Is Stacks Competition for Overflow?
Overflow, by Stunt Software, is one of my favorite Mac applications. It has one purpose and manages that purpose really well: instead of filling your dock with applications you sometimes use or leaving a mess on your desktop, you can organize them with Overflow. Think of Overflow as a place to put applications and files for one-click easy access.
The upcoming Leopard release introduces a new feature called Stacks. Stacks holds files and applications for easy access without having to navigate the much loved Finder. To create a Stack in Leopard you select the items you want and then drag them to your dock. Will Apple’s Stacks feature take the place of Overflow?
I wanted to see what Stunt Software thought of the new competition. Here is a relating entry I found on the Stunt Software blog:
There is a lot of stuff that Overflow does that Stacks doesn’t, and I think there is a lot that Overflow can do in the future to continue to innovate (to continue with the general overuse of that term). I get the impression that Stacks are meant to be used as more of a temporary holding place, whereas Overflow is much more configurable, accessible via a hot-key, and not something that you’ll likely want to change the contents of every day. -Dan Messing, Stunt Software
After watching the Leopard videos it’s apparent that Stacks can be used for either applications or documents, but Apple never states that it is a “temporary holding place”. I think Apple is leaving it up to the users for what it will be used for. To be honest, if Stacks works like it says, I wouldn’t have a reason to use (or purchase) Overflow. Before making any concrete decisions, I will have to personally use Stacks to decide if it’s a threat to Overflow. If it is a threat to Overflow, Stunt Software will need to find ways to innovate the simple app to make it something worth purchasing.
Oh and I nearly forgot – recently in our Overflow review here at MacApper we offered up 3 free licenses to our readers. I am told to watch for the winner’s announcement tomorrow.
Overflow is overrated. Sure, it’s useful to some but certainly, to me, not worth being labeled as shareware. I welcome stacks. It’s something that should have been there from the beginning.
My favorite app launcher has always been finder. Grouping applications in sub folders. But getting more and more small and big useful apps makes finding the app I am looking for slower and slower.
I tried different app launchers but non did really work for me. I need to see icons, I am visual person. Most launchers use text or have only very rudimentary icon support. Ready the review I gave it a try
Awesome this is just a 2D tabed dock I was looking for. Finally a application that is really handy in organizing applications. Think it doesn’t really compete with stacks from Leopard they are still one dimensional and can only hold this many items, while OverFlow can hold much much items without getting overfilled.
Pops up from it’s dock item that’s the way it should be. Cause the dock is and always will stay a central starting point on your mac for starting things. So that’s a really good ad intuitive choice
Categories feature really sets this app apart from apps like ToDos. And will make this app that will stick. Test driven it and it’s really intuitive and sleek.
At first the price looks a bit steap, but The app is well thought. It’s highly customizable, Like sizing icons, text spacing and color and last but not least very intuitive for the user. That makes it well worth the $15,-
Only thing I miss is a option to put a icon in front of every category and a set of sleek Icons to be used for the categories. That will really make it totally visual and even more productive
I am a registered Overflow user, and I just deleted it when I saw stacks and wait for leopard.
Stacks is cool and easy to use. I don’t really need so many categories or other features. Quicksilver does the job. For this kind of application, i only need it to be cool cool cool.
[...] Although we still think it’s a great app, Overflow has been said to have become somewhat obsolete with the introduction of Stacks in Leopard, so make sure you read our post from yesterday Is Stacks competition for Overflow? [...]
Stacks aren’t one-dimensional. I presonally find no reason whatsoever to use overflow now that I use leopard.