Apple Completes Acquisition of Shazam →

Late last year, Apple announced that it had agreed to purchase Shazam, the music-discovery service. The acquisition was held up for a time by an investigation by the European Commission, which ultimately said the deal is not anti-competitive and could go forward. Today Apple announced that the deal had been completed.

In a press release, Apple said:

Shazam has been downloaded over 1 billion times around the world, and users identify songs using the Shazam app over 20 million times each day. With pioneering innovation in music identification, Shazam helps people discover, interact with and share video, audio or printed content across devices and mediums — and allows music fans to follow their favorite artists and share in the thrill of discovery.

Apple also announced that Shazam would soon be offered ad-free to all users.

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macOS Mojave: The MacStories Review

By John Voorhees

I went to San Jose this June not expecting much from macOS. After all, it’s a mature OS that already did what I need. My expectations were reinforced by rumors and leaks that Apple would introduce a Dark Mode and the fact that High Sierra introduced several significant foundational changes to macOS. I concluded that Mojave would focus primarily on a design refresh.

I was wrong. Dark Mode is the most visible and one of the most significant changes to macOS, but Mojave is much more than a UI refresh. Dark Mode and Mojave’s other system updates include productivity enhancements that have made meaningful improvements to the way I work on my Mac.

It took some time to acclimate to Dark Mode, but now I prefer it. As much as I like Dark Mode though, the most important changes to macOS have been those that surface existing functionality in new places making them more useful than in the past.

Mojave adds a collection of Desktop, Finder, and screenshot tools that are notable for the way they meet users where and how they work. It’s a functional approach to computing that has had a bigger impact on my day-to-day workflow than other recent updates to macOS, even where the Mojave updates provide new ways to do things I could already do before.

There’s a lot to cover in Mojave, so I’m going to dive right in and dispense with explaining how to set it up. Apple has a whole page devoted to the topic that you can explore if you’d like. Instead, let’s start by considering how Mojave’s Dark Mode.

AppStories - Ep. 80 - 31 minutes

Our Favorite Apps with iOS 12 Features (Part 2)

Federico

John

AppStories Episode 80 - Our Favorite Apps with iOS 12 Features (Part 2)

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This week, Federico and John discuss more of their favorite iOS and watchOS app debuts and updates highlighting iOS 12 and watchOS 5 features.

App Debuts

By John Voorhees

John

Toggl I use Toggl for time tracking, but haven’t always been a fan of its apps. Toggl’s made a lot of progress on iOS this year though, and this past week it added Siri shortcut support. Included among the shortcuts are ones to start and stop timers, which is handy if you don’t want...

Google Maps Adds CarPlay Support

By John Voorhees

I just got home from a trip to my local drugstore using Google Maps’ new CarPlay integration. Once I had a destination selected and was on my way, the experience was fine, as long as I didn’t stray from the path. Overall though, from my very preliminary, single test drive, I wasn’t left wanting to switch away from Apple Maps.

AppStories, Episode 79 – Our Favorite Apps with iOS 12 Features (Part 1)→

Linked By John Voorhees

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we dig into some of our favorite iOS app debuts and updates highlighting iOS 12 features.

AppStories Episode 79 - Our Favorite Apps with iOS 12 Features (Part 1)

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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An Oral History of Apple’s Former Headquarters →

Linked By John Voorhees

Steven Levy spent more than a year talking to past and present Apple executives and employees about the company’s former headquarters at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California. As Levy describes it:

Infinite Loop was the place where Apple’s leaders and engineers pulled off a historic turnaround, and it will always be the source of stories and legends—many of them untold. Until now.

It’s hard to pick among the anecdotes in Levy’s history, but one of my favorites is this from Phil Schiller because it captures the tough choice that had to be made when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and his empathy for customers:

Schiller: We’re like, “Steve! Newton customers are picketing! What do you want to do? They’re angry.” And Steve said, “They have every right to be angry. They love Newton. It’s a great product, and we have to kill it, and that’s not fun, so we have to get them coffee and doughnuts and send it down to them and tell them we love them and we’re sorry and we support them.”

There are fascinating details about Apple’s history in Levy’s piece that you won’t find anywhere else, and he’s done an excellent job weaving them into a cohesive, chronological narrative that shouldn’t be missed.

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AppStories - Ep. 79 - 32 minutes

Our Favorite Apps with iOS 12 Features (Part 1)

Federico

John

AppStories Episode 79 - Our Favorite Apps with iOS 12 Features (Part 1)

0:00
32:11

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AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

This week, Federico and John dig into some of their favorite iOS app debuts and updates highlighting iOS 12 features.

Text Case Adds Siri Shortcut Support for Text Transformations

By John Voorhees

Not long ago, I reviewed an update to a new text transformation utility for iOS by Chris Hannah called Text Case. That update added support for title casing text according to popular style guides including the Chicago Manual of Style that we use here at MacStories. The app can do 13 other text transformations too like URL encoding and decoding, all caps, sentence capitalization, and many more.

I have the title casing rules of the style guide internalized for the most part, but every now and I want to check on a headline to be sure. In the past, I used an online service, which works well, but switching to a browser is an interruption. It’s a small interruption, but it’s one that may lead me to check another open tab or do something else that distracts me from completing an article. When I’m writing, I’d rather stay immersed in my text editor.

With Text Case’s extension, I can run a headline conversion right inside my text editor from the share sheet that’s accessible from the contextual popup menu that appears when you select text. With version 1.3 out today, Hannah takes the app a step further by adding Siri Shortcut support too.