Bear and Glass Teaches Keyboard Control

April 5, 2026·1 hr 19 min·5 clips

Brett Terpstra reveals the single keyboard remapping trick — the hyper key — that unlocks an entirely new modifier key on any Mac.

Old friends set the tone. David and Stephen welcome Brett Terpstra and Christopher Gambre-Wellencheck, and David spends a little time on Brett's history as the Mac Power Users automation friend who could jump in when needed. Bear and Glass is the hook. Their work gets framed as the kind of Mac help they used to give friends and people online, now pointed at businesses. Then the shortcuts pile up. Karabiner Elements comes across as the steady tool one speaker keeps returning to for turning Caps Lock into a Hyper Key. BetterTouchTool gets a more careful treatment. It can cover some of the same ground, but the speaker is quick to admit other people have made it work better than he has. Super Key gets its moment because of that small Spotlight-style search bar, where letters from visible screen text can become a click without reaching for the mouse. The trackpad is still welcome. Nobody is trying to make pointing devices the enemy, and Apple's trackpad gets real affection when paired with BetterTouchTool. Speed is the appeal. If a toolbar bookmarklet is already in your head, opening Super Key, typing a few letters, and pressing enter is a neat little shortcut. Then the practical question shows up. Once enough utilities, remaps, and overlapping commands are running, the user has to ask which app owns the key press. The answer is basically: sometimes nobody knows until something breaks. Conflicts happen, and remembering where each shortcut lives becomes part of the setup. A missing tool comes into focus. One speaker wants a place that shows every mapped shortcut, flags conflicts, and explains why a key press behaves the way it does. That is very Mac Power Users. The segment is nerdy, useful, and messy in the honest way automation setups get after years of tinkering. The close returns to community, with guest contact info, sponsor thanks, and a plug for the first More Power Users bonus episode about ranking Star Wars episodes.

As heard by us

A practical Mac utility episode about keyboard control, shortcut conflicts, and bringing automation habits into real business workflows.

Mac Power Users turns keyboard control into a practical conversation about how much of the Mac can move from pointer to keys before the setup starts fighting back.

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Why you'd press play

Brett Terpstra returns with a co-founder and a long list of keyboard utilities you are not using correctly.

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