Tellie Press Kit · The Silent Second Screen for Mac

Ready-to-publish copy

Product descriptions, three lengths.

Copy whichever fits your space. Click the button to copy the text to your clipboard.

Short · 50 words

Tellie is your silent second screen for Mac. It lives in the notch and holds what you need while you look elsewhere. It follows your voice as a teleprompter, shows your Keynote notes and advances slides in Presenter Mode, and lets any app or AI agent push a line to the notch. Invisible to Zoom. On-device. Free to download. macOS 14 or later.

Medium · 100 words

Tellie is your silent second screen for Mac, built around the MacBook notch. It started as a teleprompter that listens: on-device speech recognition matches the words you say to the words on screen and scrolls to keep up, in about 50 languages. The same screen does more. In Presenter Mode it shows your Keynote speaker notes and advances slides when you finish a thought. For developers, any app, script, or AI agent can push a line to the notch. Tellie stays invisible to Zoom and screen recorders, and everything runs on-device. No account, no telemetry. Free to download. macOS 14 or later. tellieapp.com

Long · 200 words

Tellie is your silent second screen for Mac. It lives in the space around the MacBook notch and holds what you need while you look at the camera, the room, or your audience. It began as a teleprompter that listens, using Apple's on-device Speech framework to match the words you actually say to the words on your script and scroll to keep up, in about 50 languages, with no audio ever leaving your Mac. Speed up, slow down, ad-lib, or skip a line; the script follows you. That teleprompter is still what working actors and creators reach for, but it turned out to be one shape of a bigger idea. In Presenter Mode, Tellie shows your Keynote speaker notes in the notch and advances your slides when you finish a thought, so the next slide is already there before you reach for the clicker. For developers, any app, terminal, or AI agent can push a line to the notch through the tellie:// scheme or the @tellie/mcp and @tellie/cli packages on npm, so a build result, a test outcome, or an agent's question appears the instant it matters. Tellie stays invisible to Zoom, screen recorders, and screen sharing, so whatever it holds stays yours, and everything runs on-device with no account and no telemetry. It opens text, Markdown, RTF, Word, and PDF, ships serif, sans-serif, and OpenDyslexic fonts, and remembers font size, speed, and position per file. The notarized DMG is about 2.4 MB. Tellie was created by Steve Chazin, a former Apple exec rehired personally by Steve Jobs in 1997 and later a leader at Cisco and Salesforce, who built the first version in three days, about 4,000 lines of Swift, entirely by talking to an AI agent, despite never writing production code. He built it during a visit to his granddaughter in Vermont, working while she napped or was at school, and named the app after her. Her name is Ellie, and she is just learning to read. More than 300 people are already using Tellie during a quiet soft launch, including working film and TV actors. Tellie is part of Chazin's "AI for the Rest of Us" project at stevechazin.com. Free to download. macOS 14 or later. Available at tellieapp.com.

What Tellie does

Key features.

The capabilities journalists most often cite, from the voice-following teleprompter to Presenter Mode and the live developer surface.

Presenter Mode. Your Keynote speaker notes appear in the notch and slides advance when you finish a thought, so the next slide is already there.
Push to the notch from anything. Any app, terminal, or AI agent can send a line to Tellie via the tellie:// scheme or the @tellie/mcp and @tellie/cli packages on npm.
A live surface for AI agents. Build results, test status, and an agent's questions appear the instant they matter, with no window-switching.
Voice-follow scrolling. On-device speech recognition matches what you say to the script, word by word. Try it free in the built-in onboarding tutorial.
Voice-activated scrolling.The simpler mode: talk to play, pause to stop. No remote, no foot pedal.
~50 languages.English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew, and 45+ others, all on-device.
Loads Markdown, RTF, plain text, Word .docx, and PDF. Open audition sides straight from the casting email, no conversion needed.
One-key retake (⇧R).Rewind to start of line without stopping timer or breaking flow.
Invisible to Zoom & screen recorders.Script never appears on calls or in recordings.
Opt-in recordable mode.One toggle in Settings makes Tellie visible for demos and tutorials, resets every quit.
Adjustable opacity.Dial the prompter down to 10% so it blends with whatever's behind it on screen.
Detach from the notch.Pop the prompter off the menu bar and float it anywhere on any screen, then pin back when you're done.
Resizable.Drag any edge to fit a half-screen panel or a thin reading strip. Hotkeys keep working even with the chrome hidden.
Live pace report.Words per minute, longest pause, where you stumbled.
Multi-script playlists.Point at a folder, Tellie lines up all scripts in order.
Jump sections with #headings.Tab through markdown sections or jump with 1-9 keys.
Keyboard everything.Space to play, arrows for speed, +/- for size, global shortcuts from any app.
Gives scripts superpowers.Font size, speed, scroll position saved per file.
Read line positioning.Center on screen, or up near the notch for direct eye contact with the camera.
Three font choices.Serif (default), Helvetica sans-serif for the traditional teleprompter look, or OpenDyslexic for accessibility. ALL CAPS is its own toggle.
100% on-device.No server, no API, no telemetry, no accounts, no sign-in.

Pre-built narratives

Five story angles.

Tellie can be the story or the proof point. Pick the framing that fits your outlet.

Angle 1 · Vibe Coding

30-Year Tech Exec Builds First Mac App in 3 Days. Without Knowing How to Code.

A career marketer and product leader at Apple, Cisco, and Salesforce used AI as a pair programmer to ship his first Mac app. The story isn't about the app. It's about the shift in who can now build software.

"At one point Claude suggested we stop innovating and ship what we had. I pushed back. We got the killer feature working. That's when I realized: the human work isn't writing code anymore. It's having the taste and ambition to keep going when the AI wants to quit."

Best fit: TechCrunch · The Verge · Fast Company · The Register · Microsoft Source · The Globe and Mail

Angle 2 · The Product

The Notch Just Became a Silent Second Screen That Listens

Tellie follows your voice as a teleprompter, shows your Keynote notes and advances slides in Presenter Mode, and lets any app or AI agent push a line to the notch. One quiet canvas, several ways to listen. Invisible to Zoom, on-device, free.

Voice-follow in ~50 languages, Keynote auto-advance, push-to-notch via tellie:// and npm, no telemetry, no account.

Best fit: 9to5Mac · MacStories · Six Colors · Cult of Mac · The Sweet Setup · MacRumors

Angle 3 · Quiet Traction

Working Actors Found a Free Mac App and Quietly Made It Theirs

Before any launch, 300+ people are using Tellie, some paying, including SAG-AFTRA actors who use it for self-tapes, Zoom auditions, and on-set prep. They found it on their own, and their requests shaped the features.

"It truly is a magnificent app." Sprague Theobald, two-time Emmy Award-winning writer/producer and actor (Law & Order, Only Murders in the Building, FBI). "It's amazing and exactly what I've been looking for." Andrew P., SAG-AFTRA actor, NYC.

Best fit: Backstage · casting and acting newsletters · creator-economy press · local-actor features · The Sweet Setup

Angle 4 · AI Thesis

Why This Tech Exec Built a Mac App to Prove AI Isn't Scary

Steve Chazin's mission is to decode AI for everyday people. Tellie is a concrete example of what "AI for the Rest of Us" actually means: technology that's useful without being complicated, built by a human who isn't a professional developer.

"The bottleneck for creating software used to be technical skill. Now it's imagination. The new question isn't 'Do I know how to build this?' It's 'Can I describe clearly what I want to exist?' That's a better question. A more human question."

Best fit: Stratechery · The New Stack · Axios · Morning Brew · podcasts on AI / future of work

Angle 5 · The Naming Story

He Built a Mac App Named After His Granddaughter. While She Napped.

Steve Chazin built Tellie this month during a visit to his granddaughter in Vermont, working only during her naps and school hours. He named the app after her. Her name is Ellie, and she's just learning to read. The poetry writes itself: an app that helps grown-ups read aloud on camera, named for the three-year-old learning the same skill.

"I built Tellie for my own personal use in just three days, entirely by talking to an AI agent. I actually built the whole thing this month while visiting my granddaughter in Vermont, sneaking the work in while she was asleep or at school. Her name is Ellie, and she is just learning how to read. I named the app after her."

Best fit: Human-interest beats · grandparent-focused publications · NPR / podcast story features · Apple-history outlets where a former Apple exec's family-coded app reads as a perfect arc · Sunday-edition profile pieces

About the creator

Steve Chazin, three bio lengths.

Use whichever fits your context. Click to copy.

Short · 1 line

Tellie was created by Steve Chazin (Skytech.io), a former Apple exec rehired personally by Steve Jobs in 1997, with later leadership roles at Cisco and Salesforce. He writes about "AI for the Rest of Us" at stevechazin.com.

Medium · 3-4 sentences

Steve Chazin spent 30 years leading product and marketing at Apple, Cisco, Salesforce, and Alarm.com, where he was rehired personally by Steve Jobs in 1997 and helped grow WebEx past $1B in annual recurring revenue. He now runs Skytech.io and writes about AI at stevechazin.com under the banner "AI for the Rest of Us." Tellie is his first shipped Mac app and was built without formal coding training, using AI as a pair programmer.

Long · for speaking + feature pieces

Steve Chazin spent more than 30 years leading product and marketing at Apple, Cisco, Salesforce, Alarm.com, and Symantec. At Apple, he was personally rehired by Steve Jobs in 1997 to help return the company to profitability. At Cisco, he helped grow WebEx from $900M to $1.3B in annual recurring revenue and helped create Cisco Spark. At Salesforce, he led the acquisition of Dimdim and designed Chatter Messenger, which predated Slack. He now runs Skytech.io, writes about AI for non-technical readers at stevechazin.com under the banner "AI for the Rest of Us," and hosts the podcast The Skytech Minute. His goal is to be the Bill Nye of AI: translating the technology clearly, without hype or doom, for everyday people. Tellie is his first shipped Mac app. He built it in three days, entirely by talking to an AI agent, during a visit to his granddaughter in Vermont this month, sneaking the work in while she napped or was at school. The app is named after her. Her name is Ellie, and she's just learning how to read. He calls this moment the Digital RenAIssance: when the bottleneck to building software shifts from technical skill to imagination.

Ready to publish

Press releases.

The current July launch release is on top. Below it, the original May announcement and a first-person founder's note. Copy whichever fits.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE · JULY 2026

Tellie Turns the Mac Notch Into a Silent Second Screen That Listens

The teleprompter that follows your voice was just the first step. Tellie now follows your slides, your clicks, and even your AI agents.

FAIRFAX, VA. Steve Chazin, a former Apple and Cisco product leader, today launched the next chapter of Tellie, a free Mac app that turns the space around the MacBook notch into a silent second screen: always there, holding the one thing you need while your attention is committed elsewhere.

Tellie began as a teleprompter that listens. Its on-device voice follow matches the words you actually say to the words on screen and scrolls to keep up, in about 50 languages, with no audio ever leaving your Mac. For a lot of people, from solo creators to working actors, that teleprompter is still the magic. But it was the first step, not the last.

The same screen now listens in more ways. In Presenter Mode, Tellie shows your Keynote speaker notes in the notch and advances your slides when you finish a thought, so the next slide is already there before you reach for the clicker. For developers, any app, script, or AI agent can push a line to the notch, so a build result, a test outcome, or an agent's question appears the instant it matters. As of this month, that developer surface is published on npm as @tellie/mcp and @tellie/cli.

"The teleprompter is where Tellie started, and people genuinely love it there," said Chazin. "But it was the first step, not the destination. The real idea is a quiet canvas that is always a glance away, holding the thing you need while you look at the camera, the room, or your code. Reading a script is one use. Running a talk is another. Watching your agents is another. We are just getting started."

More than 300 people are already using Tellie during a quiet soft launch, with a growing handful paying for Pro, including working film and TV professionals who found it on their own. "It truly is a magnificent app," said Sprague Theobald, a two-time Emmy Award-winning writer/producer and actor whose credits include Law & Order, Only Murders in the Building, and FBI.

Whatever Tellie holds stays private: it is invisible to Zoom, screen recorders, and screen sharing, and everything runs on-device with no account and no telemetry.

The origin story is now part of Tellie's identity. Chazin spent 30 years in tech but never wrote production code. He built the first version in three days, about 4,000 lines of Swift, entirely by talking to an AI agent, during a visit to his granddaughter in Vermont, working while she was asleep or at school. He named the app after her. Her name is Ellie, and she is just learning to read.

"Code is cheap. Judgment is dear," Chazin said. "I did not type a line of it, and I am proud of every decision: where the window sits, how it disappears, what is free, what it should never do. The eyes were always mine."

Chazin frames Tellie as proof of a larger shift he calls the Digital RenAIssance, where the barrier to building software is no longer technical skill but imagination. "Your idea drawer has been closed long enough," he said. "Time to open it."

Tellie is free to download and runs on macOS 14 or later. The live developer surface is free; persistent and pro surfaces such as Presenter Mode are a one-time Pro upgrade. Available at tellieapp.com.

About Steve Chazin
Steve Chazin spent 30 years leading product and marketing at Apple, Cisco, Salesforce, and Alarm.com, where he was rehired personally by Steve Jobs in 1997 and helped grow WebEx past $1B in annual recurring revenue. He now runs Skytech.io and writes about AI at stevechazin.com under the banner "AI for the Rest of Us." Tellie is his first shipped Mac app and was built without formal coding training, using AI as a pair programmer.

Media Contact
Steve Chazin
steve@skytech.io
stevechazin.com

Original launch release (May 2026)

Kept for reference: the original third-person announcement and a first-person founder's note.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tellie Brings Voice-Follow Scrolling to Mac Teleprompters

A 30-year tech exec built his first Mac app in three days. Without knowing how to code. Here's what he shipped.

FAIRFAX, VA. Steve Chazin, a product and marketing leader at Apple, Cisco, and Salesforce, today announced Tellie, a Mac teleprompter that listens to your voice and scrolls the script to match.

Built in three days using AI as a pair programmer, Tellie uses on-device speech recognition to match what you're actually saying to the words on screen. The app lives in the MacBook notch, stays invisible to Zoom and screen recorders, and processes all speech locally. Nothing ever leaves your Mac.

Chazin built the app this month during a visit to his granddaughter in Vermont. He worked in the hours when she was napping or at school, then named the app after her. Her name is Ellie. She's three and just learning to read.

"The bottleneck for creating software used to be technical skill," Chazin said. "Now it's imagination. I built Tellie because I needed it for my own work. But shipping it proved something bigger: ordinary people can now build real, useful software without permission from a tech company or years of training."

"It's the first Mac app I've ever made," he added. "And I made it for a kid who's just learning to read."

Tellie is free to download, runs on macOS 14+, and is available at tellieapp.com. The notarized DMG is approximately 2 megabytes.

Chazin is on a mission to decode AI for everyday people through his "AI for the Rest of Us" project at stevechazin.com.

Media Contact
Steve Chazin
steve@skytech.io
stevechazin.com

A Note from the Founder

Welcome to the Digital RenAIssance

I spent 30 years helping companies like Apple and Cisco build products, but I never wrote a single line of production code myself. I have always been the person who translates complex technology into simple, human benefits.

This week, everything changed.

I built Tellie for myself in three days by talking to an AI agent. I am visiting my granddaughter in Vermont this month, and I actually built the app while she was asleep or at school. Her name is Ellie. She is just learning to read, and I named the app after her.

Tellie is a Mac teleprompter that actually listens to your voice. Instead of forcing you to match a robotic scrolling speed, it waits for you. It scrolls when you speak. It stops when you pause. It is a simple tool designed to help creators look directly into the camera and connect with their audience.

But Tellie is also proof of something much bigger. We are living in a Digital RenAIssance. The barrier to creating software is no longer technical skill. It is just imagination. You do not need a computer science degree to build something beautiful and useful anymore. You just need an idea and the willingness to try.

I hope you love using Tellie as much as I loved building it.

Steve Chazin
Creator, Tellie

Tellie is your silent second screen.

Fact sheet.

Product descriptions, three lengths.

Key features.

Why Tellie stands out.

Five story angles.

30-Year Tech Exec Builds First Mac App in 3 Days. Without Knowing How to Code.

The Notch Just Became a Silent Second Screen That Listens

Working Actors Found a Free Mac App and Quietly Made It Theirs

Why This Tech Exec Built a Mac App to Prove AI Isn't Scary

He Built a Mac App Named After His Granddaughter. While She Napped.

Steve Chazin, three bio lengths.

Tellie in action.

60-second demo

2-minute walkthrough

Screenshots.

Hero shot

Settings panel

Menu bar / keyboard shortcuts

Welcome wizard

Settings walkthrough (video)

Press releases.

Tellie Turns the Mac Notch Into a Silent Second Screen That Listens

Original launch release (May 2026)

Tellie Brings Voice-Follow Scrolling to Mac Teleprompters

Welcome to the Digital RenAIssance

Press contact.

Steve Chazin

When you email, include