Federico Viticci

10804 posts on MacStories since April 2009

Federico is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of MacStories, where he writes about Apple with a focus on apps, developers, iPad, and iOS productivity. He founded MacStories in April 2009 and has been writing about Apple since. Federico is also the co-host of AppStories, a weekly podcast exploring the world of apps, Unwind, a fun exploration of media and more, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about portable gaming and the handheld revolution.

A Behind the Scenes Peek at WWDC Week

This week, Federico and John catch listeners up on their whirlwind WWDC week, which was chaotic in the best possible way.

On AppStories+, Federico and John get excited about what the WWDC announcements say about the direction of automation on Apple’s platforms.


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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 441 - A Behind the Scenes Peek at WWDC Week

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34:22

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This episode is sponsored by:

  • Notion – Try the powerful, easy-to-use Notion AI today.

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WWDC 2025: A First Look at Everything Apple Announced

For our second WWDC episode of AppStories, Federico and John dig into the details they’ve learned about what was announced by Apple this week at WWDC 2025.


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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 440 - WWDC 2025: A First Look at Everything Apple Announced

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57:14

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This episode is sponsored by:

  • Clic for Sonos – No lag. No hassle. Just Clic..
  • Elements – A truly modern, drag-and-drop website builder for macOS.

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WWDC 2025: The AppStories Interviews with Apple Design Award Winners

For their first WWDC 2025 AppStories episode, Federico and John interview finalists and winners of the Apple Design Award.


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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 439 - WWDC 2025: The AppStories Interviews with Apple Design Award Winners

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58:16

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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Sky and Our 2025 Shortcuts and Apple Intelligence WWDC Wishes

This week, John shares his first impressions of Sky, the alpha AI-powered Mac automation app from the creators of Workflow and Shortcuts and then he and Federico share their Shortcuts and Apple Intelligence wishes for WWDC 2025

On AppStories+, John and Federico consider what AI means for developers and the App Store in the year ahead.


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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 438 - Sky and Our 2025 Shortcuts and Apple Intelligence WWDC Wishes

0:00
37:54

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This episode is sponsored by:

  • Notion: Try the powerful, easy-to-use Notion AI today.
  • P: The water reminder and hydration app.

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Testing DeepSeek R1-0528 on the M3 Ultra Mac Studio and Installing Local GGUF Models with Ollama on macOS

DeepSeek released an updated version of their popular R1 reasoning model (version 0528) with – according to the company – increased benchmark performance, reduced hallucinations, and native support for function calling and JSON output. Early tests from Artificial Analysis report a nice bump in performance, putting it behind OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini-high in their Intelligence Index benchmarks. The model is available in the official DeepSeek API, and open weights have been distributed on Hugging Face. I downloaded different quantized versions of the full model on my M3 Ultra Mac Studio, and here are some notes on how it went.

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From the Creators of Shortcuts, Sky Extends AI Integration and Automation to Your Entire Mac

Sky for Mac.

Sky for Mac.

Over the course of my career, I’ve had three distinct moments in which I saw a brand-new app and immediately felt it was going to change how I used my computer – and they were all about empowering people to do more with their devices.

I had that feeling the first time I tried Editorial, the scriptable Markdown text editor by Ole Zorn. I knew right away when two young developers told me about their automation app, Workflow, in 2014. And I couldn’t believe it when Apple showed that not only had they acquired Workflow, but they were going to integrate the renamed Shortcuts app system-wide on iOS and iPadOS.

Notably, the same two people – Ari Weinstein and Conrad Kramer – were involved with two of those three moments, first with Workflow, then with Shortcuts. And a couple of weeks ago, I found out that they were going to define my fourth moment, along with their co-founder Kim Beverett at Software Applications Incorporated, with the new app they’ve been working on in secret since 2023 and officially announced today.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been able to use Sky, the new app from the people behind Shortcuts who left Apple two years ago. As soon as I saw a demo, I felt the same way I did about Editorial, Workflow, and Shortcuts: I knew Sky was going to fundamentally change how I think about my macOS workflow and the role of automation in my everyday tasks.

Only this time, because of AI and LLMs, Sky is more intuitive than all those apps and requires a different approach, as I will explain in this exclusive preview story ahead of a full review of the app later this year.

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Our 2025 macOS and visionOS WWDC Wishes

This week, Federico and John share their WWDC wishes for macOS and visionOS.

On AppStories+, John explores how Apple hardware and software got so out of sync when it comes to AI use cases.


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

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


AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 437 - Our 2025 macOS and visionOS WWDC Wishes

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33:53

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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