Easy and Powerful Audio Recording, with Piezo and Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba (Sponsor)

This week, my friends at Rogue Amoeba are back to sponsor MacSparky, and I want to spotlight two of their most popular apps: Piezo and Audio Hijack.

Piezo is the simplest way to record audio on your Mac. With its one-click interface, you can capture audio from any app or input device. It’s perfect for recording Zoom calls, streaming audio, or just making some quick voice notes. There’s no complicated setup: hit record and you’re set.

If you want even more power, Audio Hijack is the ultimate audio recording tool for Mac. Capture audio from any app or device on your Mac including the whole system audio, and apply real-time effects. You can schedule recordings for live streams, and even transcribe your audio. It’s all handled in a beautiful and intuitive design. Whether you’re a podcaster, teacher, or just want total control over your Mac’s audio, Audio Hijack has you covered.

I use Audio Hijack daily. My wife uses Piezo to record audio on her Mac. Not sure which to choose? Both apps offer free and fully functional trials, so you can try them out before you buy. And as a MacSparky reader, you can save 20% on these and any Rogue Amoeba purchase through the end of June. Just use coupon code SPARKYRECORDS on their online store.

My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for supporting MacSparky and making audio recording so easy.

Mac Power Users 799: The State of Apple, with Jason Snell

Jason Snell has been covering Apple since all the Macs it shipped were beige boxes. On this episode of Mac Power Users, he joins Stephen and me to discuss the company’s range of legal and technological issues that seem to be adding up rapidly.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code MPU.
  • Indeed: Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great talent fast.

Why the iPhone Air Might Actually Make Sense

It’s easy, as someone who writes about this stuff, to project our own preferences onto new products. And I’ll admit, I feel that pull strongly with the rumored iPhone Air.

As rumors continue to circulate about iPhone Air, a much thinner version of the iPhone that comes in at a higher price point than the entry-level model but not as powerful as the iPhone Pro, I can’t help but wonder: how big is the market for an expensive, skinny iPhone?

We’re now seeing mock-ups floating around, like this one on YouTube, as case manufacturers gear up. And yes, it’s definitely a lot thinner than the standard iPhone. But once you slap a case on it or even stick on an extra battery, you may very well end up holding something not noticeably different in hand from an iPhone Pro. Except now, it’s close to the Pro’s price without the Pro’s camera.

Maybe that’s the real inflection point: do you want a phone that’s slightly lighter, or one with a better camera? I suppose there’s a category of users who don’t take that many photos, or maybe never shoot video, and would gladly trade camera horsepower for something thinner and lighter.

The question (to which Apple should get an answer later this year) is exactly how many of those people are out there?

Some Notable Fantastical Updates: AI Event Creation and Multiple Windows

Fantastical’s initial selling point was the frictionless creation of new events. Although they’ve added many new features since then, Fantastical hasn’t lost touch with its roots.

You can now forward an email containing an event to Fantastical (email@fantastical.app) from your Flexibits account email and Fantastical’s AI will, on the back end, parse the email and add the event to your calendar. Clever.

Calendar management is one area ripe for AI assistance, and I hope this is just the beginning for Fantastical.

Another Fantastical update that has been a game changer for me is adding multiple window support for your Mac. So now I can leave my big monthly calendar as a full-screen app, while still having a movable/resizable calendar with my favorite calendar app.

The Original Workflow Team is Back with Sky

Two years ago, the original Workflow team left Apple to announce they were working on a secret project to use AI to control your Mac. Today, they revealed that product: Sky, an AI assistant you can invoke anywhere on your Mac to pull off some genuinely impressive tricks.

For those who might not remember, Ari Weinstein and Conrad Kramer were the original team behind Workflow, the automation app that Apple loved so much they acquired it and turned it into Shortcuts. If you’ve ever used Shortcuts on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you have these two to thank. Now they’re back with their co-founder Kim Beverett, and anything this team creates immediately has my attention.

The app isn’t available yet, but you can sign up for notifications about its release. According to their website, Sky is launching this summer, and I strongly recommend getting on that waitlist.

Sky is a Mac automation tool that integrates with any application (AppKit, SwiftUI, or Electron) and allows users to control their computer through natural language commands. Its standout feature “Skyshots” captures both visual content and underlying data when you hold both Command keys, enabling you to reference screen content with phrases like “this” or “here.” The tool excels at natural language processing for tasks like organizing files or creating calendar events from displayed data, while offering built-in integrations for Calendar, Messages, Notes, web browsing, and other core Mac functions. For advanced users, Sky supports custom tool creation through Shortcuts, AppleScript, and shell scripts.

People are already taking swings at putting an AI layer on your Mac, but I’ve yet to find an implementation that feels natural. Sky looks like it may be the one that figures that out.

The ability to just ask your Mac to do complex tasks – and have it actually work across any app – is the kind of thing we’ve been promised for years but never quite delivered. If Sky can execute on this vision (and given this team’s track record, I’m optimistic), it could fundamentally change how we interact with our Macs.

Federico Viticci’s detailed preview at MacStories goes much deeper into Sky’s capabilities and technical implementation if you want the full story. But honestly, this is one where I can easily recommend you go sign up for the waitlist. When the team that created Workflow and Shortcuts builds something new, it’s worth paying attention.

The future of Mac automation might just be as simple as asking for what you want.