Hard G Fills the Mac GIF Gap Nicely

I’m a firm believer that if you want to write meaningful software, find a problem people have and solve it. My friend and fellow developer Aaron Vegh has done just that with his new app for macOS – Hard G. Despite it having the worst possible name a GIF app could have, Hard G is a helpful utility to make using animated GIFs on the Mac desktop the joy they were designed to be.

Powered by the GIPHY API, Hard G is a light-weight app that lets you quickly search for animated GIFs to use in social media posts, emails and other apps like iMessage. So what’s the problem Aaron has solved? The ability to quickly search AND effortlessly drag and drop them wherever you need. GIPHY makes it notoriously difficult to grab the actual animated GIF file from their site but with Hard G that issue falls like animated rain over David Tennant’s face as it washes down the drain forever.

Not only that, but the app also lets you save your favorite GIF’s for future quick reference, supports macOS Dark Mode and even can be used in the Mac Menu bar so it stays out of your way just until you need it. Aaron has some additional nice features planned for the future as well so if animated GIFs are your bag, baby head on over to the App Store and snap it up for just $14, a steal despite its name! 😉

Gif vs Jif: One Is My Name, The Other Is Not

Recently Apple released a new iPhone commercial and aside from the usual cool technology on display, the internet’s big take-a-way was that Apple came down on the side of the age-old debate of how to pronounce the image file format acronym Gif. According to Apple it’s pronounced with a hard G and that really surprised me. I realize the debate about what is “right” when it comes to Gif vs Jif will rage on for years, but Apple has a tendency towards respecting the rights and wishes of content creators and in this instance they have clearly failed.

Back in 2013, Steve Wichita, the creator of the Gif format supposedly settled the debate once and for all and told the world that the name is pronounced like the peanut butter. Regardless of how you personally feel about context or syntax or any other factor, Wichita’s wishes, at least to me, are the deciding factor.

I’m reminded of a scene early in Star Trek: The Next Generation when Dr. Pulaski pronounces Cmd. Data’s name incorrectly. Both pronunciations are technically correct, as is the case with Gif vs Jif (at least according to Webster’s Dictionary), but only ONE way represents Data’s actual name. When you choose to pronounce Gif with a hard G, you choose to disregard the wishes of the format’s creator, and that’s the main reason why I say Jif instead of Gif.