I love having Face ID on my iPad. When Apple first brought the iPhone X technology to the iPad Pro last year, I was curious to see how its usefulness might compare between iPhone and iPad. What I quickly found was that I enjoy using Face ID even more on my iPad than my...
Will Apple TV+’s “All-Original” Angle Work?
Over the last couple weeks Apple’s been hosting premiere events for its debut Apple TV+ shows. Following each premiere the company’s Newsroom page has published a brief summary of the event, and all of those summaries end with what has become Apple’s default way of describing Apple TV+: “the first all-original video subscription service.”...
Apple’s TV App Arrives on Amazon Fire TV Devices→
Benjamin Mayo, reporting for 9to5Mac:
Apple today released the Apple TV app for Amazon TV devices, starting with the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and the older HD model. Support for Amazon Fire TV Cube, Fire TV (3rd generation penchant design) and some other models is coming soon.
The TV app experience on Amazon’s platform mirrors the functionality of the Roku app, which launched last week. Users can watch their purchased iTunes movies and TV shows, access Apple TV Channel subscriptions and watch Apple TV+ content when the streaming service launches on November 1st.
This isn’t a surprise, as the impending launch of Apple TV+ meant all previously-announced TV app platforms were likely to arrive before November 1st. Now that the app is available on Roku and Fire TV devices, plus Samsung TVs, the only platforms still waiting for support are smart TV sets from LG, Vizio, and Sony.
Todoist Foundations: Key Refinements Modernize the Popular Task Manager
Today Todoist has launched a major update across all platforms under the branding Todoist Foundations. That name implies a complete ground-up revision to the app, and while that’s accurate in terms of under-the-hood code changes, from a user-facing standpoint this is still the Todoist you know, but with a variety of new features: project sections, a dynamic add button, new task and sub-task views, and more. Todoist’s team also says that Foundations lays the necessary coding groundwork for more substantial features that are coming in the future, such as Boards and an Upcoming View.
Todoist didn’t need a big rethinking, but what it did stand to benefit from was design enhancements and streamlining that makes everything quicker, easier to use, and more flexible, and that’s exactly what this release brings. If you haven’t tried Todoist in a while, Todoist Foundations is a compelling reason to give the task manager another try.
App Debuts
Dark Noise The beautifully designed ambient noise app, Dark Noise, was updated to version 1.2 this week. The release adds a few new sounds, including Cat Purring, Distant Thunder, and Spaceship Engine, and you can choose which of the app’s themes to use when your device is in light or dark mode. There are...
Arcade Highlights: Too Many to Cover
Earlier this week I published the first entry in our new Arcade Highlights series on MacStories, wherein I shared my thoughts on Card of Darkness, the Arcade title that’s occupied the majority of my play time over the last couple of weeks. The purpose behind Arcade Highlights is right there in the name: it’s...
Arcade Highlights: Card of Darkness
Do you like fantasy-themed games? How about Zach Gage’s work – Flipflop Solitaire, Really Bad Chess, Typeshift, SpellTower, etc.? Would a mobile game brought to life by the art of Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward be of interest to you? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then Card of Darkness should be one of the first games you download from Apple Arcade.
If you answered no to all three questions, you should probably play Card of Darkness anyways.
Card of Darkness is a roguelike game where each stage contains a grid of stacked cards, with each stack holding a random mix of monsters to defeat, weapons to equip, and potions and treasure to find. There are also magic spell scrolls that help you more easily navigate what can be a treacherous quest to get from the start of the grid to its end. You don’t have to clear every card stack to complete a level, but you do need to forge an open path to the finish line, and every stack you take even a single card from will need to be finished. As you clear each card stack, more stacks further into the grid will be revealed, slowly reducing the amount of cards that stand between you and the end of the grid.
Roku Devices Gaining Apple TV App Today→
Roku announced in a press release that the Apple TV app would be available on its streaming devices starting today:
For the first time ever, Roku users can add the Apple TV app via the Roku Channel Store to discover and watch movies, TV shows and more, including accessing their iTunes video library and subscribing to Apple TV channels directly on Roku devices. Starting November 1, Apple TV+, Apple’s home for all-original shows and movies from the world’s greatest storytellers, will be available on the Apple TV app on the Roku platform.
Like the TV app on Samsung smart TV sets, the Roku version of the app offers access to all iTunes movie and TV show content, as well as all Apple TV channels options, such as HBO, CBS All-Access, and soon Apple TV+. However, content from non-channels like Hulu or Amazon Prime Video, which are accessible on iOS and tvOS devices, will not be present on the Roku version of the TV app because it lacks third-party app integrations. Moving forward though, I expect that all of Apple’s new content partners with the TV app will be full-on channels rather than legacy app integrations.
Earlier this year Apple announced that the TV app would also be arriving on Amazon Fire TV devices and TV sets from more manufacturers, so as we get closer to the November 1 launch of Apple TV+, I expect we’ll see those other vendors all follow Roku’s lead.
OmniOutliner
Unlike quality text editors, which are easy to find on the App Store, great outlining apps are few and far between. Workflowy is a popular cross-platform solution that’s available on iOS, Mac, Windows, Android, and the web, but it’s more a list-making tool than an outline tool; on the surface, those two things aren’t...