Next week on AppStories, Federico and John conclude their tour of new apps they’re trying and rediscovering. This week on MacStories Unwind, we cover our first joint Unwind pick, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, plus MacStories highlights....
In This Issue
This month, Federico covers FloatingPlayer, a unique music utility that uses Picture-in-Picture to create a floating now-playing widget on the iPhone and iPad, and John embarks on an iCloud sync-based RSS experiment that splits his feeds across two apps....
Unite 4: Turn Websites into Apps on Your Mac [Sponsor]
Unite 4 for macOS can turn any website into an app for your Mac. The app uses a lightweight, WebKit-powered browser as a backend, allowing you to easily create isolated, customizable apps from any site. It’s a terrific way to get those sites you visit every day out of a tab and into a dedicated, standalone app.
Unite 4 has dozens of features and customization options that make it a terrific alternative to resource-hogging Electron apps or uninspired Mac Catalyst implementations. The apps you create are easy to set up, fast, and only limited by your imagination:
- Create dedicated apps for your favorite streaming services like Netflix and Disney+
- Save your laptop’s battery by using Unite for Slack, Discord, and WhatsApp with full notification support
- Listen to music services like Apple Music or Spotify
- Enjoy podcasts with Overcast
- Organize your notes in a dedicated Roam Research app
- Never again lose your Figma design work among a sea of Safari tabs
- Limit the ability of apps like Facebook to track you across sites
- Check your Instagram feed
- Track your finances with Robinhood
No matter which sites you use, Unite can turn them into apps for your Mac with customizable colors, an icon that fits the version of macOS you use, dark mode, support for the macOS Keychain, floating windows, and even menu bar-based apps that appear with a single click.
This week only, MacStories readers can get 20% off when you purchase Unite 4 at bzgapps.com/macstories or by using the promo code ‘MacStories’ at checkout.
Unite is free to try for 14 days and is available as part of a Setapp subscription too.
Download Unite 4 today and turn your favorite websites into your favorite apps too.
Our thanks to Unite 4 for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Previously, On MacStories
Apple Q12022 Results - $123.95 Billion Revenue MacStories Starter Pack: The Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1300 Is Perfect for Anyone Whose Paperless Workflow Still Starts with Paper MacStories Starter Pack: Reverse-Engineering the Matter API and My ‘Save to Matter’ Shortcut MacStories Starter Pack: Customizing Your Workflows with Deep Links Apple Publishes AirTag Additions to Its Personal Safety...
Up Next On MacStories’ Podcasts
Next week on AppStories, Federico and John cover the themes and details of the Starter Pack event they shared this week on MacStories. This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico shares one of his all-time favorite TV comedies and he and John both share PlayStation videogames and recap the MacStories highlights from this week....
In This Issue
Federico shares MatterBot, an advanced shortcut for managing your Matter queue, John explains how he’s using an Obsidian weekly note shortcut that takes advantage of the new MacStories Shortcut Launcher plugin to plan his week, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, a recap of MacStories articles,...
BetterTouchTool: Introducing the Notch Bar [Sponsor]
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 and the Magic Mouse.
Nowadays, the app can configure gestures for the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad (1-3), it enables full Touch Bar customization, allows users to define keyboard shortcuts, including a powerful Hyper Key, bind the buttons of mice, create custom mouse gestures, customize the Siri Remote, and connect and configure MIDI devices. Also, it works great together with the new Shortcuts app on macOS Monterey.
BetterTouchTool’s developer, Andreas Hegenberg, recently introduced a new feature that is rapidly evolving: the “Notch Bar”. It is in an early development stage but already has quite a few fans, and now, Andreas would love to get your feedback on the feature to make it even better.
The Notch Bar is a customizable menu bar add-on that allows you to create completely custom bars with only the functions and widgets you regularly use. It works best on screens with a Notch, but can also be used on standard screens. It leaves your standard menu bar intact but hidden, so you can easily switch between standard and Notch Bar modes - e.g. by setting a keyboard shortcut to do so.
The Notch Bar comes with lots of default widgets, e.g. to show an emoji picker, calendar events, Shortcuts, weather, date/time, or your clipboard history. It can easily be extended using custom and third-party script widgets too. For example, the amazing Crypto Touch Bar app can now export crypto widgets for the Notch Bar.
For more info on the Notch Bar and a Quick Start Guide, please have a look at:
Here are a few examples of how Andreas is using the Notch Bar himself:
And don’t forget to send Andreas your feedback and ideas how to improve the Notch Bar.
BetterTouchTool comes with a 45-day trial, after which you can choose between a license that includes all updates for 2 years and a lifetime license.
For a limited time, MacStories readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 20% off by using the coupon code MACSTORIESBTT at checkout. So, don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more about this fantastic Mac app and take advantage of the special limited-time, 20% discount on BetterTouchTool.
Our thanks to BetterTouchTool for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Previously, On MacStories
Federico Shares a Starter Pack of Shortcuts on Apple’s App Store AirBuddy 2.5: A Refined Experience That Adds Shortcuts Integration and Other New Features WordleBot 1.1, Now Fully Accessible with Native Emoji-to-Image Conversion Wordle! Developer to Donate Game Proceeds to Charity...
Up Next on MacStories’ Podcasts
Next week on AppStories, Federico and John cover some of the new apps they’ve been using over the past few months as they rethink and rebuild their workflows. This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico takes listeners back in time to play 2004’s The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap on the Analogue Pocket...