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Apple Unveils Its Self Service Repair Program

In a press release, Apple announced that Self Service Repair is now available in the US, with more countries being added later this year, beginning in Europe.

According to Apple:

The new online store offers more than 200 individual parts and tools, enabling customers who are experienced with the complexities of repairing electronic devices to complete repairs on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 lineups and iPhone SE (3rd generation), such as the display, battery, and camera. Later this year the program will also include manuals, parts, and tools to perform repairs on Mac computers with Apple silicon.

Manuals for iPhone repairs.

Manuals for iPhone repairs.

Apple's Self Service Repair Store.

Apple’s Self Service Repair Store.

Manuals for repairs will be available at support.apple.com/self-service-repair. Parts for repairs can then be purchased at Apple’s Self Service Repair Store. Both the parts and the tools available in the Self Service Repair Store are the same ones used by Apple’s repair network, according to the company. Tool kits can be rented for one-week periods for $49 with free shipping too.

It’s good to see this program, which was announced last fall, launch. The products are limited for now, but more iPhones are sold than any other Apple product, so it makes sense to start with it and expand from there.

AppStories, Episode 271 – Apps with Great Shortcuts Support→

This week on AppStories, we share our favorite third-party apps with deep Shortcuts integration.

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On AppStories+, we conclude the episode with a bonus round of apps with great Shortcuts support.

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Last Week, on Club MacStories: A Shortcuts Workshop, an Email Utility, Giveaways, and a Shortcut for Bundling Other Shortcuts

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:

Automation April: Shortcuts Workshop Part 2

Last Tuesday, Federico and I were joined by Timery developer Joe Hribar for a special Automation April Shortcuts Workshop Town Hall in the Club MacStories+ Discord community to talk about magic and declared Shortcuts variables, action parameters and how Timery makes use of them, automation triggers, and our hope that Apple will allow third-party apps to act as shortcut triggers in the future.

Last week’s conversation was recorded and released in the Club Town Hall podcast feed.

MacStories Weekly: Issue 317

Triage 2

Triage 2

In Issue 317 of MacStories Weekly:

Up Next

Later this week, we’ll have more app giveaways in our Discord community and MacStories Weekly, we’ll publish the Monthly Log newsletter, and an all-new episode of MacStories Unplugged, our Club-only podcast will be released.

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Our thanks to Kolide for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Automating Podcast Sessions in Audio Hijack 4 with Shortcuts and Timery

Audio Hijack 4 and Timery.

Audio Hijack 4 and Timery.

For the past week, I’ve been rethinking my approach to time tracking with the Timery app with a focus on simplicity and automation. I appreciate the insights into my habits and patterns afforded by time tracking and Timery’s excellent Reports view, but lately I’ve felt like my setup with projects, tags, and sub-tasks was too convoluted since it was based on a structure I designed years ago.

My daily routine is different now – and it’ll continue to change in 2022 – and I wanted to get rid of the overhead caused by a time tracking system that was too granular. For time tracking to be effective, you need to remember to start a timer whenever you’re working on something; too much friction in the process – such as having to carefully pick from a list of similar projects – defeats the whole purpose of it. There’s also the opposite problem – forgetting to stop a long-running timer – which John explained and fixed in a separate story for Automation April.

So I went back to the drawing board of my Timery projects and reorganized everything with simplicity and ease of activation in mind. I cleaned up my saved timers and shortcut that activates those timers, which I can now trigger system-wide via Raycast on the Mac and the Shortcuts widgets on iPad. I split my work projects into three main areas – MacStories, Club, and podcasts – removed redundant sub-tasks, and grouped related activities under the same tags for more reliable filtering.

How I access my saved timers from the Home Screen.

How I access my saved timers from the Home Screen.

The approach worked well for MacStories and the Club, but podcast timers turned out to be a different beast. You see, when I sit down to record a show like Connected or AppStories, I need to take care of key tasks such as making sure my audio inputs are correct, checking out notes for the show’s outline and intro, and keeping an eye on the Connected audience in Relay’s Discord server. These tasks distract me from time tracking and, as a result, I often forget to start a timer for when I begin recording and, conversely, stop the timer when I’m done. I could automatically start a timer when a calendar event for a show is due in my calendar, but that also doesn’t work for me since it doesn’t account for the time before we actually record the show when I may be chatting privately with Myke and Stephen. Wouldn’t it be great if there was One True Way to automatically start tracking my real recording time when I start talking into the microphone for a show?

As it turns out, thanks to the latest update to Audio Hijack – the new version 4.0 that recently launched on macOS – there is. So for this week’s Automation April story, I’m sharing the custom system I created to trigger a single shortcut that starts time tracking in Timery based on the show I’m recording in that specific moment. Let’s take a look.

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Apple’s 2022 Environmental Progress Report and a Tour of Daisy, the iPhone Recycling Robot

Yesterday, Apple released its 2022 Environmental Progress Report, detailing the progress the company has made in how much of the materials in its products are recycled. According to Apple’s press release, nearly 20% of the material in its products are recycled, and it more than doubled the use of recycled tungsten, rare earth elements, and cobalt.

To celebrate Earth Day, which is Friday, April 22nd, Apple also announced tie-ins in its Maps and App Store apps, as part of its Fitness+ and Apple Pay services, and at retail stores. In addition, the company is featuring Earth Day editorial content in Apple News, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, and the Apple TV app, along with an interactive augmented reality experience on Snapchat to learn about Daisy, the company’s recycling robot.

Another way to learn about Daisy the robot is in this guided tour by Sara Dietschy, who was given access to Apple’s Texas Material Recovery Lab, where the robot can disassemble up to 1.2 million iPhones per year:

Having followed the Apple’s original robot Liam, and now Daisy, over the past several years, it was fascinating to get an up-close look at how Daisy works.

Automation April: Never Forget to Stop a Timery Time Tracking Timer Again

I’ve been using Timery to track my time using the Toggl time tracking service for several years now, and although I’ve gotten better at remembering to stop timers, I still forget sometimes. That’s why I built Stop Long Timer, a shortcut that periodically checks if you’ve had a timer running for a long time and volunteers to stop it. If you decline, Stop Long Timer offers to leave you alone for a while so you can wrap up whatever you’re doing.

Stopping a timer that’s been running for a certain period is the easy part. Timery has an action to check the duration of the current timer and another to stop a timer. What I wanted, though, is something more flexible because sometimes a timer has been running a long time because I’m deep in the middle of a project. In that case, I don’t want to stop the timer. In fact, I don’t want to be bugged again either. That part of Stop Long Timer is a little more complex and is a good example of how you can save data outside a shortcut to use as a reference point.

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AppStories, Episode 270 – Our Latest Automation April Shortcuts→

This week on AppStories, we dig into the collection of shortcuts that we’ve released during Automation April so far, including Federico’s Split View Presets and Cleanup Twitter Link and John’s Timestamped Notes and myTunes shortcuts.

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[Subscribe here.](https://appstories.net/plans)

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On AppStories+, Federico and John give listeners a behind-the-scenes look at judging the Automation April Shortcuts Contest, reflect on how much has changed as MacStories turns 13 and AppStories turns 5, and explain how they deal with app overload anxiety.

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.

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