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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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395 — November 24, 2023

App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

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

lire

My default RSS reader on all platforms, lire, has added a native integration with the open-source read-later service Omnivore. Once you’ve logged in with your Omnivore account, you’ll be able to quickly save articles for later from the app’s context menus, toolbar shortcuts, and swipe actions.

Peak

Peak has added a long list of new and updated Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, including a new chart widget that displays your fitness progress over the current day, week, month, or year. There’s a new interactive history widget that lets you pick a day during the past week and displays its stats. There’s even a new widget for tracking weight-related metrics.

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395 — November 24, 2023

Organizing Tasks with Areas and Projects in Things

THE EXTENSION

Exploring topics beyond our day-to-day coverage.

Organizing Tasks with Areas and Projects in Things

Things by Cultured Code is one of the best task management apps on any of Apple’s platforms, and its adoption of deep Shortcuts support this year makes it one of the most flexible too. However, the app’s design is also very opinionated, which is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, those strong opinions are part of why the app is so well designed. Self-imposed constraints impose a simplicity that results in an elegant interface. On the other hand, though, those constraints can make the app feel confining at times.

A good example is something that came up in the next episode of AppStories. Federico was explaining how he’s using Things, and I immediately recognized that he was struggling with something that has been a problem for me, too: the rigid design of Areas, Projects, and tasks. The problem is that Projects aren’t a great fit for one-off tasks. Things approaches a Project as something that has a beginning and end, with multiple steps in between. Projects are meant to be completed by a due date and disappear from the app when they’ve been completed.

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394 — November 17, 2023

Interesting Links

INTERESTING LINKS

Great reads and links from around the web.

TechCrunch reports on a fun web app that allows you to make concert poster-style artwork. The web app was all the rage a while back, but recently, support was added for generating its artwork using a playlist. (Link)

The data AT&T has handled at Taylor Swift concerts is staggering. Don’t miss The Verge’s chart that shows how the totals stack up against other big events like the Super Bowl in this story by Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel. (Link)

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394 — November 17, 2023

Viewing Folder Size in Finder

TIPS

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

Viewing Folder Size in Finder

Before…

Every now and then, I come across something while using my Mac, and I wonder if others know about it. I usually figure they do and move on. However, when something’s not the default behavior and is buried in a setting somewhere, it should probably be a tip. So, while this may seem obvious to some, it wasn’t to me, so here’s how you view the size of a folder in the Finder.

By default, the Finder can be configured with a column that shows file sizes. Recently, though, I was thinking about moving a large number of folders between cloud storage services and wanted to get a sense of whether I had the space to do that. The trouble is that the Finder doesn’t show the total size of the files it contains.

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394 — November 17, 2023

App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

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

Astro Jump

Astro Jump is an ingenious use of Home Screen widgets. The app uses two separate widgets to create a classic retro-style platformer game where your character runs, jumps, and slides to avoid obstacles. The pixelated artwork is superb and reminiscent of classic Game Boy titles. However, what’s most unique about the game is that gameplay happens in one widget while you control your character using a separate controller widget. Playing a game this way takes a little getting used to, but I was impressed with how well the communication between widgets works and really that it works at all.

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