How we work: William Gallagher's mess of apps and cables

William doesn't just work at AppleInsider, he also has a bunch of other writing assignments going constantly. Here's how William juggles not just the demands here, but everywhere else too.

I'm Deputy Chair of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain and also do some work for a UK charity, so I tend to have whole sets of apps and documents that I switch between. Whatever I've been doing before AppleInsider, I run a Keyboard Maestro macro and all of those apps and documents are closed, then everything I need for AppleInsider is opened.

Every day — seven days a week — starts with the Fantastical calendar and OmniFocus To Do apps on my iPhone. The alarm goes off, those two apps go on, and I'm checking what I must do that day. Invariably the day means being at my office M1 Mac mini or on my M1 Max 14-inch MacBook Pro, and AppleInsider work always starts with Keyboard Maestro.

There are lots of ways to do this and I've been using the free Bunch app, but Keyboard Maestro is able to handle multiple Spaces. I have a very wide monitor, but I also use Spaces so that apps I use only occasionally are a swipe away instead of in my face, or lurking behind other windows.

Keyboard Maestro Editor window displaying macro configurations for triggering actions like muting audio and activating Slack.

Keyboard Maestro macro for starting AppleInsider work

Keyboard Maestro opens up about half a dozen apps, positions their windows in a row across my monitor, then moves to a new Space before launching the others and automatically logging in to various services.

It then moves me back to the main Space and I'm off writing in Drafts 5, checking accounts in Apple Mail, making notes in Apple Notes, and forever and always being in and out of Safari, Fantastical, and OmniFocus.

I'm continually surprised to say that I am also in and out of OmniOutliner every single day. The surprise is because I'm not much of an outliner, yet this app lets me jot down a single idea and then add to it, expanding, moving and rearranging until I've got a plan for an event, a workshop, an article, or so on.

Very often it will be that I just note down that a piece must cover one particular thing, it's just a note to myself to be certain to remember it. Often, though, that moves on to my thinking about how I can cover it, so I make a further note, and that becomes a sentence.

Or two. I have inadvertently gone on to write whole articles in OmniOutliner. Mike doesn't like this much.

Switching roles within a job

While I'm on AppleInsider, I don't see anything else, any apps or documents. I've experimented with using Focus modes to even disable email accounts such as the Writers' Guild one, but in that case I found I was always wondering if I were missing something.

Stream deck with illuminated buttons, each displaying different app icons, on a desk beside a vintage clock and metal accessory.

You never realise how much you need a Stream Deck until you have one.

Even within one job, though, I can be switching between writing, research, image work, and producing the AppleInsider podcast. And throughout each of those, my Stream Deck XL is a boon.

If I switch to Safari, for instance, I get a button on my Stream Deck that keys the brower's great translation feature. It is a great feature, I do use it a lot, but you have to wait while Safari tells you a site can be translated, and then puts up a translate icon — that it moves from left to right on the address bar.

In practice, then, I'll follow a lead to a site in French, say, wait for a beat, then press that Stream Deck button. It calls up Keyboard Maestro, which then looks for the translate icon and clicks the mouse on it.

Or for podcast production, half my Stream Deck changes because I've now a whole series of buttons to do with that. When the podcast session starts, I press a button and it opens a new Drafts document with the date and time in, for instance.

Then as we go, if I or my co-host Wesley Hilliard make any kind of mistake like a cough, I press another Stream Deck button. It appends "Edit Needed" with the minutes and seconds into the recording.

Similarly, I've got buttons for possible chapter starts, possible ad breaks, and so on.

By the end of the recording, I have a Drafts document with a shot list. If I were to use that list as written, though, each time I made an edit then all of the following times would be out by however long that edit was.

So instead I take my shot list and work backwards from the end.

Hardware I rely on

The AppleInsider Podcast is recorded locally by both hosts and any guests. In my case, the recording is done usually in QuickTime Player, but over the last few months I've switched microphones.

Hollyland Lark M2 Wireless mic

I'm now using a Hollyland Lark M2 Wireless mic that I bought to film 58keys, a YouTube channel for writers that I produce. I've had peculiarly mixed results with tiny wireless mics before, but this one has been flawless.

Recently I also replaced my faulty AirPods Pro 2, but I don't actually like them for podcasting or especially for editing. So instead I wear Sony MDR-7506/1 over-the-ear headphones that were recommended to me by UK training for Piece of String Media back in 2021.

A much more recent purchase that's made a significant improvement for me is the Lexar Go portable SSD with hub. I backed this on Kickstarter and bought a 2TB version that I can plug into my iPhone for filming 58keys.

Lately I've found AirDropping video from my iPhone to my Mac has been problematic, and always when I'm on a deadline. So now while there are different ways to do this and I'm still exploring, I can at the very least just unplug the Lexar drive from my iPhone and plug it into the Mac.

Smartphone displaying app icons next to two silver Lexar devices, one with a ridged surface and one with a USB port.

Lexar's 2TB portable drive has been a boon for filming videos

Once it's there, I edit video in Final Cut Pro and even before the new version 11, you'd have had to prise it from my hands, I love that app so much. I do now also subscribe to the iPad version and while I'm not using it enough, or as much as I expected, I do like when I make a first-pass assembly edit on it.

I tend to do that when I'm required to be away from my own office because of family issues. Those issues, as it happens, have also led to the last of my new buys in 2024.

Wide computer monitor displays various applications, with a keyboard, trackpad, tumbler, stream deck, clock, earbuds case, and mug on the desk below.

That 49-inch monitor is so wide it gets distorted in photos

Back in August, I bought a Ugreen 100W charger and it's replaced all of my various plugs. One charger, with three USB-C ports and one USB-A, it charges everything remarkably quickly.

In 2025 I'm going to be doing more travelling, starting with a visit to a school in Switzerland, and that charger will go with me everywhere. So, of course, will the iPhone 16 Pro Max I just upgraded to — and which shows me OmniFocus and Fantastical every morning.