Shift

I'm the type of person who tends to have multiple browser windows open, and Shift helps me stay organized and keep the number of browser windows open under control. I use it daily to check my many email and social media accounts, to chat via multiple message apps, to keep track of my personal and professional calendars, and to attend to basic business and even personal tasks right there in the same browser, from Trello to my home budgeting software. It keeps everything all in one place and prevents me from losing my mind. When I see colleagues struggling to find the right tab in a sea of many browser windows, I always suggest Shift as a way to help them keep their browser windows under control as well!

I have noticed that at times the software can be a bit laggy. When I know I need to do intensive work, say in Google Docs or something, I will open the document in the default browser in order to prevent a delay. This is not usually a problem with basic email, messaging, or other simple tasks.

LOVE that it allows me to shift (get it?) between apps and accounts without changing windows. The integration with G-Suite is helpful since I manage multiple email accounts but generally use Drive with only one (this sort of arrangement frequently causes authentication issues when implemented in a browser)--so I am able to swap between email accounts while working on a spreadsheet in my "master" account.

Adore the integration with apps like WhatsApp, Slack and HootSuite--it's like having my very own personalized terminal with all of the solutions I need to get my work done efficiently. I also like that I can rearrange the stack of accounts and apps to suit my workflow.

This software is buggy as hell. I frequently have to re-authenticate my Gmail accounts as well as apps like HubSpot, HootSuite and WhatsApp (for some reason, Slack is pretty much the only app I have noticed that does not require me to regularly re-enter my credentials). I wouldn't mind this all that much, except for the fact that Slack does not seem to talk to Apple's Keychain, so I end up having to look up my (sometimes lengthy) passwords for each account. This will sometimes happen mid-session, with no explanation.

Another issue is that my Gmail accounts will routinely reload while I'm in the middle of composing a message. Again, no explanation provided, just a dialogue saying "changes you make might not be saved" and then adios!

The rate at which these issues occur is high enough that I have considered abandoning the product ("why am I paying to take twice as long to write an email?"), especially since, even though I am a paying subscriber, support for these issues has been fair to middling. The latest response I received was that authentication issues can happen when the same Shift account is installed on multiple devices--which seems ridiculous, by the way, for those of us neanderthals that still have multiple computers--and that uninstalling shift on my other computers *should* fix the problem. It didn't, but I have yet to find another product worth my taking the time and effort to rejig my workflow/learn a new interface.

I appreciate that I can have the feature called, "workspaces." This is a section on the side panel where you can open up or bookmark any relevant tabs according to a particular project, or "workspace." I have one workspace for all of my assistants to research. This workspace can also be shared which is awesome.

Some apps are not available. For instance, they don't have Kakaotalk which is a pretty popular Korean messaging app (that has a desktop function as well).

Others are a latency issue when loading. The browser is running off of Chrome. And when you switch between browsers or messaging apps, there is a 1-2 second latency. I original thought it was my internet, but I contacted Shift and they said that's a common occurrence with the nature of the software.