Category: Apps

Apple has a new iPhone app in the App Store for creating custom invitations to events and managing guests. Invitations include the date and time of the event, location, a preview of the weather, and yes, you can use Image Playgrounds to create artwork for the event:

From the app you can create a shared photo album for the event and add an Apple Music playlist as well. Once an invitation is shared, guests can RSVP, leave comments, add the event to their calendar, and even be allowed to bring additional guests.

Continue reading ⇢

I’m pumped about this version of my favorite weather app:

Live Activities

Now you can opt to have Live Activities start automatically when precipitation is in the area! They’ll be started via a notification about 15 minutes before rain or snow begins, then you’ll continue to receive updates until precipitation stops, at which point the activity will be automatically removed.

CarPlay App

View weather along your driving route, right from your car’s dashboard! The CarPlay app functions as a GPS app, so you can input your destination and get directions from CARROT in her typically snarky style - plus, you’ll get to see all the weather along the way, including live radar, severe weather alerts, and more.

Continue reading ⇢

If you’re starting the new year off looking at new tools, Drafts Pro is half off for the first year right now. Drafts is the fastest and most flexible way to get something out of your head and into you computer.

Continue reading ⇢

There’s a new version of Pedometer++ rolling out now that makes it easy to see your step count over time:

David and I have been talking about this feature for a while now, and it is exciting to see it shipping. I love being able to scroll back and see my progress over the years, and it’s easy to share a graph from the app.

Pedometer++ 6.2 also allows you to import your complete Apple Health history. Before now, the app only fetched recent step count data when installed for the first time, but we realized that the new Trends feature would be much more compelling with a complete picture of your step count data. Importing historic Apple Health data is fast, and can be done from the in-app settings screen.

Continue reading ⇢

I use several of Rogue Amoeba’s apps on a near-daily basis. They are critical to my work as a podcaster, and my Mac would be noticeably less useful without them.

With the transition to Apple silicon, installing these programs became much more complicated, and I feared that Apple was pushing tools like Audio Hijack, Loopback, and others off the platform.

In the background, it seems like the folks at Rogue Amoeba were living in fear as well:

Continue reading ⇢

Simon B. Støvring has launched a new app:

Festivitas automatically adds festive lights to your menu bar and dock upon launch and you can tweak their appearance to match your preferences.

I love this, and not just because it reminds me of the old Holiday Lights app.

Continue reading ⇢

It’s that time of year again: Indie App Sales is currently boasting over 400 Mac and iOs apps for sale. There are some real gems on the list.

Continue reading ⇢

Federico had a heck of a time with this update, but Apple Frames continues to be a central part to a lot of my work. I’m glad he got the recent issues worked out:

Here are the details of the issue: occasionally – seemingly with no clear pattern – iOS and iPadOS 18 capture screenshots in 16-bit Display P3, which means they support a wide color gamut and higher dynamic range. Sometimes, however, screenshots are still captured in the old format, 8-bit sRGB. There is no way to tell these different types of screenshots apart since the Photos app lumps them all together as PNG files in the same Screenshots collection.

Continue reading ⇢

From the Newsroom announcement:

Final Cut Pro 11 takes full advantage of Apple’s M-series chips, introducing the powerful and intuitive Magnetic Mask; Transcribe to Captions, a highly requested feature that provides fast and accurate closed captions; spatial video editing; and a range of timesaving tools and workflow optimizations.

While I use Final Cut occasionally, I am by no means an expert. Thankfully, Tyler Stalman is:

Final Cut Pro is $300 in the Mac App Store, and this update is free for Final Cut Pro X users. A free 90-day trial is available as well. Apple still offers its “Pro Apps Bundle for Education” for just $199.

Continue reading ⇢

I really do not understand why this app is updated so slowly. It launched in March of 2023, but wasn’t available for the iPad until November 2023.

Continue reading ⇢

I don’t know how popular games proved to be back in the iPod days, but according to Kyle Orland at Ars, there are some folks out there who really care about them, and want to see them live on.

We need more of this sort of thing in the world.

Continue reading ⇢

If you want to crosspost to Threads, Mastodon, and/or Bluesky, this new iPhone app by Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh is a lifesaver. I’ve been using it for several weeks, and it’s been very helpful when posting about our St. Jude campaign. It’s useful and delightful, as you would expect from these two developers.

Continue reading ⇢