In this episode of Automators, Rosemary and I are joined by Paul Kafasis from Rogue Amoeba to talk about automating audio, as well as his personal magic.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
Mark Gurman reports that Apple is looking at some interesting ideas for a more affordable visionOS headset, including tethering the device to an iPhone or a Mac. Tethering to an iPhone doesn’t seem much different from being connected to a battery, as it currently does. Tethering to a Mac, however, feels like an entirely different kettle of fish.
Photo by Mylo Kaye
If Apple is rethinking its Vision strategy, my two cents would be to make the currently shipping hardware more attractive:
There is a lot of blue sky left for Vision and visionOS, but a more compelling software and content story needs to come first.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by Listen Later, one of my personal favorite uses for artificial intelligence. Listen Later is a service that converts stories and articles you send them to a personalized podcast feed using their AI-based (and very believable) reader. You can take that long-form article you’ve meant to read and listen to it on your next drive. It’s a great service. I’ve been traveling this week and I was able to catch up on a lot of my long form backlog via the Listen Later podcast. This is so much better than spending your down time on vapid social media or doom scrolling the news.
Their state-of-the-art AI not only narrates but brings life to the articles with a quality that I’d never heard before from an AI voice. You really should try it. Access your personalized podcast episodes on all devices through any podcast app. Stay connected with your preferred content anytime and anywhere, ensuring you never miss out on insightful articles.
Beyond articles, Listen Later can also convert emails and PDFs into podcasts. This feature is perfect for transforming work documents, newsletters, or any textual content into listenable formats.
Listen Later not only converts but can also translate content into multiple languages, making global content accessible and enjoyable in your preferred language.
Sign up for the service today, and you’ll get $2 of free credit. That’s an easy way to try it out for yourself at no risk. Go check it out.
Yesterday, Apple released the second beta of the new operating systems, as announced at WWDC.
There are still no signs of Apple Intelligence. The most interesting addition is the ability to mirror your iPhone to your Mac via Continuity. I’ve just started testing it, and the feature feels solid enough for an early beta. Interestingly, the feature doesn’t work if your iPhone is active, which makes sense.
There are some limitations. I tried to use Whisper Memos to record dictation onto the iPhone app via the Mac in mirroring mode, but it didn’t take. Nevertheless, keeping your iPhone on your Mac screen is excellent.
This week, I’m welcoming a new sponsor to MacSparky, Listen Later. It’s always nice when a new sponsor arrives for which I’m already a paying customer, and that’s the case with this one. Listen Later is a service that converts stories and articles you send them to a personalized podcast feed using their AI-based (and very believable) reader. You can take that long-form article you’ve meant to read and listen to it on your next drive. It’s a great service, and I’ve been enjoying it.
Their state-of-the-art AI not only narrates but brings life to the articles with a quality that I’d never heard before from an AI voice. You really should try it. Access your personalized podcast episodes on all devices through any podcast app. Stay connected with your preferred content anytime and anywhere, ensuring you never miss out on insightful articles.
Beyond articles, Listen Later can also convert emails and PDFs into podcasts. This feature is perfect for transforming work documents, newsletters, or any textual content into listenable formats.
Listen Later can also translate content into multiple languages, making global content accessible and enjoyable in your preferred language.
Sign up for the service today, and you’ll get $2 of free credit. That’s an easy way to try it out for yourself at no risk. Go check it out.
Stephen and I have been running iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and watchOS 11, so you don’t have to. This week on Mac Power Users, we discuss some of the new features coming to Apple’s platforms later this year.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
Mike and I read Rapt by Winifred Gallagher and on this episode of Focused, we discuss how to protect your attention and cultivate a focused life.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
WWDC24 brought updates across Apple’s platforms and was used to announce the company’s move into the AI era. Stephen and I use this episode of Mac Power Users to highlight what’s new.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
My experiments with Perplexity continue. This alternate search app takes a different approach to getting answers from the Internet. Rather than giving you a list of links to read, it reads the Internet and tries to give you an answer with footnotes going back to the links it reads. I think it’s a good idea, and Perplexity was early to this game. Google is now following suit to less effect, but I’m sure they’ll continue to work on it.
I recently got an email from Perplexity about a new feature called Perplexity Pages, where you can give it a prompt, and it will build a web page about a subject of interest to you. Just as an experiment, I had it create a page on woodworking hand planes. I fed it a few headings, and then it generated this page. The page uses the Perplexity method of giving you information with footnotes to the websites it’s reading. I fed it a few additional topics, and it generated more content. Then, I pressed “publish” with no further edits. The whole experiment took me five minutes to create.
The speed at which these web pages can be created is both impressive and, in a way, unsettling. If we can generate web pages this quickly, it’s only a matter of time before we face significant challenges in distinguishing reliable information from the vast sea of content on the Internet. In any case, I invite you to explore my five-minute hand plane website.
Rose and I are breaking down all the new automation options from Apple’s WWDC announcements on this episode of Automators.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by: