512 Pixels

Amanda Silberling at TechCrunch:

Numerous Twitter users are reporting a bug in which Circle tweets — which are supposed to reach a select group, like an Instagram Close Friends story — are surfacing on the algorithmically-generated For You timeline. That means that your supposedly private posts might breach containment to reach an unintended audience, which could quickly spark some uncomfortable situations.

I observed this bug when a tweet from someone I follow appeared on my For You timeline, but the retweet button was disabled, despite the person’s account being public. When I clicked on the tweet, it disappeared. I asked the tweeter if that post was intended for their Circle — which I am not in — and they confirmed this was the case.

I’m starting to think the folks running Twitter don’t really know what they’re doing.

MarsEdit 5 is a major upgrade to the preeminent Mac app for editing WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, and many other types of blogs.

The new Microposting feature makes it “as easy to post to your own blog as it is to post to Twitter.” When MarsEdit 5 is running on your Mac, just press a configurable global keyboard shortcut, write out your latest thoughts, and instantly publish to your blog.

MarsEdit supports editing posts in rich or plain text, and the latest update is especially great for Markdown fans. Now when you’re writing Markdown in plain text mode, MarsEdit applies live, beautiful syntax highlighting to make it easier to focus separately on the content and style of your posts.

MarsEdit is used by top bloggers to maximize their productivity and enjoyment of blogging. It’s great for pros like John Gruber of Daring Fireball, and yours truly, while also being simple enough to remove the mystery of blogging for everyday folks who just want to share their thoughts with the world.

Download MarsEdit 5 today, and see what all the hype is about. It’ll make you a better blogger!

This week on Mac Power Users:

Contacts and calendars are a constant for almost everyone. This week, the guys revisit their setups, discuss alternatives to Apple’s first-party apps and more.

This machine has been on my “white whale” list for collecting for a long time. This video is a great look at the Lisa:

Well this is weird.

This week on the podcast, we go deep on AI:

Federico has released S-GPT, a Shortcut that brings the power of ChatGPT down to your devices and data. Myke and Stephen talk to him about the project and what’s next in Automation April after dealing with some follow-up.

Each week, we do a longer, ad-free version of the show named Connected Pro. This time, we talked about toy animals with tiny heads and storm spotting.

Kris Holt, writing at Engadget:

Twitter has added a label to the main account of NPR to designate the public broadcaster as “US state-affiliated media.” Until now, such labels have typically been reserved for state-run organizations such as RT and Sputnik in Russia and China’s Xinhua News Agency. The labels appear on every tweet from accounts they’re applied to.

“We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as state-affiliated media,” a description that, per Twitter’s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR," the broadcaster’s CEO John Lansing said in a statement. “NPR and our member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.”

Meanwhile, I’m not paying for Twitter Blue but am still verified. I’m starting to think the folks running Twitter don’t really know what they’re doing.

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 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.

Tim Hardwick at MacRumors, writing two days too late for this to be an April Fools joke:

Apple has designs on a future AirPods case featuring a built-in touchscreen display that would enable users to control audio sources and interact with apps associated with the connected device, according to a newly published patent.

Filed by Apple in September 2021 and published last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, “Devices, Methods, and Graphical User Interface Interactions with a Headphones Case” clearly depicts various embodiments for such a design, complete with images of AirPods and a touchscreen on the case’s front.

These have the same energy, and it’s not energy we need in the world again:

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.

Rachel Kraft and Dan Huot, writing for NASA:

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced the four astronauts who will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis. The agencies revealed the crew members Monday during an event at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is their crew, this is our crew, this is humanity’s crew,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story, but, together, they represent our creed: E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation.”

There’s a lot more on the mission’s webpage.