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John Voorhees

Managing Editor

Mastodon: @johnvoorhees@macstories.netEmail: voorhees@macstories.net

John, MacStories’ Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015. He also co-hosts MacStories’ podcasts, including AppStories, which explores of the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, a weekly recap of everything MacStories and more, and MacStories Unplugged, a behind-the-scenes, anything-goes show exclusively for Club MacStories members.

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Kicking the Tires of Notion

THE EXTENSION

Exploring topics beyond our day-to-day coverage.

Kicking the Tires of Notion

I’ll admit, I’m a little self-conscious about using Notion. I’ve always recognized that it’s a good tool for a lot of tasks, but it never clicked with me – partially because I found it very hard to adapt to a block-based system after years of plain text and partially because I love the customizability of apps like Obsidian.

However, I’ve also found myself juggling more data than I can adequately manage in plain text and a little tired of Obsidian after using it for five years. That’s a long time for me, and while there are ways to accomplish much of what I’m doing in Notion with Obsidian, Notion is hard to beat for data-heavy tasks. It’s like the offspring of a spreadsheet and a database, allowing someone like me, who deals with a lot of non-numerical data and doesn’t need formulas much, to harness the power of a spreadsheet crossed with a database that’s friendlier to use than an app like Airtable.

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Town Hall Archive

Town Hall Archive

A while back, we shifted our approach to Club Town Halls, rolling them into other existing podcasts. That left us with an archive of Town Hall events without a home – until now. Starting today, if you want to revisit our AV Club discussions of movies, TV shows, and other media or Town Halls from past Apple events, you can download the MP3s directly from the Club Downloads page here.

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App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

Noteworthy new app releases and updates, handpicked by the MacStories team.

Locally AI

Locally AI is one of the first third-party apps for iPhone and iPad that lets you freely chat with Apple Intelligence’s on-device Foundation model (in addition to other local LLMs), and the app received a nice update earlier this week. Developer Adrien Grondin added a native iPad sidebar to the app, plus integration with the small Qwen-3VL 2B model to the app’s growing collection of offline models. The update also brings proper code and LaTeX support for technical conversations, along with a time remaining indicator in the Downloads view when you’re fetching new models. Also: the app is now Universal and available on macOS, too. I really hope the developer can add an overlay for token generation and other stats next.

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Interesting Links

Ads in Maps: Are We on the Precipice of Ads Across All Apple Services?

Ads in Maps: Are We on the Precipice of Ads Across All Apple Services?

Last weekend, Mark Gurman reported that Apple is going to put advertising in its Maps app. Like many people, my reaction to the news was pretty negative. That’s not an unusual response, but on balance, I’m forgiving of ads in many contexts. As the person who sells the ads at MacStories, I understand the economics of the web all too well and recognize advertising’s role in making media affordable to more people. But there are ads, and then there are ads. Some ads and some contexts just don’t work as well as others, which I think is worth exploring when it comes to Maps.

Apple has been creeping deeper and deeper into advertising for years, stretching all the way back to 2010 with iAd. The company said those ads would be different, that they’d be tasteful and fit in nicely with iOS 4’s interface. According to Steve Jobs:

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App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

Noteworthy new app releases and updates, handpicked by the MacStories team.

Flowy

Flowy is a relatively new screen recording app for the Mac with a lot of options for fine-tuning what you capture and edit. It includes intelligent zoom effects for getting a close-up look at details in a screen recording, custom backgrounds, and templates for typical social media aspect ratios. The app also features cursor effects and camera and microphone support, which adds a lot of flexibility. Flowy is the sort of app that you can use for presentations, demoing a feature of an app to a work colleague, or promoting an app online. However, what I appreciate most about the app – as someone who only does this kind of recording now and then – is that it’s a one-time $19.99 purchase on the Mac App Store.

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Interesting Links

The Sky's the Limit: Apple's Loss Is OpenAI's Gain

THE EXTENSION

Exploring topics beyond our day-to-day coverage.

The Sky's the Limit: Apple's Loss Is OpenAI's Gain

Earlier this week, OpenAI acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the makers of Sky, an AI-powered automation tool for the Mac that Federico previewed in May. I’m still running Sky on my Mac and using it daily, although I expect that will come to an end sooner rather than later, given OpenAI’s promise of “more updates as we get to work integrating Sky’s capabilities.”

I’ll miss Sky when it goes. I’ve used the app since May, pausing only briefly when the macOS Tahoe betas broke it. Today, the app works great, integrating AI into my workflow in a practical way that is far easier than flipping back and forth to a chatbot.

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