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Apple Announces March 25th Event at the Steve Jobs Theater

Today Apple announced a special event at the Steve Jobs Theater for March 25, 2019, at 10:00 am Pacific time. Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch posted an image of the press invitation to Twitter:

https://twitter.com/panzer/status/1105186663158800384

According to Panzarino’s tweet, the email invitation, which says simply ‘It’s show time,’ played a short film reel countdown animation, which suggests the event will be used to announce Apple’s much-anticipated video streaming service. In addition to a video service, there have been rumors that the company will use the event to announce a magazine service that will expand on its existing Apple News product.

Reconsidering Evernote in 2019

Like the best origin stories, this article comes from humble beginnings. A few weeks ago, I had the idea of adapting my shortcut to save webpage selections from Safari (see Weekly 151, 152, and 153) to make it work with Keep It rather than a JSON file. Simple enough, right? Given a text selection in Safari, I wanted to see if I could create a shortcut to append rich text to an existing document in Keep It without launching the app.

As Club MacStories members know, Keep It is the app I’ve been using for the past several months to hold my research material, which played an essential role in the making of my iOS 12 review (see Issues 135 and 144) of MacStories Weekly). But then I remembered that Keep It’s integration with Shortcuts was limited to URL schemes and that the app did not offer Siri shortcuts to append content to existing notes1. That was the beginning of a note-taking vision quest that culminated in this column, even though I’m not sure I reached the destination I was originally seeking.

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Strike: An Elegant, Collaborative Place to Write on the Mac and iOS [Sponsor]

Strike is a beautifully-designed, modern writing app for the Mac and iOS that brings together all the tools you need whether you’re working by yourself or with colleagues.

Strike streamlines the process of writing allowing you to get ideas down quickly with its Smart Markdown system. You can type Markdown directly into a Strike document, which is automatically previewed in the editor. You can also format text with a single click or tap on the app’s formatting bar that includes bold, italics, underlining, strikethrough, ordered and unordered lists, checklists, links, headings, and more.

Strike didn’t stop there though. You can drop charts, tables, and MathJax formulas into your documents too. Strike also supports file attachments as well as:

  • Password protected documents
  • Document locking to avoid inadvertent changes
  • Themes and handsome color schemes
  • Document statistics
  • Text transformation tools
  • Line sorting
  • Autocorrect and spellcheck
  • Attachment and PDF export

On the Mac, Strike supports recent powerful additions to macOS like Dark Mode and document versioning so you can roll back changes. On iOS, Strike supports the Apple Pencil.

Navigating longer documents is simple. The side panel is an outline of the major headings and list items in your document. Selecting any entry jumps straight to that part of the document. The side panel is where you’ll find a list of the tags in your document too, which you can use to go to where the tags appear in your text.

As fantastic as Strike is for writing solo, it’s just as reliable for writing with colleagues. Invite up to 10 people to join you in editing a document simultaneously in real-time. For example, it’s a great way to work with an editor, on a joint project with others, or to collect notes from fellow students.

Strike is a simple and elegant writing tool that distinguishes it from other writing apps through the power of collaboration. Download Strike on the Mac and iOS today to supercharge your writing.

Ulysses 15 Review: Split View on the Mac, Remote Images, Improved iPad Multitasking, and More

When a productivity app feels like it’s reached maturity, it’s in a dangerous position: if active development is neglected, the app will start to stagnate amidst a changing world, but on the other hand, if change is pursued for its own sake, the app can easily become bloated and an inferior product overall.

Ulysses 15 for Mac and iOS deftly navigates those potential dangers by offering thoughtful enhancements to existing features, plus new features that truly serve to enhance the core task of writing. There are improvements to image previews, writing goals, export previews, and keywords, plus big upgrades to how the editor can be set up on both the Mac and iPad.

The core app remains largely the same, but it’s now more compelling than ever before.

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Apple Music Commissions Custom Playlist Art→

If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you’re probably familiar with its playlist artwork styles. Some work well to tie together collections of related playlists like Decades, Essentials, and Deep Cuts. The trouble is though, that has also bred a certain sameness across Apple Music’s many playlists. That’s beginning to change as Apple rolls out custom playlist artwork from high-profile music industry artists.

Bijan Stephen of The Verge was told that the new artwork is designed to:

“connect more directly with the communities and the culture for which they were intended,” says Rachel Newman, Apple’s global director of editorial. Before now, Apple’s playlists had a uniform presentation that didn’t necessarily speak to the music. “In many ways, it’s a visual representation of the music that you will find inside that playlist,” said Newman.

Newman told Stephen that the company is rolling out the new artwork over the next few months and intends to redesign ‘many thousands’ of playlists.

The Verge also spoke to several artists involved in the project for its story. Stole “Moab” Stojmenov who created the cover of the Migos’ album Culture explained how he approached the challenge:

“Giving a shape and an image to music is never an easy process,” he wrote. “My style and my creative process have been always characterised by a significant presence of symbology and very powerful images, in addition to a very minimal and simple design. I think this project was somehow a bit different, but it also gave me the chance to create a real manifesto of my style.

The new playlist art published so far is excellent. There’s a wide range of styles that suit the music showcased in each playlist. By drawing on a wide range of talent from the music industry, the company should be able to imbue each playlist with a personality that was sometimes lacking in the past.

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Connected, Episode 233: AirDrop the Bass→

Federico talks about the new MacStories Shortcuts Archive and the guys check in with iOS 12 halfway through its lifecycle.

On this week’s episode of Connected, we reassess the impact of iOS 12’s major new features. You can listen here.

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Introducing the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, a Collection of 150 Custom Shortcuts for Apple’s Shortcuts App

After several months of work, I’m pleased to announce the MacStories Shortcuts Archive – the official repository for shortcuts I’ve created over the years (including when they used to be called “workflows”) and which have been updated, tested for the Shortcuts app, and collected in a single place.

You can find the archive at macstories.net/shortcuts. In this first version, the archive contains 150 shortcuts, but more will be posted over time. Each shortcut was created and tested by me and the MacStories team; all of them have been categorized, updated for the Shortcuts app, and marked up with inline comments to explain what they do.

Even better, they’re all free to download and you can modify them to suit your needs.

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