Fantastical 3⇢

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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Apple Posts Record First Quarter Results⇢

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2020 first quarter ended December 28, 2019. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $91.8 billion, an increase of 9 percent from the year-ago quarter and an all-time record, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $4.99, up 19 percent, also an all-time record. International sales accounted for 61 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

“We are thrilled to report Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, fueled by strong demand for our iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models, and all-time records for Services and Wearables,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “During the holiday quarter our active installed base of devices grew in each of our geographic segments and has now reached over 1.5 billion. We see this as a powerful testament to the satisfaction, engagement and loyalty of our customers — and a great driver of our growth across the board.”

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macOS Catalina 10.15.3 Released⇢

There’s no sign of the rumored Pro Mode, but the update does have some other goodies.

macOS 10.15.3:

  • Optimizes gamma handling of low gray levels on Pro Display XDR for SDR workflows when using macOS
  • Improves multi-stream video editing performance for HEVC and H.264 encoded 4K video on the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019)

It is available now via Software Update in System Preferences.

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iPad at 10

Ten years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad. As you may imagine, there’s quite a collection of stuff to absorb about this:

It’s also fun to revisit old reviews:

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TextExpander lets you instantly insert snippets of text you create into emails, messages, documents, and anywhere else you can type, using a quick search or abbreviation. You can even turn snippets into forms with fill-in fields and more to easily customize what you type.

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Patents Do Not a Product Make⇢

Malcolm Owen, writing at AppleInsider:

The iMac is one of the many iconic devices designed by Apple, with the all-in-one Mac consisting of a thin display housing the main components and a small stand to hold the display at eye-level for the user. While the design has received refinements over the years to make the main screen section thinner and sleeker, Apple is also mulling over making a more striking change to its design.

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