This Week's Sponsor:

Gamery

A sleek and intuitive game library app for casuals and pros

AppStories, Episode 283 – App Grab Bag→

This week on AppStories, we reach into the App Grab Bag and pull out five recommendations for listeners to try.

Sponsored by:

  • Instabug – Empower mobile teams to monitor, prioritize, and debug performance and stability issues and ship better mobile apps.
  • RevenueCat – Subscription management built for mobile apps.
  • Pillow – Sleeping better, made simple.
  • Sourcegraph – Universal Code Search. Move fast, even in big codebases. Try it now.
[Subscribe here.](https://appstories.net/plans)

Subscribe here.

On AppStories+, John has some personal news with a tech angle.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

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Warp: A Simple, Keyboard-Driven Mac Utility for Saving Window Setups

One of the cornerstone features coming to macOS Ventura this fall is Stage Manager, which lets you create sets of multiple apps, decluttering your desktop without a lot of fiddling. In my limited use so far, I’m optimistic about Stage Manager’s future as a way to manage apps, but it’s not for everyone, which is fine because there are so many other ways to manage windows on a Mac.

There are other utilities available for arranging windows on your desktop and saving those configurations. For window placement, I use Magnet. I love that the app can be driven entirely by keyboard shortcuts but is also always available in my Mac’s menu bar.

However, for some reason, utilities for saving the window configurations I create with Magnet have never stuck as part of my workflow. With Stage Manager on my mind recently, though, I thought I’d give a new app called Warp a try.

I like the way Warp previews layouts in its preferences.

I like the way Warp previews layouts in its preferences.

Warp is the creation of Mike Choi, who released Juice, a macOS Bluetooth device manager that I covered in 2019. I’ve only been using Warp for a few days, but it has already fit neatly into my Mac workflow because it’s a simple, keyboard-driven utility that scratches the same sort of itch as Magnet.

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Last Week, on Club MacStories: Safari Extensions, Upcoming Mail Updates, and Lesser-Known iOS 16 Features

Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings along with a look at what’s coming up next:

MacStories Weekly: Issue 325

Mail's Send Later Feature coming this fall

Mail’s Send Later Feature coming this fall

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:

https://vimeo.com/668120298

And soon, BetterTouchTool will introduce integration with the Stream Deck, so be on the lookout for an all-new way to use BetterTouchTool.

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.

MacStories Unwind: Strange Horticulture and Everything Everywhere All At Once

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This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico plays Strange Horticulture and explores Final Fantasy: Crisis Core using the PPSSPP emulator on the Aya Neo and John recommends Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Federico’s Picks:

John’s Pick:

AppStories, Episode 282 – What WWDC 2022 Means for Apple’s Platforms→

This week on AppStories, we take a step back to consider the future of WWDC and what this year’s announcements mean for each of Apple’s platforms.

Sponsored by:

  • Pillow – Sleeping better, made simple.
  • Sourcegraph – Universal Code Search. Move fast, even in big codebases. Try it now.
  • Instabug – Empower mobile teams to monitor, prioritize, and debug performance and stability issues and ship better mobile apps.
  • Memberful – Monetize your passion with membership
[Subscribe here.](https://appstories.net/plans)

Subscribe here.

On AppStories+, we go behind the scenes of MacStories’ WWDC coverage and Federico explains the apps and approach he plans to take with his iOS and iPadOS 16 review this year.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

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Last Week, on Club MacStories: AppStories Live, the New WWDC, Multitasking Questions, and Giveaways

Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings along with a look at what’s coming up next:

WWDC

  • Last week we held four live recordings of AppStories in the Club MacStories+ Discord community and took questions from listeners. Topics included:
    • Our first impressions of the WWDC keynote presentation
    • The new desktop-class features coming to iPadOS
    • Updates coming to Reminders
    • The M2 MacBook Air and macOS Ventura with special guest Myke Hurley
    • App Shortcuts, new Shortcuts actions, and our WWDC wishes that didn’t come true

Giveaways

  • We did daily app giveaways in the Club MacStories+ Discord, plus two more giveaways in MacStories Weekly 324

MacStories Weekly: Issue 324

Android Users Can Now Migrate Their WhatsApp Data to iPhone

WhatsApp announced beta support today for migrating the app’s data from Android devices to the iPhone using Apple’s Move to iOS app, which is available on the Google Play store. Move to iOS is an Android app that could already move contacts, messages, photos, videos, email accounts, and calendars.

With WhatsApp’s update, which is being released as a beta to a limited number of users to start, users with Android devices will be able to use Move to iOS to transfer their WhatsApp message history to iOS. Losing your message history in apps like WhatsApp has been one of the biggest downsides of jumping from one mobile device platform to another. By adding a way to migrate WhatsApp’s message history to iOS, it should be significantly easier for users of the messaging service to switch to iOS going forward.

WhatsApp has also added a support page to its website to walk users through the process of moving their message history from Android to iOS and a help document for anyone who has trouble with the process.

iA Writer 6 Adds Cross-Document Linking, Metadata, and More

iA Writer has long been one of the premier text editors on Apple’s platforms. The app’s design is top-notch, and it offers a feature set that makes it among the best options for writing in Markdown. Best of all, the app’s features stay out of your way while you’re writing. They’re easy to access, but they aren’t a distraction. That’s as true of iA Writer 6 today as it was with previous versions.

However, the Markdown text editor market is changing rapidly, with tools for creating interlinked notes and documents in a variety of ways that have quickly become table stakes for text editors and note-taking apps alike. iA Writer 6, which is available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, is a response to those changes that fits comfortably with the app’s existing feature set and design. The update doesn’t go as far as an app like Obsidian when it comes to internal links. Nor is it extensible with plugins. However, for many users, I suspect iA Writer’s impeccable design and thoughtful features will outweigh its lack of certain power-user features.

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