While I’ll admit I’ve been giving Apple a shellacking as of late about their Artificial Intelligence offering, I AM genuinely impressed with Private Cloud Compute, which is an entirely private LLM, owned and operated by Apple, and addressable via Shortcuts.… This is a post for the MacSparky Labs Pathfinder and Insider members. Care to join? If you’re already a member, you can log in here.
AI Tools Accelerate the Demise of News Sites
The Wall Street Journal ran an article covering how News Sites are seeing a dramatic decrease in traffic in response to Google’s new AI tools. This shouldn’t be a surprise. AI search delivers answers without requiring the you to click on the blue links. So there’s less traffic for all Internet sources and, subsequently, less revenue.
That said, AI is only going to become more of a force in search. The answer is not to put the toothpaste back in the tube, but instead rethinking how we monetize content on the Internet.
The Lab Report for June 27, 2025
In this week’s episode of The Lab Report (recorded in Hawai’i!): The new 26 betas are out, will there ever be an AirPods Max refresh, and I read you a Thoreau quote from his book, Walden.
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The New Spotlight in macOS Tahoe 26
The new Spotlight isn’t going to replace Alfred, Raycast, or LaunchBar, but it might very well earn its place back in your workflow with some really impressive new features.… This is a post for the MacSparky Labs Pathfinder and Insider members. Care to join? If you’re already a member, you can log in here.
Control Center Improvements in macOS Tahoe 26
With macOS Tahoe 26, we’re getting Control Center customization and the ability to create multiple instances of it. I demonstrate how to do this in today’s video.
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Turn Your Reading Backlog Into Your Next Favorite Podcast with Listen Later (Sponsor)

Listen Later is back as a MacSparky sponsor, and I’ve got to share how this service has genuinely changed my relationship with long-form content.
You know that feeling—you’ve got a dozen thoughtful articles bookmarked, a stack of PDFs waiting to be read, and newsletters piling up in your inbox. The content is valuable, but finding uninterrupted reading time? That’s the real challenge. Listen Later turns this frustration into opportunity by converting your saved reading into personalized podcast episodes with remarkably natural AI narration.
What impresses me most is how seamlessly the service fits into existing workflows. Email an article URL directly to Listen Later, and within minutes you’ve got a custom podcast episode waiting for you. Those research PDFs gathering digital dust? Now they’re perfect companions for your morning hike.
For productivity nerds like us, Listen Later solves a fundamental time management problem: it lets you consume quality content during otherwise “dead” time—commuting, exercising, or doing household tasks. Your saved articles finally get the attention they deserve, and your downtime becomes more productive.
The service handles everything from Google Docs to email newsletters, even extracting text from images to create audio. It’s thorough without being complicated.
Ready to tackle that reading backlog? New users get $2 in free credit to explore what Listen Later can do. Head over to their site and start turning your to-read pile into your next favorite podcast.
Check out Listen Later and discover how much more you can actually “read.”
Mac Power Users 802: The Ubiquiti Universe
Stephen leads me through the maze of Ubiquiti’s Unifi networking offerings on this episode of Mac Power Users. The company offers a wide range of equipment for home and business users, including routers, switches, access points, cameras, and more, but it can be confusing to navigate.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
The Irrelevance of Hari Seldon
I tore through Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series when I was about twelve. At first, I assumed the story would follow Hari Seldon, the brilliant mathematician who kicks off the series by predicting the collapse and rebirth of galactic civilization. Twelve-year-old me loved Hari, and I couldn’t wait to see his story unfold.
Then the books leapt forward … by centuries. Seldon slipped from living legend to myth, from myth to footnote, and finally into near‑obscurity. Part of my twelve-year-old self was offended by that. I’d been invested in Hari, and how could he become so obscure? Underneath it all, I was grappling with something: If even Hari Seldon—a towering hero—could vanish into the background noise of history, what chance did I have of leaving a mark?
After my twelve-year-old brain processed this, I surprisingly didn’t find the thought depressing. I found it freeing. The futility of chasing an eternal legacy felt like permission to let go. The real point, my twelve‑year‑old self decided (and my adult self still believes), is to live fully in the sliver of time we’re given—to savor our brief window of human experience rather than worry about being remembered forever. That little epiphany has stayed with me.
That insight became an internal compass. When I start taking myself too seriously, it nudges me back into alignment. By now, it’s so ingrained that I seldom notice it, yet it quietly shapes my decisions and my ability to live in the moment.
It colors my work as well. I don’t expect any Field Guide I write to alter the course of humanity, but I can help real people, right now, who face the same messy challenges I do. There’s a quiet nobility in that: sharing what I’ve learned, offering what might help, and trusting readers to judge its value.
Recognition is nice, but I try not to clutch it. Anything I build stands on the shoulders of others, and I’m happy to spread credit around. If someone finds my work useful, that’s enough. After all, in just a few generations I’ll be much less remembered than Hari Seldon, and that’s okay.
Looking back, that early revelation about impermanence was probably my first real philosophical insight. Not a bad takeaway for a twelve‑year‑old.
First Impressions of iPadOS 26
Oh Boy! The iPad got some much needed love this year from Apple. In this video I show off some of the impressive new power-ish features in iPadOS 26.
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Why Keyboard Maestro Is the Mac Power User’s Secret Weapon

I recently came across Stephen Millard’s write-up on routing Mac Studio audio through a HomePod mini. He ran into some disconnect hiccups, but, unsurprisingly, solved it with a handy Keyboard Maestro macro.
Lately I’ve noticed a wave of seasoned iPad power users making the jump to macOS, and almost invariably the first app they rave about is Keyboard Maestro. It’s the one tool on the Mac that can truly automate almost anything you can imagine. No other utility comes close to its depth and flexibility.
I like the app so much that I made a Keyboard Maestro Field Guide to help you get up to speed quickly and start building your own custom macros.
One idea I noted from Stephen’s article was audio routing. I record with a mic connected to my audio interface with an XLR cable, so those built-in USB-connected mic mute software buttons don’t work. But I bet I could mirror Stephen’s output-switch macro on the input side, muting my mic’s audio channel with a single keystroke. That’s now officially on my “research projects” list.