Alfred's slow development - Do we need to worry about the product

[halloleo]

As a rather casual user, I just noticed Alfred 5 is out since 2022 - that's two years now. 

 

I know 5.5. just came out, plus fast version number increases don't mean necessarily great product development, but I'm stil wondering: Do we need to worry about the Alfred product?  Ist the end of its life written on the wall? I know Raycast is for sure competition. (I personal haven't grown a big liking towards Raycast, but I might be the exception.)

 

I'm curious what others think.

[andy4222]

I'm a little more than a casual user (been a user 5ish years and do write small/medium workflows), and can say with some confidence that the Alfred community still hasn't fully consumed the new amazing features that the Alfred team rolled out 3 months ago in v5.5 (grid/image/text/pdf views and more..), that's already a lot, lol. Plus, we keep getting more Automation Tasks, every few weeks (take a notice here 🙂) which aren't that highlighted as much as the usual update, but provide a lot of functionality when building workflows.

 

Generally speaking, the team is in fact growing (Vitor and StephenC joined), which is a good sign!! And they also launched alfred.app gallery. 

 

Based on this, I don't see any signs of slowdown, unless I'm bad at reading the app trends. 

 

Perhaps, why don't you share why you think this way? Are there any features you feel are missing, and more importantly, what exactly are you trying to automation/streamline which you feel Alfred isn't enabling you to do? Feel free to share and the community can help you out!

 

[andy4222]

1 hour ago, halloleo said:

haven't grown a big liking towards Raycast, but I might be the exception.

 

I browse reddit a lot and the first reason people mention about moving to raycast is it's fancy appearance lol. I feel that's where the Alfred community can spread more word that alfred has themes already, it's just less marketed. Honestly, I'd rather have solid feature and most importantly speed than appearance, but just saying.

 

Raycast also is VC funded now I think, so there's also pressure to upsell/expand/collect data to get into different markets. Launchers like this have clipboard and disk access.

 

 

[halloleo]

2 hours ago, andy4222 said:

Perhaps, why don't you share why you think this way? 

 

Well, I think I mentioned it in the original post: 2 years since a major version plus strong competition through Raycast.

 

2 hours ago, andy4222 said:

Are there any features you feel are missing, and more importantly, what exactly are you trying to automation/streamline which you feel Alfred isn't enabling you to do?

 

No, no, I'm a pretty light user. I use Alfred mainly for launching (doing automation more with Keyboard Maestro). But I always think I should do more with Alfred - might install the Devonthink workflow. 

[Tsunami]

Alfred's development has always been "slow" and calculated. Looking at all the changelogs, there's generally been 3 years between major Alfred releases:

• https://www.alfredapp.com/changelog/
• https://www.alfredapp.com/changelog/v4/
• https://www.alfredapp.com/changelog/v3/
• https://www.alfredapp.com/changelog/v2/

And Alfred sometimes even introduces big features in minor versions, like in 5.5. So I don't see any reason to worry.

[Andrew]

As @Tsunami's response highlighted, Alfred releases have always been very carefully considered. We consistently remain true to our ethos: Fast, effective and long-life software. How many apps have been ruined by rushing to chase the latest trend or buzzword just for those features to evaporate when the buzz moves on?

 

While we could do updates with artificially bigger numbers, e.g. we could've made the Alfred 5.5 release an Alfred 6, this would make the update a paid upgrade for anyone with a single-version license. Instead, we choose to release this huge update free to all existing Alfred 5 license holders.

 

Don't worry about numbers, and instead take the time to discover the broad range of features already available to you. For example, workflows have Automation Tasks, to which @vitor is regularly adding new tasks. 

 

What do you want to create? What would boost your productivity? Share ideas and fellow community members will be able to help you create what you have in mind.

 

We have so much good stuff planned for Alfred, just wait and see

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[iandol]

Alfred has been regularly updated, and the new features are always so well polished. Honestly there are few apps with a miniscule 17MB disk footprint that are so beautifully designed, so carefully thought out, and so featureful. The Alfred developers carefully consider features, but unless they are convinced they don't just keep adding features. I call this Artisan software. Single developer and small support team = razor sharp focus. Bookends and Scrivener are other examples of this Artisan approach. Better than all the flashy publicity that VC hot air conjures up, whose apps are invariably designed by committee and a rolling set of corporate employees with a passing interest in the tool they are developing.

 

No shares in the company or personal relationships 😉, just admiration and respect from a paying customer for a beautifully crafted tool...

[oldman8371763]

Thank you for putting the customer first. Absolutely love this software. No forced subscriptions, just great software that makes my life better. Proud Alfred power pack user here, thank you.