There was a lot of activity this week in the MacSparky Labs. A highlight for me was our quarterly book club meetup.
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.
The Week’s Releases
Q3 2026 Quarter Planning Meetup
Video · July 28 · Pathfinder
The recording from the Q3 planning session is up. We spent most of the hour on where AI belongs in a reflective practice, and I keep landing in the same place. Use it for tracking and reflection, never for the Arete statement or the plan itself. The back half gets into task lists, and why I keep two of them instead of one.
Fine-Tuning How Siri Sounds in iOS 27
Video · July 29 · all tiers
I thought giving Siri a speed dial and a drama dial was a dumb idea. Then I spent time with it in the iOS 27 beta and came around.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
An Improved Drive Eject Script
Video · July 30 · Pathfinder & Insider
I’m working off a laptop these days, which means my Time Machine drive gets unplugged a lot more than it used to. So I put together a shell script that ejects every external drive with one keystroke, and it checks Time Machine first so a running backup doesn’t get corrupted.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link
Labs Book Club: The Creative Act
Book Club · July 30 · all tiers
We got together Thursday to talk about Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. It’s a book about paying attention, and the conversation followed it there, into how you make room for creative work when the day is already full.
Pathfinder Event | Insider Event | Member Event
The Lab Report for July 31, 2026
Podcast · July 31 · all tiers
Apple retired the iPhone Upgrade Program this week and replaced it with a lease, and there’s a related system sitting in the iOS 27 beta that lets a lender lock down your iPhone. Apple says it isn’t for Upgrade customers, and won’t say who it is for.
Pathfinder Link | Insider Link | Member Link
In the Community
Beta iOS 27 or not (Labs Discussion Board)
A member heading out on holiday asked whether putting the iOS 27 public beta on an iPhone 15 Pro Max was going to be a regret. Mostly he wanted to try the new Siri. The replies were encouraging. People running it since beta 2 called it one of Apple’s steadier betas, with the rough spots showing up as widgets going dark, shortcut automations that need rebuilding, and the occasional freeze a restart clears. The one real caution was about the Mac, where Golden Gate has been rougher than iOS has been on the phone.
Plaud users – new MCP and CLI functionality (Labs Discussion Board)
A member passed along word that the company behind the Plaud audio recorder has shipped both an MCP server and a command line tool. That is the interesting part. Getting recordings and transcripts out of Plaud’s own app and into wherever you actually keep your notes, Obsidian or NotePlan included, stops being a manual chore.
If you’re a Labs member and haven’t joined the Circle community yet, let me know and I’ll get you set up.
Coming Up
A few live sessions on the way.
Labs August Meetup · August 6, 10:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider
August Deep Dive – Sparky’s Analog Stack · August 20, 12:00 Pacific · Pathfinder
Labs September Meetup (After Dark) · September 10, 18:00 Pacific · Pathfinder + Insider
Links of Interest
- AI is a Dial, Not a Switch. Mike Schmitz on why AI can help you write a better sentence but can’t hand you the idea or the nerve to publish it.
- An opinionated guide to which AI to use to do stuff. Ethan Mollick’s summer 2026 rundown of which model to reach for depending on what you’re actually trying to get done.
- AI Wants to Do Your Writing: Here’s Where I Say No. Jim Eagar draws a line between the messages he’ll let AI write and the ones he won’t, and makes the case for deciding where yours is before you’re tired.
- On contentment. Massimo Pigliucci works through Epictetus on contentment, and how much of it comes down to what you decide is yours to control.
Join the Labs
The videos, podcasts, and live sessions above are inside MacSparky Labs. Join at macsparky.com/join.
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