After the tragic passing of beloved developer Alex Hay last March, the question of what would happen to his apps Toolbox Pro, Nautomate for Notion, and Logger for Shortcuts remained uncertain – Alex was a fierce advocate for the Shortcuts developer community and his apps plus public repositories served as inspiration & a resource for many of the Shortcuts apps available today.
Today, I’m honored to share the news that my friend Rosemary Orchard and her development company Snailed It (with David Stephens and Dom Chester) have been entrusted by the Hay family to take over development of the late Alex’s apps. The Snailed It team is already responsible for WhenWorks, FocusCuts, and development of Pushcut, and will continue work on Toolbox Pro, Nautomate, and Logger after making the necessary development transitions.
I am confident that Rosemary and the team will honor Alex’s memory and his contributions to the Shortcuts community, and I am glad to know I can continue to rely on Alex’s work – often times his apps felt like they were built for exactly me, which I always greatly appreciated.
In many ways, Alex was the developer advocate I could not be, and I truly appreciate how he built up the Shortcuts community. I had the pleasure of video chatting with him a few times, but I am truly sad I didn’t get to spend time with him in person.
I see signs of Alex’s contributions every day in my work, and I’m endlessly grateful that he put so much of himself out into this world.
Next Friday, I’ll be playing Starfield and thinking of him.
