Introducing Apple Frames 4: A Revamped Shortcut, Support for Frame Colors, Proportional Scaling, and the Apple Frames CLI for Developers

By Federico Viticci

Apple Frames 4.

Well, it’s been a minute.

Today, I’m very happy to introduce Apple Frames 4, a major update to my shortcut for framing screenshots taken on Apple devices with official Apple product bezels. Apple Frames 4 is a complete rethinking of the shortcut that is noticeably faster, updated to support all the latest Apple devices, and designed to support even more personalization options. For the first time ever, Apple Frames supports multiple colors for each device, allowing you to mix and match different colored bezels for each framed screenshot; it also supports proportional scaling when merging screenshots from different Apple devices.

But that’s not all. In addition to an updated shortcut, I’m also releasing the Apple Frames CLI, an open source command-line utility that lets developers and tinkerers automate the process of framing screenshots directly from the Mac’s Terminal. And there’s more: the Apple Frames CLI is also designed to work with AI agents, and it comes with a Claude Code/Codex skill that lets coding agents take care of framing dozens or even hundreds of screenshots in just a few seconds, from any folder on your Mac.

Apple Frames 4 is the result of an idea I had months ago that enabled me to remove more than 500 actions from the shortcut, going from over 800 steps down to ~300. I did all that work manually, but it was worth it; the improved shortcut is faster and vastly more reliable than before thanks to a more intelligent logic that adapts to the growing ecosystem of Apple screen sizes and display resolutions.

Apple Frames 4 and the Apple Frames CLI represent a substantial step forward for screenshot automation, and I’ve been using both extensively for the past few weeks.

Let’s dive in.

AppStories - Ep. 480 - 38 minutes

OpenAI’s Everything App Trap

John

Federico

[

This week, on AppStories, we return to a topic that’s an old favorite: the Everything App in honor of OpenAI’s announcement that they are building a Super App.

On AppStories+, Federico consolidates the tools and services he uses.

Also available on YouTube here.

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AppStories Episode 480 - OpenAI’s Everything App Trap

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38:23

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LunarWall: Shuffle Moon Photos from Artemis II On Your Lock Screen or Mac Desktop

By Federico Viticci

LunarWall for iOS.

I’ve been staring at my Lock Screen and macOS desktop a lot this week. Not because of John’s iMessage notifications or the weird handhelds we share in the NPC group thread – because of the Moon. Specifically, because of photos taken by Orion as it swung within 4,067 miles of the lunar surface during the Artemis II flyby a couple of days ago. Yesterday, NASA published an official gallery of images from the flyby, and I immediately knew what I had to do.

LunarWall is a simple shortcut that picks a random image from a curated set of 23 photos pulled from NASA’s Artemis II Lunar Flyby gallery and sets it as your wallpaper. That’s it! Each time you run it, you get a different photo. The way this shortcut works, NASA’s images aren’t re-hosted or saved anywhere on your computer: the LunarWall shortcut fetches each image directly from NASA’s CDN and passes it to the ‘Set Wallpaper’ action, which is configured to automatically crop images to fit on mobile devices, blurs the wallpaper for the iOS/iPadOS Home Screen, and uses the original widescreen images at high resolutions on macOS.

AppStories - Ep. 479 - 39 minutes

Revisiting the Text Editor Landscape

John

Federico

This week on AppStories, John and Federico revisit the state of text editors on Apple platforms and how they use them.

On AppStories+, John and Federico dig deeper into their writing workflows and the apps they’re using to write.

Also available on YouTube here.

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AppStories Episode 479 - Revisiting the Text Editor Landscape

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38:37

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Claude – Ready to tackle bigger problems? Get started with Claude today.

How to Make Apple Music Lyrics Float on Top of Other Mac Windows

By Federico Viticci

Apple Music lyrics inside Obsidian.

I’m trying to see if I can live with Apple Music again instead of Spotify. (I’m really making an effort this time by listening to lots of music, “training” its suggestions, and ignoring the fact that I’m still paying for a Family account on Spotify.) As part of the process, I remembered just how much...

Well, I Guess I Like Safari’s Compact Tab Bar in iPadOS 26.4 (Also: Using Vertical Tabs in Safari for iPad)

By Federico Viticci

We’re so back.

Yours truly, back in September 2021:

In case I haven’t been clear enough above, I’ll be blunt: I don’t understand why the compact tab bar exists on iPad, and I think this design shouldn’t have shipped to customers.

My understanding is that Apple thought the benefit of removing a separate address bar, therefore saving a few vertical pixels on the page, would have made all the compromises we’ve seen so far worth the trade-offs in usability. I think that’s a wrong and mismanaged decision driven by an unmotivated pursuit of an iPhone-like design that has no place on iPad. If slightly increasing vertical space on webpages is Apple’s only argument here in favor of the compact tab bar, you tell me if it’s worth the trouble by judging from the screenshots below.

If, like me, you missed this in the release notes for the recently released iPadOS 26.4, the compact tab bar has returned to Safari for iPad after mysteriously disappearing in iPadOS 26.0. And I’m here to tell you that not only do I not despise it like I did five years ago, but I actually like this mode and have been working with Safari on my 13” iPad Pro like this for the past two weeks.

Automatically Approve Claude Code Permissions in iMessage with Shortcuts

By Federico Viticci

Automating Claude Code in iMessage.

Let me start by saying that you probably shouldn’t do this. I’ve been having a surprisingly good time using Claude Code via its new iMessage channel (which is part of my attempt to recreate OpenClaw with an “OpenClaude” system, more about this here), but I find its permission prompt system fairly annoying. You see, while Claude’s Telegram integration allows you to tap on interactive buttons in a chat to grant Claude permission to do something, the iMessage integration (based on primitive AppleScript) supports no such buttons. As a result, the Claude Code team came up with a simple, but tedious idea: you have to manually type “yes” followed by a randomized authorization code every time.

AppStories - Ep. 478 - 35 minutes

An Orchestra Without a Conductor, Apple’s AI Dilemma

Federico

John

This week on AppStories, Federico and John draw from their experiences using AI agents to imagine the sort of agent Apple could build with tight hardware and software integration if it had a LLM to orchestrate the pieces already in place.

On AppStories+, John asks where artificial intelligence falls on the spectrum of historical technology milestones.

Also available on YouTube here.

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AppStories Episode 478 - An Orchestra Without a Conductor, Apple’s AI Dilemma

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35:24

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AppStories - Ep. 477 - 42 minutes

Why Foldable Phones Matter: The Case for an iPhone Duo

Federico

John

This week on AppStories, Federico shares his experiences with foldable Android phones and what Apple might do for its first foldable hardware and its software.

On AppStories+, Federico shares his experience using Samsung DeX.

Also available on YouTube here.

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AppStories Episode 477 - Why Foldable Phones Matter: The Case for an iPhone Duo

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42:12

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