This week, Federico and John share apps they’re trying for the first time, including a calendar app, a text editor, a snippets utility, and more.

Then on AppStories+, John shares his first impressions of Xcode 26.3.

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• Dot

• Apple’s Xcode 26.3 Release Candidate Adds Agentic Coding Tools for Developers

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

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This week on AppStories, John and Federico share the very different ways they use Notion.

On AppStories+, we follow up on OpenClaw security concerns and explore the ways Federico is using it.

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• Notion

• Notion Web Clipper

• Drafts

• OpenClaw Update:

• Introducing OpenClaw

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

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This week, Federico and John update listeners on the ClawdBot-MoltBot-OpenClaw saga before digging into how AI will affect apps and app developers.

On AppStories+, John covers why Creator Studio is such a fundamental shift in Apple’s approach to ‘Pro’ apps.

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• OpenClaw (Formerly Clawdbot) Showed Me What the Future of Personal AI Assistants Looks Like

• Moltbook is the most interesting place on the internet right now

• My Claude Code Psychosis

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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This week, Federico and John share their workflows and tips on how they use Claud Code and Codex to build automations.

On AppStories+, John and Federico explore the Apple and Google Gemini deal and the end of Shortcuts as we know it.

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• HTTPBot: A powerful API client and debugger for Apple platforms. Get a 7-day trial and 25% off your subscription.

• Federico’s Setup

• Jump Desktop

• tmux

• Jump Desktop

• Using PopClip Extensions to Get Started with Claude Code

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• AppStories

• AppStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

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This week, Federico and John complete their tour of holiday projects with a look at the tools both of them built with the help of Claude Code, Codex, and other tools.

On AppStories+, John pushes Claude Code by building a Safari web extension that integrates with Notion.

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Federico’s Projects:

• HTML tools collection (12+ tools) inspired by Simon Willison’s approach

John’s Projects:

• MacStories Common (shared code library)

Other Tools and Services Mentioned

• GitHub

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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This week, Federico and John are back from their holiday break, included so many hardware and automation projects that this is part one of a two-part episode regarding Federico’s networked music automation setup and John’s new research tool.

On AppStories+, Federico shares his foldable phone experiments.

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• Copilot Money – Your money, beautifully organized.

• John’s Research PWA

• Parallel.ai

• How iTunes Shaped the Apple of Today

• FastAPI

• Roon

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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This week, Federico and John look ahead to 2026 and what it will mean for apps, smarter Siri, and more.

On AppStories+, Federico and John update listeners on their latest app experiments and holiday hardware projects.

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• Mentioned:

• Google AI Studio

• Index 01 Ring

• Google Gemini

• NotebookLM

• MCP (Model Context Protocol)

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• AppStories

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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This week, Federico and John reveal the winners of the 2025 MacStories Selects Awards, which celebrate the exceptional design, innovation, and creativity of apps across the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

On AppStories+, John has some Apple Music discovery tips for Federico, and they reveal the iPhone features they don’t use.

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• RevenueCat – It’s the easiest way to add in-app subscriptions and native paywalls into your mobile apps, and getting started is free.

• Read More on MacStories here:

• MacStories Selects 2025: Recognizing the Best Apps of the Year

• Best New App: Quick Reviews

• Runner-up: Wispr Flow

• Runner-up: Supercharge

• Runner-up: µBrowser

• Runner-up: Bridges

• Runner-up: Not Boring Camera

• Runner-up: Athlytic

• Read more on MacStories:

• The MacStories Selects 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award

• Lifetime Achievement Award: Unread
  

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Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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This week, Federico and John explain how they go about creating personal productivity tools with the assistance of AI and walk through some of what they have created.

On AppStories+, we talk about our Black Friday tech purchases.

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• Simon Willison’s blog

• Vibecode

• AppStories Feedback Form

• AppStories

• AppStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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This week, Federico and John dig into some of their favorite apps that have adopted Apple’s Liquid Glass design language.

On AppStories+, it’s John’s 10th anniversary at MacStories, so he and Federico look back at the last decade.

Also available on YouTube here.

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• Denim

• AppStories Feedback Form

• AppStories

• AppStories

Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

Learn more here and from our Club FAQs.