Jonathan Reed

263 posts on MacStories since February 2024

Jonathan is a freelance graphic designer. As well as being a long-time Apple user he is a huge film and television aficionado and is very interested in the intersection between the two mediums and technology. He lives in London with his wife and daughter and is writing his bio in the third person.
@[email protected]
jonathan@macstories.net

Framous 1.2: An Indispensable Screenshot Utility

For a long time, the go-to method for quickly framing a screenshot taken on an Apple device was Federico’s excellent Apple Frames shortcut. Iterating on it each year, he even added an API for expanded customization. It’s still a terrific way to create a device-framed screenshot in a pinch, but due to the limitations of Shortcuts, you can’t manually adjust the layout of multiple screenshots or their output sizes.

Within the last year, not just one, but two well-made screenshot-framing apps have come on the scene. The first was Shareshot for iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro, and, more recently, Mac. John reviewed Shareshot in August of last year and came away impressed, but with a few reservations. In February, Dark Noise developer Charlie Chapman released his take on this new kind of app with Framous for macOS. At launch, the app showed promise but lacked a lot of features that I and many others desired. Version 1.2, available now, is a stacked release that adds a vast number of requested capabilities and customizations. Let’s take a look.

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Connecting My Text Editor, Ulysses, to Obsidian

It’s been a few weeks since I dove headlong into the Obsidian pool. I’ve been playing with a few plugins and generally prodding around the app. Yet, without a real reason to spend time in it, I’ve found myself bouncing off Obsidian quickly. The ultimate goal has always been to use the app in my...

iPadOS Rumors, Laptop Stands, and More

Among the highlights on the Club MacStories+ Discord: What’s on your mind? (Link) Members expressed some positive hopes for the rumored iPadOS window management changes. (Link) Member jwhitley shared a great alternative to John’s MOFT Invisible Stand (along with a wild keyboard). (Link) tommerton and Lachlan traded tips for getting the weather into their Obsidian...

Menu Bar Layouts, Tariffs, and More

Among the highlights on the Club MacStories+ Discord: Niléane had a solution for Federico’s recent request on AppStories to have different menu bar layouts for different displays. (Link) Member iamnotbatman shared a handy screenshot from The Wall Street Journal about the cost of an iPhone with tariffs. (Link) Scott proposed using SoundSource as an alternative...

AgBr

Recreating Analogue Photography with AgBr It’s fair to say that there are countless photo editing apps available for the iPhone. From the gimmicky to the truly pro-level, it’s hard to keep up. Nevertheless, now and again, one will jump out at me, often due to its unique design. Almost like a magpie, I’m a sucker...

A Peek Into LookUp’s Word of the Day Art and Why It Could Never Be AI-Generated

Yesterday, Vidit Bhargava, developer of the award-winning dictionary app LookUp, wrote on his blog about the way he hand-makes each piece of artwork that accompanies the app’s Word of the Day. While revealing that he has employed this practice every day for an astonishing 10 years, Vidit talked about how each image is made from scratch as an illustration or using photography that he shoots specifically for the design:

Each Word of the Day has been illustrated with care, crafting digital illustrations, picking the right typography that conveys the right emotion.

Some words contain images, these images are painstakingly shot, edited and crafted into a Word of the Day graphic by me.

I’ve noticed before that each Word of the Day image in LookUp seemed unique, but I assumed Vidit was using stock imagery and illustrations as a starting point each time. The revelation that he is creating almost all of these from scratch every single day was incredible and gave me a whole new level of respect for the developer.

The idea of AI-generated art (specifically art that is wholly generated from scratch by LLMs) is something that really sticks in my throat – never more so than with the recent rip-off of the beautiful, hand-drawn Studio Ghibli films by OpenAI. Conversely, Vidit’s work shows passion and originality.

To quote Vidit, “Real art takes time, effort and perseverance. The process is what makes it valuable.”

You can read the full blog post here.

Discord Server Numbers, Baby Invasion, and More

Among the highlights on the Club MacStories+ Discord: How many Discord servers are you in? Can you beat Niléane or Louise’s total? (Link) James had an interesting perspective on why a foldable iPhone would be an instant buy after purchasing a Galaxy Fold. (Link) Following up on what he talked about on AppStories, Federico provided...

Bend Is an Intuitive Stretching App with a Lovely Design

I turned 43 on Monday. Yes, I know, I don’t look a day over 21, but it’s true. I try to exercise as much as possible and consider myself pretty healthy. Despite that, just like my purchase of the Nintendo Switch 2, injuries and strains are inevitable. As I get older, the best thing for...

Notion Mail, Moon Environment Discovery, and more

Among the highlights on the Club MacStories+ Discord: sethdrebitko has been trying out the new Notion Mail app and was impressed with the AI labels. (Link) Members had plenty of suggestions for apps that produce simple flowcharts. (Link) thurstonsand created a great shortcut combining ChatGPT and Godspeed with natural language to create multiple tasks at...