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Buddy 2.0.2

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@rajeev-chaurasia rajeev-chaurasia released this 06 Nov 19:57
· 4 commits to main since this release
v2.0.2
3d3068f
Buddy 2.0, your screen, explained. Asking while Buddy is still talking: in 1.5 you held Control and Option again, which stopped the answer; in 2.0 you just say: Buddy, wait, why does high start at the length?

Download Buddy for Mac

macOS 14.2 or later Apple silicon and Intel 9.9 MB download Free and open source, MIT

Ask about anything on your screen. Buddy explains it out loud and draws on it while it talks.
2.0 is the biggest release yet: learn, get things done, fix errors, review your work, and remember all of it.

New in 2.0.2: follows the lecture, stops only for you

Buddy now turns a video's sound into words on your Mac as it plays, and only stops talking when you say its name.

Before Now
"What did he just say?" The last minute of sound sent to be transcribed first Answered from words already heard on your Mac, with nothing sent
Asking after a pause, a rewind or a look at another app Only the last minute it happened to hear The minute before where you are, for any part Buddy heard play, at any speed
A lecturer on your speakers Could be taken for your question Left out of what you said
Talking to a friend while Buddy explains "Wait" or "sorry" stopped Buddy Ignored. Say "Buddy, wait…" to cut in
AirPods in Couldn't cut in by voice Buddy listens through your Mac's own microphone, so your headphones keep full sound
Drawing while the video plays Rings drifted off as the video moved Explained on a card instead
"What did he explain?" Sometimes taken as "explain your answer again" Understood as a question about the video
The first question after Buddy starts Sometimes sized before Haiku could answer Sized by Haiku

Note

Lecture mode still needs System Audio Recording, asked once. The words stay in memory for that video while Buddy runs and are never written to disk; calls, chats and music apps are never heard.

2.0.1 made small talk small: "thanks, that's helpful" gets "Anytime, glad it helped." and no notebook page.

Everything below is what 2.0 brought, for anyone updating from 1.5 or earlier.

Talk over it

While Buddy explains, say its name and speak. No keys, nothing to switch on. Without the name it keeps going, so a friend in the room or a video playing never interrupts it.

Say Buddy
"Buddy, wait, why does high start at the length?" Stops and answers your question
"Buddy, hold on" Pauses mid-sentence
"Go on" Carries on from where it stopped
"Buddy, slower" Slows the rest of the answer
"Buddy, go back" Says the last sentence again
"Buddy, say that again" Replays the whole answer, free

Note

The microphone is open only while an answer plays, and the notch shows a mic whenever it is. Esc or Stop closes it. Buddy's own voice is filtered out, so it never cuts itself off.

Learn anything from scratch

Say "teach me TCP from scratch" and the screen turns into a whiteboard. Buddy teaches it part by part, over as many questions as you like.

A whiteboard titled How tcp works: client and server boxes, the three-way handshake as a group of three steps, a table of data segments, and the Today's board card with the part being taught

Teach it back

Say "let me explain binary search back to you" and explain it out loud. Buddy draws what you said in purple, exactly as you said it, then marks the gaps in red.

The board titled You explain: binary search. The student's explanation drawn in purple; takes linear time ringed in red with logarithmic time, log n beside it; the stopping rules they left out in dashed red

You said Buddy marked
"You keep halving, so it takes linear time" Ringed, with logarithmic time, log n beside it
Nothing about when it stops Middle equals target: found, stop and range empty: not found, dashed

What you got right counts as remembered; what you missed comes back sooner on the map.

Explain the error you just hit

When an error appears in a terminal or editor, a soft red glow shows under the notch. Tap Control + Option, or hover and pick Explain this error, and Buddy rings the line that caused it. Nothing is sent anywhere until you ask, and the same error is never offered twice.

On errors written after the recognizer was built
Errors recognized 20 of 20
False alarms on output that only looks like an error 0 of 18
Rings the right file and line 17 of 17

Knows what the lecture said

Watching a video lecture? Ask "what did she mean by that?" and Buddy knows the last minute of what was said, from the page's transcript, or from the video's own sound once you allow it. Never your microphone, never calls or meetings, kept in memory only.

A notebook that writes itself

Every lesson becomes a page: its drawing, a sharp picture of what it marked on your screen, what Buddy said, and links to teach it back. Search it, and export a day, a range or everything as a PDF in the background.

The Notebook window: lessons down the side grouped by day, and the page Binary search high bound with its trace card of searching for 10 in 3, 7, 9

A map of what you know

Every idea Buddy has taught you, joined to related ideas, coloured by how well you still remember it: Strong, Fading, or Time to review. Click one for a quick recap or to teach it back.

The Map of what you know: ideas such as idempotency keys, transactional outbox, off by one error and binary search bounds as capsules joined by lines, in two named clusters

Answers the size of your question

You said Before 2.0 Now
"hello buddy" Started describing your screen and ringing things "Hey Rajeev, good to see you."
"what's the time complexity of binary search?" Sized as a long answer Two sentences, one ring on the line that halves
"what all can you do?" A vague list A card of all five areas, each with one thing to try

A card titled five things, on whatever you have open: learn, get it done, fix, review and remember, each with a phrase to try, and a note saying interrupt me anytime, just talk

A new look

The notch, Settings and setup are rebuilt. Settings is eight controls with nothing to scroll. Hover Spent today to see what Claude, Gemini and Deepgram each cost, and what for. Setup ends by checking your shortcut and microphone for real. How to use Buddy now opens the guide.

Also in this release

Area What changed
First word sooner The screen is read while you are still talking
Point at what you mean Select text, or rest the pointer on a line while you hold the keys, and that is what "this" means
Marks follow Rings stay on their line when you scroll, move or resize the window
Draws only when it helps Short answers no longer come with a card
Replay Plays the last answer again, voice and drawing, at no cost
Steadier Recovers from sleep, a changed microphone or speaker, and a slow model; a stalling model is set aside for longer each time it keeps failing
Fixed A crash when an error offer appeared; a crash on an answer of only drawing tags; a lesson could overwrite an unrelated idea in memory

Updating

You have Do this
Buddy 1.2 or later Click Update when the notch offers it
Buddy 1.0 or 1.1 Download, drag onto Applications, choose Replace
Homebrew brew upgrade --cask projects-hacks/buddy/buddy

Note

Your keys, memory and permissions stay as they are. Two permissions are asked only when first needed: System Audio Recording for a lecture with no transcript, and Notifications for your first PDF export.

First time installing?

Drag Buddy onto Applications; open it and click Done when macOS says it cannot check it; then click Open Anyway in Privacy and Security

Or with Homebrew:

brew tap projects-hacks/buddy https://github.com/projects-hacks/buddy
brew trust projects-hacks/buddy
brew install --cask projects-hacks/buddy/buddy

More help: install guide and how to use Buddy.

Every update is checked against Buddy.dmg.sha256 and the app's signature before it installs. To check a download by hand: shasum -a 256 -c Buddy.dmg.sha256

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