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Has Nisus disappeared?
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Posted by Paul Korm
Oct 24, 2025 at 08:32 AM
The New Yorker recently published a short piece by Kyle Chayka on the beauty of Apple’s TextEdit app:
Kyle wrote:
>“I trust in TextEdit. It doesn’t redesign its interface without warning, the way Spotify does; it doesn’t hawk new features, and it doesn’t demand I update the app every other week, as Google Chrome does. I’ve tried out other software for keeping track of my random thoughts and ideas in progress—the personal note-storage app Evernote; the task-management board Trello; the collaborative digital workspace Notion, which can store and share company information. Each encourages you to adapt to a certain philosophy of organization, with its own formats and filing systems. But nothing has served me better than the brute simplicity of TextEdit, which doesn’t try to help you at all with the process of thinking. Using the app is the closest you can get to writing longhand on a screen. I could make lists on actual paper, of course, but I’ve also found that my brain has been so irredeemably warped by keyboards that I can only really get my thoughts down by typing. (Apparently my internal monologue takes place in Arial typeface, fourteen-point font.)”
Made me nostalgic for WordStar, again.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/textedit-and-the-relief-of-simple-software
(Paywalled)
Posted by MadaboutDana
Oct 24, 2025 at 09:06 AM
Nice thread – worth remarking that when I’m not writing in Obsidian (very much my standard go-to nowadays), I use Growly Notes instead. One of the most impressively efficient Mac apps ever, totally free of charge, with many of the same features (albeit not as sophisticated) as Curio, but one of the smallest footprints of any app anywhere (just 25 MB in the Applications folder!!!).
Works like OneNote, in the sense that every page is a canvas. While it doesn’t have an “import” function as such, you can drag and drop pretty much anything into it. Documents (e.g. Word, PDF) can be embedded – and immediately become searchable. Other things (e.g. Excel) can be copied and pasted – Excel tables are fine. And you can export pages, sections or entire files in various formats, including “high-fidelity” (PDF, HTML) and “flattened” (RTF, RTFD). Oh, and it’s got a nice search function, diagramming tools, tags, templates, favourites, page links, etc. How the developer has stuffed all these functions into something as tightly programmed as it is, I have no idea.
Alas, it’s only available on Mac (but then, that applies to Curio too). It’s a pleasure to use, the developer is very amiable (ex-Microsoft, and clearly an efficiency fiend!) and also produces other useful apps (Growly Draw, Growly Write, a whole bunch of games, a backup tool, etc.), all free of charge, regularly updated, and downloadable from growlybird.com
As a pleasant and ultra-efficient working environment, I thoroughly recommend!
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by macosxguru
Oct 24, 2025 at 12:06 PM
There might have been some glitch. But they are reachable now. Both the forum and the site is operational.
The Mac App store doesn’t seem to have the products listed anymore.
The only app listed by them is Nisus Thesaurus.
macosxguru
Posted by Amontillado
Oct 24, 2025 at 04:59 PM
I’m fine with a certain nerdy view of future proofing. If I can recover my work with a terminal window, the Finder, and possibly a few lines of Python, I’m not worried.
If there’s a wild-eyed raggedy-bearded survivalist path out of an app, cool.
I find I give Curio a pass on that rule. It’s never lost data for me and while I generally lean toward function over presentation, Curio will keep my interest up with a polished view of my stuff without requiring much effort on my part.
@macosxguru - good to hear about Nisus. I hope it has a resurgence.