Category: Apps

Apple:

The macOS version of your app can now be included in a universal purchase, allowing customers to enjoy your app and in‑app purchases across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS by purchasing only once. Get started by using a single bundle ID for your apps in Xcode and setting up your app record for universal purchase in App Store Connect.

This is great in terms of giving developers more flexibility when considering branching out onto other platforms, but it could hurt their bottom lines when users come to expect this from every app.

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After the return of NetNewsWire to the Mac, Brent Simmons and gang have re-released NetNewsWire for iOS and iPadOS, as he writes on the NNW blog:

Just as the Mac version looks like a Mac app, this is very much an iOS app. It supports Dark Mode, context menus, multiple windows, Siri Shortcuts, and other iOS features.

Other features include searching, starred items, Today and All Unread smart feeds, Reader view, multiple accounts, hiding read articles and feeds, background refreshing, and more.

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Tot is a new Markdown-powered, iCloud-syncing scratchpad by the Iconfactory. The Mac app is comprised of a single window with seven colored tabs. Each tab can hold text, and syncs to its iOS companion for quick notes or easy sharing across devices.

The business model makes it clear that the Iconfactory views this as a Mac-first application. The Mac version is free, while the universal iOS version is a whopping $20. The mobile version is very nice, but I can’t help but agree with Federico Viticci’s take on things:

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Jason Snell:

Since last June I’ve edited just about every episode of The Incomparable on my iPad Pro using Ferrite Recording Studio and an Apple Pencil.

Since people are often curious about just how using the Apple Pencil to edit a podcast works, I thought I’d make a video to show you how I do it. (I had to suspend a camera above my desk to get some shots of what my hands are doing with the Apple Pencil.)

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John Siracusa has launched a second Mac app. This is one is named SwitchGlass, and this is how he describes it:

SwitchGlass adds a dedicated application switcher to your Mac. You can customize its appearance, size, and position on each attached display, including hiding it on selected displays. It pairs perfectly with Front and Center, supporting both click and Shift-click actions on app icons in the floating app switcher. SwitchGlass is available for $4.99 on the Mac App Store. To learn more, please read the FAQ.

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Casey Liss has a new app, named Peek-a-View and the idea for it is brilliant. He writes:

Peek-a-View is, at its core, a read-only photo browser.

It is designed to be safe to hand to anyone, and know that you’re not going to need to worry about the safety of your photos.

[…]

Peek-a-View can be used for other reasons though. Perhaps you’re showing off a series of screenshots to a client. Perhaps you want to share your vacation pictures with a friend, but only your vacation pictures. Peek-a-View also lets you select a particular album to view, thus limiting inquisitive eyes to only the photos you know are safe.

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Marco Arment, writing about the newest version of Overcast, which includes an updated version of Voice Boost and now supports AirPlay 2:

When I wrote the original Voice Boost with only a rudimentary understanding of audio processing, it was a single configuration of Apple’s AudioUnits that applied a fixed set of parameters to all podcasts, regardless of their audio characteristics. It was an effective but blunt tool, relying on aggressive level compression and a strong EQ to make the compression less noticeable.

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Apple:

Apple today announced that all users in the United States can now experience a redesigned Maps with faster and more accurate navigation and comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls and more, making it easier and more enjoyable to map out any journey. Apple completed the rollout of this new Maps experience in the United States and will begin rolling it out across Europe in the coming months.

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Fantastical 3 has been released, and I have really enjoyed using it during the beta period. For years, Fantastical has been a really solid iPhone calendar app, built around fast natural language processing. Generally, entering a calendar event involves tapping a lot of buttons and hoping for the best, but with Fantastical, you didn’t have to leave the keyboard.

Over the years, Fantastical spread, making its way to the Mac and iPad. The latter in particular left a bit to be desired, but this new version takes much better advantage of the iPad’s larger screen.

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Hard G is a new Mac app that brings Giphy search to your Mac’s menu bar or desktop. It makes it easy to drag and drop GIFs to other Mac apps like Messages:

For years, I’ve used a custom Alfred workflow — which you can download as a .zip here — to search Giphy quickly, but Hard G makes it a lot faster.

I do wish that Hard G had the ability to right-click a GIF and be able to copy its URL for pasting into apps where drag and drop is a bit weird. Likewise, being able to copy a GIF to the clipboard would be huge. Hopefully we see these features in a future update.

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John Siracusa, writing about the move from Mac OS to Mac OS X:

To deal with some of the changes in Mac OS X, I ran apps and system extensions that restored some behaviors from classic Mac OS. Over the years, I weaned myself off most of these, but a few stuck. In particular, I found I did not want to live without the window layering policy from classic Mac OS.

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Downlink is a cool Mac app that lets you use self-updating satellite imagery as your wallpaper, and version 2 brings some new goodies including the ability to customize the area pictured. It’s free on the Mac App Store.

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