John Voorhees

5782 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.

Relay FM Kicks Off Its 2023 Fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Today, Relay FM kicked off its annual fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to help combat childhood cancer. We’d love it if MacStories readers joined us in supporting this cause.

You can make a donation by visiting here.

If you’re a MacStories reader, there’s a good chance you have listened to one of the shows Federico co-hosts on the network or have another favorite, in which case you may have already contributed. However, if not, please consider donating.

St. Jude plays an important role in the fight against childhood cancer, treating kids, and doing research with other medical facilities around the world. Your donations help ensure that families aren’t charged for treatment, travel, housing, or meals, so their sole focus is helping their child get better.

Relay FM, which has raised $2.2 million for St. Jude over four years, will be raising money through the end of September, culminating in the Podcastathon, a 12-hour video streaming event featuring the hosts of many of Relay FM’s network of podcasts that will be held September 22nd. As in past years, the Podcastathon will be streamed on Relay FM’s Twitch channel.

Like last year, you can create your own fundraising campaign to help Relay FM achieve its goal and earn limited edition rewards in the process.

Thanks in advance for checking out Relay FM’s fundraiser for St. Jude and to all who donate.


An RSS, Bookmarking, Read-Later, and Highlighting Update

When it comes to RSS, bookmark management, read-later services, and highlights, the experiments never truly end. I’ve been trying a few new things recently that I thought I’d share today. RSS First, I’ve tentatively decided to abandon Feedly as my RSS sync service when my one-year subscription ends this fall. As a sync service, Feedly...


Reminders, Home Servers, Watch Bands, and Obsidian

Here are the highlights from the Club MacStories Discord this week:

Stephen asked for and got a bunch of recommendations from Club members on utilities for adding tasks into Apple Reminders quickly. Niléane explained how she repurposed an old MacBook Pro as a home server running Linux. Burim kicked off a great conversation about...


App Debuts

Tizipizi Tizipizi is an interesting new time zone tracking app for the iPhone and iPad. The app supports tracking multiple time zones that can be renamed with titles that are more meaningful than city names. The app also tracks daytime hours and uses a slider system to allow you to line up availability across...


Framing iPhone Screen Recordings

Not too long ago, I reviewed Detail Duo and Detail for Mac, apps that my son Finn works on. Detail Duo, an iPhone and iPad app for filming social media-friendly video, recently added a Shortcuts action that lets you frame iPhone screen recordings in a hardware frame. It’s a lot like Federico’s Apple Frames shortcut,...


A Week Off For AppStories and a Beta Beat Update

As the summer draws to a close, Federico and I have decided to take one week off from AppStories to recharge. We’re working on a bunch of new episode ideas for the fall, including an upcoming episode about bookmarking and link organizers. We’ll be back on September 3rd with a new episode of AppStories+ for...


Interesting Links

Philips Hue looks like it’s about to enter the security camera market based on rumors gathered from multiple sources gathered by The Verge. (Link) Sony introduced PlayStation Portal and over-the-ear and earbud headphones this week during Gamescom that offer remove play from a PS5 over WiFi and lossless wireless audio. (Link) Charlie Warzel, writing...


MacStories Unwind: The Most Sought-After Tech in All of Arizona Circa 2010

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


This week, John is joined by Alex Guyot to talk about old gadgets and handmade tech accessories, plus a movie and TV show.

Kolide – It ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps.  It’s Device Trust for Okta. Watch the demo today!

John’s Old Tech Pick:

The Danger Hiptop aka T-Mobile Sidekick.

The Danger Hiptop aka T-Mobile Sidekick.

Alex’s Old Tech Pick:

John’s Media Pick:

Alex’s Media Pick:

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Snailed It to Continue Development of Toolbox Pro and Alex Hay’s Other Apps

After the tragic passing of Alex Hay earlier this year, many in the Shortcuts community wondered what would become of his many excellent apps.

Today, Snailed It, a development company consisting of Rosemary Orchard, David Stephens and Dom Chester, announced that it would be taking over all of Hay’s apps including Toolbox Pro, Logger, and Nautomate. In a press release, Snailed It said:

Alex was well known in the industry for his series of apps that focused on expanding Apple’s Shortcuts eco-system, the most well known of which was Toolbox Pro, which adds over 130 Shortcut Actions to allow users to create incredibly powerful automation workflows. Alongside Toolbox Pro, he also created Logger for Shortcuts, allowing users to log text and images to a console within their complex Shortcuts, making development a breeze. His third app, Nautomate provides an expansive set of Shortcut Actions for controlling Notion. Snailed It have taken over each of these services and are in process of ensuring they’re updated to handle the transition, before continuing their development in memory of Alex.

It’s wonderful to see Snailed It honoring Alex Hay’s legacy by continuing his apps. I can’t wait to see what’s next for Hay’s trio of apps.