MacStories Team

3376 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.

Concepts: Sketch, Note, Draw [Sponsor]

Sketch, note, and explore endless ideas with Concepts’ infinite canvas for iPad. Draw in designer COPIC colors with liquid pens and brushes, and organize images, text and sketches into visual mood boards. Used by creative professionals for visual thinking, note-taking, team communication, storyboarding, product design and architectural planning, Concepts lets you sketch and share your ideas in the moment.

Everything you draw in Concepts is a flexible, editable vector. Nudge, edit and reorganize your ideas with natural finger gestures. Drag and drop images and objects onto the canvas for fast ideation and reference, use layers and grid layouts to organize your work, mark up PDF documents, and apply real-world scale for professional design projects. Export and share standard, high-resolution and vector file types for flexible work between teams and apps.

Concepts’ built-in Presentation Mode lets you connect with others for live sharing and graphic discussion too. Whiteboard virtually with teams and clients using apps like Zoom, then instantly share your discussion.

The app comes free as a basic sketching tool, with the ability to unlock 200+ libraries of brushes, objects and services via subscription or one-time purchase. To learn more about Concepts visit their website today.

MacStories readers – Enjoy a special 1 month extended free trial when you sign up for an annual subscription. Get a month of infinite creativity before you are billed.

Our thanks to Concepts for sponsoring MacStories this week.


Home Screen: Fran Besora

Twitter @fraanb. Club MacStories member. I’ve been a huge fan of Focus modes since Apple introduced them at WWDC 2021 last June. The idea behind this feature is amazing to me. I can have multiple Home Screens through the day with different apps depending on my needs. I like the Focus mode approach that Federico...


Up Next On MacStories’ Podcasts

Next week on AppStories, we have a special episode planned, which we aren’t ready to reveal just yet. Both the AppStories+ and regular version of the show will be published on Monday, December 13th a little later than usual. This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico and John run down their favorite TV shows...




In This Issue

An announcement about Weekly’s holiday schedule, Mimestream, Federico’s solution to sync playlists between Apple Music and TIDAL, Club member Fran Besora Home Screen, plus Links, App Debuts, a recap of MacStories articles, and a preview of upcoming MacStories podcasts....


MacStadium: Orka Virtualization Is Coming to Apple Silicon Hardware [Sponsor]

Orka is MacStadium’s virtualization layer created for Mac build infrastructure that allows Mac and iOS developers to orchestrate macOS in a cloud environment using Kubernetes on genuine Apple hardware. Soon, Orka 2.0, which is currently in beta, will be released, allowing developers to harness the combined power of Apple’s M1 chip architecture and Orka for the first time.

Since Orka was first released, users have used it to streamline their development pipeline with high-performance, scalable, secure, and reliable Apple hardware. Soon, Orka will run on Apple silicon Macs too. With Orka 2.0, developers will be able to virtualize macOS across M1 Macs just like they’ve been doing on Intel machines and even mix clusters using both Intel-and M1-based virtual machines. It’s a big step forward, which will make it easier for developers to migrate their Mac and iOS build pipelines to Apple silicon. With Orka 2.0, you’ll be able to control Orka VMs with a native Kubernetes command line too.

The possibilities created by Orka 2.0 don’t end there, though. Just last week, AWS announced that EC2 instances on M1 Mac minis are on the way. AWS’s M1 mini instances are currently in preview, but the news opens up intriguing possibilities for developers, such as running Orka 2.0 on AWS or building a hybrid cloud pipeline on MacStadium servers and AWS.

Learn more about Orka 2.0 at MacStadium and sign up for the beta today to be among the first to experience your development pipeline on M1 Macs. It promises to be a big leap forward that you won’t want to miss.

Our thanks to MacStadium for sponsoring MacStories this week.


How It All Began

Graham Spencer, former MacStories Editor: G’day, it’s Graham here! Long-time readers and members of MacStories may remember me, but for those who may not know, I was one of the early contributors and editors of MacStories, and helped Federico launch MacStories Weekly all the way back in August 2014. Yes, 2014! To help celebrate Issue...


Previously, On MacStories

Apple Names the 2021 App of the Year Award Winners Shortcuts for Mac’s Superpower How to Batch Convert Shortcuts for Use Throughout Monterey and with Other Automation Apps Apple Podcasts Names Its Best Show and Newcomer of 2021 Apple Announces the 2021 Apple Music Awards Jason Tate’s Dedicated Now Playing Mini-Computer...