I’ve been a paying subscriber to Whisper Memos for over two years now, and I’m thrilled to welcome them back as a MacSparky sponsor. This app has become an essential part of my capture workflow.

If you’re unfamiliar, Whisper Memos is beautifully simple: open the app, start talking, and your words are transcribed into clean, paragraphed text delivered to your email. The magic happens through OpenAI’s Whisper technology, and the accuracy is remarkable. I’ve been dictating to computers for decades, and AI-powered transcription is on another level.

The Apple Watch integration is where Whisper Memos really shines for me. I’ve got it mapped to the Action Button on my Apple Watch Ultra, which means capturing a thought is just one tap away. Walking the dog, driving to the store, lying in bed when inspiration strikes—I raise my wrist, tap, and talk. The app works completely standalone on cellular watches, syncing when you’re back online.

Now Import Your Own Audio Files

The app just added a feature many users have been requesting: you can now import your own audio files for transcription. Got a voice memo from Apple’s Voice Memos app? A recording from a meeting? Import it into Whisper Memos and let the AI work its magic. This transforms the app from a great capture tool into a versatile transcription utility.

If you value privacy, there’s a Private Mode where transcripts are automatically deleted after processing—nothing stored on their servers. I’ve been running it this way since day one.

Whisper Memos is free to try and surprisingly affordable. If you’re looking for a frictionless way to capture your thoughts and turn them into readable text, check it out.

Apple announced Creator Studio this week, bundling Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage along with enhanced versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote into a $130/year subscription.

My feelings are mixed. Every time Apple rolls out a new subscription, I get a little leery. The company’s increasing focus on services revenue feels like a slow drift away from the traditional model: make great hardware, sell it, move on. I understand the business logic. I just notice the shift.

That said, I’m genuinely relieved about Pixelmator Pro. When Apple acquired it, I feared the app would get thrown into a wood chipper and turned into new features for Photos. Instead, it survives intact and gains an iPad version. For someone who uses and loves Pixelmator Pro, this is good news.

The creator tools lineup is impressive. I use Final Cut and Pixelmator often. Compressor renders my MacSparky Labs deliverables. MainStage is part of my music practice routine. I fire up Logic occasionally. These are serious applications, and $130/year to keep them current feels reasonable to me.

I also appreciate that Apple preserved the option to buy these apps outright. You’re not forced into a subscription. If you prefer a one-time purchase, that path remains open. This flexibility acknowledges that different users have different preferences, and it’s a smart move.

So what’s the problem?

The iWork suite.

Pages, Numbers, and Keynote have been free for years. They’ll stay free. But now there’s a separate tier within Creator Studio that adds new templates and Apple Intelligence features to these apps. If you want those extras, you need the $130 subscription.

From conversations with MacSparky Labs members, this isn’t landing well. Many of them have zero interest in Final Cut or Logic. They just want the latest iWork features. Asking them to pay $130 for that feels unreasonable.

Could Apple offer a cheaper iWork-only tier? Maybe $30/year? Possibly, but that starts to feel like nickel-and-diming. Apple is a multi-trillion dollar company in the middle of a major push to make Apple Intelligence central to everything they do. The better answer is simpler: make those iWork features free for everyone.

If I had a magic wand, I’d remove the iWork suite from Creator Studio entirely. The new templates and AI features would roll out as free updates to apps that are already free. The Creator Studio subscription would focus on what it should focus on: professional creative tools for people who actually use them.

By trying to sweeten the Creator Studio deal with iWork additions, Apple ended up frustrating users who don’t need video editing or music production software but do want the best version of Pages or Keynote. It’s a bundle that serves almost nobody perfectly.

I suspect the ship has sailed on this one. But I hope Apple course corrects.

Today’s sponsor is Timing, and if you’ve ever wondered where the afternoon went, this app has answers.

I’ve written a lot about hyper-scheduling and blocking time for important work. But there’s a gap between the plan and reality. You schedule two hours for writing, but did you actually write? Or did you spend forty minutes in email and another twenty “researching” something that turned into a YouTube rabbit hole? Without data, you’re guessing.

Timing fills that gap. It runs in the background on your Mac, quietly logging which apps and documents get your attention. You set up rules once (Scrivener equals writing, Safari on specific sites equals research) and Timing handles the rest. No timers to start. No timers to forget. Just an honest record of where your hours actually land.

The newest feature is AI-powered summaries. Instead of sifting through a raw timeline, Timing groups related activities and highlights what you worked on. Open the app at 5 PM and get a clear picture of your day in seconds. For anyone doing the shutdown ritual, this is gold.

Timing also pulls in Screen Time data from your iPhone and iPad, so you see everything in one place. And it detects when video calls end, prompting you to log that time. If you bill clients or just want accountability, that coverage matters.

This is a proper native Mac app. Local data by default, fast interface, no Electron bloat. Plans start at $9/month for Professional. Expert ($11/month) adds the AI summaries and Screen Time sync. Connect ($16/month) brings team features. All plans include a 30-day free trial.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Check out Timing and find out where your time really goes.

Today’s sponsor is Timing. If you’ve got “understand where my time actually goes” on your 2026 goals list, this is the app that can make it happen.

Most of us know we should track our time. Knowing how you spend your hours is the first step to spending them better. But manual time tracking is a pain. You start a timer, get interrupted, forget to switch it, and by 3 PM, your log looks like fiction. The friction kills the habit before it takes root.

Timing takes a different approach. It runs quietly in the background on your Mac, watching which apps you use, which documents you open, and which websites you visit. Then it categorizes everything automatically based on rules you define. Work in Scrivener for two hours? That’s writing time. Spend 45 minutes in Safari on research? You decide once, and Timing remembers.

What’s new is the AI summaries feature. Timing now analyzes your work and automatically groups related activities, highlighting the key topics you’ve worked on. Instead of scrolling through a raw timeline, you get an instant understanding of how your day actually went.

The app also tracks beyond your Mac. It imports Screen Time data from your iPhone and iPad, so you see your complete picture across devices. It even detects when video calls end and prompts you to log that meeting time. For anyone doing client work, this eliminates the anxiety of wondering whether you’ve captured everything accurately.

Timing is a native Mac app. Not an Electron wrapper or a web app pretending to be desktop software. It’s fast, it respects your privacy by keeping data local (unless you opt into sync), and it feels right at home on macOS. Plans start at $9/month for Professional, with Expert ($11/month) adding AI summaries and Screen Time integration, and Connect ($16/month) for team features. All plans come with a 30-day free trial.

January is the perfect time to start building this habit. Check out Timing and see exactly where your year is going.

I’m pleased to welcome back PowerPhotos as a MacSparky sponsor. If you’ve used Apple Photos for any length of time, you know the app is missing serious power-user tools. PowerPhotos fills those gaps beautifully.

The app has long been the go-to utility for managing Apple Photos libraries. Need to merge multiple libraries into one while keeping your albums, edits, and metadata intact? PowerPhotos does that. Want to split an oversized library into smaller, more manageable ones? Done. Looking to hunt down and eliminate duplicate photos clogging up your drive and iCloud storage? PowerPhotos has a powerful duplicate finder that handles it.

What’s New in Version 3.0

The newly-released PowerPhotos 3.0 is a significant update with some useful new features:

• Batch metadata editing — Edit photo titles, captions, and keywords directly in PowerPhotos, with keyboard-focused editing that makes tagging and organizing photos fast
• Advanced search engine — A new indexing system with nested predicates lets you search by criteria Photos doesn’t support, like file size, dimensions, and video duration. You can save your smart searches too.
• Enhanced photo browser — The browser is now faster with live updating as your library changes, plus new export options including XMP support and whole library export

PowerPhotos 3.0 is a paid upgrade. If you’re an existing user of PowerPhotos 2 or earlier (or even the old iPhoto Library Manager from way back), you can enter your old license key for 50% off. Everyone can use the coupon code MACSPARKY26 for 20% off both regular and upgrade orders.

If you want to go deeper, Brian Webster (the developer behind PowerPhotos) joined Stephen and me on Mac Power Users episode #810 to talk about the app and its features.

Check out PowerPhotos today.

The new year is almost here, bringing fresh projects, ambitious goals, and creative work that matters to you. Whether you’re outlining your next novel, organizing years of research, planning a product launch, or capturing ideas before they slip away, the right tools make all the difference.

That’s why I’m excited to have WinterFest 2025 as this week’s sponsor.

This year’s theme is artisanal intelligence—carefully crafted tools that help you think better and create more effectively. In a world where “AI” has become  shorthand for automation and hands-off convenience, WinterFest celebrates a different kind of intelligence: software built by small teams who deeply understand their craft and their customers.

These aren’t apps churned out by algorithm or designed by committee. They’re tools honed over years by developers who use them themselves and answer your support emails personally. There are no subscription traps and no bloated feature lists. It’s just great software at a terrific discount for a limited time.

Here’s this year’s roster. I use a shocking number of them:

Many of these apps have been featured on MacSparky and Mac Power Users over the years.

A few personal favorites: DEVONthink remains my everything bucket for documents and research. Cotypist is a new addition to my toolset but already feels like it should be build into macOS. And BBEdit is simply THE power tool for text.

If you’re a writer, Scrivener is the gold standard for long-form projects, and Scapple from the same team is great for capturing and connecting ideas visually.

Head over to the WinterFest website to see the full lineup and grab what you need at 25% off before the sale ends.

One of the easiest ways to take advantage of artificial intelligence right now is voice-to-text transcription. I’ve been dictating to computers for decades, and I can tell you it’s never been easier than it is now. My weapon of choice for this on my iPhone is Whisper Memos. (The app is sponsoring the blog this week, but I was a paying subscriber long before that.)

The developer recently went full-time working on his various Whisper-related applications, and this change is already paying dividends. A recent update to Whisper Memos adds an auto-summarization feature. So now, in addition to reliably catching your words, you can also get a summary of anything you dictate to the application.

I’ve been using Whisper Memos for over a year now, and I’ve found it particularly powerful when combined with the action button on my Apple Watch. It gives me a seamless dictation workflow that I use throughout my day—whether I’m capturing quick thoughts, drafting content ideas, or recording notes on the go.

If you’re looking for a solid dictation tool for your iPhone, check out Whisper Memos.

Last week I wrote about avoiding social media, and I got a lot of responses. But several of you pointed out that your real problem isn’t Twitter-type apps or Instagram. It’s YouTube.

You go there to watch one video about fixing your bike tire, and three hours later you’re watching someone restore a 1987 Nintendo. I get it. YouTube is sneaky that way.

So here’s what works for me.

1. Create a watch list. YouTube lets you save videos to custom playlists. When you stumble across something interesting, don’t watch it. Just add it to your watch list and close the tab.
2. Schedule your YouTube time. Pick a specific block in your week. Mine’s Friday afternoons. When that time comes, open YouTube and go straight to your watch list. No homepage. No recommendations feed. Just your list.
3. Use the algorithm, but on your terms. I actually like YouTube’s recommendations. They surface videos I wouldn’t find otherwise. The trick is treating them like suggestions, not commands. See something interesting? Add it to the list. Move on.
4. Curate ruthlessly. Before I start watching, I scan my list and delete anything that doesn’t grab me anymore. What seemed interesting on Tuesday might feel skippable by Friday. That’s fine.

This is time boxing in action. You’re not eliminating YouTube. You’re just deciding when and what to watch before you start watching. It turns passive consumption into an active choice.

Does it eliminate the temptation completely? No. Sometimes I still fall down a rabbit hole. But having a system makes those slip-ups rare instead of routine.

The key insight is that YouTube isn’t the problem. The infinite feed is. Your watch list gives you the benefits of YouTube without the trap of endless autoplay.

Give it a try for a week and see what happens.

Record Any Audio With Audio Hijack, From Rogue Amoeba

My friends at Rogue Amoeba are back to sponsor MacSparky this holiday season, and I want to shine a spotlight on their flagship app: Audio Hijack.

Audio Hijack’s tagline is short and sweet: Record any audio. With it, you can save audio from any app, any device, or even from your entire system. Record podcasts, capture streaming audio, archive audio calls, or grab sounds from games and videos. If it makes sound on your Mac, Audio Hijack can record it.

There’s so much more. Use the built-in Transcribe block for local, secure transcription of audio without relying on any cloud services. Schedule recordings for live broadcasts you don’t want to miss. Even use it to create your own live streams. Get 20% off with the coupon code: SPARKYHOLIDAY.

If I have a superpower, it’s probably this: I’m immune to social media.

It’s been years since I’ve used Twitter or any Twitter-like app. I’ve never gotten hooked. Never felt that pull to scroll. Never lost hours to the feed.

Until last month.

I decided to give Instagram a real shot. Just to see what all the fuss was about. I figured maybe I’d been missing something.

The algorithm was terrifyingly good. Within 30 minutes, my feed was perfectly curated: intricate woodworking joinery, bonsai care techniques, people tying complex knots, and yes, cute puppies. It was like Instagram had crawled inside my brain and said, “We got you.”

For about a week, I found myself reaching for my phone in the evening. Just a little scrolling. Nothing serious. But it became part of the routine.

Then something shifted.

All the knots started looking the same. The joinery techniques blurred together. Even the puppies felt repetitive. And I caught myself watching someone else tend to their bonsai trees while mine sat on the bench outside, waiting for attention.

That’s when it clicked. I’d rather be doing these things than watching other people do them.

Maybe it’s because I grew up without this stuff. My brain didn’t get wired for infinite scroll during those critical years. Or maybe I just prefer the smell of sawdust to the glow of a screen.

Whatever the reason, the spell broke. I got back to my actual hobbies.

Here’s what surprised me most: the algorithm got my interests right, but it couldn’t account for the fact that I’m happiest when I’m making things, not consuming content about making things.

Social media companies have spent billions figuring out how to keep us engaged. They’re incredibly good at it. But they can’t replicate the satisfaction of actually doing the work.

If you find yourself scrolling through content about your hobbies more than you’re actually doing them, maybe try this: spend one evening doing the thing instead of watching other people do it. See which one feels better.

I’m betting on the doing.