Tag: macos

Introducing Arithmancy Pants: a ‘numerology’ app for macOS and iOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment
Arithmancy Pants on iOS, showing that 'What do you get if you multiply six by nine?' can be converted to 30706 different numbers in up to 9 steps, with a chart showing how many steps it takes to reach each number. The nuber 42 is selected, which can be reached by converting letters to their positions in the alphabet to get 23, 8, 1, 20, 4, 15, 25, 15, 21, 7, 5, 20, 9, 6, 25, 15, 21, 13, 21, 12, 20, 9, 16, 12, 25, 19, 9, 24, 2, 25, 14, 9, 14, 5, then by adding up the digits until they sum to a single digit (a.k.a. digital root) to get 5, 8, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 6, 3, 7, 5, 2, 9, 6, 7, 6, 3, 4, 3, 3, 2, 9, 7, 3, 7, 1, 9, 6, 2, 7, 5, 9, 5, 5, then by adding up groups of up to 2 numbers to get 13, 3, 10, 13, 10, 7, 15, 13, 7, 6, 11, 10, 8, 15, 9, 14, 10, then by converting each number to Roman numerals to get XIII III X XIII X VII XV XIII VII VI XI X VIII XV IX XIV X, then by taking the number of letters in each word to get 4, 3, 1, 4, 1, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 4, 2, 2, 3, 1, then by adding up all the numbers to get 42

People go to all sorts of lengths to extract their preferred ‘magic’ numbers from text in order to prove that there’s something special about that text. But you can get almost any number out of any text if you try hard enough. Arithmancy Pants is a free app for macOS and iOS that will try many different techniques in sequence to tell you all the numbers that can be derived from the text you enter. You could think of it as a numerological version of Douglas Adams’ Electric Monk, saving you the trouble of believing in numerology (previously known as arithmancy).

You can choose which techniques you want to use, and how many steps you want to go to. Arithmancy Pants shows you not only the single numbers that can be derived from the whole phrase, but also the intermediate numbers encountered along the way. There are charts so you can see at a glance just how many lucky numbers each phrase can be converted to.

You could use Arithmancy Pants to debunk the claims of numerologists, or to make your own claims for fun — but please don’t use it to take advantage of gullible people. Arithmancy Pants is a silly app with a silly name, made by a two-time Fancy Pants Parade winner. You can get it from the Mac or iOS App Store today.

Arithmancy Pants on macOS, showing the 'Explore Results' tab, where the result at each step of calculation can be expanded to show the results at the next step.

Seddit 1.5 for iOS and macOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment
The updated Voice Settings screen on iOS, with multiple languages selected

I’ve released a new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit reader. This version has better support for listening to Reddit in multiple languages — if you want to listen to posts from, say, r/france and r/newsokur as well as predominantly-English subreddits, just make sure you select some voices from each language in the Voices Settings, and each language will be read in an appropriate voice.

Note, the app itself is not yet localised into other languages, so the added words such as ‘comment by…’ may be mispronounced by voices not made for English.

  • Features
    • Multi-language support: If you select voices from more than one language, the voice for each user is determined by the detected language of their first comment or post.
    • Redesigned Settings screen: now full-screen with some layout improvements
    • Improved liquid glass support: The glass effect of the playback controls now responds to touches

As always, you can get the new version of Seddit from the Mac or iOS App Store.

Seddit 1.4 for iOS and macOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment
Screenshot of the list of posts loaded in Seddit on iOS, with icons showing which ones have been read, skipped, or are being read. Playback controls are in an overlay at the bottom of the screen.
The updated post list on iOS, with floating liquid glass controls

I’ve released a new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit reader, with three new features and three bug fixes.

  • Features
    • Added support for liquid glass appearance in iOS/macOS 26
    • Moved playback controls to a liquid glass overlay so you can see more content around the edges
  • Bug fixes
    • Made sure compliments purchased on the Support Seddit screen are always shown in the same order
    • Made the Voices Settings screen on macOS show which voices are Enhanced or Premium
    • Fixed an issue introduced in Seddit 1.2 whereby posts whose comments are not all read would be shown as read instead of partly read

Seddit 1.3 for iOS and macOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment

I’ve released another new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit reader, with the following changes:

The new ‘Go to currently speaking item’ button
  • Added ‘Go to currently speaking item’ button in the toolbar, so you can quickly find the post or comment that’s currently being spoken, e.g. to open links or open the post in a browser to respond
  • Enabled the ‘Settings…’ menu item and standard Settings window style on macOS
  • Added headings and other changes for improved navigation of posts and comments using VoiceOver or Switch Control.

Seddit 1.2 for iOS and macOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment
Screenshots of the Voices screen, showing the usual speed and pitch controls, and a list of different voices, each with a toggle switch and a 'play' button to test it
The updated ‘Voices’ Settings screen, with the possibility to choose multiple voices

I’ve released a new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit reader, with three new features and three bug fixes.

  • Features
    • Added the possibility to have each user’s posts and comments spoken in a different voice — this makes listening less monotonous and makes it easier to follow conversations.
    • Added settings for whether to read out the subreddit name, and date and time for each post.
    • Added the option to load no comments
  • Bug fixes
    • Fixed a bug whereby turning off the ‘Say “Link” instead of reading out URLs’ setting would not work
    • Fixed a bug where comments that weren’t loaded would be read as “comment by unknown user” Comments that aren’t loaded due to the comment depth settings are also no longer displayed.
    • Fixed a potential crash when opening the app if posts had been deleted on another device

Seddit 1.1 for iOS and macOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment
Sounds Settings screen on iOS showing 'Sci-fi up' selected for comment reply level increase, 'Sci-fi down' for 'Comment reply level decrease' and 'Woosh' selected for Next Post.
The new ‘Sounds’ Settings screen

I’ve released a new version of Seddit, my text-to-speech-focussed Reddit reader, with three new features and a bug fix.

  • Features
    • Settings for sounds to play between posts and comments — now you have two options for the sounds to play when going up or down levels when reading comments. You can also choose to turn off the sounds played between posts or when going up or down comment levels.
    • ‘Random from previous’ option when autoloading more posts, so it will automatically load posts from any of the subreddits you have previously loaded posts from, instead of just a specific one
    • Option to say ‘Link’ instead of reading out URLs in posts and comments
  • Bug fixes
    • Fix to a potential hang when autoloading posts

Introducing Seddit — a text-to-speech Reddit reader for iOS and macOS

Angela BrettLeave a comment
Screenshot of Seddit on a Mac, showing a list of post titles down the left (with icons indicating play status), and the text and comments of a post on the right. The post shown is "What do you call a group of riled up chickens? Poultry in motion."
Seddit for macOS

Seddit is a text-to-speech-focused Reddit client for macOS and iOS, which you can get from the App Store today. With it you can listen to posts and comments from your favourite subreddits for as long as you like using your preferred text-to-speech voice. Load some posts from URLs or subreddits, and then just press play and sit back and listen.

A screenshot of Seddit, showing a list of titles of joke posts, with icons next to them showing which have been skipped, played, or are currently playing. There are playback controls at the bottom of the screen.
Seddit for iOS

You can configure Seddit to automatically load more posts when it’s running out of things to speak so that you can keep listening non-stop… or you can set up the sleep timer so it will stop reading after a certain amount of time. If you use VoiceOver, Seddit can use your VoiceOver settings to speak, or a different voice if you prefer.

Seddit supports AirPlay, as well as playback controls on your headphones, phone’s lock screen, and so on. The posts you’ve loaded into Seddit will be synched across all your devices using your iCloud account. No internet connection is needed to listen — only to load the posts in the first place. No Reddit signin is needed.

I made Seddit at the suggestion of a friend who is legally blind, and with her help I’ve made sure it’s accessible for blind and visually impaired folk — though it’s useful for anyone who wants more hands-free audio content to listen to.

Seddit and all of its features are free, with an in-app purchase ‘tip jar’ which will give you a compliment (courtesy of NiceWriter) for each tip you give.

Introducing Lifetiler

Angela Brett1 Comment

I’ve just released my new macOS app, Lifetiler, on the Mac App Store. Lifetiler can be used to chart your life with an emoji or colour for each day. I wrote it to keep track of the days I was with my now-husband in person during the long-distance part of our relationship, but you could use it to chart anything that can be summarised on a day-by-day basis.

Screenshot of a window showing a document called 'Joey Lifetile'. On the left is a list of date ranges next to emoji, with the heading '304 of 2792 days, in 15 contiguous stretches'. On the right is a grid of symbols, mostly grey squares but with some stretches of US flags, cruise ship emoji, and train emoji.

In the app you can add date ranges with colors or emoji indicating what happened on those days. You can then export a chart as either an image or a series of emoji. For images you can choose how many days to show per row or column, and the app will suggest numbers that will give you a full rectangle without gaps at the end. You can also choose the background colour for the entire image, as well as background colours for emoji.

For both images and emoji exports, you can choose an emoji or coloured square to represent the days not in date ranges. For instance, if you are tracking your travel history, you could have the appropriate country flags for the date ranges when you are travelling, and a 🏡 emoji for the time between trips. You can also show a Lifetiler document in ‘Simplified’ mode, with one emoji or colour for dates in date ranges, and another for dates not in date ranges, so if you’re tracking your travel history, you can easily see whether you were travelling or not on a given date, without the specific emoji showing where you were.

I’ve written more about how Lifetiler came to be, with example charts of my relationship, on my personal blog. Since I made Lifetiler for ❤️, for now it’s < 3 USD.

Download Lifetiler for macOS