This whole saga reminds me of when Palm tried to get the Pre to sync with iTunes back in the day.
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macOS Sonoma 14.2 Released⇢
macOS Sonoma 14.2 introduces an Enhanced AutoFill feature for PDFs, which Apple announced earlier this year. It automatically identifies common fields like name and address, allowing them to be autofilled similar to a website.
In the Messages app, stickers can be added directly to chat bubbles with a tapback reply feature, and the catch-up arrow now jumps to the first unread message in a conversation. There are new Weather and Clock widgets, and a favorite songs playlist in Apple Music.
iOS 17.2 Released⇢
iOS and iPadOS 17.2 revolve around two kinds of enhancements: there are a series of updates to built-in apps (mostly Messages, Music, and Camera) and various tweaks to widgets; then, there’s the brand new Journal app for iPhone, which aims to reinvent the practice of journaling for iOS users with a built-in solution that’s deeply integrated with the OS and apps.
All Hail the Worm⇢
Kenneth Chang has a wonderful piece for The New York Times walking through the history and usage of NASA’s iconic logo:
Last month, NASA welcomed Richard Danne to its headquarters in Washington to celebrate work he had done nearly half a century ago.
Mr. Danne never studied the stars. He never built a rocket.
But he and his design partner, Bruce Blackburn, came up with one of the most recognizable elements of the space agency: the logo known as the “worm,” with the acronym N-A-S-A spelled out in bold, sinewy, orange-red letterforms.
Sponsor: MarsEdit 5⇢
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.
Mac Power Users #722: Bringing Devices Together⇢
On this feedback episode of MPU, we revisit Apple Notes, talk about Name Drop and David shares the good news about a new battery pack.
Apple Kills Beeper Mini⇢
It took less time than I expected, but Apple has responded to the recent news that part of iMessage had been reverse-engineered, opening the door to blue bubbles on Android. Here’s David Pierce:
A few days after the team at Beeper proudly announced a way for users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly from their Android devices without any weird relay servers, and about 24 hours after it became clear Apple had taken steps to shut that down, Apple has shared its take on the issue.
Review: The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s Greatness is Thicker than Titanium
Obviously the iPhone 4 is in the iPhone Update Hall of Fame. Its Retina display was game-changing, and now we enjoy pixel density that once seemed like science fiction.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, despite their rather lackluster design, are also in the Hall of Fame. They were the first big iPhones, and took Apple’s sales numbers into the stratosphere.
Then there’s the iPhone X, which totally redefined the iOS experience while ditching the home button and embracing a full-screen design with Face ID.
iMessage Reverse-Engineered for Android Users⇢
The folks behind Beeper — in partnership with a high-school student — have reverse-engineered Apple’s iMessage system and have shipped it in an Android app. Here’s a bit from the Beeper blog:
Now you can send and receive blue bubble texts from your phone number. As soon as you install Beeper Mini, your Android phone number will be blue instead of green when your iPhone friends text you. It’s easy to join iPhone-only group chats, since people can add your phone number instead of your email address. All chat features like typing status, read receipts, full resolution images/video, emoji reactions, voice messages, editing, un-sending, and more are supported.
Kbase Article of the Week: Install Mac Pro in a Rack⇢
I don’t often think about the rackable Mac Pro, but I can’t wait to own one in about 20 years.
Kino⇢
The folks behind Halide are making a new video capture app for the iPhone, named Kino. What Halide is to RAW photos, Kino should be for log video.
Sponsor: TextExpander⇢
TextExpander’s customizable and shareable snippets of text allow your team to fly through repetitive tasks quickly by expanding the things you type regularly — all you have to do is type a short abbreviation and TextExpander does the rest of the work for you.
Here’s How It Works:
- Create It: Collect your most commonly used emails, phrases, messaging, URLs, and more to create snippets and templates in TextExpander that are always accessible with a quick search or abbreviation.
- Share It: Give your team or different departments across your company access to the content they need to use every day.
- Use It: Expand the content you need with just a few keystrokes on any device, across any app you use — no APIs or integrations needed.
- Optimize It: Add customizations like fill-ins and optional sections to keep that human touch. Anytime you make changes to snippets they update everywhere so your team is always on the same page.
It’s that easy!