John Voorhees

5641 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

Where Will an Apple Video Streaming Service Fit?

John

Streaming video has become increasingly competitive with deal after deal signed in the hope of attracting new subscribers. Hollywood has a hard time keeping a secret, and so we know that Apple has signed over a dozen deals for original content and is targeting March 2019 to launch a video service. We also know...

GIFwrapped

John

Humor is all about timing. When you think of the perfect GIF to send in response to a friend or to post on Twitter, you don’t want to be searching around in folders full of saved GIFs or scrolling pages of search results on Giphy.com. No, GIF pros turn to GIFwrapped by Jelly Bean...

Q&A

Question: I’ve seen people complain about Electron on Twitter. What is Electron and what’s so wrong about it anyway? (Antonio Lopez, @payencidh)

John

You picked a good week to ask about Electron. Not long after you sent us your question, GitHub, which created Electron, began advertising its GitHub Desktop Mac app on its website touting...

App Debuts

Federico

Bandsintown Despite Spotify’s advantage in building and fostering a third-party app ecosystem based on the service’s web APIs, we’re starting to see some intriguing music utilities created with the MusicKit framework in iOS 11. Bandsintown (which reminds me of Songkick) is a concert discovery platform that uses your location and music tastes to show...

1Blocker X for iOS Review

The first thing you will notice when you set up 1Blocker X on an iOS device is its 7 toggles in Safari’s Content Blocker section of the Settings app. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher at first until you realize that this is what allows 1Blocker X to expand beyond the confines of its predecessor.

You see, iOS limits the number of blocking rules that can be implemented by an app to 50,000. That’s a lot of rules, but sadly not enough given the amount of junk on the Internet these days. As a result, it’s a limit that 1Blocker began to run into not long after it launched in 2015.

Finding a way around that hard limit required a rewrite of 1Blocker from the ground up. The result is 1Blocker X, an app with around three times as many blocking rules, room to grow, and enhanced flexibility for applying those rules.

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Google Launches Major Gmail Redesign

Today, Google announced a long list of updates to Gmail. The new features, which are beginning to roll out worldwide are focused primarily on security, artificial intelligence, and the incorporation of modern email features, some of which were first tested in the company’s Inbox app.

Google has addressed phishing with new, prominent warnings in the Gmail update. For sensitive information, Google is adding a ‘confidential mode’ in the coming weeks that will let users set expiration dates for messages and even revoke previously-sent messages. Google is also implementing per-message level two-factor authentication, which requires authentication via text message. Finally, users will be able to preclude message recipients from forwarding, copying, downloading, or printing messages.

Google is adding AI-powered functionality to Gmail. Nudging is a feature that will remind you of messages you haven’t responded to yet, so they don’t get lost. Gmail is also adding quick replies, which suggest responses based on the contents of the messages you receive.

The web interface of Gmail is getting several new features too. There’s a sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen for quick access to several Google apps and Gmail Add-Ons from third parties. A hover-over menu lets users RSVP to meeting invitations, archive message threads, and snooze messages. You can also view attachments without opening the message to which a document is attached. A new offline mode is available too, which will be a welcome addition for travelers when an Internet connection is unavailable.

Most of the changes to Gmail are to its web interface, but a couple of changes are coming to Gmail’s mobile apps in the coming weeks including high-priority notifications that only notify users of important messages and a one-tap unsubscribe feature.

Many of the new Gmail features are being rolled out globally in phases, so you may not see them right away. Google says others will be available in the upcoming weeks. Individual Gmail users can check the Settings menu for the updates and pick ‘Try the new Gmail’ to activate the new functionality. If you use G Suite, the new functionality can be turned on by participants in the G Suite Early Adopter Program from the Admin console.

Microcasting on Micro.blog with Wavelength

Last month I covered the return of Sunlit, the iOS photo blogging app from Manton Reece that works with Micro.blog and blogging platforms like WordPress. Reece is back with another iOS app that’s aimed at bringing microcasting, which is short-form podcasting, to Micro.blog. Wavelength is an end-to-end solution for recording, editing, and publishing audio using nothing but an iPhone. It’s an interesting approach to podcasting designed to lower the barriers to entry by simplifying the workflow, while also creating new uses for Micro.blog.

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