TextExpander is a tool that I forget that I have. Actually, TextExpander is a tool that I forget to use. In the last couple of years, I've moved to a workflow that really isn't working for me day to day. I have a laptop, an imac, a couple ipads and all the work computers1 that have been supplied for me to use in the last couple of years.

Recently, the people at Smile software have switch the software to be a subscription model. On one hand, I understand that some companies need to do this to keep their businesses afloat; the monthly revenue is better to budget against versus someone purchasing the software every major release (maybe). On the other hand, this means that as a user I don't "own" the software; I'm leasingIt seems to be the trend nowadays that people pay a fee to use things from homes(rent), cars and music. I do not have a problem with it, but it seems like a lot of money is going to things that we will not be able to get some equity back from. it.

Honestly, I can see why they would do something like that. The company specializes in tools like this and pdfpen and I like the fact that they sponsor a lot of podcasts that I listen to. I wish them well.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be joining them on this experiment. I'm not a power user of the software. Because of the way that I've been living my technical life, I haven't seen myself repeating a lot of text. You can probably see the result of this in the fact that I don't post that often. The header for this posting is stored as a text expander snippet but I find myself having to look it up in order to use it.

I wish them luck and I'm happy to use my current version until it stops working.


  1. On windows, I've switched to using AutoHotKey because I can use text expansion as well as actions such as prepping an email to my wife so I can send her a message telling her that I love her. 

Category: tech
text expander