Topic · 15 posts
Back when I used Windows, over ten years ago, I had a serious case of Mac envy, all because of Notational Velocity, a lightning-fast note-taking app.
Its signature look, with the list of notes at the top and the selected note’s text below, came with full keyboard control and a global shortcut to start a new note. Under the hood, everything was saved as plain text files (*.txt or similar). People loved it!
Putting a smart watch or band on your wrist means installing an app on your phone. That makes sense, given the tiny screens on these devices.
The problem is that these apps tend to do more than you’d expect. Huawei’s, for example, has a store for watch faces and AI-powered coaching and who knows what else it does behind the scenes. Apple’s (Fitness), one of the more low-key ones, reserves a prominent spot for the Fitness+ button, a paid subscription for access to recorded classes.
AI, by the way, has been spreading through the apps that pair with watches. (From here on, read “watches” as “watches and/or bands.”) The major companies in the industry have thrown their respective AIs into their health apps to make sense of the ton of data these watches collect and store on the phone. That they “hallucinate” seems to be treated as a mere detail — though it shouldn’t be.
There’s a way out (that I know of, at least) that doesn’t go through these official apps. And only if you have an Android phone. It’s Gadgetbridge.
Add it to the list of trivial things macOS inexplicably can’t do: turn off the laptop display when it connects to an external monitor.
Until yesterday, what I did was use a utility — MonitorControl — to reduce the built-in display brightness to the minimum. It’s effectively off, but still active, meaning the mouse “wanders off” into the darkness and, depending on how the monitors are arranged, the Dock ends up hidden on the blacked-out display.
I happened to come across a tiny free app by Jeremy Kanter, suggestively named One Display, that turns off (really turns off) the built-in display as soon as the laptop is connected to an external screen.
To my surprise, it works!
There are only two options in One Display:
In an ideal world (or operating system), this functionality would be native. I know the KDE Plasma graphical environment does this. In macOS, to the dismay of people who prefer working with a single display, it apparently isn’t a priority.
After several beta and RC versions, Jellyfin 12 was released this Monday (7th). This is the server application, which other devices access to display stored videos, music, and other digital media. It also comes with a client accessible via the web.
The versioning scheme has changed, and this new release comes with a handful of breaking changes and pre-installation precautions. It’s well worth reading the full release announcement — it’s in English, but an automatic translation should do the job.
All these hurdles will pay off in plenty of fixes and improvements. Among the visible ones, notable additions include support for multiple versions of the same episode, improvements to digital books and comics and their recommendations, support for plugins that expand search functionality, and the modern layout becoming the new default. The changelog is really long.
I’ve mentioned the Pacific Block extension for Safari in passing a few times before. It’s a content blocker, but instead of ads and trackers, it blocks images, audio, and video. It’s great for saving data on a limited mobile plan (like a pay-as-you-go carrier plan) and for speeding up web browsing on unstable connections.
Back in November 2025, I suggested a feature to Jeremy, the developer of Pacific Block: integration with the Shortcuts app, to enable automations. It shipped in version 1.8, released on the 15th.
It works! Well, it actually started working four days later, once a fix for automation uses landed in version 1.9.
I built an automation in Shortcuts exactly the way I’d pictured it a year earlier: whenever I disconnect from any Wi-Fi network, turn on both blocks (images and audio/video) in Pacific Block. Connect to a Wi-Fi network and both turn off again.
I still need to tweak it a bit. I was on a flaky wireless network the other day and noticed the automations kept firing constantly, every time iOS dropped the connection and immediately picked it back up. I think adding a couple of minutes of delay between state changes, and/or some conditionals (if… then) should fix that.
Pacific Block is a universal purchase for USD 2.99 on the App Store.
Cove 
cove.run
“The calmest way to run local WordPress.” That’s how Cove presents itself. It’s a CLI app that spins up local websites with automatic HTTPS, one-click admin login, and integration with Cloudflare Tunnels. For Linux, macOS and Windows (WSL2).
Early in 2026, a Chinese app that alerts trusted contacts if the user is still alive made some noise. The premise, somewhat morbid, is useful for certain groups, like activists, journalists covering high-risk areas, and people who live alone. The person has to check in at regular intervals. If they fail to, their contacts are notified automatically.
Wellness Ping is a variation on this kind of service with an approach that promises greater privacy: it’s free, requires no app download, and everything happens over email or Signal (preferred). Announcing version 2.0, its creator, who goes by Micr0byte, said that the code (which is open source) went through a full security review.
Wipr 2, the Safari ad blocker created by Kaylee Serena (and the one I use), got a new feature that extends its functionality system-wide: Filtr.
Developed over the past ten months, it makes use of a new technology introduced in version 26 of Apple’s operating systems, the URL Filter. According to Kaylee, it allows you to “to block network requests system-wide without having access to any network traffic at all, and with more granularity than previous solutions.” She says this is the first app to make use of the URL Filter.
I had the opportunity to test Indigo before its launch — on the 12th — a social media app that unifies the timelines of Bluesky and Mastodon.
The duo of developers, Aaron Vegh and Ben McCarthy, have experience in the field. They’re also behind Croissant, an older app that lets you post simultaneously to Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads. Seen together, it’s as if Indigo were an evolution of Croissant — you can also post to Bluesky and Mastodon at the same time from Indigo.
With the success of Meta's camera glasses, there is now a risk of being recorded without consent or knowledge and ending up exposed in a crude video on TikTok or Instagram.
The manufacturers claim that a subtle light on the frame indicates when they are filming. It is not always easy to see the light, and anyway it is trivial to disable it.
The Gemini protocol (not to be confused with Google's AI) continues to exist. On Sunday (8th), it got a significant boost on Apple devices with the launch of Lagrange, a browser for the small web that took 4.5 years to complete. In addition to Gemini, the browser also works with classic protocols such as Gopher and Finger, and other hobbyists. Free, for iOS/iPadOS.
For me, NetNewsWire is the perfect app for macOS. NetNewsWire 7.0, released this Tuesday (27th), reinforces this distinction. The implementation of Liquid Glass is so good that the app looks better (screenshots), without losing its identity. Extra points for the icon-free menus, mitigating one of the silliest problems in macOS 26 Tahoe. Now I’m looking forward to the iOS version.
If you plan to listen to music files like I do, but your phone is an Android, Oto Music is the best option I've found for this OS.
Oto Music's proposal is to adhere to Android conventions. Hence its look is well integrated with the Google OS, its support for Chromecast standard, and beautiful widgets. And, of course, all the features you would expect from a music player.
The attention to detail by Piyush Mamidwar, the app's creator, is noticeable. This is evident in the app's small size, only 5 MB. How can so much fit inside!?
Oto Music has some of the highlights of Doppi, my choice for iOS, such as an equalizer and synchronized lyrics search. And it goes further: it has a sleep timer and a powerful metadata editor.
It's free, available on the Play Store, with a one-time purchase that unlocks some extra features, such as support for multiple artists and genres in one song, various visual customizations, and a 10-band equalizer. (I just couldn’t fine the price. Can anyone see it?)
In my first adventure returning to music files (*.mp3, *.flac) in 2023, I mentioned an iOS app called Doppi as a great discovery. It was the app I chose to accompany me on my second attempt, which was successful this time.
That’s why I thought it was worth highlighting the app (“the nicest player for your music files”). Not only is it great, but it has also gotten some amazing new features: