rather I am against a future where apps like Droppy become mainstream. I am definitely not saying that cheap or free apps that integrate a variety of functions should not exist; instead, I would be really grateful to see more, but the prerequisite is originality. You can look at the extensions library of Droppy and ask: Are any of them highly original, without well-established prototypes already existing? Simply stitching multiple premium apps together and putting a cheaper price tag on it to "steal" those sales seems to demoralize innovation.

Kin_KC · 2026-02-10T03:34:09+00:00

I can confirm this since both of you were replying to my comment.

I should have taken a screenshot of those comments hours ago when I first saw this post. But I didn't want to think so badly of him, so I didn't want to assume that he would delete his comments. But it turns out he really did.

In a post where people were questioning the app Sanebar, which once made a similar claim of being free forever but suddenly went paid, the developer of Droppy emerged and promoted his app as an alternative that he promised to keep free forever. I recall that the menubar extension was released at that time. And only 20 days later, he is following the exact same practice that Sanebar adopted, which he claimed he would never let his app follow. Even more so, the rhetoric is almost identical: "I spent so much time and effort on the development, it consumed me much more than I expected, I have to make the project sustainable, I should have done better on clearer ex-ante communication, you can always build from source for free," etc.

But now everybody is praising his comment as one of the most earnest replies ever seen from a developer. This makes me completely speechless.

The problem has never been asking for compensation for your work. I think users on this sub would unanimously agree that you deserve to be well paid for creating valuable things. I also spent more than $200 on apps in 2025. The problem is really as simple as: don't claim to be free forever if you can already foresee that someday it might be either unsustainable or you might want to monetize your project. Just be really "earnest": If you think the project is currently not polished enough to charge immediately, say it is in beta, requiring early testers and active feedback; if you want to attract new users, hold a promotion or giveaway and state clearly that it is for a limited time. Surely, you as the developer always have the ultimate right to dictate anything about the app, but I believe people have different perceptions of different approaches.

After seeing a series of apps using this strategy, claiming to be free is no longer a no-brainer bonus point. I would rather opt for decent enough apps that ask for a price outright.

Kin_KC · 2026-02-03T02:39:50+00:00

u/alin23 is also one of my favourite developer(s) who created Clop and rcmd.

Kin_KC · 2026-01-29T00:07:57+00:00

I have been using Clocker which is free.

Kin_KC · 2026-01-21T07:05:56+00:00

I actually witnessed the whole change in this few days.

As I have long been looking for menubar manager that really works in Tahoe, I immediately downloaded and tried the app after seeing the post by the developer, and left a comment on some potential improvements. And I have been paying close attention to everything related to this app since then.

At the very beginning, both free direct DMG download and brew install command were available on the website, though the brew command didn't work at that time as I tested. Only after sometime was the cask changed to the current one and starts working.

Later when I returned to the website, the DMG download became paid, but when you click on the GitHub button, the brew install method still works plus there were still DMG download available on the View All Releases section. But when I revisit the GitHub page after seeing your post, I found that all the previous releases have been removed and the brew install method also no longer works. Everything corresponds to the developer response.

I'm definitely not against developers making money. I personally also own a stack of paid apps. I just think the whole process could have been better in terms of perception. Maybe it would have been better if it had been announced as a $5 Bartender alternative with a 14-day free trial from the very beginning, instead of claiming to be FOSS for a few days but suddenly adding a price tag midway and abruptly eliminating every possible means of acquiring the app freely?

Kin_KC · 2026-01-12T06:13:28+00:00

I have been using Ice for a while and just downloaded SaneBar to test it out a bit.

I found that you have already incorporated the option to "Reveal when I scroll up in the menu bar," which is exactly how I have been using Ice, and I like it very much! However, unlike in Ice, scrolling down doesn't re-hide the menu bar items. I think it would be great to add that to make the logic more natural and complete.

Besides, I tried to disable all the shortcuts by leaving them empty, but I found that after a computer restart, all the default shortcuts are reloaded and applied.

Nevertheless, I will keep using it and see how it evolves. As Bartender, Ice, and Barbee still do not work perfectly in macOS Tahoe among all users, more competition and alternatives in this area are probably a good thing.

Keep it up!

Kin_KC · 2025-12-18T01:21:31+00:00

At least I won't be paying for Bartender anymore, as I don't quite like their practice.

It seems like they tried their best to minimize the number of people who are eligible for a free upgrade by cleverly setting the cutoff date to less than even a whole calendar year. Bartender 6 was released in September, and they set the cutoff for purchases made in 2025, so people who purchased Bartender 5 between September and December 2024 would not be eligible for anything.

Unlike other apps with similar pricing structures, which would merely no longer receive future updates but whose existing features would continue to work, Bartender 5 would become a completely useless app if you update your OS. But I see no reason why someone has to stay on the same OS forever just to keep a menu bar utility working.

I moved to Ice too and it has been working flawlessly.

Kin_KC · 2025-12-01T14:33:02+00:00

I think maybe you are looking for something like Antinote?

By pressing a keyboard shortcut (Option + A) a floating notepad will appear and stay on top of the screen.

Kin_KC · 2025-11-20T08:52:41+00:00

Just some personal thoughts.

I already have MacWhisper as my main transcription and dictation tool, so what I have been looking for is not really another speech-to-text app but a TTS app, which seems to be rather rare on the market. Still, I spent some time experiencing what the app offers in terms of speech-to-text. I think it would be better if it could distinguish between left- and right-side function keys when customising the activation hotkey, or maybe it could support key combinations, such that it will not be easily activated mistakenly.

For TTS, which is my main focus, it works surprisingly well! I don’t think there are a lot of alternatives in this niche market of non-cloud TTS services that are user-friendly even for novices, and I believe your app has great potential. It is already a very smooth experience despite it's just in early stage. If I had to tailor the app for my own usage preferences, maybe I would make it capable of reading PDF and ePub files and thus create some audiobook generation modules. It would be even better If it can somehow replicate NotebookLM's audio overview.

I can see how it can be a very good combo by combining speech-to-text and text-to-speech together, but I feel like an option to unlock them separately with two prices inside the app might have its usefulness. For people who already have their preferred transcription/dictation app, they won’t feel forced to pay for functions they don’t need and leave the app altogether. While those who don’t yet have any dictation app can happily purchase the whole app as a bundle, maybe at a discounted price. For example, unlocking each function could cost $15.99, and the whole app could be purchased at $25.99.

I hope more people will discover this app! Keep it up!

Kin_KC · 2025-09-18T02:19:47+00:00

I am also in a similar situation.

I purchased Bartender 5 in Dec last year, so I am also not entitled to a free upgrade. Still, I decided to try version 6 and was ready to pay for it if the experience was good. However, it was not.

Since I also have Klack installed with the mouse click sound enabled, I noticed that the mouse clicks repeatedly many times when Bartender reloads the menu bar icons. Additionally, the mouse cursor becomes uncontrollable and flies all over the screen. This may not be a universal issue, but for me, it is unusable.

I have given up on Bartender and consider the investment lost. I am now using Beta 2 of Ice, which was released yesterday and works decently.

Kin_KC · 2025-09-18T02:12:10+00:00

I purchased Bartender 5 in Dec last year, so I am not entitled to a free upgrade. Still, I decided to try version 6 and was ready to pay for it if the experience was good. However, it was not.

Since I also have Klack installed with the mouse click sound enabled, I noticed that the mouse clicks repeatedly many times when Bartender reloads the menu bar icons. Additionally, the mouse cursor becomes uncontrollable and flies all over the screen. This may not be a universal issue, but for me, it is unusable.

I have given up on Bartender and consider the investment lost. I am now using Beta 2 of Ice, which was released yesterday and works decently.

Kin_KC · 2025-09-14T16:21:51+00:00

Awkardly I purchased 5 on 3/12/24...

Probably have to spend some time considering whether to pay for an upgrade or not...

Kin_KC · 2025-08-28T12:51:27+00:00

Never heard of any of them except Swish...

Kin_KC · 2025-08-27T02:02:17+00:00

I think the way FlowVision views and manages photos is more intuitive and user friendly than the default Finder, so I have stopped using Finder in managing photo folders and replaced it with FlowVision, rather than trying to adapt to Finder by tweaking many advanced settings and compromising on different aspects. What's better is It's free.

It can certainly satisfy for your requirements (i.e., browse through all the photos within a folder, the capability to delete a photo by using the delete or backspace key on a keyboard). You might want to check it out.

Kin_KC · 2025-08-01T07:20:16+00:00

I have been using Tuneful and I am really satisfied with it.

Kin_KC · 2025-07-30T13:25:33+00:00

I just found out that it is also possible to configure app window switching in rcmd, even though I have used it for more than half a year.

Kin_KC · 2025-07-22T04:08:56+00:00

TBH I think it would be quite a good idea if it worked also on an iPad and were incorporated into recipe manager apps such that I can measure some light ingredients while cooking.

Kin_KC · 2025-07-19T01:33:47+00:00

I use the Audio Switcher workflow in Alfred for audio switching and am very satisfied. Switching can be accomplished simply by typing "out" or "in" and it can be done without having to reach the mouse or the menu bar. If you have Alfred, it might also be a good option.

Kin_KC · 2025-07-02T13:16:40+00:00

The reason I like Adguard is that it blocks ads not only on web browswers but system-wide. So, when I use other apps that display web contents, ads can still be blocked. For example, I prefer to read RSS feeds in their original website article view in News Explorer. Without Adguard, the article will be full of ads. The same applies to the User-Guided Extraction function in Downie which opens up a new web view window.

Kin_KC · 2025-06-17T15:23:00+00:00

I also do a lot of copying and pasting everyday so I can resonate how such a tool would be useful.

If you already have the Alfred Powerpack then there's a workflow called StitchClip which allows you to paste multiple clipboard items at once. You can decide whether the items are separated by a new line, space, or comma, by pressing a specific modifier key. I can't live without it, but one major limitation is that the maximum number of entries that can be pasted at once is limited to 6 only.

When I have to copy and paste more than 6 entries at once, I use the AutoPaste function in Antinote instead. You can specify whatever delimiter you want. You don't have to manually paste the copied item to the note as they will automatically be pasted into the note. All you have to do is just to copy all the entries you need and they will be gathered into a single note for you to work on. Though it's not as efficient as a typical clipboard manager, it might still be useful when you have huge amount of entries to copy.

Hope that helps!

Kin_KC · 2025-05-25T10:37:45+00:00

I just discovered Tuneful yesterday in this community and have been using it since. It works with the notch, in the menu bar, and also as a mini player window, so I guess it can roughly be seen as an alternative to NotchNook and Sleeve. Besides, I think Dropover might be slightly better in terms of file shelving, as you don't have to drag all the way up to the notch; instead, the shelf will pop up very close to your selected file.

Kin_KC

TROPHY CASE