Pinning

In the November edition of the Club MacStories Monthly Log, I got a chance to write about an app that’s been on my list to cover for many months: Pinning. On the surface, it’s a straightforward countdown app, but Pinning has so many integrations and features built in that it’s hard to summarize everything it’s capable of. Rather than try (and fail) to do so, I instead shared some tips I’ve picked up from my personal use of the app to help others get the most out of it.

I hope you’ll check out the story if that sounds like something you’d be into, and even if not, I highly recommend giving Pinning a try. It’s an app that I’ve come to rely on more and more over time, and it’s constantly surprising me with the way it continues to grow and improve.

Bluesky

Below is the transcript of a conversation that took place at home yesterday. My wife noticed that I was on my laptop early in the morning, which is unusual for me. So she made a decision she’d soon regret: asking me what I was up to.

Katherine: What are you doing?
Me: Signing up for a website.
Her: Which one?
Me: It’s called Bluesky. It’s like Twitter.
Her: But… you just…
Me: *sighs* I know.

I’m not sure how many text-based social media networks I have space for in my life, but I’m giving Bluesky a try because it’s where a lot of people I want to interact with are going. That’s the same reason I joined Mastodon nearly two years ago and Threads after that. I want to hang out with cool people online, and since Twitter lost its place as the go-to for that sort of thing, I’ve committed to at least trying to be where everyone else is.

The Bluesky interface is the most familiar I’ve seen from a post-Twitter social network. The onboarding was painless and almost instant, and I was even able to connect my domain name without any trouble. It’s been a fun place to hang out the past 24 hours, as the trendy social networks always are. Only time will tell how big a part of my online life the service will remain, though.

Personally, I’m rooting for ActivityPub to win out as the social media standard going forward. I love the idea of only needing one account to interact with people across services. Bluesky’s popularity and its alternative protocol adds a wrinkle to that fantasy, but maybe one day, the two will at least be able to communicate with one another.

In the meantime, I’ll be splitting my time between all of these services and looking out for cool people to hang out with on each. If you’re on Bluesky, I’d love to connect. You know what they say: the sky is always bluer on the other side.

Ticci Tabs

A couple of months ago, Jonathan Ruiz released a new app called Ticci Tabs that I’ve really been enjoying. Why did it take me so long to write about it? Great question. Let’s just say I was waiting to publish this in honor of the first birthday of Jonathan’s other app Bridges, shall we?

My tardiness aside, Ticci Tabs is a great tool for saving websites that you visit frequently. Instead of bookmarking a link in a browser where it might get lost or you might get distracted, you can save it in Ticci Tabs to quickly access it anytime. I’m using it as a quick way to get to a bunch of pages I open often, like Wordle, my Walmart orders page, and Netflix’s network speed test.

I’ve been following the app’s development from its origin as a rapid response to Federico’s request on the Connected podcast to its maturation into a full-fledged product and beyond. It includes some really nice touches like support for sign-in links sent via email, an optional retro UI, Shortcuts actions, and alternative app icons. And it’s gotten some major new additions in its short life, including the ability to organize links with tags and support for iOS 18’s system-wide controls.

From its laser-focused purpose to its development story to its continued growth, I love everything about Ticci Tabs, and I use it every day. It’s a free app with very straightforward functionality that can fit a lot of different use cases, so I recommend trying it out if you haven’t yet.