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Last.fm Turns 20 – and People Are Still Scrobbling→

I enjoyed this story about Last.fm’s 20th (!) anniversary by Jacob Kastrenakes, writing for The Verge:

I was a little surprised to see that Last.fm was still around when I first started writing this story, let alone that it had new communities flourishing around its data. (The company didn’t respond to a request for an interview.) But I suppose in a world where most services close off and hide your data, there’ll always be people looking for a way to track it and analyze it themselves. And in exchange, they get the joy of arguing about music stats every day — and not just once a year when Wrapped comes out.

My co-hosts on Connected like to make fun of me for being One of Those People Who Still Scrobbles, but I can honestly say it’s one of the best things I’ve done for my music consumption in the past few years. (That, plus having an offline library with albums I own that I can enjoy with my favorite headphones and amp – which I also scrobble via Roon.) Ever since I started scrobbling again last year thanks to Marvis Pro on iPhone and iPad (and NepTunes on the Mac), I’ve been able to enjoy some fascinating monthly and annual breakdowns of my music listening habits that go much more in depth than Apple Music or Spotify would ever want to.

An example of a monthly Last.fm report.

An example of a monthly Last.fm report.

In Internet years, it’s pretty wild for anything to turn 20 – let alone a service that faces competition from the likes of Apple and Spotify. And yet Last.fm has been able to carve a niche for itself by appealing to people like me, who want to know more about the music they listen to. Maybe it’s a weird thing to say in 2022, but if you listen to a lot of music every day, I can’t recommend dusting off your old Last.fm account enough.

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Masto-Redirect, a Mastodon Shortcut to Redirect Profiles and Posts to Your Own Instance

Using Masto-Redirect in Safari.

Using Masto-Redirect in Safari.

Like many others over the past month, I’ve been thinking deeply about my experience with Twitter and whether I want to align my social media usage with the kind of platform Twitter is rapidly becoming. It’s a complex discussion (if my readers are still on Twitter, am I doing them a disservice by not using Twitter?), but in the meantime, I’ve decided to learn more about Mastodon. And in doing so, I came across an aspect of the service that I wanted to improve with a shortcut.

I created an account on Mastodon.social all the way back in 2018, and you can find me as @viticci there as well. I don’t want to turn this post into a guide to Mastodon (you can find an excellent one here), but, long story short, Mastodon is a decentralized service that is based on a federated network of instances. Essentially, there isn’t a single “Mastodon website” like, say, twitter.com; instead, there can be multiple Mastodon instances across different domains (hence why it’s “decentralized”) but, thanks to an underlying API, you can follow and be followed by people regardless of the instance they’re on. I can be on Mastodon.social, and you can be on Journa.host or Mastodon.online (different instances of Mastodon), but we can still communicate with one another via the protocol Mastodon uses. It’s like living in different countries but speaking the same language. You can read more about this here.

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Apple to Offer a New Coding Lab for Kids Beginning Next Week

Next week, Apple is introducing a new Today at Apple session for kids who are interested in learning to code: Coding Lab for Kids: Code Your First App. Starting December 5th, the session will walk children 10 and up through building an app with Swift Playgrounds.

According to Apple’s press release:

During the lab, Apple Creative Pros will lead aspiring coders and their guardians in an interactive activity using iPad and Swift Playgrounds…. Working in the About Me playground, participants will use SwiftUI and a new, real-time app preview to customize and bring their app to life with fun fonts, background colors, Memoji, and more.

After its debut, Coding Lab for Kids: Code Your First App will become a regular part of the Today at Apple programming.

As a parent, I’m always glad to see sessions like this added to Today at Apple. The company offers a lot of interesting programs, but having helped my kids find resources to learn to code when they were younger was difficult. Introductory sessions like the one announced today and Apple’s other resources for parents and educators have come a long way in recent years and now enable a wide spectrum of kids who are interested in coding to find the materials to help them get started.

If you want to sign a kid up, you can look for a nearby Apple Store offering the session here.

Slow Burn Recognized as the Apple Podcasts’ Show of the Year

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple Podcasts has named Slow Burn Show of the Year for its season covering the history of the events leading up to the US Supreme Court’s decision in Row v. Wade. The four-part series was released in June, produced by Slate, and hosted by Slate’s executive editor, Susan Matthews.

Regarding the series, Matthews told Apple:

I wanted to make this series because I was really discouraged by how polarized and stuck the conversation around abortion was, and it seemed incredibly timely and important. We set out to tell this story in a way that helped expand and challenge what people understood about this subject. We decided the way to approach this season was to go back to the early ‘70s, when the abortion debate was still up in the air and your party affiliation didn’t correlate with your views on the issue. I am so honored that Apple Podcasts saw something special in this season. I hope people come to it with an open and curious mind, and appreciate listening to it as much as I did making it.

Today, Slate is releasing six Slow Burn Extras, which include a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show, new personal stories, and follow-up interviews. The extras are free to download and only available through Apple Podcasts. There’s also an interview with the team behind Slow Burn that’s available on the Apple Podcasts for Creators website.

To commemorate Slow Burn’s achievement, Apple’s created a physical award. The purple award resembles the Podcasts app icon and is made from 100% recycled aluminum with the winner’s name engraved on the back.

Apple Music Replay Expanded with New Highlights Reel

Apple Music’s Replay 2022 playlist has been available since early this year, updating every week as subscribers listen to the service throughout the year. However, today, Apple also updated the replay.music.apple.com, the website that highlights what you listened to over the past year.

Many of the statistics you’ll see as part of your latest Replay will be familiar, but there’s a new twist too. For the Replay 2022, Apple has added a Highlights Reel, which is a video of cards animating on and off-screen with highlights of the music you listened to in 2022. As the cards animate on and off your screen, the music that defined your year plays in the background. Replay’s highlights are only available on the web, and the Highlights Reel looks best on an iPhone, but it can be viewed in any web browser.

The Highlights Reel is a solid addition to this year’s Replay, although I would prefer to access it from inside the Music app. I’d also like to see Apple work on surfacing deeper insights into what I listened to over the course of the year. The top artists, albums, songs, and genres, along with minutes and other counts are excellent, but trends and recommendations of new areas to explore would be a great addition to future recaps.

To view your own Replay 2022 statistics and Highlights Reel, visit replay.music.apple.com.

Apple Announces the 2022 App Store Awards

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple has revealed its annual App Store Awards winners, recognizing the standout apps and games of 2022. This year, the company picked a collection of 16 apps and games from among the millions available on the App Store, naming them the Apps of the Year. The company’s App Store editorial team also recognized five apps and games that have had a cultural impact.

This year, the 16 winners from a wide range of categories:

“This year’s App Store Award winners reimagined our experiences with apps that delivered fresh, thoughtful, and genuine perspectives,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “From self-taught solo creators to international teams spanning the globe, these entrepreneurs are making a meaningful impact, and represent the ways in which apps and games influence our communities and lives.”

In a first, Apple has included App Store links to the winning apps and games, which I was glad to see. Another difference from last year’s awards is a new category: China Game of the Year, which was added without any explanation from Apple, although based on Apple’s developer site it appears that many of the other winners aren’t available in China, which may explain the new award.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

This year’s app winners are:

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple also recognized games on each of its platforms, plus a new China Game of the Year:

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The apps and games that the App Store editorial team recognized as having a cultural impact are:

Details about the winners are also available on Apple’s Developer site and through a dedicated App Store Today page story covering all of the winners and separate stories for each winning app and game.

To commemorate this year’s App of the Year winners, Apple’s designers created physical awards. The blue awards resemble the App Store’s icon and are made from 100% recycled aluminum with the winner’s name engraved on the back.

Congratulations to this year’s Apple Store Award winners. It’s always great to see developers’ hard work and contributions to Apple’s platforms recognized.

Last Week, on Club MacStories: The Twelve South HoverBar Tower, Photo Project Apps, and a MacStories Selects Town Hall

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:

MacStories Weekly: Issue 346

The Twelve South HoverBar Tower.

The Twelve South HoverBar Tower.

MacStories Selects Town Hall

  • On Tuesday, we held a special MacStories Selects Town Hall in the Club MacStories Discord community where we talked about preparations for MacStories Selects 2022, shared some of the things on which we’ve been working, and took questions from Club members.

Oceanic+ for the Apple Watch Ultra Arriving Today

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Oceanic+, the dive computer app for the Apple Watch Ultra that was previewed at Apple’s September press event will be available today. The app, developed by Huish Outdoors in collaboration with Apple, takes advantage of the Ultra’s depth gauge and water temperature sensors and can be used by divers at depths of up to 40 meters.

According to Apple’s press release:

Oceanic+ was designed to assist anyone looking to dip a toe into the adventures that await in the underwater world. The app teams up with Apple Watch Ultra to handle all of the complex calculations required to explore the ocean safely, offering simple, easy-to-understand cues and guidance before, during, and after a dive.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The collaboration between a third party and Apple on an app is unusual but makes sense given Huish’s diving expertise and Apple’s desire to jump-start development of Apple Watch Ultra apps. I’m not a diver, but judging by the screenshots, Oceanic+ is one of the most detailed Watch apps I’ve seen. The app has a pro feel and is free to download, but features like decompression tracking, tissue loading, the location planner, and unlimited logbook capacity cost $9.99 per month or $79.99 annually. There’s also a Family Sharing option for $129/year.

I’m curious whether a ‘pro’ Watch app market develops around the Apple Watch Ultra. It makes sense for specialized activities like diving, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we also see more advanced health and fitness apps emerge in other categories that take advantage of the Ultra’s unique set of features and sensors.

Kolide: The Fleet Visibility Solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux That Can Help You Securely Scale Your Business [Sponsor]

Device security is a lot like Mount Everest: it’s tough to scale.

When you’re a small company dominated by engineers, you can keep up with fleet management with nothing more than trust and a spreadsheet. But once you start to hire marketers, designers, and the rest, the number of laptops balloons and the line between “work” and “personal” devices gets fuzzy. 

But fuzzy isn’t going to cut it. You have to prove you’ve got device security under control to close deals with customers, pass a third-party audit, and prove you’re ready for acquisition or an IPO. 

At this point, you start looking for a tool that will give you visibility across all these devices. And you have two options. 

Option one is an MDM, which acts as the puppet master for your whole fleet, forcing compliance through intrusive agents. But for all an MDM’s power, it still can’t answer your most nuanced questions. And when it comes to Linux devices? Good luck with that.

Your other option is Kolide. 

Kolide is an endpoint security solution that gives IT teams a single dashboard for all devices, regardless of their operating system.

Kolide can answer questions MDMs can’t. Questions like:

  • Do you have production data being stored on devices?
  • Are all your developers’ SSH keys encrypted?
  • And a host of other data points you’d otherwise have to write a custom shell script to learn about.

Want to see how it works for yourself? Click here for a free trial, no credit card required, and let us show you what we’re all about.

Our thanks to Kolide for sponsoring MacStories this week.