Federico Viticci
Apple writer · founder of MacStories
Italian writer who founded MacStories in 2009 and still runs it, now with John Voorhees. An iPad has been his main computer since 2012. That began with cancer treatment, which kept him away from a desk, and with a laptop that was too awkward to carry. His site documents his own hardware and apps in more detail than almost anyone publishes, down to the audio interface and the cables. He co-hosts the AppStories podcast. The Shortcuts automations MacStories has become known for are his.
- Entries
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- 25
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Gear
13 pieces of gear in this stack
- GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
MacBook Pro
Added a 14-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro to his daily drivers in November 2025, with 48 GB of memory and a terabyte of storage. It sits on that list beside the M5 iPad Pro rather than in place of it.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsVisit apple.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 4 of 62 tracked people: 4 do it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
iPad
Twelve years in, he says he can finally use the iPad for everything he does daily. Podcast recording included. It became his main computer in 2012, when he was in a hospital bed and could not use a laptop. What keeps him there is modularity rather than speed, he writes: the same slab becomes a laptop, a tablet or a games screen depending on what is attached to it.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for EverythingVisit apple.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 3 of 62 tracked people: 3 do it - GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
iPhone
Clips his iPhone to a magnetic holder on the side of the iPad, so a second screen sits permanently in view. Timers, lyrics and messaging move to the phone. That removed distractions from his iPad workflow rather than adding them, he says, because he stops closing and reopening his writing app.
Source: MacStories: How I Modded My iPad ProVisit apple.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it - GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Neumann KMS 105 microphone
Talks into a Neumann KMS 105, plugged into the MixPre over XLR, for AppStories and his other podcasts. The mic appears in the hardware recap that closes his iPad workflow story.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for EverythingView item: Neumann KMS 105 microphoneOn record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
AirPods Pro
Carries AirPods Pro 3 as his everyday earbuds, swapped in for the AirPods 4 he had been using. They sit on his daily drivers list beside the iPad, phone and watch, not in a separate audio section.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: AirPods ProOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Apple Watch Ultra
Wears an Apple Watch Ultra 3 on a magnetic band, listed under daily drivers after he replaced the earlier Ultra in November 2025. The band went onto the page a month after the watch did.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: Apple Watch UltraOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Mac Studio
Behind the portable machines he keeps a Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra chip, 512 GB of memory and 8 TB of storage. He added it to the setups page in July 2025 and has kept it through every revision since.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: Mac StudioOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Magic Keyboard for iPad
Works with the iPad in Apple's Magic Keyboard, then takes the tablet out once work finishes and leaves the keyboard on the desk. A plain back cover with a kickstand waits on the nightstand for the evening. That swap tricks his brain into accepting that work is over, he says.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for EverythingView item: Magic Keyboard for iPadOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Multi-input desk monitor
Rebuilt his desk around one display that takes USB-C from the iPad and HDMI from a console, with a button on the back that cycles the inputs. Finding a monitor that would do both was, he writes, one of the two things that had stopped him using the iPad for everything.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for EverythingView item: Multi-input desk monitorOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Nintendo Switch
Keeps a Nintendo Switch 2 with the Pro Controller, third-party Joy-Con grips and a hard case. It sits in the videogames section of his setup page, listed well away from the hardware he works on.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: Nintendo SwitchOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Sony ZV-E10 II
Films with a Sony ZV-E10 II, listed under podcasting and YouTube on his setup page, running off a dummy battery with a 12-inch ring light beside it. It replaced an Elgato webcam and key light on that page in January 2025.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: Sony ZV-E10 IIOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Sound Devices MixPre-3 II
Records his shows through a Sound Devices MixPre-3 II. It writes his microphone track to its own SD card while the iPad handles the Zoom call. He describes that as handing the recording to hardware, because iPadOS cannot capture two audio sources at once.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for EverythingView item: Sound Devices MixPre-3 IIOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - GearDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
USB-C power bank
Travels with several USB-C batteries at once: a 300W UGREEN pack, a smaller Anker Prime, and a MagSafe battery that clips to the phone. Chargers and batteries take a section of their own on his setup page, ahead of the television and the desk.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: USB-C power bankOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it
Apps
11 apps in this stack
- AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Claude
Wrote the Apple Frames CLI with Claude Code and Codex, then shipped an agent skill so either of them can drive the tool. He notes that some readers object on principle to software written by AI. That is part of why he rebuilt the hand-made shortcut in the same release.
Source: MacStories: Introducing Apple Frames 4Visit claude.ai (opens in a new tab)On record from 5 of 62 tracked people: 5 do it - AppDoes itFREE, no cost
Notion
Notion does two jobs in his current app list, once under note-taking and again as his text editor. That slot keeps moving: Obsidian held it in early 2025, Apple Notes before that.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsVisit notion.so (opens in a new tab)On record from 3 of 62 tracked people: 3 do it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
ChatGPT
Lists ChatGPT next to Codex under the AI heading of his setup, and in mid 2026 dropped Claude, Perplexity, Comet and Superhuman from the same list in one pass.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsVisit chatgpt.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Codex
Built the Apple Frames command line tool with Codex and Claude Code, and says plainly that he is not a programmer by trade. He puts it at about a year of making small personal tools with coding agents before one of them felt worth releasing.
Source: MacStories: Introducing Apple Frames 4Visit developers.openai.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it - AppDoes itFREE, no cost
Shortcuts
Rewrote the Apple Frames shortcut by hand for version 4, cutting it from more than 800 actions to roughly 300. Hundreds of conditional steps came out in favor of a single JSON lookup. He says the rebuild made it faster to run and easier for him to maintain.
Source: MacStories: Introducing Apple Frames 4Visit support.apple.com (opens in a new tab)On record from 2 of 62 tracked people: 2 do it - AppDoes itFREE, no cost
Apple Frames
His own free shortcut, published on MacStories and given away rather than sold. Version 4 added colored bezels, proportional scaling for several devices merged into one image, and an open source command line version. He says he has been using both extensively for weeks.
Source: MacStories: Introducing Apple Frames 4Visit macstories.net (opens in a new tab)On record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Pocket Casts
Listens in Pocket Casts, which joined his app list in January 2025 and has stayed through every setup revision since.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: Pocket CastsOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Readwise Reader
Reads in Readwise Reader once the iPad is out of its keyboard at the end of the workday. Going back to the smaller 11-inch iPad is what made him actually pick the tablet up to read, he says, instead of reaching for his phone as he had been doing.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for EverythingView item: Readwise ReaderOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - AppDoes itFREE, no cost
Reminders
Went back to Apple's Reminders as his task manager in 2026 and dropped Todoist, reversing the swap he had made at the start of 2025. The round trip took about eighteen months.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: RemindersOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Timery
Runs Timery from a widget on the iPhone mounted beside the iPad, so the timer is in view while he writes. Starting a timer is easy to forget, he says, and having the widget there means it happens less often.
Source: MacStories: How I Modded My iPad ProView item: TimeryOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it - AppDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Working Copy
Names Working Copy as the Git client on his setup page, in the same app list as Files, Google Drive and Notion. It has held that slot through every revision of the page.
Source: MacStories: Our SetupsView item: Working CopyOn record from 1 of 62 tracked people: 1 does it
Habits
1 entryRecurring behaviors recorded in public statements.
Two scheduled Focus modes turn the same iPad into two machines. Work Mode runs from 8am with widgets for tasks and links; Downtime takes over at midnight with media apps and dark icons. He is not trying to silence notifications, he writes, only to get a consistent pair of Home Screens for each half of the day.
Source: MacStories: iPad Pro for Everything
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“My iPad journey began in 2012 when I was undergoing cancer treatments. … the iPad was light, it featured built-in 3G, and it allowed me to stay in touch with the MacStories team from anywhere, at any time”
MacStories: Beyond the Tablet (opens in a new tab) · 21 May 2019 On iPad
“I started using the iPad as my main computer 12 years ago. Today, I am finally able to say that I can use it for everything I do on a daily basis.”
MacStories: iPad Pro for Everything (opens in a new tab) · 18 Dec 2024 On iPad
“rather than trying to make iPadOS hold a Zoom call and record my audio at the same time, what if I just used iPadOS for the call and delegated recording to a dedicated accessory?”
MacStories: iPad Pro for Everything (opens in a new tab) · 18 Dec 2024 “So after ignoring them for years, I created two Focus modes: Work Mode and Downtime. … This way, I have a couple of hours with a media-focused iPad Home Screen before I go to sleep at night, and when I wake up around 9:00 AM, the iPad Pro is already configured with my work apps and widgets.”
MacStories: iPad Pro for Everything (opens in a new tab) · 18 Dec 2024 “Running timers with the Timery app, for instance, has been a great way for me to remember to log my time when I’m working with Obsidian on the iPad. It’s easy to forget to start a timer, but with the iPhone and the Timery widget always next to my “main display”, that happens less frequently.”
MacStories: How I Modded My iPad Pro (opens in a new tab) · 17 Jan 2024 On Timery
Episodes from the feed
Show archive, AppStories (opens in a new tab)Last fetched . A title without a link is an episode the feed publishes no page of its own for.
- The Once and Future App Store (opens in a new tab) · 47m
- Inside OpenAI’s Codex With Andrew Ambrosino (opens in a new tab) · 45m
- How Should the Siri App Be Graded? (opens in a new tab) · 50m
- Folding the iPhone into the Creator Economy (opens in a new tab) · 54m
- Summer Projects: Automation, Email, and Dictation (opens in a new tab) · 50m
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.