MacStories Team

3496 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.
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Club Members Name Five MacStories Selects Readers’ Choice Award Finalists

The fourth annual MacStories Selects Awards are just around the corner. As we announced last week, the process for choosing the Readers’ Choice Award winner has been split into two parts this year to ensure that everyone in Club MacStories has an opportunity to play a part in the decision.

Over the past several days, nominations for the award have been pouring in from Club MacStories members. We’re pleased to announce that the following five apps will move on to the finals:

Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members can vote on the winner of this year’s Readers’ Choice Award by going to the Club Discord Announcements channel where you’ll find a link for voting. If you’re a Club MacStories+ or Club Premier member, but haven’t joined the Discord community yet, you can do so by visiting your Club Account page and clicking on the Discord button.

The deadline for voting is Thursday, November 18th, 2021 at Noon Eastern US time. The winner of the Reader’s Choice Award will be announced in December along with the other MacStories Selects awards.

The Readers’ Choice Award is one of our favorite parts of the MacStories Selects Awards. Every year, Club members have picked an outstanding app and this year’s crop of finalists make it clear that this year will be no different. Congratulations to the five finalists from the entire MacStories team.

CleanMyMac X: Make Sure You Can Trust Your Mac [Sponsor]

In these uncertain times, the only person who we can truly rely on is ourselves, more specifically, you and your computer. But can your Mac help you reach your goals? Is it in good enough shape, fast, and organized?

To be sure, you need CleanMyMac X from MacPaw. It’s the ideal decluttering app for Mac.

CleanMyMac X isn’t just one tool, though. It’s an entire suite of powerful utilities designed to tune up your Mac:

  • It includes 49 tools to find and delete invisible junk.
  • It removes junk that’s slowing your Mac down, so it always runs at its maximum speed.
  • It organizes disk space, too, showing your large hidden folders.
  • It can free up tons of space, so your Mac never runs into storage issues.
  • It’s also the perfect tool to get your Mac ready for macOS Monterey too.
  • Finally, it fights Mac-specific malware and adware.

There are a lot of other Mac cleaning utilities available, but CleanMyMac X stands out with its award-winning, elegant design that makes it a pleasure to use every day. In fact, in 2021, CleanMyMac was honored with the Red Dot Award and the UX Design Award. It’s so enjoyable to use, and you’ll be discovering new ways to optimize your Mac each time you run this app.

Moreover, CleanMyMac X is notarized by Apple, so you can use it with the confidence that it’s safe.

MacPaw has a special deal just for MacStories readers. For the next four weeks, you can purchase the app for 5% off by using this link. So, get started today with CleanMyMac X to make sure you can trust your Mac.

Our thanks to CleanMyMac X from MacPaw for sponsoring MacStories this week.

BetterTouchTool: Customize Your Input Devices [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.

Today, many things have changed in BetterTouchTool. Of course, it still allows you to configure all sorts of gestures for the Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse. However, nowadays, the app also supports many more input devices. BTT 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, connect and configure MIDI devices, and more.

BetterTouchTool offers a long list of predefined actions to automate tasks on your Mac that can be assigned to any input-device trigger you choose. The app also contains some handy features like window snapping, a clipboard manager, a screenshot editor, and much more. There is even a free iOS app to remotely control your Mac and trigger actions.

Also, BetterTouchTool already supports macOS Monterey and integrates deeply with the new Shortcuts app. It now lets you run Shortcuts using any of BTT’s triggers. Additionally, BetterTouchTool makes many of its actions available to be used within the Shortcuts app. For examples see https://community.folivora.ai/c/shortcuts/18.

The breadth of what can be accomplished with BetterTouchTool is only limited by your imagination. A great place to get started and be inspired by other BTT users is the BetterTouchTool Community at community.folivora.ai. Users have shared some fantastic BTT presets there, including some very advanced custom Touch Bar setups that you should definitely check out.

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.aito 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.

AV Club Town Hall: Foundation on TV+


Club MacStories Town Halls are part of the monthly and other special live audio events we hold in the Club MacStories+ Discord community. The show is a recorded and lightly edited version of the Town Halls that we produce, so Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members who can’t attend the event live can listen later. To learn more about Club MacStories+ and Club Premier, visit our Club plans page.

Ep. - AV Club Town Hall: Foundation on TV+

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For this month’s AV Club selection, Federico and John were joined by Club members Jonathan, Peter, and Brian to discuss the first seven episodes of Foundation, the epic sci-fi show on TV+.

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