John is MacStories' Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015, and today, runs the site alongside Federico.
John also co-hosts four MacStories podcasts: AppStories, which covers the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, which explores the fun differences between American and Italian culture and recommends media to listeners, Ruminate, a show about the weird web and unusual snacks, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about the games we take with us.
This week, Federico and John take listeners on a tour of the wide variety of automations they’ve been working on so far this year, including shortcuts, Claude projects, and Zapier zaps.
On AppStories+, Federico and John dig a little deeper into some of the more complex automations that they’ve been working on in 2025.
Next week on AppStories, Federico and I will cover some of our favorite recent automations. Not to spoil the episode, but it’s not an episode about Shortcuts. Yes, we each share some shortcuts we’ve built, but there’s also a healthy dose of third-party automation apps, services, and AI projects sprinkled throughout. I take that as...
In this special interview episode, Federico and John welcome Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman to discuss his 16-year journey covering Apple. Mark shares how he started as a teenage app developer before joining 9to5Mac and eventually Bloomberg. The conversation explores Mark’s most memorable scoops, the evolution of Apple news coverage, his relationship with Apple, and advice for aspiring tech journalists.
On AppStories+, Federico and John get into the weeds to explore the hardware and apps Mark Gurman uses and discuss Apple’s acquisition of Pixelmator.
Earlier this week, as I was digging through the details of Sindre Sorhus’ Scratchpad app, I noticed that there was a PopClip extension available. There are very few Mac apps I’ve used as long as PopClip. It’s a simple utility that pops up a menu directly above selected text, just like iOS and iPadOS do....
This week, Federico and John explore a collection of Shortcuts helper utilities that extend functionality beyond the built-in system actions, sharing how these apps address gaps in Apple’s Shortcuts implementation across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
On AppStories+, John interviews Federico about his recent story that concludes web applications often provide superior experiences to native apps on iPad, examining how this trend reflects broader challenges in the iPad ecosystem.
[[federico]] Web Apps I mentioned this app in my story about the iPad and web apps earlier this week, and I also want to highlight it here since it received a big update this week. This app, which allows you to run web apps like Netflix, YouTube, and Figma as PWAs on the Vision Pro,...
[[federico]] Pediapal Created by Adrian Eves, Pediapal is a new iPhone app that helps parents track their children’s health measurements and medicine needs. The app lets you record stats like height and weight, set up medication reminders, and create shareable care plans for babysitters or other caregivers. I’ll let you guess the first contact I...
This week, Federico and John examine the widening gap between consumer and enterprise apps, asking what happened to prosumer and small business app market.
On AppStories+, John doesn’t buy Apple’s explanation of why the iPhone 16e doesn’t have MagSafe and has an email-adjacent theory about task managers.
Federico
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