Apple “Sherlocked” a lot of apps in its operating system updates announced at the 2024 Worldwide Developer Conference. Sherlocking is when Apple introduces a new feature that renders a third-party tool irrelevant.
Among the “Sherlocked” apps:
° Rectangle, Magnet, and Better Touch Tool, two window resizing apps for the Mac;
° 1 Password, LastPass, Dashlane, and similar password management apps;
° Grammerly, Hemingway Editor, and other writing assistant/proofreading tools;
° Duolingo, a language learning app;
° Spark (and many other email apps);
° Dragon Naturally Speaking, a speech recognition. App;
° Adobe Photoshop Express, an image editing app;
° Arc Browser, a free web browser;
° 1Blocker, which 1Blocker lets you block ads, trackers, and other unwanted web content;
° Evernote, Notion, and other note-taking web apps.
Getting “Sherlocked” by Apple is nothing new. For example, Here’s a list of apps that TechCrunch says Apple “sherlocked” at its 2022 Worldwide Developer Conference:
° Camo, which was sherlocked by Apple’s continuity feature that allows you to use your iPhone as a webcam.
° Klarna, Clearpay, many others, which were sherlocked by Apple Pay Later.
° Remove.bg, which was sherlocked by Apple’s Visual Lookup feature.
° MyTherapy, Pillbox, which were sherlocked when iOS added medication logging/reminder features.
° Figma’s FigJam, many others, which were sherlocked by Apple’s Freefrom collaboration app.
° Oura, Whoop, which were sherlocked when sleeping tracking was added to watchOS.
Where does the term “Sherlocking” come from? Mac OS 8 and 9’s Sherlock feature could search for content on a user’s computer, but with OS X, it could also pull info from the internet using plug-ins, per “How-To Geek.” In 2001, developer Dan Wood made Watson, a complementary app that expanded what Sherlock could pull — movie showtimes, exchange rates, weather reports, and more.
But when Apple unveiled Mac OS X 10.2, Sherlock could do nearly everything Watson could. Watson had been “Sheerlocked.”
