John Voorhees

5626 posts on MacStories since November 2015

John is MacStories' Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015, and today, runs the site alongside Federico. John also co-hosts four MacStories podcasts: AppStories, which covers the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, which explores the fun differences between American and Italian culture and recommends media to listeners, Ruminate, a show about the weird web and unusual snacks, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about the games we take with us.
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voorhees@macstories.net

MacStadium’s Orka Supports Apple Silicon [Sponsor]

We are now well into the two-year transition window Apple began with the release of their M1 chip. In fact, the second generation of Apple Silicon processors – the M2 – is now available.

Apple will continue to support Intel-based Macs, but the power found with Apple Silicon is proving to be worth the jump for users and developers. Forward-thinking technology companies seek to release software that leverages the new features released by Apple each year.

In order to use new features possible with Apple Silicon, dev teams will first need to incorporate the latest hardware and software available from Apple. This includes M1/M2 machines and the latest versions of macOS and Xcode. This will enable them to build and test for these new machines.

The need to replace development machines themselves can be costly, but the prospect of replacing an entire data center worth of Macs that run on-premise can be downright cost prohibitive. This presents a challenge for macOS development teams that use continuous integration (CI) to safely make changes to their existing codebases – a generally accepted best practice throughout the industry.

In addition, introducing new hardware architecture may call for a change in the software approach. Does the current orchestration software support Apple Silicon? It’s not likely.

MacStadium is here to help.

Orka, MacStadium’s macOS-based orchestration software, supports both Apple Silicon and Intel in a mixed cluster. Rather than retooling an entire in-house data center, macOS-focused development companies can simply migrate their CI processes to the cloud and build for all current Mac users. MacStadium provides the private Mac cloud and a skilled team to help you securely scale to your needs.

Reach out to a MacStadium sales engineer to learn more about Orka and how it can accelerate your iOS and macOS Development workflows.

Our thanks to MacStadium for their support of MacStories this week.

AppStories - Ep. 292 - 43 minutes

What Makes a Great Modern Shortcuts Action?

FedericoJohn
AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 292 - What Makes a Great Modern Shortcuts Action?

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43:12

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This week, Federico and John consider what it takes to create a great set of modern Shortcuts actions using examples of what Apple is doing in its own apps and what some of our favorite third-party apps are already doing to make Shortcuts accessible to a wider audience and more useful to power users.

Read more

MacStories Unwind: Sheep and Cats

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico and I recommend two of 2022’s hottest indie game sensations, Cult of the Lamb and Stray. As a bonus, Federico shares a 3DS game he’s thinking of playing, and I ask for advice on what to play next.

Federico’s Pick:

John’s Pick:

MacStories Unplugged

A Locksmith, a Mechanic, and a Cop [[unplugged_artwork]] This month on MacStories Unplugged: Splitting up the iOS and iPadOS 16 reviews, the state of Stage Manager on iPadOS and macOS Ventura, John’s Focus mode experiments at the DMV, and the complications of restarting bike commuting after a three-year hiatus....

App Debuts

Federico

MusicSmart Marcos Tanaka’s excellent utility to read credits and liner notes for albums and songs was updated earlier this week with a new Shortcuts action to get the attributes of any song. The action lets you retrieve any of the supported attributes (such as producers, release date, engineers, etc.) from any song you want;...

Interesting Links

John

Last week, CNBC reported that very few Netflix subscribers are playing the mobile games published by the streaming service, which likely has a lot to do with how little the company has done to publicize its offerings. (Link) We’ve had good experiences with the Eve Home smart devices that we’ve reviewed in the past,...

AppleScript: Shortcuts Bridge or Crutch?

At first, running AppleScript inside a Mac shortcut was fun. It opened up solutions to automation problems that weren’t possible with Shortcuts’ actions alone. That, in turn, has made Shortcuts for Mac more powerful and useful than the iOS and iPadOS versions in many ways, which is great, right? Right? Well, yes and no. Here’s...

Pixelmator Photo Switches to Subscription Pricing and Provides a Sneak Peek at the App’s Upcoming Mac Version

Source: Pixelmator.

Source: Pixelmator.

The Pixelmator team announced today that its iPhone and iPad photo editor, Pixelmator Photo, has moved to subscription pricing, and a Mac version of the app is on the way.

Existing Pixelmator Photo users won’t have to subscribe to continue using the app and should be able to add the Mac version at a discount when it’s released. New customers can subscribe for $4.99 per month or $23.99 per year after a 7-day free trial. There’s also a lifetime purchase option that costs $54.99. Pixelmator says that the subscription pricing will increase for new subscribers when the Mac app is released, so now is a good time to subscribe if you were hoping that the team would add a Mac version.

Pixelmator Photo for iPad.

Pixelmator Photo for iPad.

There are a lot of reasons for Pixelmator Photo’s move to a subscription model, which are explained in detail in the team’s blog post. As with any move from paid-up-front to a subscription, some users will be left behind, which is a shame, but I’m not surprised by Pixelmator’s move. I’m more surprised that the switch didn’t occur earlier. Pixelmator Photo is a top-notch, high-quality app that is continuously developed to keep up with advances in Apple’s photo editing frameworks and hardware updates. That’s not the sort of app that can be offered for a set price indefinitely, as demonstrated by the many other sophisticated apps, including other photo editing apps, that have made the leap to a subscription model. Hopefully, the switch to subscriptions will allow the Pixelmator team to continue to develop Photo for a long time to come.

There aren’t many details about the Mac version of Pixelmator Photo to share except for the image at the top of this story, but I like what I see. If you’ve used the iPad version of Pixelmator Photo, the Mac app will be immediately familiar with its spare UI and focus on the image being edited. There’s no word yet on when the Mac version might be released, but when it is, we’ll have a complete review.

The Pixelmator Photo update that adds its new subscription pricing model is available on the App Store now.