John Voorhees

5415 posts on MacStories since November 2015

John is MacStories' Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015, and today, runs the site alongside Federico. John also co-hosts four MacStories podcasts: AppStories, which covers the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, which explores the fun differences between American and Italian culture and recommends media to listeners, Ruminate, a show about the weird web and unusual snacks, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about the games we take with us.

Why Can’t Apps Be More Like Strawberries?

If only buying apps were as simple as buying strawberries. When I drop by our local supermarket, I know what to expect. I know that when I grab a package of strawberries, it’s probably going to be around $5. Sometimes strawberries will cost less and other times a bit more, but by and large, the...


App Debuts

Shazam Shazam now works with Apple Music Classical. If you Shazam a classical track or search for one in-app, you’ll see a button offering to open the song directly in Apple Music Classical. It’s a small change, but it’s good to see Apple Music Classical becoming more integrated with other parts of Apple’s Music universe....


Interesting Links

[[John]] Unreal Engine 5.2 is out and runs on Apple silicon Macs. Epic also said an iPad app would be coming soon with “an intuitive touch-based interface for stage operations such as color grading, light card placement, and nDisplay management tasks.” (Link) Earlier this week, Jason Snell ran down some of the technical questions bout...



MacStories Unwind: First Impressions: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps


In this special episode of Unwind, Federico, who received The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom one day earlier than most people, shares his first impressions of the game, which has received rave reviews from critics.

First Impressions: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

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AppStories, Episode 328 – Our iPadOS 17 Wishes

This week on AppStories, we continue our wish list series with our wishes for iPadOS 17.

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On AppStories+, stand-up lawn mowers and my struggles with social media.

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Raycast Introduces a Pro Subscription with New AI, Sync, Theming, and Clipboard Functionality

Raycast, the keyboard-driven launcher for the Mac, introduced a new subscription service today called Raycast Pro that adds AI, syncing, templating, and extended clipboard functionality to the app.

Raycast Pro, which is $8 per month when billed annually and is also included in Team plans, includes three artificial intelligence features:

  • Quick AI, which is meant to provide one-off answers that can be copied and pasted into whatever you’re working on
  • AI Chat, a chatbot window that floats onscreen, allowing for back-and-forth interaction
  • AI Commands, which include built-in commands for things like spelling and grammar checking, along with customizable commands

According to Raycast’s FAQs, the app uses OpenAI’s GPT 3 and GPT 3.5-Turbo large language models “as well as some other models” for their AI features and does not offer an option to use your own OpenAI API key.

If you use Raycast on multiple Macs, a Pro subscription will allow you to flip a toggle to sync items like Extensions, Quicklinks, Snippets, and Hotkeys. Subscribers can customize Raycast with themes and build their own sharable themes in the app’s Theme Studio too. Finally, a subscription adds an unlimited clipboard history that is stored locally on your Mac and not synced as part of the app’s new sync features for security reasons. Free users are limited to a maximum of three months of clipboard history.

For anyone who relies heavily on AI for their work or has complex Raycast setups that they find hard to maintain across multiple Macs, a Raycast Pro subscription should be attractive. For everyone else, you can still take advantage of the free features, which haven’t changed. I’ve relied on Raycast for more than a year now and don’t need the Pro features myself, but I’m glad to see Raycast expanding its offerings and ways users can support the app’s continued development.


Last Week, on Club MacStories: Using Dropover with Shortcuts, Mona Tips, an Apple Podcasts Experiment, and Giveaway

Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings:

MacStories Weekly: Issue 367

Sending images to Shortcuts using Dropover.

Sending images to Shortcuts using Dropover.


Apple Announces Pride Edition Sports Band, Watch Face, and iPhone Wallpaper

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Today, Apple also announced its annual Pride Edition Apple Watch band, along with a similarly-designed watch face and iPhone wallpaper.

The band is a Sports Band model that Apple says is:

Inspired by the strength and beauty of the LGBTQ+ community, the new Sport Band design showcases the original pride flag rainbow colors and five others — black and brown symbolize Black and Latin communities, in addition to those who have passed away from or are living with HIV/AIDS, while light blue, pink, and white represent transgender and nonbinary individuals.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The watch face compliments the band using the same graphical elements around the edges of an analog clock. The iPhone wallpaper takes a slightly different approach blending the colorful elements of the watch band into a river-like stream of color.

The Pride Edition Sports Band will be available at Apple Stores and online beginning May 23rd for $49 for 41mm and 45mm Apple Watches. The watch face and iPhone wallpaper will be released next week, presumably with an update to watchOS and iOS.