In this issue: This week, John shares an app for allergy sufferers and a collection of third-party Mac apps with great Shortcuts integration, and Jonathan explains how he’s linked Ulysses to Obsidian, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
As I mentioned last week in the MacStories Weekly newsletter and have been hinting recently on both Connected and AppStories, I’m in the process of building a “perfect memory” system in Obsidian that allows me to save, archive, and search anything I write, think about, or come across on the Internet. This project is a work in progress comprised of different components that need to fall into place, and for this Automation Academy lesson, I’m going to focus on a project that I’ve been refining for a while: automating my voice recordings and turning them into searchable notes in Obsidian.
A couple months ago, I realized that I’ve become the sort of person who likes to brainstorm ideas and tasks by, well, talking out loud and recording myself. I mostly do this when I’m driving alone (technically, with my two dogs in the backseat) or doing chores around the house. I find the process oddly relaxing and better than taking typed notes. Perhaps 12 years of podcasting every week have rewired my brain so that I make better connections between ideas by talking about them, or maybe it’s a byproduct of “shifting modes” and feeling less constrained by the absence of a keyboard and text editor in front of me. Regardless, I’ve been recording myself talking about stuff I have on my mind or need to do for a while now, and I love the process.
After I started recording myself, I quickly realized that I needed those rambling voice recordings to be more than just audio files in a folder. Rather, I wanted to turn them into structured notes in Obsidian containing actionable items extracted from the recording session. I also wanted them to be searchable with Obsidian Copilot, easy to reference, and – ideally – automatically organized with lots of metadata, a summary, and a list of key tasks from the voice recording.
That’s why, after a lot of experiments, I built a hybrid automation to bridge spoken words and Markdown – a system that combines the non-deterministic nature of human language and messy voice recordings with the reliability of Shortcuts, the power of Hazel rules on macOS, and the flexibility of LLMs, which are ideal for processing natural language. The system revolves around a shortcut called Process Transcript that takes the raw transcript of a voice recording and turns it into a structured note in Obsidian, complete with a summary, action items, an embedded audio player, and an internal link to the full transcript.
Building this system has been a fun and informative journey, and today, I want to show you how I did it.
In this issue: Jonathan recommends photography app AgBr, Federico updates his Obsidian Watch Later setup, and John examines the threat to Apple posed by tariffs and AI, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
In this issue: Federico shares his shortcut for generating YouTube transcripts, Jonathan tries out intuitive stretching app Bend, and John explains why Simple Scan is his favorite scanning app, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
This month, Devon checks in one year after beginning to use Everlog to create a timeline of his life, and John thinks it’s time to stop hyping or ignoring AI and judge it critically like any other technology.
In this issue: Federico shares a clever way to automate away macOS’ Shortcuts permission prompts, John wonders what happened to the future of automation on the Mac, Jonathan takes the Obsidian plunge, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
In this issue: John shares his collection of PopClip extensions, Federico tests Todoist’s LLM integration with email, and Jonathan asks whether Apple should change its approach to introducing new software features, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
In this issue: John rounds up a collection of hardware doodads, Federico shares a shortcut to turn Readwise Reader articles into Todoist tasks, and Jonathan highlights his favorite app icons, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
In this issue: Federico recommends PDF It All, John shares a few iOS tips and a new speech-to-text tool, Jonathan rounds up a collection of ambient and lofi music services, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
In this issue: John wants Apple Intelligence to build proper apps, Jonathan sets up a new Mac from scratch with Supercharge, Federico shares a shortcut that uses Parcel’s API to track deliveries, plus the usual Links, App Debuts, the latest happenings in the Club MacStories+ Discord community, and a recap of MacStories articles and this week’s episodes of MacStories podcasts.
