Hi friends, for the past few weeks, I’ve been using and evaluating the app CoTypist. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a smart, AI-powered, predictive text app that can help you write faster and more efficiently. As you’re typing, it predicts and suggests the words or phrases that it thinks you’re trying to or likely to type next. It learns your style of writing, and adapts. I also like that all production and data is done locally on your device. But it requires and consumes about 2GB of RAM, supposedly. Activity Monitor shows that it’s currently using about 500MB at the moment on my Mac.
Evidently, the app has been in beta for a year or so, and is now about to launch commercially for $10/month or $96/year. I like the app, and have found it quiet useful, but I’m on the fence about paying for it. They have 3 tiers, which I’ve shown below. I blow through the 100 free words in the first tier in a matter of minutes. The second tier is $10/month or $96/year, which seems exorbitant to me, especially considering that it can only be used on 1 device.
Free: accept 100 word completions per day for free, on a curated set of light models. If you don’t type that much or prefer typing over Cotypist's suggestions yourself, this can easily last all day.
Plus: $10/month or $96/year. Unlimited completions, more capable models, full autocorrect, configurable completion length. One device.
Pro: $15/month or $144/year. Everything in Plus, plus the full model catalog, the strongest personalization, per-app custom instructions, pasteboard context, and early access to Cotypist Labs features like mid-line completions. Up to three devices.
Have you tried this app? What are your thoughts? Are you thinking of subscribing to it, or nah?
You can find and learn about the app here. And by the way, I’m not affiliated with the app in any way, shape, or form. I don’t know the developers, investors, or anyone else involved with the app. I’m just a guy who’s on the fence about paying as much as they’re asking, for the app, and looking for some feedback.
If I were thinking about a similar decision, I would try to get a sense of how much the time saved by CoTypist is worth to me. For example, if the application frees up a total of 1 hour a month and I think my time is worth $200 per hour, then any of the subscription tiers makes sense. Or if I was not a confident writer and CoTypist helped me to generate professional-sounding or more polished text at work, subscribing is probably worthwhile.
Also, if the app is offered by a startup or an individual developer, I would prefer a monthly plan to eliminate the risk of losing most or part of an annual fee if the app is discontinued.
A shortcut to all this is that if you’re feeling “on the fence”, waiting to subscribe has little to no downside.
Error rate is what I worry about with AutoComplete, especially if you are typing email addresses or sensitive information. I have people on my contact list whose names are identical for the first nine characters and sometimes Apple Mail gets the wrong one.
I’ve not had any issues with accuracy, other than my own inability to type and misspell words. It’s predictive, and shows you several words at a time, and I can press tab to accept each word, or ~ to accept all of them. If there’s a word that it suggests that I don’t want, I just keep typing and it continuously makes suggestions.
To evaluate the discount, then, my approach would be to look at the discount amount and compare it to what an alternative use of the money would earn for me (say, paying off credit card debt or investing it). And, again, I also would think about the risk of not getting the full benefit of paying in advance for a year.
@TallTrees Not sure what you would like to hear/read (ok, you offered some questions, but still …)?
In the end: If the app suits to your workflow/writing flow then - Bingo! It is up to you to buy a subscription. If not because too expensive, not available for +1 devices → nothing for you.
I would have no usage for it, also far too expensive. But does my (or the other’s feedback) really help you? Because we all have individually workflows …
