MacStories Team

3385 posts on MacStories since July 2011

Articles by the MacStories team. Founded by Federico Viticci in April 2009, MacStories attracts millions of readers every month thanks to in-depth, personal, and informed coverage that offers a balanced mix of Apple news, app reviews, and opinion.

This Week's Sponsor:

Halide

Unlock Your iPhone Camera


Halide: Unlock Your iPhone Camera [Sponsor]

If you read MacStories, you’ve likely heard of Halide. For nine years, it’s been the definitive iPhone “pro camera app,” garnering an Apple Design Award, and happy users all over the world. Two years ago, Halide added Process Zero, a feature that lets your iPhone take photos free of AI and algorithms in the spirit of analog photography. Halide Mark III takes that to the next level with its new Looks, Photo Lab, and streamlined design.

Halide Mark III now produces gorgeous photos straight out of camera, thanks to film-inspired Looks developed in partnership with renowned Hollywood colorist Cullen Kelly. For the times you feel like fine-tuning things, Mark III includes a powerful image lab that makes it easy to dial in a perfect look in seconds.

Chip shortages are hitting everyone’s wallets, so we’ve decided to run our first sale in three years, exclusively for MacStories readers. This week only, you can get Halide for 25% off your first year with offer code MACSTORIES2026SUB, or 25% off a one-time-purchase with offer code MACSTORIES2026OTP.

Our thanks to Halide for sponsoring MacStories this week.


Hello Weather: Half Off for WWDC Week, Just in Time for Summer [Sponsor]

Summer and WWDC arrive together this year, and Hello Weather is ready for both. It’s one of the most beloved indie weather apps around, and right now it’s half off, which makes it a great time to give it a try as your daily driver.

Hello Weather has always been known for its simple, friendly, and readable design. The information you care about most, including the current conditions, hourly forecast, and outlook for the days ahead, is always close by, where and when you need them.

It provides instant access to current conditions, the hourly forecast, and the forecast for the days ahead all live on a single screen, so the info you actually care about is right in front of you without having to scroll through clutter or hunt for what you want.

But beneath that simplicity lies an amazing amount of depth. There are a dozen data points, each with a dedicated deep-dive and beautiful charts for the UV Index, Air Quality, Humidity, Wind, Feels Like Temperature, Moon Phase, and more. Extended hourly forecasts make it easy to time an afternoon hike, figure out when the rain will clear, or decide whether Saturday’s barbecue is a go.

Another great touch is that you can choose your own weather data source. Hello Weather supports more than a dozen providers, including Apple Weather, AccuWeather, Foreca, and The Weather Company. Stick with whichever is most accurate for your area, or swap between them to compare.

Hello Weather is loaded with all the latest Apple technologies you expect, too: proactive notifications that fire only when something’s worth knowing, a smooth real-time radar for when conditions change fast, and a great Apple Watch app with rich complications. The flexible widgets are a great way to freshen up your Home Screen, and you can customize themes, icons, and layouts to make the app your own.

The app also respects your privacy. It doesn’t collect user-identifiable data, has no ads, and won’t sell your information. Made by a small independent team, it’s been serving millions of forecasts to happy customers around the world for over a decade, and it’s a regular App of the Day in the App Store.

To celebrate WWDC week, Hello Weather is 50% off: use code WWDC to get half off your first year. Download free, start a 7-day trial, and make it your go-to app for the summer and beyond.

Our thanks to Hello Weather for supporting MacStories’ WWDC coverage this week.


Clic for Sonos: The Native App Sonos Should’ve Made, Now Up to 50% Off [Sponsor]

I make Clic because Sonos speakers sound incredible, and the app you use to control them should feel just as good. It’s a premium Sonos companion built natively for Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Unlike AirPlay, Clic tells your speakers to stream directly, so the music keeps playing when you walk out the door, it never drains your battery, and it never ties up your phone. Setup takes seconds, and whether you’re playing to one speaker or grouping the whole house, every tap is instant. No lag, no hassle, just music.

Clic is loaded with native features. Widgets, Live Activities, Lock Screen controls, Control Center widgets, and Shortcuts for automation are all there. On the Mac you get a full app plus a menu bar companion with speaker grouping and hot keys. Scenes group your rooms, set the volume, and start the music in a single tap, and the Share Sheet sends any Apple Music or Spotify link, a song, album, artist, or station, straight to the speaker you choose.

Clic works with Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Plex, SoundCloud, TuneIn, and your Sonos library, with full support for lossless audio and Dolby Atmos. And because Clic is built natively for Apple, I’m always adding new features and bringing in the latest Apple technologies.

I think you’ll see why so many Apple fans use Clic every day. Try it yourself, and MacStories readers can get the first year for just $10 (33% off) or lifetime updates for $40 (50% off). Head to clic.dance/macstories for all the details.

Our thanks to Clic for Sonos for sponsoring MacStories’ WWDC coverage.


Mindspace: A Private All-in-One Journal App Made for iPad [Sponsor]

Mindspace is a journal for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac that pulls everything you’d normally find scattered across multiple apps into a single scrollable timeline. The app pulls your writing, photos and videos, voice notes, mood and habit trackers, locations, and tasks together to tell your story. You can even add drawings if you have an iPad and Apple Pencil.

Privacy sits at the core of Mindspace. Entries are stored locally on your device, and iCloud sync uses Apple’s encryption — end-to-end if you have Advanced Data Protection turned on. Nothing is routed through Mindspace’s servers, or anyone else’s for that matter, and a full JSON export is always a tap away in Settings.

The app makes thoughtful use of Apple platform features. A freeform Apple Pencil canvas supports the full palette of available tools, making it a natural place to sketch a diagram, draft a letter, or map out a thought. The Apple Intelligence features run entirely on-device, too. There’s a writing suggestion when you open a blank entry, automatic theme tagging, and a custom journaling prompt for every intention you set. Plus, voice notes recorded inside an entry are transcribed locally using iOS 26’s SpeechAnalyzer, and Apple Health auto-fills steps, heart rate, weight, water, distance, and calories burned into your trackers the moment you open your Today page. There are also Quick Entry, Tasks, and Tracker widgets that make adding and viewing what you track simple.

Visit Mindspace to learn more and download the app. MacStories readers get 50% off their first year automatically at checkout. There’s no code required.

Our thanks to Mindspace for sponsoring MacStories this week.


BetterTouchTool: Now with a Powerful Launcher for Your Mac [Sponsor]

BetterTouchTool has long been one of the Mac’s most versatile customization tools, offering deep control over trackpad and mouse gestures, keyboard shortcuts, Stream Deck buttons, Floating Menus, window actions, Apple Shortcuts, and more.

The latest version adds a powerful new Spotlight-like Launcher that brings many parts of your Mac and BTT together in one fast interface. Open it with e.g. a hotkey, gesture, mouse button, or Stream Deck button, then launch apps, run Shortcuts, search and browse files, switch windows, use clipboard history, create reminders or calendar events, control Apple TV, and run BTT actions. The Launcher also handles complex calculations and unit conversions directly in the search field, powered by the excellent Soulver.app.

Your own BTT triggers can appear there too, so personal automations sit alongside apps, files, Shortcuts, and system actions.

One of the Launcher’s most powerful features is native Swift plugin support. Plugins can add rows, commands, nested results, and rich custom interfaces inside the Launcher window, making it possible to build mini apps for BTT: dashboards, device controllers, API clients, automation panels, and more. BetterTouchTool’s built-in [email protected] assistants can even create custom Launcher plugins from a prompt, making advanced customization more approachable for Mac power users.

Since BetterTouchTool’s last sponsored MacStories post, input-device support has expanded too. Native Logitech mouse and keyboard support makes many Logitech devices directly configurable in BTT without extra software, including special keys and remappable buttons. Normal mouse support has gained scroll modifiers, e.g. for smooth scrolling, drag gestures, and trackpad-like interactions such as fluid space switching and zooming, while Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse users continue to get new options for deep gesture customization.

Try BetterTouchTool free for 45 days at folivora.ai. MacStories readers can use MACSTORIESBTT2026 for 20% off a license.


Reader Setup: Dr. Nicolas Rizcalla

Mastodon: @rizcalla. I could never decide which machine to connect to my Studio Display; the lack of KVM support didn’t help either. Should I plug in my MacBook Pro and use Screen Sharing for the Mac mini? The other way around? What about my iPad Pro, which gets used less and less as a standalone...


Dropzone 5: A Faster Drag-and-Drop Workflow [Sponsor]

Dropzone is a menu bar productivity tool that gives you a faster way to move, copy, and share files, launch apps, and trigger all sorts of time-saving drag-and-drop actions without breaking your flow.

The newly released Dropzone 5 is a substantial update and has been redesigned for macOS Tahoe with a cleaner interface, smoother animations and support for Liquid Glass.

The update also adds several workflow-focused improvements. Multiple grids make it easy to separate actions by project or context, deeper grid customization gives you more control over categories, columns, and layout, and folder-based actions can now display the custom icons and colors you’ve assigned in Finder, which makes it easier to identify your folders in Dropzone at a glance.

If you like to automate from the command line, Dropzone 5 includes a powerful command line tool for Terminal integration, too. You can run actions, manage files in Drop Bar, and switch between grids via the command line tool, making Dropzone 5 a better fit for scripted workflows than ever before.

Dropzone 5 is available as a free download from Aptonic, with a Pro upgrade available that adds more advanced features.

For a limited time, the Pro upgrade is available at a 30% discount with the coupon code LAUNCH.

Visit Aptonic’s website to learn more and download Dropzone 5.

Our thanks to Dropzone 5 for sponsoring MacStories this week.


New Year, New Audio Setup: SoundSource from Rogue Amoeba [Sponsor]

If better Mac audio is on your list of resolutions for 2026, the folks at Rogue Amoeba have you covered with SoundSource, their essential audio control app.

SoundSource provides audio control so useful, it ought to be built in to MacOS. Get instant access to your Mac’s audio settings right from the menu bar, with powerful per-app volume and routing control, and the ability to apply effects to any app’s audio.

The newly released SoundSource 6 is a major upgrade, with dozens of enhancements. Updates include supercharged AirPlay support, output groups to send audio to multiple devices at once, Quick Configs that save your entire audio configuration, and a powerful new Audio Devices window that gives deep control over device settings.

But why just read about it, when you can try it out? Download SoundSource’s fully functional free trial with just one click. You’ll be up and running in under a minute.

When you’re ready, you can purchase a license with a special discount just for MacStories readers. Save 20% with code MACSTORIESNEWYEAR26 in their store. Act fast, since this deal expires on Valentine’s Day. If you love audio on your Mac, you’ll love making it better with SoundSource.

Our thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring MacStories this week.


This Week on MacStories Podcasts

This week on MacStories podcasts: AppStories This week, Federico and John complete their tour of holiday projects with a look at the tools both of them built with the help of Claude Code, Codex, and other tools. On AppStories+, John pushes Claude Code by building a Safari web extension that integrates with Notion. Listen on:...