There’s more to migrating an iPad app to the Mac than simply checking a box in Xcode. Although developers need to resort to AppKit APIs used to build Mac apps for some functionality, thoughtful design that respects the interaction model of the Mac is a significant part of the pro … | Continue reading
Twitter is back on the Mac with an all-new Catalyst app. Twitter abandoned its Mac app early last year with a late Friday tweet: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/964635740444360704 Given the lack of support for the app leading up to that point, Twitter’s actions weren’t … | Continue reading
[aside title=”” align=”center” width=”wide”]The Shortcuts Corner is a regular section of our MacStories Weekly newsletter, exclusive to Club MacStories members, where I share advanced shortcuts and respond to readers’ requests for automation. In this post, you’ll find some free s … | Continue reading
It’s October, which means Apple’s latest crop of emoji is right around the corner. As usual, Jeremy Burge at Emojipedia has all of the details. As previewed earlier this year, Apple will release its version of Emoji 12.0 from the Unicode Consortium this fall in iOS and iPadOS 13. … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of Connected: Federico has iCloud issues and Myke has a new phone, but no new computer. Stephen has reviewed macOS Catalina. You can listen below (and find the show notes here). [audio_player src=”https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/ … | Continue reading
In June I wrote about my hopes for Catalyst, the technology that allows iPadOS developers to bring their iPad apps to the Mac. At the time, I said that RSS clients were one of the categories of apps I wanted to see brought from the iPad to the Mac first. That wasn’t because there … | Continue reading
Sleep tracking is an area of health that Apple hasn’t yet formally moved into, but all signs point to that changing soon. iOS 13 saw the company build more advanced wellness tracking features into the Health app, Beddit was acquired by Apple a couple years ago, and very recently … | Continue reading
Developer David Smith has often expressed a desire to design third-party faces for the Apple Watch, a feature that many users wish Apple offered. But recently, after launching his latest Watch app Geneva Moon (formerly known as Moon++), Smith realized he could take a different vi … | Continue reading
iOS and iPadOS 13 have been in users’ hands for several weeks now, and with the abundance of new capabilities those releases brought has come a wealth of third-party app updates. System dark mode has been adopted not just by indie developers, but also major social media apps; mul … | Continue reading
James Thomson, the creator of PCalc, has written about his experience with Catalyst. Thomson, who was one of the developers that spoke with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman about the challenges Catalyst poses to developers and their customers, expounds on what he told Gurman, saying about … | Continue reading
Catalyst, the technology that allows developers to bring their iPadOS apps to the Mac, is off to an uneven start, as Mark Gurman of Bloomberg recounts through interviews with several developers. According to the developers interviewed, there’s a big difference between getting an … | Continue reading
Spotify has updated its iOS and iPadOS app with Siri and Low Data Mode support, in addition to launching an all-new Apple TV app. I’ve spent some time with the update and overall it works as advertised, though it’s worth noting a few limitations. Most importantly, you won’t get a … | Continue reading
Sophie Charara interviewed Apple’s Zane Lowe for Wired about where Apple Music is heading next. One answer, interestingly enough, is a greater focus on radio: Apple doesn’t break out Beats 1 monthly listening figures; various commentators have speculated they are relatively low, … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of AppStories, Federico helps John set up an iPod touch as a media companion for watching TV and movies, enjoying music, and controlling HomeKit devices. Sponsored by: MacStadium – Get 50% off your first two months of a Mac mini subscription now w/ code APP … | Continue reading
Ironically, Apple chose to name this year’s update to macOS after an island. Since the iPhone and iOS took off, macOS has sometimes felt like an island isolated from the rest of the company’s OSes, but the goal articulated by the company at WWDC this year was quite the opposite. … | Continue reading
TickTick is an all-in-one task management tool with a focus on simplicity. The app is available for more than ten platforms, including iOS, Mac, and Apple Watch. Time is at the heart of TickTick. The app includes everything from a Pomodoro timer and habit tracker, to calendar vie … | Continue reading
Patrick Klepek writes for VICE about the 14-year-old developer, Spruce Campbell, whose game Operator 41 was part of the Apple Arcade launch: “When I saw the Apple Arcade announcement in March I dropped everything and decided to build a whole new game for Arcade,” [Campbell] told … | Continue reading
[aside title=”” align=”center” width=”wide”] The Shortcuts Corner is a regular section of our MacStories Weekly newsletter, exclusive to Club MacStories members, where I share advanced shortcuts and respond to readers’ requests for automation. In this post, you’ll find some free … | Continue reading
Summer may be over, but there’s never really an offseason for planning future vacations or business trips. We all have our own methods of trip planning – where we store important documents, how to set an agenda and share that agenda with family or friends – but I’d guess most of … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of Adapt: The iPadOS 13 Shortcuts series continues with an exploration of what’s changed with shortcuts run from the Home screen and share sheet. Afterward, Clips drives Federico crazy, so he gets his revenge with a challenge for Ryan. You can listen below … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of Connected: This week, Stephen tells a story about his Apple Watch accomplice, Myke reviews tvOS 13 and Federico explains how Deep Fusion and Capture Outside the Frame work. You can listen below (and find the show notes here). [audio_player src=”https://w … | Continue reading
When Apple introduces a fundamental change to how apps interact with iOS (and now iPadOS), it’s always fascinating to see the different ways those changes are adopted by third-party developers. Although Apple sets a baseline for how new frameworks work, it has less control over h … | Continue reading
Bloomberg reports that Apple will open up Siri to third-party messaging apps with a software update later this year. Third-party phone apps will be added later. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman: When the software refresh kicks in, Siri will default to the apps that people use … | Continue reading
According to TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino, Apple will roll out the Deep Fusion camera feature announced at the company’s fall iPhone event today as part of the iOS developer beta program. Deep Fusion is Apple’s new method of combining several images exposures at the pixel level … | Continue reading
Yesterday Apple began the full rollout of its new maps for the Northeastern United States. And right on the heels of that release, Justin O’Beirne has meticulously documented and compared Apple’s new work with the mapping data that it replaces. He begins by highlighting Apple’s p … | Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I came across a post on Reddit claiming that Apple had restored the ability to launch specific sections of the Settings app via Shortcuts in iOS and iPadOS 13.1. I was inspired by that discovery to finish working on a project I had long been putting off: document … | Continue reading
Pixelmator Photo for the iPad has been released with a trio of new features that greatly increase the power of the app. With the update, you can now now edit images in your iCloud Photo Library non-destructively without creating duplicates. There are also new batch-processing wor … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we cover the all-new MacStories Shortcuts Icons, a set of 300 custom icons for shortcuts that you can add to your Home screen and then revisit Apple Arcade in the wake of its public launch discussing some of our favorite games so far. Sponsor … | Continue reading
Halide 1.14 is out with a new lens switching UI to accommodate the three-camera system of the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. As soon as the update was out, I went for a walk to give it a try. Halide has introduced a new lens switching button featuring haptic feedback and a dial-like … | Continue reading
Earlier this year Ulysses debuted the best implementation I had seen of single-app split view on iPad, enabling working in two documents at once or editing a document while simultaneously seeing its export preview. In today’s Ulysses 18 release, that proprietary implementation ha … | Continue reading
Every day is full of appointments, tasks, and meetings. Managing it all is hard, but it doesn’t have to be. With NotePlan for the Mac and iOS, you can manage your calendar, to-dos, and notes in one place so you can concentrate on getting your work done instead. NotePlan helps you … | Continue reading
tvOS 13 is a surprising release. For years Apple has been pushing the TV app as the main draw of the Apple TV, then earlier this year it brought the app to Samsung TV sets with the promise of further expansion to Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices, along with a smattering of other T … | Continue reading
[aside title=”” align=”center” width=”wide”] The Shortcuts Corner is a regular section of our MacStories Weekly newsletter, exclusive to Club MacStories members, where I share advanced shortcuts and respond to readers’ requests for automation. In this post, you’ll find a couple o … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of Connected: There’s a lot going on: new iPhones, the new Apple Watch, iOS 13.1, Shortcuts updates and more. That’s not to mention the Galaxy Fold, iCloud woes and whatever Amazon has announced. You can listen below (and find the show notes here). [audio_p … | Continue reading
What Apple’s Home app lacks in flexibility and power-user features, Mathias Hochgatterer makes up for with his similarly-named app Home+ 4. The app, which adds a ‘+’ in its name with this update to avoid confusion with Apple’s app, is as capable as ever, but with a reimagined des … | Continue reading
I’m thrilled to announce MacStories Shortcuts Icons, a set of 300 custom icons for shortcuts added to your Home screen, designed by the MacStories team. Here’s the short version of this story: the set contains 300 Home screen icons, it has been specifically designed with Shortcut … | Continue reading
One of my favorite things about Drafts is its quick adoption of the new OS features that come year-over-year. Not only are they quickly adopted, but they are well implemented, carefully considered, and provide increased capability for both existing and new users alike. This year … | Continue reading
Today as Apple releases iPadOS into the world, Things 3 for both iPad and iPhone has fully updated to add multiwindow functionality on iPad, integration with iOS 13’s system dark mode, shortcuts with parameters, a share extension that introduces key new functionality, and finally … | Continue reading
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we explore what the changes to Shortcuts mean to third-party apps, who’s using them, and what it all means to users. Sponsored by: Things is a best-in-class to-do app for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Linode – High-performance SSD Linux servers for … | Continue reading
On last week’s episode of Adapt: On iOS 13 release day, Federico and Ryan kick off a series covering everything new in the updated Shortcuts app. Afterward, Ryan outlines his efforts creating an image for MacStories sans-shortcuts. You can listen below (and find the show notes he … | Continue reading
The general expectation leading up to this year’s iPhone and Apple Watch debuts was that “boring” updates were in store. The iPhone, it was reported, would have an unattractive triple-camera system and little else in the way of improvements; some thought the Apple Watch might not … | Continue reading
Earlier this year when Oprah Winfrey took the stage at Apple’s March event, she teased a book club project that would manifest in some way through Apple’s new TV+ service. Today in a press release, Apple has shared the full details about this new project, officially named Oprah’s … | Continue reading
Looking for a way to keep everything in one place so you never miss a thing? It’s here! Built exclusively for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, say hello to organization and peace of mind with Daylite. Capture every email, every meeting, and every call, all in the same place. Follow up when … | Continue reading
With last year’s release of the Apple Watch Series 4, it felt as though Apple had finally reached a point of equilibrium on the hardware side of the device. The Series 4 brought the first physical redesign, thinning the Watch out and stretching its slightly larger screen to the c … | Continue reading
Today alongside the launch of the iPhone 11 line and Apple Watch Series 5, Apple reopened its long-under-construction Apple Fifth Avenue retail location. First closed in January 2017 and relocated to a temporary space nearby, the new Fifth Avenue opens as the largest Apple Store … | Continue reading
The malevolent weather app CARROT Weather was updated this week to add support for the new capabilities provided by iOS 13 and the forthcoming iPadOS update. This latest version enables more powerful automations in the Shortcuts app, integration with the system dark mode, multiwi … | Continue reading
The average life cycle of an app typically consists of two phases: the app’s early days often bring a host of significant updates as it strives toward feature maturity; however, once that level of maturity is achieved, the updates become more iterative and unsurprising, largely a … | Continue reading
Following years of a judicious union between platforms, it’s time for iPad to embark on its own journey. | Continue reading