Chris tried letting AI choose his tasks and came away disappointed. Chris and I talk about human judgment, my return to paper journaling, and the work robots can help us do once we’ve decided what matters.
The post Intentional AI 11: AI Task Management appeared first on MacSparky.
MindNode has announced support for the iPhone Duo, with an update scheduled for today. The headline feature is Side by Side, which puts your mind map and outline together on the unfolded display.
You can capture ideas in Outline mode on the outer display, then unfold the phone for a larger mind-mapping canvas. Side by Side lets you work with both views without switching between them.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what productivity app developers do with the iPhone Duo.
The post MindNode Comes to the iPhone Duo appeared first on MacSparky.
On this episode of Focused, Mike and I review Q3 and talk through our plans for the rest of the year. We look at keeping a menu of opportunities without turning every interesting idea into a commitment, and setting quarterly milestones for projects that won’t fit into twelve weeks.
We also compare notes on what we’re choosing to leave undone. There’s an overhead audit, a little forgiveness for plans that changed, and a new creative challenge for each of us.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
The post Focused 267: A Menu of Opportunity appeared first on MacSparky.
As part of the general redesign around here, I managed to screw up the RSS feed for some, but not all, of the posts. If you’ve been following me via RSS and getting truncated posts, I apologize for that.
Fixing it required me to put my hands in the gears of the site’s PHP, which, to me, feels something like defusing a bomb. Nevertheless, the bomb has been defused, and the full RSS feed is restored. Thanks for your patience.
The post RSS Feed Update for macsparky.com appeared first on MacSparky.
I still use TextExpander every day. In addition to all the other jobs I’ve given it over the years, it’s also become an excellent tool for managing and slinging AI prompts at my various robots. It seems the TextExpander team hasn’t been sleeping. There are a few notable recent updates.
For years, I’ve kept a series of snippets that are almost identical, with small differences depending on the circumstances. Now TextExpander has Conditional Sections, so I can put those variations into a single snippet and choose the one I need from a dropdown when it expands. That should let me simplify things a bit.
They’ve also added spelling and grammar checking right in the snippet editor. Currently, it’s just English, but more languages are promised.
It’s nice to see the gang at TextExpander continuing to improve this great little utility.
The post TextExpander Adds Conditional Sections and Spelling appeared first on MacSparky.
I’ve made a new video about where I draw the line with AI. I’m happy to give it the donkey work. Getting a finished post into WordPress or checking customer records against each other frees up time for the work I want to do.
The trouble starts when success at those jobs makes us trust it with judgment and taste. While AI can help me compare options and propose things to consider. I still need to make the call.
I explain it all in the video.
You hold the map. The AI holds the shovel.
The post Let AI Do the Work, Not the Thinking appeared first on MacSparky.
Emmy-winning composer Michael Whalen returns to talk about his Mac Studio, Logic Pro, and the move from making music to directing AI-assisted films. David and Stephen also discuss Apple's new home devices and the apps Michael uses every day.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
The post Mac Power Users 871: AI Can’t Fake Taste with Emmy-Winning Composer Michael Whalen appeared first on MacSparky.
This week, Apple announced some new products specifically aimed at the home. These include HomeView, a shared display for home controls, FaceTime, and Siri AI, along with a new Apple TV 4K and a second-generation HomePod mini. There’s also the Apple Home Collection, with cameras and a smart lock from LG, plus thermostats developed with LG and Schneider Electric. The hardware starts arriving later this fall, with Home Collection accessories following in December and early 2027.
Of these, the most interesting is HomeView, a brand-new product category from Apple, but not a brand-new category in this space. Amazon and other vendors have been making a "speaker with a screen glued onto it" type of product now for several years.
It’s interesting to think about why Apple chose to release this product now. I suspect a big part of the reason is that they finally got their act together with Siri AI. A product like this wouldn’t work without it.
Another data point, though, is where Apple stands with Apple Home right now. It’s always felt to me like a bit of a lukewarm project out of Apple, where they put some effort into it, but just enough. In the first few years after release, it was feature-limited and buggy, so much so that I drifted away from Apple Home integration for a couple years.
In the last six months, however, I have gone all in again with Apple Home, and the second attempt has been a lot more successful. My blinds now go up automatically at sunrise and my lights reliably turn on when I walk in the room. Announcements come through my HomePods and my exterior cameras tell me when someone’s at my door right on the Apple TV.
The automation stack is deeper with Shortcuts support. Home Assistant offers more control, but I think Apple Home is enough for most people. More importantly for my family, Apple Home is something they can control without feeling like they need computer science degrees.
What Apple needs to focus on now is stability and privacy. Put simply, we need the lights to turn on (and off) when we expect them to, and we need to feel like our camera systems aren’t being converted into a small-market television program on the other side of the world. Apple has something to offer here if they’re willing to put more wood behind the arrow.
With the release of this new hardware, I feel like the pieces are falling into place. I’ve given Apple Home a second chance. Now Apple needs to stay committed to making it reliable and private for everyone in the house.
The post Apple’s Second Chance in the Home appeared first on MacSparky.
For years, a recurring topic on Mac Power Users has been the travel router product category. Folks want to bring their own router with them when they go on a trip, and there have always been a lot of good reasons for it, but it’s also always been really fiddly.
I recently got the original UniFi Travel Router, and it is by far the best implementation of this product category I’ve ever seen. Setup is easy, and you can set up your own home Wi-Fi, in essence, from anywhere. It’s particularly good if you’re already invested in UniFi networking products, but you don’t need them.
UniFi’s now followed that up with a new edition, the Long-Range model, with a high-gain antenna. It still just uses Wi-Fi 5, and it’s thicker than the original model, but for Wi-Fi on the go, Wi-Fi 5 is, in my experience, just fine. Hotel networks, frankly, don’t need any more than that. If you’re looking for a travel router, this one’s worth checking out, assuming you can find it in stock.
The post UniFi Takes Its Travel Router Long-Range appeared first on MacSparky.
David and Stephen compare the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Series 12, discuss David’s move to an M6 Mac mini for local AI and server work, and test Siri AI on everyday tasks. In the Bonus segment, the hosts look ahead to Apple’s rumored October hardware.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
The post Mac Power Users 869: It Was Basically a Wash appeared first on MacSparky.
I recently did a quarterly planning session with some of the MacSparky Labs members. I do that every quarter and find it really rewarding. It gives us a bit of a personal accountability circle. During the session, I started talking about the importance of quarterly review.
Now I know, reading this, you’re thinking that the new year is just around the corner. If you’re going to start thinking about planning and priorities, that seems like the ideal time to do it.
But think back to whatever you did this past January. Is it still on your mind? It likely isn’t, because January is a very poor boss of October.
I’m a big fan of quarterly planning. I think, as humans, we respond much better to a three-month plan than a year-long plan. It gives you a sense of renewal every three months, along with real, actionable feedback loops. Quarterly reviews give you a scheduled chance to make adjustments.
I’ve been working a lot lately on my health, but that isn’t a thing you can fix with one January resolution. In Q1, I was more focused on better eating habits and losing weight. In Q4, I’m thinking a lot more about how to gain more muscle and become more fit. Revisiting it quarterly lets me change the area of focus.
Annual planning gives your goals a lot of hiding places to disappear. Ninety days is much more concrete. You can pick a few things where you can actually move the needle and make progress.
I’ve got a lot more thoughts on this that I cover in the Productivity Field Guide, but here we are at the beginning of Q4. My advice to you is to start now. Don’t wait until January 1 to try to get serious about what’s important to you.
Figure out a few things today that you can do in the next 90 days and get to work.
The post Why Quarterly Reviews Matter More Than Annual Goals appeared first on MacSparky.
iOS 27 brings the long-promised Siri AI, but the part that matters most is what happens outside Apple’s apps. If Siri AI is really going to get legs, it needs third-party developer support. I had hoped Apple might use MCP as the bridge between Siri and third-party apps, which could have brought a lot of support along quickly. That’s not the route Apple chose. Given the security and sandboxing constraints of Apple’s operating systems, I’m not even sure it could have worked.
Instead, Apple’s plumbing for Siri AI is App Intents. Developers describe their app’s content and actions in a form Siri, Spotlight, and Shortcuts can understand. The first wave of updates is here, and it gives us a much better idea of what third-party Siri support will look like.
Things 3.24 lets you speak more naturally when creating a to-do. You can also continue the conversation to add a note, schedule the task, move it to a project, or correct something Siri misunderstood.
The update also adds Spotlight indexing, which gives Siri a way to find to-dos and projects already in your database. This is much closer to talking with a task manager than dictating into one.
OmniFocus 4.9 goes deeper. Siri treats OmniFocus actions as reminders, projects as lists, and folders as groups. It can create and edit actions, set due dates, add flags and repeat schedules, and work with notes and image attachments.
The visual piece is especially interesting. The Omni Group says you can point Visual Intelligence at a handwritten list and move those items into OmniFocus. Siri can also use Spotlight’s index to answer questions about your remaining and recently completed tasks.
Fantastical 4.2 connects Siri AI to Fantastical calendars. You can ask about your schedule, create an event, or move an existing event through a follow-up request. Those conversations also appear in the new Siri app.
Calendar work is exactly the sort of thing a voice assistant should handle quickly and reliably.
Fantastical is a MacSparky sponsor.
Dark Noise 3.6 is a nice demonstration of Siri’s on-screen awareness. You can ask Siri to play a particular sound or one of your favorites without building a shortcut first. While looking at a sound in the app, you can say “Play this” or “Favorite this,” and Siri knows what “this” means.
Ulysses 41 adds on-screen awareness, Ask Siri, and Write with Siri. On the Mac, there is also a toolbar button for calling up Siri’s writing features while you work. If you would rather keep Siri out of your writing app, Ulysses lets you switch the feature off on the Mac.
The Ulysses implementation is less about commanding the app and more about giving Siri useful context while you write.
Siri AI is still a beta. It requires supported hardware, language, and region settings, and the first wave of app support is uneven. The operating system also needs time to index an app’s actions and content, so a newly installed integration may not work immediately.
It’s nice to see apps showing up in multiple categories. If this is to get momentum, I think Apple needs to do everything in its power to really push the gas down on third party support. That means further available actions, code support, and they should continue to promote Siri AI-enabled apps.
The post Apps Adding Siri AI Support for iOS 27 appeared first on MacSparky.
Mike Vardy has spent his career inside the word “productivity.” He built frameworks around it, taught it, made a living off it. And for years the word itself bugged him. But don’t forget “Productivity” started out as a term for measuring the efficiency of factories.
Mike argues the better word is “productiveness”. Not how much you produce, but whether what you produce, and how you go about producing it, actually amounts to something.
That distinction is the subject of Mike’s new book, out now. Nine principles for keeping meaningful work sustainable once the systems around it start to strain. My congratulations to Mike for getting this book published.
The post Mike Vardy’s New Book, Productiveness appeared first on MacSparky.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Daylite.
My calendar is great at telling me where I need to be. It’s terrible at telling me why. The appointment says “Call with client,” and everything I need for that call lives somewhere else.
Daylite just fixed that for people who run their day in Google Calendar. The new Google Calendar sync is continuous and two-way. Add or move an appointment in Google Calendar, and Daylite has it. Change it in Daylite, and Google Calendar gets the update. Meetings that Zoom or Gmail drop onto your calendar come along too.
The good part is what happens next. Once an event is in Daylite, you can link it to the people, companies, projects, and opportunities it belongs to. That meeting stops being a block of time and becomes part of the client’s history, sitting right next to the emails and notes.
You can connect your work and personal Google calendars, and there are privacy controls so your team sees you’re busy without seeing the details.
If you live in Apple’s Calendar app, this one isn’t aimed at you. But a lot of consultants and small teams run on Google Calendar, and for them, this is a big deal. Daylite runs on Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and there’s a free 14-day trial. Take a look at Daylite.
The post Daylite Now Syncs With Google Calendar appeared first on MacSparky.
Rogue Amoeba opened its doors on September 30, 2002, and they’re celebrating 24 years with a birthday sale: 24% off anything in their store with the code 24YEARS. The discount runs through October 4.
I use Rogue Amoeba apps every day. Audio Hijack, Fission, and SoundSource are baked into how I record every podcast. My wife, who is very much not a power user, loves Piezo. If you’ve been eyeing one of their apps (or the upgrade to SoundSource 6), this is the week to do it.
The latest versions of their whole lineup also support macOS 27, and Rogue Amoeba says Golden Gate fixes several long-standing problems in the Mac’s audio system. Good news all around.
Happy birthday, Rogue Amoeba. Here’s to 24 more.
The post Rogue Amoeba Turns 24 (and 24% Off) appeared first on MacSparky.
I thought variable aperture meant more of that creamy background blur. Tyler Stalman joins Stephen and me to explain what the iPhone 18 Pro’s cameras actually give us, including better ways to work with Apple Log and ProRAW. We also compare pocket video cameras and the iPhone Duo, then do our best to spend Stephen’s camera budget.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
The post Mac Power Users 868: Tyler Stalman Reviews iPhone 18 Pro Camera appeared first on MacSparky.
There is a world of difference between asking a robot, “Help me do this,” and asking, “What should I do?” AI can be remarkably good at the first question but lead you astray with the second. New users often learn that distinction the expensive way.
I’ve taught thousands of people how to use agentic AI, and I’ve seen a similar pattern. People get into trouble after they have some success with AI and try to push it further. Quite often, the thing they want on the other side just isn’t there.
At first, you’re skeptical of AI’s ability to provide any real help. With a little time and training, you figure out how to give it context, build skills, and assign the kind of donkey work it can reliably do unsupervised.
The moment that sinks in is liberating. Suddenly, you’ve got more time for creative work while the AI handles the grunt work.
As you get more reps in and the AI becomes reliable on this kind of work, your confidence in it grows. Then, somewhere along the way, you start giving it more credit than it’s due.
That’s where the drift begins.
The robot really isn’t equipped for the why. Put simply, the robot can’t exercise judgment and taste like you can. I’ve seen a lot of new models come out, and they keep getting smarter. Yet they still fail miserably in matters of taste and judgment.
I think the reason is context. The robot hasn’t lived your life. It doesn’t truly know your preferences. No matter how smart the model gets, its assertions of judgment are based on incomplete and inadequate context. It may have read a staggering amount of material, but it hasn’t been you.
I understand why people fall into this trap. The AI is fast, and it’s very confident in its answers. It feels authoritative. And yet, when you get beyond donkey work, these robots can be full of bullshit.
It doesn’t help that vendors of these frontier models keep promising the technology will change your life. Artificial intelligence is a transformational technology. It just isn’t nearly as transformational as the guy trying to pump up his company’s stock price claims.
People still give it more authority than they should. They ask it to do harder things than it can handle. After all that early success with donkey work, they start trying to make the AI smart enough to make those calls for them.
The fact is, it can’t make that judgment for you.
Trying to outsource judgment and taste to AI is an expensive way to get bad results. It’s like asking your toaster to pick the best bread for your turkey sandwich.
Also, even if it could exercise judgment and taste, do you really want it to? Isn’t that your job? Shouldn’t you get to decide what bread goes on your sandwich?
I see this often with people going through my coursework. They reach a point of frustration and give up on the utility of artificial intelligence because they pushed it beyond its capabilities.
My advice is always the same. Scale back. Get back to the useful zone.
Give the robot work where you know the outcome and can tell whether it’s any good. Limit its scope to jobs where you can provide enough context.
AI is great for grunt work that a computer can do. Stay in that space, and you’ll spend remarkably little time managing the AI. Draw clear lines in your head about how far you can take it and where it needs to step aside so humans can take over.
The reason I like the term “donkey work” so much is that it captures what AI does best. Granted, that doesn’t justify a trillion-dollar stock valuation, but it can make a real difference in your life.
You’re the human. You make the map. Hand the robot the shovel.
When you go beyond that, friends, there be dragons.
The post Don’t Ask the Robot What to Do appeared first on MacSparky.
So, with some trepidation, I report that Lex Friedman has brought Strategery back from the dead. There are some clever updates, with a better visual design and even the addition of chaos mode, but I must admit I immediately set the look back to the original. Be careful with this one.
I think the first game I ever got addicted to on the iPhone was Strategery. It’s like Risk, but a lot faster, and I played thousands of games over the years.
The post Strategery Returns to iPhone and iPad appeared first on MacSparky.
I’ve made my choice. I’m buying the iPhone Duo instead of the iPhone 18 Pro Max.
Here’s my full explanation and my read on the tradeoffs.
The post Why I’m Buying the iPhone Duo Instead of the iPhone 18 Pro Max appeared first on MacSparky.
On this episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I break down Apple’s September event, starting with the “Ternus Doctrine” and what it means for Siri AI. We compare the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro, then dig into the new Apple Watch and AirPods features. In More Power Users, we share what we ordered and why.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
The post Mac Power Users 866: The Ternus Doctrine appeared first on MacSparky.
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