Find Federico on MastodonFind John on MastodonFind Alex on MastodonFind Club MacStories on Mastodon

Jonathan Reed

Contributor

Mastodon: @jonathanreed@techhub.socialEmail: jonathan@macstories.net

Jonathan is a graphic designer at DesignStudio. As well as being a long-time Apple user he is a huge film and television aficionado and is very interested in the intersection between the two mediums and technology. He lives in London with his wife and daughter and is writing his bio in the third person.

490 — November 14, 2025

MD Vinyl →

MACSTORIES RECOMMENDS

Great apps, accessories, gear, and media recommended by the MacStories team.

MD Vinyl

I’ve spoken before about my love of vinyl and how I enjoy the process of putting on an album as an intrinsic part of the music listening experience. In fact, my very first piece for MacStories Weekly was about how I’d used an iPad app called Quanta to take the audio from my record player and send it to all the HomePods in my house.

Unfortunately, the practicalities of listening to vinyl mean I can’t do so every day, especially when at my desk, as the record player is in the other room. So imagine my delight in discovering an app that can partially replicate that tangible feeling on my iPad.

READ MORE

489 — November 7, 2025

Integrating and Organizing Granola Meeting Notes in Notion

MACSTORIES EXTRAS

More stories for Club members.

Integrating and Organizing Granola Meeting Notes in Notion

I’ve been using Notion for years to store information and organize projects and tasks. Apart from adding project tasks to Reminders using automation, most of this was done in a manual, read-only fashion, allowing other team members to view and track project progress. This activity took place in the design studio I left last October, so since going freelance, I’ve used the platform less, as projects were easier to track with simple notes.

More recently, though, I’ve taken on some more complex jobs that involve more meetings, which have increased the amount of information I need to store and review. One thing that has increasingly helped me keep track of everything covered in meetings is Granola, an excellent meeting transcription and summarization app. The problem is, Granola is just a list of searchable notes. You can organize them into project folders, but that’s about it. It feels a bit siloed and limited.

READ MORE

488 — October 31, 2025

Using Dictation Apps to Speed Up Conversations on the Mac

MACSTORIES EXTRAS

More stories for Club members.

Using Dictation Apps to Speed Up Conversations on the Mac

Dictation apps for the Mac have been around for a while, and with the advent of LLMs, they’ve become even more powerful. Many people use these AI-based apps to dictate long notes or even essays, but I use them to speed up short conversations with others, including chatbots.

The current crop of apps lets you activate their dictation features with a system-wide hotkey, dropping the resulting text into any active text box and even copying it to your clipboard if you choose. Of the apps available, my favorites have been Wispr and Aqua.

READ MORE

487 — October 24, 2025

My Shortcuts for Distraction-Free App Search

SHORTCUTS CORNER

Get help and suggestions for your iOS shortcuts and productivity apps.

Shortcuts Essentials

My Shortcuts for Distraction-Free App Search

I love movies. And TV. I also love reading about them, especially who wrote and directed what, who composed the music, and what other works an actor has been in. For me, the best way to look up this information is IMDb.

I’m sure many of you are thinking, “What about Callsheet?” Callsheet is an outstanding app for looking up the cast and crew of movies and TV shows. It has an excellent user interface and is a joy to navigate through. The problem is that it relies on information from The Movie Database (TMDB), a community-driven website with certain limitations because of how it is run.

READ MORE

487 — October 24, 2025

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.

READ MORE

486 — October 17, 2025

I Lived the Crossbody Strap Life… For a Week

MACSTORIES EXTRAS

More stories for Club members.

I Lived the Crossbody Strap Life… For a Week

There’s one thing I could certainly call myself: trend-curious. By that, I mean that if there is a trend or hot new “thing” – especially in the tech world – I’ll more often than not want to try it out. Macro keyboards and aesthetic desk setups are just two recent ones that I’ve dived into headfirst.

So when Apple announced the Crossbody Strap for the iPhone last month, I had to give it a go. To be honest, this wasn’t a new trend for me. While many people have been surprised by this product, I’ve noticed the use of phone straps increase significantly over the last couple of years, especially while walking around London and in particular on the school run in the morning. Apple’s Crossbody Strap seemed to be a perfect example of the adage that the company is often not the first, but the best, with a new product line.

READ MORE

486 — October 17, 2025

App Debuts

APP DEBUTS

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

Portal

Former Apple Mac App of the Year finalist Portal has been updated with a new Liquid Glass design. Whatever you want to say about its implementation in other apps, Portal seems like the ideal use case for the new design system. Portal is a focus app that combines incredible, live imagery from the natural world with appropriate soundscapes. It can even take over your entire desktop, absorbing your whole Mac into whichever location you choose.

Since elements like text aren’t nearly as important as the atmosphere the app creates, Liquid Glass is ideally suited to Portal. The UI showcases its impressive refracting qualities without feeling like it’s getting in the way of the beautiful visuals. This update also adds new ways to adjust the environment controls, makes transitions smoother, and more.

READ MORE

NEXT PAGE