Punching clients

Happy new year legends and welcome back to the Leaderboard! In the first edition of 2025, we're once again looking back at some of our favorite products of 2024 while we gear up to lock in for 2025. Let's dive in.

NotchNook: Access media, calendars, and more from your Mac's notch

I've been using NotchNook since I've discovered it. I love that it provides a quick access to my playing media while dressing up the Notch on my Macbook. The drag to airdrop feature is supppper convenient and has helped me share documents quickly. Perhaps my favorite feature is how seamless it feels, almost as it was native to the Mac. With the option to also show volume and display feedback it feels like a tool to complete your Mac experience.

EasyDict: Translate any text or image across multiple LLMs.

EasyDict is a MacOS app that takes anything on your screen (text, image, or video) and gives you its translation across multiple LLMs. The UI is incredibly clean and the app comes with a bunch of intuitive shortcuts — screenshot-to-translate, highlight-to-translate, copy OCR to clipboard — that make it handy even for those who don’t often need translation. The only hitch I’ve found so far is some of the displayed translation options (like GPT 4o, Gemini and Baidu Translate) default to error messages about missing API keys. But translations from DeepL, Google Translate and Youdao work out of the box, so this isn’t really a barrier to functionality.

Punch your client: A simple game where you can punch annoying, fictional clients.

This app is a funny little surprise. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I clicked in, but it’s exactly what you’d imagine—and that’s the charm. You’re greeted by a “client” (an emoji) with phrases overhead that sound like every annoying client request you’ve ever heard. An orange “punch” button serves up another cringe-inducing line: “Can we make it more dynamic?” “Let’s add a splash of color.” “My budget is 3 dollars.” In a world full of AI apps, dev tools I don’t entirely understand, and endless directories, this one offers some simple comic relief. Not everything needs to change the world or attract millions of users; some products just exist to bring a small, satisfying laugh. Well done, Punch Your Client team.