New Year, New Audio Setup: SoundSource 6 from Rogue Amoeba
Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings along with a look at what’s coming up next:
This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico has another surprise for me, and I’ve been playing Rollerdrome.
Federico’s Pick:
John’s Pick:
Templates are a great way to speed up your workflow and maintain a consistent design language and branding across everything you create. With Pixelmator Pro 3.0,, you now have over 200 professionally-designed templates for creating a wide range of documents and mockups. I’ve been playing around with the new templates for a few days, and they have a lot of potential.
When you start a new Pixelmator Pro document, you’re presented with the app’s catalog of templates, which is broken down into several categories for creating social media, print, video, and mockup assets. There’s also a Brand Templates category that cuts across different template types, collecting templates by their branding style. There’s a lot here to browse, but like any app that offers templates, I quickly gravitated to a couple of looks that I particularly liked. You can also define your own templates using the app’s system for creating placeholders for various image elements.
Once you open a new template-based document, tweaking it is easy. The options for each template vary depending on its design, but browsing through the layer navigator in the left sidebar, you’ll find controls to change things like lighting effects, placeholder images, colors, and more. The Pixelmator team says that for actions like replacing placeholder images, Pixelmator Pro uses the app’s machine learning engine to remove backgrounds, resize images, change their resolution, and place them properly in any frame.
Pixelmator Pro 3.0 also introduces the concept of Document Colors, which are sets of colors that can be applied to a template. Each template comes with a few starter palettes to choose from, and you can create your own too. Click on a set of colors, and your template will be updated with the new color scheme all at once.
Overall, I like the new Pixelmator Pro templates a lot. It’s simple to get started and easy to adjust your creation. I also appreciate the wide variety of formats available for social media and other types of documents.
The iPhone, iPad, and MacBook mockups have potential too, but I found the lack of adjustments available for the device frames and backgrounds limiting, A bigger library of mockup styles would help, but more controls to manipulate device frames and backgrounds would be ideal.
Still, I like the direction Pixelmator Pro is heading with its templates. They’re easier to use than the systems used in other apps and should meet the needs of a lot of users.
Pixelmator Pro 3.0 is available on the App Store as a free update to existing customers.
This week on AppStories, we cover some of our favorite new apps and updates that feature iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets.
Sponsored by:
On AppStories+, I got a new microphone, and both Federico and I contemplate our evolving work setups.
We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.
To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.
Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings along with a look at what’s coming up next:
This week on MacStories Unwind, John tours his favorite ways to learn about and track videogames, including podcasts and websites, where to buy old games, and apps to track everything.
This week on AppStories, we dig into Federico’s iOS 16 review, discussing the all-new Lock Screen, wallpaper creation, Focus modes and filters, App Shortcuts, and some of the smaller changes you might have missed.
Sponsored by:
On AppStories+, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this year’s iOS 16 review.
We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.
To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.
The reviews for the new iPhones are out, and I’m not surprised that the greatest buzz is around the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. It’s worth digging into each of these reviews to get each author’s full take on the new iPhones, but here are a handful of observations that I thought were particularly interesting.
Nilay Patel, writing for The Verge explains how the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s Dynamic Island works:
Apple’s built a new dynamic subpixel antialiasing system that makes the edges of the island up to three times crisper than all the other animations in iOS, which antialias at the pixel level. In normal room lighting, this really works: it feels like the cutout on the display is getting bigger and smaller, and the animations are really fun. (In sunlight or brighter light, you can see the camera sensors, and the illusion goes away, but it’s still cool.)
Patel is also intrigued by the new ideas Apple is experimenting with in the iPhone 14 Pro:
The iPhone 14 Pro, on the other hand, is the clear beginning of lots of new ideas, like the Dynamic Island, the new camera, and that satellite connectivity system. Because these ideas are new, they’re inherently incomplete. But they’re worth criticizing, which is its own kind of victory and a sign that Apple isn’t holding still with the future of the iPhone. I think we could all stand to think more deeply about how our smartphones work, and things like the Dynamic Island are evidence that Apple is still thinking deeply about parts of the iPhone experience.
Allison Johnson wrote a review of the iPhone 14 for The Verge and concluded that its appeal is going to be limited if you have a more recent model iPhone:
Most people should consider other options, but there is an argument for the iPhone 14 if you meet a narrow set of criteria: you’re on an iPhone 12 or older, you really want the satellite SOS feature, you prefer a 6.1-inch screen size (it is, after all, the right one), you want the best camera quality at this price point, you just need a new phone right now, and your carrier is offering a sweet trade-in deal. For this particular set of circumstances, the iPhone 14 will suit you just fine. Otherwise, it’s well worth taking a look at your other options.
Joanna Stern’s story for The Wall Street Journal explains that Apple is doing more than just offering better cameras to entice consumers to move up to the Pro models this year:
The Pro upgrade used to be about the third camera with the telephoto lens. That still matters, but now so does the new multitasking capabilities and a screen you don’t have to keep tapping.
Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings along with a look at what’s coming up next:
After last week’s Apple event, we held a special live Club MacStories+ Town Hall in the Club MacStories+ Discord community. Federico, Alex, and I covered the iPhones, Apple Watches, and the new AirPods Pro announced by Apple last week.
If you missed the live event, the audio of the Town Hall is available as a podcast from the Club podcasts page.
Every year when Federico publishes his iOS review, we share special perks with Club MacStories members. This year is no different. Here’s what’s already available and what is coming later this week with a special Saturday edition of MacStories Weekly:
Available now:
Available this Saturday:
Learn more, and join Club MacStories at plus.club.
](https://cdn.macstories.net/banneras-1629219199428.png)
