Telly — Teleprompter in the MacBook notch
A teleprompter that lives inside the MacBook notch, directly under the camera — so your eyes stay on the lens while you read. Shipped under DRISH LABS, built on the open-source textream project.
What is Telly?
Telly is a MacBook-native teleprompter that scrolls your script directly inside the notch — the narrow strip of screen right under the camera lens. You keep reading, viewers see you looking straight at them.
Most Mac teleprompter apps open a full window that sits below or beside the camera, which re-creates the exact problem teleprompters are supposed to solve. Telly puts the text where your eyes already are.
The problem
Being on camera while reading notes forces your eyes off the lens — and viewers can tell. Traditional teleprompters are hardware rigs. Most software alternatives take over half your screen and still sit below the camera, defeating the point.
What it does
- Live scrolling text positioned inside the MacBook notch
- Adjustable speed, font size, and opacity
- Paste scripts directly or import from file
- Mirror mode for external teleprompter rigs
- Works alongside any camera or recording app — Zoom, Meet, QuickTime, OBS
- Bundled MIT license notice — attribution to the upstream textream project
Who it's for
Video creators, course instructors, founders recording pitches — anyone who speaks on camera on a MacBook and wants to read without looking away.
The backstory
Telly started as a distribution experiment more than a product invention. I wanted to know how quickly an indie dev can go from a GitHub search to a paying Mac App Store listing, and how much money the result makes in its first month.
The full experiment — with real App Store Connect numbers, conversion funnel, proceeds by territory, and the honest attribution to the upstream open-source project — lives in a dedicated write-up:
→ Telly: a one-weekend MIT-fork experiment that made $85 in a month
By the numbers
Try Telly
Telly is shipped under DRISH LABS — see the full catalog for every other app.