MacStories

0:0044:29 This week on MacStories Unwind: Our Favorite 2021 Albums and Singles Federico Albums: - Screen Violence by CHVRCHES - If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey - 30 by Adele - An Evening with Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic - Who Am I? by Pale Waves -…

Apple has revealed its annual App of the Year winners. This year, the company picked a collection of 15 apps and games from among the millions available on the App Store, naming them the Apps of the Year. In recent years, Apple has also used its App of the…

Earlier today on Six Colors, Jason Snell wrote about running Shortcuts from the command line: I was reminded by Simon Støvring, maker of the excellent Mac and iOS utility Data Jar (which is a persistent data store that’s accessible via Shortcuts), that…

My latest Shortcuts experiments began in earnest on my way back from Rome. I stopped in Ireland for a few days to deal with COVID testing and start ramping back up to my normal work routine. I wasn’t quite ready to tackle the day-to-day yet, so I decided to…

This week on AppStories, we introduce part one of a new series on Obsidian, explaining what the app is and does, why it’s important, the compromises that come along with using a non-native app, and how we are using it. Subscribe here. On AppStories+, John…

On the heels of the Apple Music Awards, Apple has announced its picks for the Best Show of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, along with the Top New Show, Top Free Channel, Top Show with Subscription, and Top Channel with Subscription. 2021 saw Apple move into…

The Apple Music Awards are back, honoring artists in several categories. This is the third year Apple has held the awards and, as was the case the past two years, honors were bestowed for Global Artist of the Year, Breakthrough Artist of the Year, Songwriter…

Source: Chorus.fm. As you can imagine, Jason Tate, Chorus.fm’s founder, listens to a lot of music. He wanted a dedicated device that displays the music he listens to throughout the day, so as a weekend project, he built what he wanted: A small Raspberry Pi…

ONLYOFFICE is the premier productivity suite for desktop and mobile that’s also open-source and free. The suite is a powerful choice for anyone who works across multiple devices, including Apple hardware and Windows and Linux devices. That means whatever…

0:0019:35 This week on MacStories Unwind: MacStories The Curious Case of Apple’s Missing App Integrations for Shortcuts Exporting Links from Safari Reading List via Shortcuts for Mac Pixelmator Pro Updated with Background Removal, Subject Selection, and…

MacStories Shortcuts Icons and Perspective Icons are 40% off for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are upon us, and we’ve prepared something truly special to celebrate the occasion at MacStories: starting today through Monday,…

Reading List Exporter. A few weeks ago in the second lesson of the Automation Academy for Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members, I wrote about how I’ve been using Reminders as a read-later app in addition to traditional task management. The full details…

Every year, Apple publishes a heartwarming holiday ad that shows off its products in some way. This year, Saving Simon, directed by Jason Reitman, shows off the iPhone 13 Pro, which was used to film the three-minute spot. Saving Simon tells the story of a…

More Club Gift Options Than Ever Before The holiday season is upon us, and as you shop for gifts for friends and family, we wanted to remind everyone that Club MacStories memberships can be given as gifts all year long. Every tier of the Club extends what we…

This week on AppStories, we explain how Shortcuts for Mac differs from other automation tools, cover some of the roadblocks we’ve hit, and discuss how we’re adapting existing shortcuts to the Mac and building all-new ones. Subscribe here. On AppStories+,…

Shortcuts for Mac. In researching topics for the Automation Academy over the past few months, I’ve been digging into all the details of Apple’s built-in actions and comparing them against older versions of the Shortcuts app as well as third-party options…

Mac image editor Pixelmator Pro continues its streak of releasing machine learning-based tools that feel like magic, with a release that the Pixelmator team calls Abracadabra appropriately enough. The release of version 2.3 features tools to remove the…

David Smith recently spent three days hiking in the Scottish Highlands. He took his Apple Watch Series 7 along to see how its battery life fared on long hikes. Smith, who recently wrote about the battery sipping Coros Apex Pro, a dedicated ‘adventure…

UpNote is an elegant and powerful note-taking app that works across every major platform, making it the perfect solution for your note-taking needs. Designed to make it easy to take notes anywhere and stay focused, UpNote combines a beautiful interface with a…

0:0036:56 This week on MacStories Unwind: MacStories Getting Started with Shortcuts for Mac and the Stream Deck Tweetbot 6.6 Gets Support for Creating Polls, Limiting Who Can Reply to Tweets Apple Announces Self Service Repair Program That Will Provide…

This week on AppStories, we dive back into our favorite iOS and iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey tips. Subscribe here. On AppStories+, John is back home, which means we’re resuming our normal routines, John covers the gear relied on while traveling to Rome, and…

Apple announced today that its customers will be able to order tools, parts, and manuals to make repairs to iPhones, and later, M1 Macs beginning early next year: Available first for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups, and soon to be followed by Mac computers…

The Stream Deck has been a favorite of Mac users who are into automation for a while now, but the device’s utility has grown substantially for a couple of reasons. First, you can use the Stream Deck to run Shortcuts, which expands the device into an entirely…

Tweetbot 6.6 supports creating polls and limiting replies to your tweets. For the past two months, I’ve been using Tweetbot as my primary Twitter client again. This started off as an experiment to see whether switching to a third-party client with timeline…

In these uncertain times, the only person who we can truly rely on is ourselves, more specifically, you and your computer. But can your Mac help you reach your goals? Is it in good enough shape, fast, and organized? To be sure, you need CleanMyMac X from…

0:0025:05 This week on MacStories Unwind: MacStories Kotaku Collects the Beautiful Artwork of Apple TV+’s Foundation Michael Flarup Announces The iOS App Icon Book Apple Releases Hooked, an Apple Original Podcast with No Ties to Other Properties Coming Soon:…

Soon, we’ll announce the fourth annual MacStories Selects Awards, honoring our favorite apps in a wide variety of categories. Winners will receive a physical MacStories Selects award designed by MacStories’ Silvia Gatta. As with last year, awards will be…

This week on AppStories, we go into detail on our iPad mini Home Screen setups, including how they differ from other devices and how we use widgets, Focus modes, and Shortcuts to manage the setups. Subscribe here. On AppStories+, John brings a little bit of…

Source: Michael Flarup. Four years in the making, designer Michael Flarup has launched a Kickstarter campaign to finalize, print, and ship The iOS App Icon Book. Source: Michael Flarup. As Flarup explains, the iPhone sparked a golden era of icon design. The…

BetterTouchTool is an indispensable Mac app that has stood the test of time. The app was one of the first covered by MacStories back in November 2009. In those early days, BetterTouchTool was a simple app for adding customizable gestures to MacBook trackpads…