Unless of course you have an SSD. With an SSD, Spotlight is easily fast enough to work well. To start XCode, I hit CMD-space, xc, enter, with a split-second pau

Unless of course you have an SSD. With an SSD, Spotlight is easily fast enough to work well. To start XCode, I hit CMD-space, xc, enter, with a split-second pause before the enter. That is enough for Spotlight to catch up to my typing and I am about as fast as Alfred or Quicksilver for opening apps.