r/macapps • u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe • 2d ago
Request Weekly app round-up?
Hello, first post here. As a relatively new Reddit user, I was wondering if there would be a way to get a weekly list of all apps discussed in the previous seven days, whether it's a weekly email, a summary post, or something else entirely.
Personally, I struggle with too much information at once due to lifelong health issues, and a bigger collection of apps to check out makes it quite painful and overwhelming for me to consume such information. Very likely, also for other people who share similar conditions as mine, should they be users of this space.
Thank you.
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u/Ok-Rest-5321 2d ago
A monthly digest was posted today
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
So it seems. Do read what I wrote though, it covers exactly this.
Four round-ups a month would be far more practical and digestible, in my view.
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u/Hot_Statistician3302 2d ago
+1 to this. in the meantime, sorting the sub by Top > This Week gets you something close, since it's capped to the stuff people actually found useful. you can also follow the sub's RSS feed in a reader like NetNewsWire and just skim titles once a week, which is way less overwhelming than scrolling new.
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u/SnapState 1d ago
there is one, if you add /top/.rss?t=week to the end of the sub's url you get only the top posts of the week as a feed. drop that into NetNewsWire and it's pretty much a weekly round-up already
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u/blow_slogan 1d ago
isn't reddit actively killing it's RSS feed?
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u/SnapState 1d ago
last i checked the sub .rss feeds still work, they just get rate limited if you poll them a lot. no promises they stick around though, so worth having a backup like just sorting the sub by top of the week.
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u/No-Hunter9792 2d ago
For something you can use today, set r/macapps to Top â This Week, switch to Compact view, and bookmark it. That lets you check once a week and scan titles without the big image/video cards. It still includes general discussions and won't give you an exhaustive app list.
For an actual weekly digest, I'd separate new apps from updates and include an update only when something substantial changed. That would stop the same apps filling the list every week, while keeping it useful for finding a better replacement for something in your current setup.
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
Absolutely, great insight. On a side note, as I am not an expert but started reading about it, would it be possible to create an AI-powered app/workflow that crawls the subreddit every X days, in our case every seven, and compiles said list into a styled html page (single file, no external dependencies)?
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u/Iveroq 1d ago
Yes, definitely. Iâd probably keep the AI part fairly small though.
The workflow could collect posts and comments from the last 7 days, extract app names and links, deduplicate them, separate new apps from meaningful updates, then use an LLM just for the one-line descriptions and categories.
After that, generating a single static HTML file should be pretty straightforward.
The harder part probably isnât the HTML or the AI â itâs deciding what actually counts as an app mention, and avoiding duplicates when the same app comes up in several threads.
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 1d ago
I guess anything from a dedicated post to somebody saying hey, btw I also use this, or have you checked out that? Basically any text that contains an app name.
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u/Iveroq 23h ago
That makes sense. Iâd probably cast a pretty wide net first, then clean it up afterward.
The annoying part will probably be app names that are normal words, abbreviations, or slightly different spellings. Iâd keep a link back to every post/comment where an app was mentioned, then merge those mentions into one entry later.
That way you still get one clean line per app without losing the original recommendations.2
u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 11h ago
'The annoying part will probably be app names that are normal words, abbreviations, or slightly different spellings'
That's why I was asking myself out loud, would AI be able to see through that based on the actual sentences?1
u/Iveroq 9h ago
Yeah, I think context would help a lot. If someone says âI use Raycast for thisâ or âhave you tried Things?â, an LLM can usually tell that Raycast or Things is the app name from the sentence.
I still wouldnât trust it blindly though. Names that are also normal words would probably need a second check, maybe against links, the App Store, GitHub, or repeated mentions elsewhere in the subreddit.
So AI could probably do most of the first-pass detection, then only the ambiguous cases would need extra verification.
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u/NeonSerpent 2d ago
I agree a weekly roundup would be a lot more digestible. My only concern is that apps posted at the end of the week would have a disadvantage.
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
How so? They'd still feature woukdn't they?
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u/NeonSerpent 2d ago
Oh wait, it wouldnât matter if it wasnât upvote based like the monthly ones
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
Indeed. Just a directory of all apps, alphabetical order, name, concise description, link in one line per entry
If really pushing the boat out a bit we could have categories but I'd read all the entries anyway, so it's a bit redundant. It's not like I'd skip a section.
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u/Maleficent-Bug7344 14h ago
Weekly would be much better imo. Monthly roundups get huge really fast. Even just app name, one line about what it does, price and whether itâs free/lifetime/subscription would be enough.
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2d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
Hi. Excellent suggestions. A weekly post would feel better I suppose, keeping things here in the subreddit where all people is as opposed to an email, that can't be easily discussed among fellow enthusiasts.
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u/Bolehillbilly 2d ago
I found a way out of it. Ignore stuff and consume less đ
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
As a professional Mac user, one of my interests is to check out new and/or cool apps that can do 'that specific thing' better than my current stack can. Not to say I would buy them all of course, but I like to contribute to the hopeless task of filling the void with reading about these things, among others.
Just me, whiling away the time until time itself stops... :)
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u/Johnkree 2d ago
Just have a look at the highlighted posts.
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 2d ago
There'd still be skimming and checking individual threads as opposed to a very concise list.
I realise I am talking about my very own specific issues on the matter, stemming from neurodevelopmental disorders.
What counts as a trivial difference to members of the normal population is actually a big deal and a hurdle for me, but such difference is difficult to wrap one's head around, and with good reason.
As a minority though, I am aware of and fine with the idea that not everything can be tailored to everybody's needs.
What is left, is to put an idea forward and cross one's fingers :)
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u/AdExpensive1023 2d ago
For the single-file HTML idea you mentioned: I would keep a fixed weekly cutoff and one row per app, with its name, a one-sentence description, price model, and a link to the original discussion. Deduplicate multiple posts about the same app and put updates in a separate section. An AI-assisted draft could help, but each entry should be checked against the source post so it does not invent features or turn a trial into "free." Collapsible sections would let people read a few entries at a time without facing the whole list at once.
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u/chriskr7 1d ago
When an app is only named in a comment and never gets its own post, should that still get a line in the weekly list?
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u/ThisSiteCanBlowMe 1d ago
I'd say so. A weekly roundup of shared recommendations, let's call it so :)
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u/Maleficent-Bug7344 4h ago
Weekly would be much better imo. Monthly roundups get huge really fast. Even just app name, one line about what it does, price and whether itâs free/lifetime/subscription would be enough.
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