Federico shares his Shortcuts-based CAPS automation system for the iPhone’s Action button, John has Dropover tips, Jonathan’s system for moving tasks from Notion to Reminders, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, a recap of MacStories articles, and a preview of next week’s episode of AppStories....
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Stories Vision Pro App Spotlight: Status Bar Builder’s Key Is Customization Combined with Simplicity Apple Music Debuts Heavy Rotation, A New Daily Made For You Playlist Simple Scan: A Scanning Solution for People Who Don’t Scan Often Apple Arcade’s Prestige Problem Some Game Developers Are Unhappy about Apple Arcade Mona 6 Moves from High Visual...
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Stories Automation Academy: My Collection of Advanced Shortcuts for Things The Fastest Way to Save RSS Articles to A Read-Later App Vision Pro App Spotlight: Longplay Adds Immersive Album Listening Looks Like Rain: Visualizing the Weather on a Color-Coded Timeline Apple Vision Pro Accessory Roundup: Our Favorites So Far iMessage Is Preparing for a Post-Quantum...
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Stories Vision Pro App Spotlight: Shortcut Buttons Turns Your Shortcuts into Spatial Launchers The Best Way to Take Screenshots on Apple Vision Pro “Wherever You Get Your Podcasts” Is a Radical Statement Apple Updates Its Collection of Windows Apps The Apple Vision Pro Developer Strap Vision Pro App Spotlight: NowPlaying Vision Pro App Spotlight: Day...
Sigmund’s Top Apple TV Picks
Sigmund Judge: To celebrate this week’s MacStories debut of Magic Rays of Light, I was asked to share a few of my favourite Apple TV picks for my fellow Apple TV aficionados, and here they are. Swan Song My Apple Original film pick is Benjamin Cleary’s Swan Song. Starring Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Glenn Close,...
A Shortcut for Journaling Your TV and Movie Watch History
Devon Dundee: It’s been over a month since Apple released the Journal app and gave developers access to the Journaling Suggestions API, but I still get excited every time I open up Everlog to see what suggestions the system has for me. Whether it be a podcast or album I listened to, a place I...
The MacStories Team’s iPhone Home Screens
Federico’s Home Screen Setup The latest version of my iPhone Home Screen is an evolution of the Launcher-based setup I described in Issue 399 of MacStories Weekly. There are some additions to the Home Screen, which I’ll highlight below, but, by and large, the layout hasn’t changed much over the past few months. I continue...
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Stories The Case for Clipboard Managers “Reliving My Memories in Apple Vision Pro Almost Brought Me to Tears” Adding Colorful, Animated Flare to the Holiday Season with Hue’s Festavia Lights The MacStories Team Is on Threads (Again) The AirPods Pro MagSafe Charging Case with USB-C Can Now Be Purchased Separately Automation Academy: Introducing ThingsBox, an...
MacStories Selects 2023: Recognizing the Best Apps of the Year
John: Every year, it seems like the MacStories Selects awards roll around faster than the last, and this year was no exception. For most people, the year begins on January 1st, but for us, WWDC marks the beginning of our year, and the MacStories Selects Awards feel like its conclusion. Plenty happens the rest of the year, but it’s these seven months that are the main event for us.
June begins with excitement about what developers will be able to do with Apple’s latest frameworks. Reconnecting with developers and meeting new people energizes and carries us through a busy summer and fall. This year marked Federico’s return to WWDC for the first time since the pandemic, and seeing so many developers together made this year’s WWDC the best in years.
2023 was an exciting year for apps. Read-later apps continued to be hot, but nothing was quite as big as interactive widgets, which brought new experiences to our Home and Lock Screens and shook up how many of us set up our devices.
Next year promises to be an even bigger year for apps with an all-new Vision Pro App Store on the way. For now, though, it’s time to pause and reflect on the many apps we tried in the year gone by and recognize the best among them.
Like last year, we’ve picked the best apps in seven categories:
- Best New App
- Best App Update
- Best New Feature
- Best Watch App
- Best Mac App
- Best Design
- App of the Year
But there’s more. Club MacStories members picked the winner of the MacStories Selects Readers’ Choice Award. Plus, as we’ve done the past couple of years, we’ve named a Lifetime Achievement Award winner that has stood the test of time and had an outsized impact on the world of apps. This year’s winner, which joins past winners PCalc and Drafts, is the subject of a special story I wrote for the occasion.
We also recorded a special episode of AppStories covering all the winners and runners-up. It’s a terrific way to learn more about this year’s apps.
You can listen to the episode below.
So with that, it’s my pleasure to introduce the 2023 MacStories Selects Awards to the MacStories community.