MacStories Weekly: Issue 375
MacStories Unwind: What’s the Deal with Fireworks?
This week on MacStories Unwind, I explain America’s birthday to Federico and we veer into man-made lakes and nuclear power plants before recommending some of the many iPhone chargers we’ve been trying lately.
The Fourth of July
- Where to Watch the Chicago Fourth of July Fireworks 2023
- Fireworks regulations in the US
- McGuire Nuclear Station sirens sounded accidentally. No emergency at plant.
iOS 17-Compatible MagSafe Chargers and Battery Packs
- Federico’s Picks:
- John’s Picks:
- Belkin BoostCharge Pro
- Belkin MagSafe Wireless Charger Pad
- UGREEN Magnetic Battery 10,000mAh Battery Pack with Foldable Kickstand PD 20W 3 Ports Wireless Portable Power Bank Compatible with MagSafe
- HiRise 3: Twelve South’s Space-Saving, Three-in-One Charging Solution
- Belkin iPhone MagSafe Continuity Camera Mount
MacStories Unwind+
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Chronicling: A Flexible Event Tracker with Modern Features and A Top-Notch Design
Chronicling is a brand-new event tracking app for iOS and iPadOS by Rebecca Owen. The App Store is full of apps for tracking everything from the very specific, like caffeine consumption, to apps like Chronicling that can be used to track nearly anything. What makes Owen’s app unique, though, is it’s one of the best examples of modern SwiftUI design that I’ve seen that incorporates the still relatively new Swift Charts and other recent Apple technologies to deliver a great user experience.
Trackers like Chronicling are the perfect fit for the iPhone. Most people have the device with them all the time, which makes it perfect for collecting data frequently, but it’s what you do with that data that matters the most. Maybe you’re trying to learn a new language and want to track how often you practice to hold yourself accountable. Or maybe your knee has been bothering you, and you want to keep track of when it flares up to see if it corresponds to an activity in your life. The point is, whether you’re trying to form a new habit or find patterns in things that happen throughout your day, part of the process is gathering the data. The other half of the equation is breaking the data down in a meaningful way. Chronicling does both well.
Users Join Threads in Droves
Last night, by the time I called it quits and went to bed Threads, Meta’s new social network, had hit 2 million users in 2 hours. As I write this, Meta’s Adam Mosseri says the count has now surpassed 10 million in 7 hours, which exceeds Mastodon’s user base.
Currently, Threads is a pretty barebones 1.0 experience that was undoubtedly released this week to capitalize on Twitter’s latest troubles. The app is also buggy. I’ve seen posts fail to load, glitchy interactions, and other bugs, but despite the load, the new service has held up under the influx of users, which is impressive, although not entirely surprising given Meta’s scale.
TV Forecast 2.0 Adds Movie Tracking
The App Store is full of apps for tracking the media you enjoy, and at least for TV shows and movies, many use Trakt.tv as a data source and tracking service and Just Watch to list where you can watch something. That results in a degree of sameness in the category. What’s harder to find on the App Store is a well-designed TV show and movie tracker. There’s a lot of data available about what we watch, and as a result, too many apps wind up with cluttered, confusing interfaces. TV Forecast 2.0 by Matt Comi isn’t like that, which is why it’s been one of my favorite TV trackers for a long time, and with an update today, it’s one of my favorite movie trackers too.
I reviewed TV Forecast in 2020, and what I said about the app is just as true today as it was then:
When I stopped to consider what it is about TV Forecast that has made it stick for me in a way that no other TV tracking app has, I keep coming back to its balanced design. It has a simple elegance that makes tracking shows feel effortless and natural. For supporting an activity that I use as a relaxing escape, that’s exactly the type of app I value. When all I want to do is quickly check off a few episodes or add a show that a friend recommends, I can. Just as easily, though, I can wander from one linked show to another discovering new ones along the way. It’s that balance between utility and exploration that makes TV Forecast my favorite TV tracker.
For more on TV Forecast’s overall design and functionality for TV shows, be sure to check out my 2020 review.
Threader, a Shortcut to Open Threads Profiles from Mastodon and Twitter Directly in the Threads App
Instagram just rolled out Threads, the company’s new text-based social network that’s been advertised over the past few weeks as an alternative to Twitter. I’m trying out Threads (you can find my account at threads.net/@viticci) and in the process of setting up the list of people I want to follow, I immediately run into an annoying issue that I fixed with a shortcut.
AppStories, Episode 341 – Do Wishes Come True? (Part 2)→
This week on AppStories, we conclude our look back at our pre-WWDC OS wishes for iOS 17, watchOS 10, and tvOS 17 and look at which came true.
Sponsored by:
- Notion – Do your most efficient work with Notion Projects. Try it free today.
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On AppStories+, I report on my early experiments with macOS Sonoma desktop widgets, while Federico follows up on his attempt to create a portable HomePod mini.
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Snazzy Labs on the Trouble with Mac Gaming→
Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs has an excellent video about the trouble with gaming on the Mac. The video’s title says it all: “Macs Can Game. But Apple Can’t.” As Nelson explains, it’s not the hardware or the software that’s holding the platform back. It’s the size of the Mac market and the lack of any apparent strategy to attract more than a few big-name game studios to the Mac.
Nelson’s critique is spot-on. More than ever, Apple seems to be interested in and care about gaming on the Mac. That’s gotten a lot of people’s hopes up, including mine, but the company needs to start spending money to get AAA games as exclusives on the platform if it ever wants to compete with the PC gaming market. Apple spent the money to go from Planet of the Apps to Ted Lasso, and it’s going to have to do the same with videogames if it wants to attract the industry’s biggest names and titles.
Concepts: An Infinite Sketching App for iPad [Sponsor]
Sketch, explore and share endless ideas with Concepts’ infinite canvas for iPad. Used by creators for visual thinking, note taking, team communication and design, Concepts goes beyond a digital sketchbook.
Since everything you draw is a flexible vector-raster hybrid, you can move your ideas around like a visual playground to help you see the bigger picture. Organize notes, images and PDFs into visual moodboards and sketch your ideas on top. Use precision grids and guides to help you lay out designs, and apply real-world scale and measurements for professional projects.
With Concepts, you can whiteboard virtually with teams and clients using apps like Zoom. A built-in Presentation Mode helps you connect with others for live sharing and graphic discussion.
The app comes free as a basic sketching tool, with the ability to unlock 200+ libraries of brushes, objects and services via subscription or one-time purchase. To learn more about Concepts, visit their website.
MacStories readers – Enjoy a special 3 month extended free trial when you sign up for an annual subscription. Get three months of infinite creativity before you are billed.
Our thanks to Concepts for sponsoring MacStories this week.