Bartender 6 is out, and if you have a MacBook with a notch, the headline feature is Top Shelf.
The idea: that camera notch at the top of your MacBook display is real estate that Apple has never done much with. Bartender Pro turns it into a useful surface for widgets, media controls, files, and clipboard history. Hover over the notch area and a panel expands. Move away and it disappears. It’s a clean solution to a space problem Apple created and then mostly ignored.
Top Shelf is part of the new Bartender Pro tier. Whether that’s worth it depends on how often you find yourself wishing something useful was up there.
The rest of Bartender 6 does what Bartender has always done, now with full macOS Tahoe support and Liquid Glass compatibility. If you owned a previous version, the upgrade is free.
Spark Mail shipped a Mac CLI and agent skill hooks last week. Read-only email access is free. Write actions (send, move, archive) are behind the Pro subscription. Readdle also published open-source automation recipes and persona hooks for anyone building on top of it.
I want to set the specific features aside for a moment and talk about what this move represents.
The people who use productivity apps in 2026 are asking a different question than they were three years ago. It used to be: does this app do the thing well? Now it’s also: can my robot assistant work with this app?
That’s a real shift, and it’s not going away. Spark’s CLI is a direct acknowledgment that the app’s users are increasingly expecting their tools to “speak agent”. You can frame it as a niche developer feature if you want. I think that’s the wrong frame.
The users who are most engaged, most willing to pay, and most likely to recommend software to other people are exactly the ones building personal automation pipelines and wanting their apps in the loop. Readdle didn’t have to publish open-source recipes. They did it because they understand who their users are becoming.
Productivity app developers who sit this out are taking a risk. The tools that figure this out early will have an advantage. The ones that don’t will find their users migrating toward whatever does.
Apple launched a new page on the developer site last week honoring 50 community leaders who help the Apple developer community through teaching, content creation, events, and accessibility advocacy. WWDC 2026 starts June 8, and the timing feels intentional.
It’s a nice gesture. I mean that sincerely.
I hope it’s also the beginning of something bigger.
I talk to a lot of app developers in my work as MacSparky. Over the last few years, something has shifted. The frustration level is higher than I’ve ever seen it. Not just about specific policy decisions. There’s a feeling that Apple doesn’t see independent developers as partners, that the relationship has become more transactional and less collaborative.
Some of that frustration is about the App Store and review processes. But a lot of it is about communication. Or the lack of it. Developers find out about changes to APIs or platform behaviors from forums or third-party blogs, not from Apple. There’s an opacity to how decisions get made that’s hard to work around.
Apple’s leadership has been through meaningful changes recently. New people in key roles. That creates an opening. I know a few of the people on that list. I’m rooting for all of them. And I’m cautiously hopeful that someone in Cupertino is paying attention to what they’re saying, not just what they’re shipping.
Jason Snell published his annual Apple report card today. I always enjoy participating. Notable drops this year were the Mac and Apple OS quality. Both of those are entirely attributable to the new Mac user interface. There were no notable improvements. Certainly worth the read.
I still remember walking into a Micro Center store sometime in the early 2000s and getting drawn to the OmniOutliner box. Back then, you bought software in a box, and this box was gorgeous with screenshots of what we would later call a Mac-assed Mac app—clearly built to squeeze all the juice out of your Mac. I was intrigued by the idea of a dedicated outlining app.
I took it home and that purchase started a relationship with The Omni Group that continues to this day. Their commitment to building thoughtful, powerful tools for Mac users has kept me as a customer for over two decades. So when I heard OmniOutliner 6 was coming, I paid attention.
What’s New in OmniOutliner 6
The Omni Group is making OmniOutliner 6 a universal app with feature parity across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Vision Pro. That means the iPhone and iPad versions can now handle advanced filtering like the Mac version, and the Mac app gets a cleaner workspace with the ability to hide the bottom bar.
Omni Links is one of the standout additions. You can now link to local and remote documents across multiple devices, plus regular web links. It works with iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Docs, and local servers through user-defined “Connected Folders.” The goal is simple: links that just work, wherever your files live.
There’s also a new AI Tools feature that leverages Omni Automation plugins and Apple’s on-device AI model. You can pull information from emails, web pages, documents, or your clipboard, turn it into outlines, and export those outlines however you need: Keynote presentations, blog posts, Obsidian entries, you name it. It’s highly customizable and practical.
OmniOutliner 6 includes plenty of other improvements: an enhanced dark mode, multiple windows on Mac (even for the same project, so you can drag content between them), shareable custom styles, resizable inline attachments, and full AppleScript support.
Try It Today
The Omni Group has opened up TestFlight access for OmniOutliner 6, but spots are limited. If you’re curious about where outlining tools are headed, join the TestFlight here. You can also check out the full release notes if you want all the technical details. I’m looking forward to putting OmniOutliner 6 through its paces. For anyone who relies on outlining in their workflow, this is a significant upgrade.
Snailed It Development, a clever development team including my friend and former Automators co-host Rosemary Orchard, just released their bespoke medication tracking app, Capsule. It’s got Rose’s fingerprints all over it with multiple options and automations. Definitely worth checking out.
I’m always intrigued by tools that rethink the way we work, especially when they take on an existing app category with some fresh ideas. That’s why I’m happy to see the launch of Quip, a smart clipboard manager for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Clipboard apps usually aren’t exciting. They collect your copied text and images, and that’s about it. But Quip caught my attention by incorporating some clever new features: beautiful design, seamless iCloud syncing, robust customization with Shortcuts integration, and—most interestingly—on-device AI.
The addition of AI to clipboard management makes a lot of sense. Quip doesn’t just store your clips; it actively helps organize and retrieve them in context, saving you time and friction in your workflow. Plus, since the AI runs entirely on your device, your data stays private.
You can learn more about Quip and try it yourself on their website.
Zero‑to‑Hero Setup: Install Alfred, unlock Powerpack features, and master core prefs in minutes.
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35+ Plug‑and‑Play Workflows: OmniFocus, Notes, Drafts, Music, link cleanup—and more.
Custom Workflows, No Scripting Required: Visual builder tutorials take you from idea to automation.
Pro Integrations: Alfred + Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, AppleScript mash‑ups that save hours.
Advanced Tweaks: Sync across Macs, design themes, harness Alfred Remote, and uncover hidden gems.
Power User Interviews: Hear from Alfred Power Users (and the developers) to learn their favorite Workflows.
Remember to enter ALFREDLAUNCH for 10 % off before Wednesday, May 20 @ 11:59 PM PT. I can’t wait to see what you do with Alfred!
What people are saying about the Alfred Field Guide…
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Despite the name of his blog, Hypercritical, I’ve always appreciated the measured tone John Siracusa takes when it comes to criticizing Apple. From the outside, it’s always easy to oversimplify analysis of what’s going on in a trillion-dollar company, and John doesn’t do that.
That’s why his recent post, Apple Turnover, stands out for me, in that John makes a simple argument that Apple has lost its North Star and needs a management change. It’s hard to argue with his logic.
