Category: Apps

Mimestream 1.0 Launches →

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Neil Jhaveri, writing about my favorite email client for the Mac:

Mimestream combines the power of macOS with Gmail’s advanced features for a new kind of email client that lets you move through your email effortlessly. Unlike other email clients that use the decades-old IMAP protocol, Mimestream uses the Gmail API for a new kind of lightning-fast experience that’s full of features. Built using the latest technologies from Apple, using Mimestream is a breath of fresh air that you’ll see and feel.

Today’s launch culminates a public beta of over 2 years, with more than 167,000 users joining the beta. During this time, we released 220+ updates, made 2500+ improvements, added 100+ new features, and grew the company from a solo founder to a team of 5. Mimestream is mature, reliable, ready to take on your most serious email workloads, and will continue improving.

I’ve been using Mimestream for most of its beta, for both my personal Gmail account and my work Google accounts. It’s fantastic, and an insta-buy for me. I know it doesn’t support iCloud and other email providers, but if you’re in Google Land, this is the way to go.

The End of Drobo →

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Kevin Purdy at Ars Technica:

You don’t hear nearly as much about Drobo boxes as you used to, especially on sites like Ars Technica. We now have some news, but it isn’t good.

StorCentric, the holding company for the Drobo and Retrospect brands, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late June 2022. Now, AppleInsider reports that, based on an email sent by StorCentric, the bankruptcy shifted from reorganization-minded Chapter 11 to liquidation-focused Chapter 7 in late April.

The writing for Drobo was on the wall, or at least on its website. Text at the top of the homepage notes that, as of January 27, 2023, Drobo products and support for them are no longer available. “Drobo support has transitioned to a self-service model,” the site reads. “We thank you for being a Drobo customer and entrusting us with your data.”

I used a Drobo for years, as it was a great way to hook up a whole lot of storage to a Mac. It’ll be missed.

Apple Announces Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro for iPad →

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This morning, Apple dropped some big news for creative professionals:

Apple today unveiled Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad. Video and music creators can now unleash their creativity in new ways that are only possible on iPad. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad bring all-new touch interfaces that allow users to enhance their workflows with the immediacy and intuitiveness of Multi-Touch. Final Cut Pro for iPad introduces a powerful set of tools for video creators to record, edit, finish, and share, all from one portable device. Logic Pro for iPad puts the power of professional music creation in the hands of the creator — no matter where they are — with a complete collection of sophisticated tools for songwriting, beat making, recording, editing, and mixing. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad will be available on the App Store as subscriptions starting Tuesday, May 23.

“We’re excited to introduce Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad, allowing creators to unleash their creativity in new ways and in even more places,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With a powerful set of intuitive tools designed for the portability, performance, and touch-first interface of iPad, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro deliver the ultimate mobile studio.”

Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad

If these were slated for WWDC, but were kicked out of the keynote for more exciting things, June 5 may be a pretty wild day.

Looking over the materials on Apple’s website, it appears that these two apps are just want people have wanted — pro-level editing tools, redesigned for the iPad’s unique form factor and input devices.

I think it’s best to reserve judgment until we see how these apps work in the real world, but I can’t help but worry that iPadOS will hold them back. Using professional tools like these apps require file transfers, media management, advanced audio routing and more. Those aren’t iPadOS’ strong suits, at least of today. Given that these apps are coming out in just a few weeks, before WWDC, I wonder how many of these things will be addressed in iPadOS 17 at all.

The details at the bottom of the Newsroom article are important to note:

Starting Tuesday, May 23, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad will each be available on the App Store for $4.99 (US) per month or $49 (US) per year with a one-month free trial.8 Final Cut Pro is compatible with M1 chip iPad models or later, and Logic Pro will be available on A12 Bionic chip iPad models or later. Final Cut Pro for iPad and Logic Pro for iPad require iPadOS 16.4.

I’m not shocked that these new apps are available only via subscription, but I think this the first time Apple has made new software available this way. On the Mac, Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro are one-time purchases, priced at $199.99 and $299.99, respectively.

All in all, this is great news, even if you aren’t a Logic or Final Cut user like I am. These apps are a sign that Apple is attempting to take the iPad more seriously as a computer for professionals, and that’s a good thing.

Instapaper Updated to Support CarPlay →

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From the Instapaper blog:

With the Instapaper CarPlay app, it’s now easier than ever to listen to your articles while driving. The CarPlay app offers easy access to your entire Instapaper account, including your saved articles in Home, Liked, Archived, and Folders.

To start listening to an article, just select one from the list.

When an article is playing, you can easily rewind, fast forward, adjust playback speed, and like or archive the article.

This seems like a very clever use of CarPlay. It’s just too bad that Instapaper’s reading voice isn’t that great compared to some of the options out there.

S-GPT →

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Federico Viticci has created something wild:

It’s the inaugural week of the second annual edition of Automation April, and to celebrate the occasion, I’ve been working on something special: today, I’m introducing S-GPT, an advanced conversational shortcut for ChatGPT that bridges OpenAI’s assistant to native system features of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS.

S-GPT (which stands for Shortcuts-GPT) is free to use for everyone, but it requires an OpenAI account with an associated pay-as-you-go billing plan since it takes advantage of OpenAI’s developer API, which has a cost. S-GPT was built with the latest ChatGPT API, and it can be used both with the existing ChatGPT 3.5 model or – if you have access to it – the ChatGPT 4 API.

I have been playing with this for a little while, and it’s some of Ticci’s best work. Having ChatGPT available though Shortcuts is one thing, but to have it interact with content on my devices is another thing altogether. We’ll be talking more about it on today’s Connected, I assure you.

Dark Noise 3.0 →

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Dark Noise is — by far — the best white noise app out there for the Apple ecosystem. Today’s release of 3.0 keeps that streak alive with a new business model. The app is now free with in-app purchase. John Voorhees has more at MacStories:

If you previously purchased Dark Noise, which included many of the features that are now part of a Pro subscription, you’re covered. Anyone who bought Dark Noise prior to the release of version 3.0 gets all of the features included in the Pro subscription. Pro subscribers may get new features in the future, but as of the release of version 3.0, existing users and subscribers have access to the same features, which I think is a fair way to transition to a subscription model.

I’m also glad to see that the core features of Dark Noise will be available for free for the first time. There are a lot of ambient sound apps on the App Store, but a lot aren’t very good. Dark Noise is excellent, and I expect having a free tier to show off what the app can do to new users will result in more paid users in the long run. I’m also a fan of the one-time payment option, which is a nice option for fans of the app who just don’t like paying subscriptions.

The Pro subscription is $2.99/month or $19.99/year with a three-day trial. Dark Noise 3.0 is also available as a one-time purchase for $49.99, as John references above. I use this app all the time,1 and I’m happy to chip in and help keep it viable for the developer Charlie to work on for the long term.

  1. I’m a Brown Noise man myself, usually with some Rain noise mixed in. ↩

Automation April Returns →

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MacStories’ John Voorhees:

We’re very excited to announce the second annual Automation April Shortcuts Contest, which, along with all of Automation April is dedicated to the memory of Alex Hay, the developer of Toolbox Pro and other apps.

As we had hoped when we introduced Automation April last year, the Automation April Shortcuts Contest became the centerpiece of Automation April. Last year, we had over 200 contest submissions across six categories of shortcuts. We received some remarkable shortcuts that showed just how creative and clever this community can be. But best of all, we saw the automation community come together to help each other when they got stuck and share the shortcuts they made.

Like last year, we encourage to you build a shortcut and submit it to the contest whether you’re a Shortcuts expert or just starting out. Shortcuts do not need to be complex to win in one of contest’s categories. That’s true for all the categories, but especially true for the Best Everyday Shortcut category, which we created because we know from experience that some of our most valuable and frequently-used shortcuts are among the simplest.

The White House Won’t Chip in for Twitter Verification →

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Sara Fischer:

The White House will not pay to have its staff’s official Twitter profiles continue to be verified, according to guidance issued to staffers via an email obtained by Axios.

Official White House staffers rely on their verified accounts to inform the public on behalf of the administration. Verification, combined with the designated Twitter profiles, helped to ensure the public could trust those messages.

“It is our understanding that Twitter Blue does not provide person-level verification as a service. Thus, a blue check mark will now simply serve as a verification that the account is a paid user,” White House director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty told staffers in an email sent Friday afternoon.

Under the current scheme, official government accounts carry a gray check mark, media outlets and companies get gold ones and suckers get to show a blue one, perhaps optionally.

I expect mine will go away very soon.

There’s an App for That… Unless You’re Apple’s Passwords Feature →

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Cabel Sasser:

We all know that Apple has nice built-in password management in macOS and iOS. But very, very few people know that Apple’s passwords can also:

  • Autofill any 2FA verification codes, which you easily can add by scanning QR codes!
  • Keep a “Notes” field where you can add extra data, like 2FA backup codes, for each password!
  • Import passwords exported from another app, like 1Password! (And it all syncs across your devices, for free?!)

Very few people know these things because Apple tucks all of their important password features away in weird little Settings panels, instead of in a Proper Real App. I think this is a mistake.

Apple’s Live Activity for Timers Already Needs a Refresh

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UPDATE: This has been fixed as of iOS 17!

Apple’s Live Activity feature has begun to take off, with more and more apps doing interesting things with the new user interface. Sadly, one of Apple’s own uses for it doesn’t work the way it should.1

In this image, you can see the Live Activity on the lock screen, expanded from the Dynamic Island and a screenshot of Clock.app itself:

A Live Activity for a Timer running on iOS 16.4 RC1

First, we have the issue of the Live Activity on the lock screen. Live Activities from third-party developers open the corresponding app when the Live Activity is tapped. Apple’s timer Live Activity doesn’t follow this convention. Instead, tapping the timer itself doesn’t do anything whatsoever. A user can pause or cancel the timer from the Lock Screen, but managing anything past that requires launching Clock.app from somewhere else in the system.

I understand that Apple’s apps are often able to do things that third-party apps can’t, but these features make the timer Live Activity behave so differently than other Live Activities that it can be frustrating to use. It’s easy to cancel a timer, but hard to open the app that manages the timer itself.

When an iPhone 14 Pro is in use, the timer icon shows up in the Dynamic Island as expected. Pressing and holding it will expand the timer, showing the same controls as what is present on the lock screen. However, here — and only here — does tapping the Live Activity open the Clock.app.

For bonus points, I would love it if Apple would show the time at which the timer will go off, on both the lock screen and the expanded view within the Dynamic Island. Alas, that information isn’t visible anywhere except within the Clock app.

… which makes the fact that opening the Clock app from the timer Live Activity doesn’t open Clock to the timer tab feel pretty pretty pretty pretty bad. Instead, Clock.app opens to either the last tab the user was using, or if the app has been fully quit, it opens to the World Clock. Tapping a timer should always open the corresponding panel in the Clock app.

None of these bugs are showstoppers. I use my iPhone2 to set timers several times a week, but the user experience is clunky and comes across as downright buggy.

I’ve filed a Feedback with Apple about this: FB12078863.

PS: Where’s the stopwatch Live Activity, Apple?

  1. Ah yes, another article about how Apple is bad at timers. ↩
  2. Don’t get me started on how clunky timers are on watchOS, but at least it can do multiple timers! ↩

Dan Moren Reviews Apple Maps’ Take on Boston Landmarks →

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Writing on Six Colors:

Over the past couple years, Apple’s been rolling out its “Detailed City Experience” in Maps to cities across the world and finally, at long last, those improved maps and better landmarks have come to my hometown of Boston, as first noted by Frank McShan on Twitter.

These are really nice looking. The closest thing I’ve seen here in Memphis is the Bass Pro location inside the Pyramid, and it really doesn’t come close to these new Maps illustrations:

Bass Pro in Apple Maps

I’d love for Apple to smooth those sides down. At least the seating in our football stadium works:

Liberty Bowl in Apple Maps