On this episode of Intentional AI, Chris and I look at how dictation went from a nine-thousand-dollar tool that needed hours of training to something you can whisper into your watch. We compare cloud and local options, including Wispr Flow, MacWhisper, Superwhisper, and Whisper Memos, along with the privacy tradeoffs that come with each.
We also talk about using your voice to give robots better context, then wrap up with Claude’s new browser and background computer use.
This episode of Intentional AI is sponsored by:
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On this episode of Focused, Mike and I work through practical questions about capacity, chronotypes, delegation, accountability, and what to do when a careful plan collapses. We also talk about task overload and the difference between getting human help and handing work to a robot.
In Deep Focus, we look at systems for bad days and why my automated daily note lost to the paper cards sitting on my desk.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
The post Focused 264: The Accountability Shaped Hole appeared first on MacSparky.
Joe Moyer explains how his iPad mini became his go-to reading device. I’ve got an old iPad mini serving the same purpose. Wouldn’t it be nice, however, if I could fit it in my pocket?
Totally unrelated, I’m looking forward to the iPhone event tomorrow.
The post A 7″ Reading Device appeared first on MacSparky.
This post is sponsored by Rogue Amoeba.
This week, my friends at Rogue Amoeba are back to sponsor MacSparky. On September 30, they’ll be marking 24 years of making great audio tools for the Mac. To celebrate, MacSparky readers can save 24% off anything in the Rogue Amoeba lineup. Use discount code SPARKY24 in their online store through the end of September.
Rogue Amoeba has a full suite of audio tools for the Mac. Audio Hijack is their flagship recording tool.
Audio Hijack records audio from anything on your Mac: your web browser, a Zoom or Teams call, a microphone, a hardware interface, or your entire system audio. It’s easy to build your sessions, using a visual block-based canvas. Drop in your audio sources, add any effects you want, and hook up recording and monitoring. Audio Hijack makes sure it all connects automatically, and you get exactly the audio you expect.
They just released Audio Hijack 4.6, with refinements to their fantastic Transcribe block. Drop it into a session, and Audio Hijack turns audio into text locally on your Mac. Nothing gets uploaded, nothing goes to a server, and there are no accounts required. If you’ve been looking for a way to get transcripts of your calls and recordings without handing the audio to somebody else, Audio Hijack is your answer.
There’s a fully functional free trial, so you can put Audio Hijack through its paces before you spend anything. Download it today from Rogue Amoeba’s website. And don’t worry – Audio Hijack is already updated for compatibility with macOS 27 (Golden Gate).
My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for supporting MacSparky, and for keeping Mac audio in such good hands for 24 years. Check out Audio Hijack, and the rest of their lineup, and don’t forget discount code SPARKY24 to save 24% off everything this month.
The post Record Any Audio on Your Mac, with Audio Hijack appeared first on MacSparky.
The Relay for St. Jude 2026 fundraiser is underway. Hooray! Since 2019, the Relay community has raised more than $4.8 million for St. Jude. This year, we’re within reach of the $5 million mark.
The case is simple. You give money and they use it to take care of kids with cancer. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. The hospital has also helped push the U.S. childhood cancer survival rate from 20% when St. Jude opened in 1962 to more than 80% today. Donors make that work possible. I plan on helping. You can too. Even five dollars helps.
The post Help Relay Reach $5 Million for St. Jude appeared first on MacSparky.
Hazel turns twenty this weekend. I’m a fan. People ask if I’m still using Hazel in the age of AI, and the answer is absolutely yes. Hazel still does a lot of great file management on your device without burning tokens or sacrificing your privacy. There’s definitely space for it on my hard drive still.
To mark the occasion, everything in the Noodlesoft store is 35% off through Monday night. No code required, the sale price is already showing:
For giggles, I’ve also marked the Hazel Field Guide 50% off for the week. Code: HAZELIS20
Happy Birthday, Hazel.
The post Hazel Turns 20 appeared first on MacSparky.
Teddy Svoronos returns to the Mac Power Users. Teddy explains how he uses tech to teach at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the challenges of teaching in the age of A.I.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
The post Mac Power Users 865: Harvard Professor Teddy Svoronos on AI in the Classroom appeared first on MacSparky.
Growing up and watching Star Trek, one thing that made it feel futuristic to me was the interaction with the “computer.” You didn’t see Captain Picard updating software or managing user interfaces. Instead, he just said something out into the air, and then the computer responded politely and efficiently, giving him whatever he needed.
At the time, that made total sense to me as something that would be natural in a few hundred years, but it never occurred to me that we would get there in my lifetime. And yet, we are rapidly approaching the Star Trek moment.
Through a variety of technologies – flawless text-to-speech dictation, modern processors, and artificial intelligence – we are getting to that point where you can just yell something into the air and digital problems get solved. Heck, if you’re willing to go out on the end of the spear, we are already there.
In essence, this lets you separate the user from the software. It’s putting another level of abstraction between you and the work. This doesn’t mean we’re replacing the software, at least for the time being, but it does mean you can step away from it. Rather than being an operator of your software and systems, you become more of a director of it.
Smart productivity app developers are already seeing that, and that’s why you’re seeing so many of them release MCPs and other techniques for their software to work with artificial intelligence. They are, in effect, adding their software to your voice-controlled stack.
I expect that to only accelerate. We’ll be getting Siri AI very shortly, and you’ll see how Apple is doing the same thing within the confines of their own operating system and, of course, under their terms.
We are spending a lot of time talking about these technologies in the MacSparky Labs and the Robot Assistant Field Guide. Over time, what this will achieve is to make all of us power users provided we can get comfortable with the additional abstraction and use our imaginations. What I’m here to tell you is that normal folks in the not-so-distant future are going to work very similarly to Jean-Luc Picard.
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This week in the labs, we covered the usual assortment of geeky topics and we’re all looking forward to the iPhone event next week.
Below you’ll find the week’s new videos and podcasts, a few of the conversations happening in the member community, and what’s coming next week. Most of those links lead straight into the Labs community on Circle, so they’ll only open if you’re a member. If you’re a Labs member who hasn’t set up your Circle access yet, send me a note and I’ll get you in. For members, this is your week at a glance. If you’re not one yet, it’s a peek at what you’re missing.
Roundup · August 31 · all tiers
The August wrap-up went up in all three tiers on Monday. Every video, podcast, and live session from the month, collected in one place.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
Video · September 2 · Pathfinder & Insider
MindNode just added MCP support, so you can now hook your AI right into your mind maps. I gave it one dictated prompt and watched it build a full map of my MacSparky content pipeline, channels, platforms, and all.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link
Video · September 3 · all tiers
Every USB-C cable looks the same and they are not the same. WhatCable is a free utility that identifies what a cable can actually carry, and I walk through it.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
Podcast · September 4 · all tiers
Tim Cook is done running Apple. After fifteen years, he’s moved to executive chair and John Ternus is CEO, effective September 1.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
I’m gently being pushed up the MacMini ladder (Labs Discussion Board)
A member set out to replace an M1 Mac mini and watched the spec climb one reasonable-looking step at a time.
Grok Bot (Labs Discussion Board)
One member asked whether anybody else has been trying Grok Bot and got back a long hands-on writeup.
If you’re a Labs member and haven’t joined the Circle community yet, let me know and I’ll get you set up.
Apple’s event is Wednesday and we’re getting together right after. Here’s the calendar through the middle of October.
Labs iPhone Event Meetup · September 9, 12:00 Pacific
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
Labs September Meetup (After Dark) · September 10, 18:00 Pacific
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link
September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server · September 17, 12:00 Pacific
Labs Jam Session – Browsers · September 24, 12:00 Pacific
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
Q4 Quarter Planning Meetup · October 1, 10:00 Pacific
Labs October Meetup · October 8, 14:00 Pacific
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link
October Deep Dive – Local and Private AI on a Mac · October 15, 12:00 Pacific
The videos, podcasts, and live sessions above are inside MacSparky Labs. Join at macsparky.com/join.
The post This Week in the Labs — September 4, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.
Last week Apple updated the Magic Keyboard, replacing text key labels with glyphs, which is kind of nice. I have a similar keyboard on my laptop, and I like it.
However, I was hoping they would fix a different injustice that’s been around for a while. Specifically, you can buy the extended keyboard with black or white keycaps, but the standard Magic Keyboard only comes with white keycaps. I find this baffling.
There are plenty of us picky users who want an Apple keyboard on our desk (with Touch ID) that is not 16 inches wide. And yet, still no dice.
The post For Those of Us Particular About the Things on Our Desks… appeared first on MacSparky.
I wear a bracelet with a Latin phrase on it, which is exactly as insufferable as it sounds. Materiam Superabat Opus. This phrase is so important to me that I had a box of pencils made with it etched on the side so I see it every time I write something down. I also laser engraved it on the inside of my belt so I think about it when I put my pants on in the morning and take them off at night. Today, I want to explain.
Ovid, in Metamorphoses, at the very beginning of Book 2, describes the doors of the Sun God’s palace. The god of the forge, Mulciber (Vulcan), carved the whole world onto them. They held the sea, the land, the rivers, the sky, and all their gods and people. The doors were made of precious silver, and yet, Ovid explains, the workmanship surpassed them. Materiam Superabat Opus means “the work was better than the material.”
The first time I read this phrase, it flattened me.
I like to think of myself as a craftsman. I make things, both with my words and with my hands. Being a craftsman is a core part of my identity. When I’m entrusted with a piece of material (whether it’s an idea or a slab of walnut), my goal is to leave it better than I found it.
But for me, Materiam Superabat Opus runs much deeper. I think about it in terms of my life. Specifically, I don’t think I am a particularly smart or clever person. As I was growing up, there was always somebody smarter, faster, wittier, and certainly better looking than me.
From an early age, I realized that if I was going to make my way in this world, I had to make the best of what I had. I had to cobble together what skills and talent I did have to make the best version of myself. I think it explains why I’ve always been so interested in automation and optimization, a pursuit that pre-dates my first run-in with a computer.
If there is anything that I’ve got going for me, it’s my willingness to do what it takes to make the best out of what I have. My sincere desire is that the sum total of my life exceeds the toolkit I was given. In the end, I want them to say, “With modest material he did good work.”
Materiam Superabat Opus
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We got a lot of news from Apple this week, and I shipped a lot in the labs. Busy week.
Below you’ll find the week’s new videos and podcasts, a few of the conversations happening in the member community, and what’s coming next week. Most of those links lead straight into the Labs community on Circle, so they’ll only open if you’re a member. If you’re a Labs member who hasn’t set up your Circle access yet, send me a note and I’ll get you in. For members, this is your week at a glance. If you’re not one yet, it’s a peek at what you’re missing.
Deep Dive · August 25 · Pathfinder
The recording from this month’s Deep Dive is up: why paper still handles the last mile in an otherwise digital workflow, the daily list scratched onto a Field Notes page or an Ugmonk card, why a wildfire evacuation didn’t change how I think about backup, and the room’s own rabbit holes on Lochby covers, Rhodia paper, and pencil sharpeners.
Video · August 26 · Pathfinder & Insider
A lot of you saw the Stream Deck tour and asked how I make the buttons. This one walks through it. I use a ChatGPT project with a design prompt saved as a resource file, which gets me icons that all look like they belong together, and I show how to pair two of them on a multi-action switch so one button toggles my recording light.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link
Video · August 27 · all tiers
Apple Weather gets close, but it has never been quite right for my backyard. So I solved it with money and put an Eve Weather sensor outside the window. Here’s the setup, what it looks like in Apple Home, and the automations I’m building on top of it.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
Podcast · August 28 · all tiers
Apple shipped new desktop Macs two weeks before the iPhone event. The M6 Mac mini is Apple’s first 2nm chip, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio is its first quad-die design, and both ship September 22 running macOS 27 Golden Gate.
Problems with USB-Drives, after Update to macOS 26.6.2 (Labs Discussion Board)
One member spent the week chasing a gnarly macOS 26.6.2 bug with USB Drives.
Meross app (Labs Discussion Board)
A member asked about the Meross app for smart plugs and started a conversation about Meross’s HomeKit-compatible plugs and best practices.
Wispr Flow — editing feature request (Labs Discussion Board)
One member flagged an annoyance with Wispr Flow, which kicked off a discussion of dictation and editing.
If you’re a Labs member and haven’t joined the Circle community yet, let me know and I’ll get you set up.
The calendar is loaded out through the end of the year. Here’s what’s on deck through the middle of October.
iPhone Keynote Day Meetup. September 9. We’ll be doing a meet-up of all labs members on Keynote Day. Details to come.
Labs September Meetup (After Dark) · September 10, 18:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider
September Deep Dive – The Mac Studio Home Server · September 17, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder
Labs Jam Session – Browsers · September 24, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider + Member
Q4 Quarter Planning Meetup · October 1, 10:00 Pacific · Pathfinder
Labs October Meetup · October 8, 14:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider
October Deep Dive – Local and Private AI on a Mac · October 15, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder
The videos, podcasts, and live sessions above are inside MacSparky Labs. Join at macsparky.com/join.
The post This Week in the Labs — August 28, 2026 appeared first on MacSparky.
The Things 3 team released a nice update recently, dramatically improving its repeating tasks feature. I first learned of this when we interviewed the Things CEO on Mac Power Users, but I’ve heard from several of you Things users that are really digging it. If this was the feature holding you back from Things in the past, it may be time to take another look.
The post Things 3’s Repeating Task Feature Restructured appeared first on MacSparky.
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