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The Vision Pro represents Apple's first foray into the world of Spatial Computing. Released in the US on February 2 2024, it wasn't until July 12 that Lee was able to get his hands on one, thanks to Apple releasing it in the UK. With an entry-level price of $3,500 USD, this is definitely not for the mass market. This new Apple device is sure to see revisions over the coming years as more developers have access, and create products for it so that we can determine the most popular use cases for Vision Pro. Even in its current state, Lee thought it would be nice to show what Vision Pro can do.

In this video, you see how to use the different menus, configure some of the Vision Pro-only settings, set up your Persona (and get on a FaceTime call), work with different environments, and more. You also get a quick peek into Lee's house as he walks around, showing off some examples of how the Vision Pro can be used day to day.

Shown in this video: Spigen's Klasden Pouch for Vision Pro

As a subscriber to Raycast Pro, you can also choose the AI Add-on option for accessing larger models directly in Raycast. While this increases the cost of Raycast Pro by a few dollars a month, it also gives you access to AI language models like GPT-4o & Llama 3 Sonar Large for less than the price of a subscription to even a single AI service.

In this short video, Mike gives you a demo of Raycast's AI Add-on including some examples so you can see it in action.

Raycast requires macOS 12 (Monterey) or newer

Raycast Pricing

Learn more about Raycast Pro

MacWhisper is a gem of an application that has evolved greatly since its launch. In a recent update Jordi Bruin, the developer, has added the ability not just to dictate text directly into almost any macOS application, but also to use ChatGPT to automatically carry out prompt actions, such as translate it into another language or perform grammar checks. It's a wonderful addition to a great app and in this video, Lee shows you how to make the most of it.

When Lee is at a client's office and anyone watches him type on his Mac, there is one feature that is guaranteed to be greeted with "Wow! How did you do that?" and that's text expansion. Today's video covers the application Lee uses for this: Typinator from Ergonis software. Using this application, you can key in a few characters that expand into something much larger. This can be something small, like a URL, or perhaps an email template or blocks of text. You can print the current date and time, calculate future or historic dates, as well as use variables to make calculations.

In this video, Lee gives you a walk-through of how to make the most of Typinator and wow your friends, family and colleagues.

Typinator 9 requires macOS 10.15 or newer.

A license costs 29.99 USD for a single user with up to two computers. All minor updates within the current major version are included.

Download the latest version of Typinator

It's been a while since we kicked the tyres on Pages for Mac, so Lee thought it was time to take a look at some of the more advanced features the app has to offer. It's far more than just a word processing application. In fact, we create the ScreenCastsONLINE Monthly Magazine using Pages! So in this video, Lee goes over the difference between a word processing document and page layout document, and looks at advanced settings for creating margins, tab stops, laying out your page and formatting your text. He also shows you charts, how to review documents with Track Changes, as well as reverting to previous versions of your files, and much more.

• Pages for Mac requires macOS 13.0 or later.

• Latest Pages videos on ScreenCastsONLINE

In the Notability Foundations installment, Allison taught you how to use many of the tools in the toolbox, how to convert or search handwritten text, how to draw geometric shapes, how to use Templates for your virtual "paper" and more.

In this tutorial she’ll walk you through some more advanced features covering many ways Notability can be a great companion whether recording lectures (or even Apple keynotes!), more handwriting using Apple Pencil and Zoom View, using the versatile ruler for more precise drawing of lines and shapes, and a lot more. Get ready to take your Notability skills up a few notches.

Notability for iPad requires iPadOS 16.0 or newer.

Notability is a long-standing note-taking app for iPad, iPhone, and Mac, that seems to have no boundaries. In this new foundational tutorial Allison teaches you the nuances of the first half of the tools for creating notes from free-form drawing to vector shapes. You learn about basic templates, and how to share notes.

Allison then continues by showcasing Notability's ability to read and search your handwritten notes or convert them to typed text. Finally, you get to see a few examples of how she uses Notability to capture her ideas and help with a favorite hobby of hers.

Obsidian is great, but lacks deep integration with Apple's Shortcuts application. Actions for Obsidian fixes by adding over 50 actions that turn Obsidian into a first-class Shortcuts citizen.

In this short video, Mike shows you how to set it up and walks you through his daily journaling workflow which makes good use of Actions for Obsidian in Shortcuts.

Infinite canvas apps are great for brainstorming and idea development, but they become even more powerful when you link them to your existing library of notes. In this screencast, Mike walks you through using Obsidian Canvas to make more of your notes and ideas inside your Obsidian vault.

You learn about the basic features, including the different types of media that can be added to Obsidian Canvas. Mike also introduces you to a few Community Plugins that make Obsidian Canvas even more useful.

Craft is a fantastic tool for writing and organising information in a variety of ways. It is an app that gets frequent updates so it can be challenging to keep up with all that is new and improved. In this week's tutorial, Don takes you through most of the updates released in the last 12 months, that make Craft even more attractive than before.

This short video complements shows 1341 and 1343, Lee's deep dive into Apple Notes. There are a few commands you can use with Siri to create, find, and read your notes, and Lee shows you how this is done here. There is also one feature that has been unavailable since iOS 16 and that's the ability to append to a note. There is a simple workaround using Shortcuts however, and you learn about it in this video.

It's been a while since we've taken a close look at Drafts, the phenomenal note-taking and quick capture app from Greg Pierce.  In this episode, Mike shows us what's new and shares some of his favorite new features, on both iPhone and Mac.  These include support for widgets on both the iOS Home and Lock screens, a varied collection of Shortcuts actions, the ability to post directly to Mastodon, sending text to Drafts using a special email, and much more.

In episode 1341, Lee released the first part of his deep dive into Apple Notes, covering how to create notes, format them, create links and work with attachments.  In this second instalment, he focuses on organising your notes using folders, tags and Smart Folders. Lee also covers collaborating with others and exporting your notes for use with other applications.

Some of the stock applications on our Apple devices can be overlooked when the latest, greatest third-party application releases a new update, or a trendy new app gets launched. Apple's own Notes app is an example of one such application that deserves to be covered more, as it's a solid option for a large majority of users who need a place to store short notes, long-form text, attachments, and more.

In this first video in a two-part series, Lee shows you how to add different accounts to your Notes application, create and format notes and work with attachments. You also learn how to create links between your notes.

Apple's Keynote has loads of great features, but this abundance of options can sometimes get in the way of building your presentation. iA Presenter brings a simpler approach which helps you focus on your story. It creates slides automatically based on what you write using its clean Markdown text editor.

In this screencast, Mike walks through how to use iA Presenter to make great looking presentations quickly and easily, using only plain text.

Apple's built-in emoji picker on Mac leaves a lot to be desired. Using Rocket, from developer Matthew Palmer, you can search for and insert emojis, animated GIFs, images, and text snippets into any text field quickly and easily. It's a simple utility that is a joy to use. In this screencast, Mike shows you how Rocket works.

We all love to post images on social media and often we're trying to figure out how to gain more followers to get more reach. One of the ways you can increase your audience is by adding descriptions to your images so that visually impaired people can enjoy them, too. These descriptions have different names: alt tags, alt text, alternative text, descriptions, or sometimes simply captions. In this tutorial, Allison teaches you how to add alt text in several social media platforms using her iPhone. You also learn how to use a free application called Be My Eyes to add incredibly good captions for your images using AI, saving you the trouble of thinking them up yourself.

Obsidian is a powerful app, but it doesn't make it easy to capture things on iOS. Opening Obsidian requires your whole vault and all the associated plugins need to load, so until the developers add an improved workflow for mobile quick capture, iPhone users are left to figure out something using third-party apps. Funnel makes it easy to capture things quickly to Obsidian, including images — even if you don't use iCloud to sync your data. In this short video, Mike shows you how Funnel can assist you with quick capture of text and images in Obsidian, but it can also be used with several other apps to perform the same task.

With the release of iOS 17.2, Apple joins the journaling space with their own app, Journal. It does a lot of things well, including making it easy to reflect on significant events that have happened recently, and the ability to add entries in a variety of ways. It also offers a Journaling Suggestions API, that other apps can use to enhance their own journaling experiences.In this video, Mike walks through the basic types of info and media that you can use for journal entries, and explains how to send things to the Journal app using the Share Sheet. He also shows you how the Journaling Suggestions API works in the popular app Day One.

Creativity can be the most enjoyable aspect of a physical planner. This can be restricted with other apps that focus on the more logical elements of a journal such as calendar events, reminders and notes. Zinnia brings these two worlds together, giving users an infinite amount of creativity in a journal that serves an organisational purpose.

In this short video, Darcy shares his findings as he takes you on a tour of Zinnia on iPad to show you how it approaches planning and journaling, complete with decorative elements to make your journal personal.