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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493 — December 12, 2025

How Using AI Tools Can Be Like Asking for a Book Recommendation From a Friend

John

MACSTORIES EXTRAS

How Using AI Tools Can Be Like Asking for a Book Recommendation From a Friend

John

Today, I want to talk about the fuzzy art of book recommendations and how they relate to AI by posing a hypothetical: imagine you’re a lapsed reader and haven’t read fiction or followed books for a decade. You resolve to get back into reading and want to increase the chances that you become a fiction reader again by picking a good mystery because that’s a genre you enjoyed years ago. The trouble is where to start to find a mystery you’ll like.

There are lots of ways to approach this kind of problem. You could ask friends and family for recommendations, ask people online what they like, dive into reviews from publications you respect, or pore over sales charts. These are all common approaches, but each is limited in its own way. Your tastes may not align with those of people recommending books to you, reading lots of reviews takes time that might be better spent reading your book, and sales charts are a pretty rough approximation of quality. But because you want to get reading and not research endlessly, you choose a way to approach the problem, pick a book, and hope for the best, knowing full well that you’re operating on incomplete, imprecise inputs.

493 — December 12, 2025

Interesting Links

INTERESTING LINKS

Great reads and links from around the web.

Federico

Bluetooth’s Auracast technology promises to revolutionize audio sharing by letting devices connect to broadcasts without pairing. I find this extremely fascinating. However, despite support from companies like JBL, Samsung, and LG, the feature remains largely unknown to consumers, which is too bad. (Link)

Spotify is rolling out a beta feature called ‘Prompted Playlists’ in New Zealand that lets users type AI prompts to generate custom playlists based on their instructions and listening history. I like this idea, and I think Apple Music should steal it in the future…whenever Apple gets their AI act together. (Link)

493 — December 12, 2025

App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

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

Federico

Shiuli

Shiuli is a new utility for iPhone and iPad (from the creators of longtime favorite LookUp) that aims to solve a common problem: adding alt text descriptions to images shared online. In my experience, most people don’t add alt text to images on social media not because they don’t care about accessibility, but because writing them takes time and effort – which is something I’m guilty of, too. Shiuli uses AI to generate readable descriptions for your photos that you can then edit to match your style before copying them to Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, or wherever else you’re posting. What I find most interesting about Shiuli is that you don’t have to open the app at all; it integrates with Shortcuts, Visual Intelligence, and the share sheet, so you can get image descriptions from anywhere on iOS or iPadOS. This is one of the good uses of generative AI that can make the web a better place for everyone, and I’m going to incorporate this app into my workflow.

493 — December 12, 2025

Easy Ways To Support Your Favorite Creators

John

TIPS

Tips and tricks to master your apps and be more productive.

Easy Ways To Support Your Favorite Creators

John

First, I want to go on record that I’m not a fan of the word “creator.” It’s not as bad as “influencer” as far as words go, but still, I don’t like it. However, since what I’m going to suggest applies to a wide range of people making videos and podcasts, writing, developing apps and games, and more, I’m sort of stuck with “creator.”

Terminology aside, I thought I’d share some of the ways you can support your favorite creators in the spirit of the holiday season. The obvious way to do that is financially, whether it’s buying what they make directly, tipping them, joining a Patreon, subscribing, or whatever. I talk with a lot of creative people, and many are struggling to continue what they do, so if you have a favorite creator and can afford to buy something from them, by all means, do so. I like to think of it as “shopping local.” The Amazons, Apples, and other big companies get plenty of my money, but a purchase I make means more to the indie creators who I care about, so I support them as much as I can.

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492 — December 5, 2025

Waiting for Siri: Don't Hold Your Breath

John

THE EXTENSION

Exploring topics beyond our day-to-day coverage.

Waiting for Siri: Don't Hold Your Breath

John

I’m an optimist about most tech, but when I think about “Smarter Siri,” the context-aware version of Apple’s voice assistant that can carry out multi-step requests, all I see is trouble. I hope I’m proven wrong, but what I see are the kinds of fundamental challenges that aren’t easily solved by throwing more engineers at the problem or spending more time on them. They’re the kinds of challenges that simply may not be solvable given the technology available today.

Yet some of the commentary I’ve seen about Apple’s promised AI-infused Siri seems to assume away the legions of hurdles that need to be overcome for it to work. So today, I thought I’d lay out those issues and unknowns that make me skeptical that what was promised at WWDC 2024 will be possible anytime soon.

492 — December 5, 2025

Four New Discounts for Club MacStories Plus and Premier Members

John

Four New Discounts for Club MacStories Plus and Premier Members

Today, we’re introducing 20% off discounts for four great Mac apps: DeskMat, ScreenFloat, Transloader, and Yoink by Matthias Gansrigler-Hrad. I’ve been a long-time fan of Matthias’ work. ScreenFloat is one of my favorite screenshot utilities because it goes beyond the typical tools you find in other screenshot apps. Yoink is one of the original shelf apps that works great on the Mac, and Transloader is incredibly handy when you want to send a file to your Mac from another device. Finally, with Matthias’ newest app Deskmat, you can hide your desktop while screensharing during a video call or recording a video.

Head on over to to the Club Discounts page for 20% off all of these great apps.

492 — December 5, 2025

App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

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

Federico

Pocket Casts

Pocket Casts has reached version 8.0, and it’s a big one. The popular podcast player (which has been my default for a few years at this point) is finally adding a feature many have been asking for: proper playlists. You can now build custom playlists with specific episodes you want to listen to, combining shows from different podcasts and even adding episodes from podcasts you don’t subscribe to. The app’s existing Filters feature has been renamed to ‘Smart Playlists’ and still automatically populates playlists based on rules you set, like release date, duration, and download status. For my taste, Pocket Casts continues to be the only podcast client that has great audio effects and a reasonable design for the queue and playlists, and I highly recommend checking it out again if you haven’t in a while.