Better than what? No launcher at all? In a never ending effort to become hyper productive and ultra efficient, I collect app launchers. What I’m using today is home grown, full customizable, and drop dead simple. What I’m testing is the Big Kahuna of app launchers.
Too Many Apps
Here’s the problem. Too many apps. Part of that has to do with all the reviews here, on Mac360 and NoodleMac. And I like well constructed, useful apps, hence the large collection (about 300 apps).
Let me compare Bevy to my home grown app launching solution.
Bevy finds apps and organizes the icons into a huge pop up window. The more apps you have, the more imposing the window.
Confusing? Bevy tracks your apps, so new ones are added automatically. It also creates visual groups of apps. Press a key and it highlights matching names. Drag and drop a file and it highlights compatible apps. Apps you don’t use often are not displayed.
It’s that auto setup and auto updating that make Bevy somewhat of an improvement over my home grown method.
All I did was drag the Applications folder to the right side of the Dock. Click, and the pop up window displays all the apps in the Applications folder. Alphabetically. It’s cheap. It works. But there are issues.
As I add new applications, the location of the app icons will change; up, down, left, right, so extra seconds are lost trying to find a specific app.
An alternative would be to customize a folder, fill it with specific app aliases, and use that instead. But that requires maintenance. And, no, keyboard shortcuts and Spotlight don’t work for me. Too much to remember.
Bevy is decent, but gets cluttered quickly. My home grown method is cluttered, but updates automatically, and everything is available with a click, and no maintenance.