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This week on MacStories Unwind:
- MacStories Weekly
- John’s Holiday Gift Guide
- Reading DRM-Free EPUBs in MarginNote for iPad
- Tips for Remote Tech Support
- Mac Dictation and Big Sur beta tips
- MacStories Unplugged: The Year in Music, 2020 Edition
- Federico and John share their Apple Music playlists, collecting their favorite songs of 2020, pick their albums of the year, second-guess the Grammy nominations, and each chooses five bands that define their tastes in music.
Unwind
- Federico’s Picks:
- John’s Picks:
Canvas Canvas, which was shown off by Apple at its October event, uses the LiDAR scanner in the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max to create 3D scans of any room. I’ve been impressed with the accuracy of the scans. The app guides you as you scan a room making sure you don’t miss...
Throughout the year, I try lots of tech gear. A lot of that is for reviews that wind up on MacStories, but just as often, something catches my eye that I think could improve my work setup. Other times, it’s just something fun that I decide I can’t live without. This year has been no...
The MacStories Shortcuts Icons and Perspective Icons, which have proven to be a big hit with MacStories readers since they were launched, are available for 40% off now through Monday, November 30th. The MacStories Shortcuts icons feature 400 glyphs in four color combinations for a total of 1600 icons designed specifically for Shortcuts users....
Dictation on the Mac isn’t new, but the dedicated button on the M1-based MacBook Airs is. The new Airs add Spotlight Search to F4, Dictation to F5, and Do Not Disturb to F6. It’s a small change, but one that makes all three features easier to access. I’ve never used dictation much on my Mac,...
Developer adoption of new macOS features is often a little slower than it is on iOS and iPadOS. However, that hasn’t been the case with Big Sur widgets. Apple wisely took the same SwiftUI-based system used for creating widgets on the iPhone and iPad and implemented it on the Mac, providing a relatively simple approach for developers to bring their existing widgets to the Mac. The result has been an immediate explosion of widget options for Mac users.
Over the course of the summer and fall, I tried several different widgets as I ran the Big Sur betas. A few of those widgets — which have been in development the longest and were highlighted in my Big Sur review — remain some of my favorites and are recapped below. However, many more terrific widgets have been released since and deserve consideration as well, so let’s dig in.
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This week on AppStories, we break down the App Store Small Business Program, other App Store and developer changes announced in 2020, and consider what else Apple could do to make the App Store a better place for developers.
This week Federico and John break down the App Store Small Business Program, other App Store and developer changes announced in 2020, and consider what else Apple could do to make the App Store a better place for developers.
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Federico