On This Day in Collections

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since I first wrote about the Collections app for Club MacStories, but it’s true. Now, I’m back to share a new way I’m using the app: an On This Day view to resurface entries from the current date in previous years. I love this type of feature for my journal and photo library, so I thought it would be worth exploring if I could replicate it with my Collections databases. It turned out to be a fun experiment and one I now get to benefit from every day.

If you’re interested in learning more about how I added an On This Day feature to Collections, check out my story in the Club MacStories Monthly Log.

WWDC Favorites (2025 Edition)

I’m back for another year with a grab bag of my favorite announcements from this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference. It was a great week with lots to be excited about from Apple. Here’s what I’m looking forward to most.

• Liquid Glass: The design of Apple’s operating systems developed iteratively from iOS 7 to the point that it felt like it had reached its logical end point – that is, until visionOS showed up and brought something totally new. I’m excited to see the other platforms adopting the nicest visual cues from visionOS, and I’ll be interested to see how the new design language develops over the beta period. It’s very pretty and has the potential to be an amazing next step for Apple design.

• Widgets on Vision Pro: One of the low-hanging wishlist items I had when reviewing visionOS 2 last year was for the platform to add widgets. I love having glanceable information on my phone’s Home Screen and in the Smart Stack on my watch, but extending that capability to the real world with visionOS makes so much sense. I’m going to be spending a lot of time with these widgets over the summer to see what they can do and how developers implement them in a spatial setting.

• iPad Multitasking: iPad fans have had our hearts broken one too many times to believe that this could actually be the year iPadOS gets a fully baked multitasking solution, but the folks at Apple really did it. The new multitasking framework is intuitive and powerful, and it even works on my fifth-generation iPad mini. We’re in the best timeline, people.

• Spatial Scenes: It’s no secret that I adored spatialized photos when they debuted on visionOS last year. Spatial scenes take that technology up a notch and expand it to all of Apple’s platforms. I can already tell I’m going to be tearing up at new perspectives on old photos in no time.

• Apple TV Profile Picker: Getting someone else’s watch queue mixed up with mine is one of my pet peeves, so I’ll definitely be enabling the profile picker by default when waking up my Apple TV from now on.

• Live Activities and Widgets in CarPlay: I’ve long wished for these glanceable bits of information to carry over from the phone to the car, and now they’re here – no CarPlay Ultra required. Having my day plan from Structured on my dashboard is going to be awesome.

• Order Tracking in Wallet: If Apple Intelligence can automatically track all of my packages for me, the AI boom will have been worth it.

• Third-Party Controls on Apple Watch and Mac: The expansion of Control Center to include third-party apps on the iPhone last year led to a lot of fun tinkering and, ultimately, utility for me. Now, the Apple Watch and Mac are set to get the same third-party app support, and I think I’ll find them just as useful.

Those are my favorite announcements from WWDC. As you can tell, I’m really happy about them. My colleagues and I are going to have a busy summer testing and reviewing these updates before they release to everyone this fall.

What were your favorite new feature announcements from WWDC? I’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to!

One Feed to Rule Them All

I’ve been a fan of the new Reeder for a long time, but one thing I’ve always resisted is using the app to read my social media timelines. That changed recently, and I wrote about how it’s working out in the most recent Club MacStories Monthly Log.

It’s true: I’m down to checking just one feed for news articles, videos, and social media. And it’s awesome.

Sound Therapy

I was slightly terrified when Federico asked me to cover Apple Music’s new Sound Therapy feature because music isn’t a topic I write about often. Trying to explain and test scientifically enhanced songs that are supposed to help you focus was certainly a new challenge. But I enjoyed diving into the feature and actually found it to be beneficial; I might even stick with it now that my testing is over.

You can read my full impressions of Sound Therapy over at MacStories.

Mac Automation

I wrote an actual Mac story! In the latest Club MacStories Monthly Log, I shared my approach to automating the Mac.

I’ve mostly sat on the sidelines of the conversation when it comes to Mac utilities because those tools aren’t available on my platforms of choice. But thanks to the persistent influence of my colleagues who are always finding interesting new tools for their computers, I recently started dipping my toes into the world of Mac automation.

I haven’t used a Mac as my primary computer in a really long time, but it’s still an important part of my work at the church. Rather than optimizing my Mac for getting everyday work done, I’ve created automations that help me oversee the tech side of services and stream events live. It’s been a fun new area to explore, and I enjoyed getting to write about it.

You can check out the full article on Club MacStories if you like. Thanks as always for reading!