iPhone Gaming with the Razer Kishi V2 and Backbone One

Razer Kishi V2.

Razer Kishi V2.

When I look at the innovation happening in handheld gaming at all levels with devices like the Analogue Pocket and Steam Deck, I can’t help but wonder, “What if Apple really jumped into the videogame market and put the power of its hardware and software design teams behind devices that could play everything from Candy Crush Saga to Elden Ring?” Apple hasn’t, and I don’t expect it will, but every time I use my iPhone, I look at its gorgeous ProMotion OLED display and want to use it for more than the gaming experiences that the App Store offers.

That said, there is still gaming fun to be had on the iPhone. For me, that occasionally takes the form of an Apple Arcade game like the excellent Shovel Knight Dig that was released on the service last week, and I’ll cover this week on MacStories Unwind. Other times, it’s an indie platformer like the Dadish series or a classic Nintendo handheld game via Delta. With a fast enough WiFi connection, I’ve even found myself streaming games from my Xbox Series X, Microsoft Game Pass, and PlayStation 5. It’s not everything I think gaming could be on the iPhone, but it’s not bad either.

Despite Apple’s perplexing relationship with videogames, the last few years have seen the company expand controller support, which has gradually led to an increase in support among developers. That, in turn, has prompted me to try a lot of different controllers and conclude that with the iPhone, nothing beats an integrated Nintendo Switch-style controller solution.

Read more

AppStories, Episode 297 – Lock Screen Widgets, Focus Filters, Shared with You Apps→

This week on AppStories, we tour third-party apps with new iOS 16 features, including more apps with Lock Screen widgets and apps with support for Focus Filters and Shared with You.

Sponsored by:

  • Rogue Amoeba: Save 20% in celebration of the 20th anniversary.
  • Pillow – Sleeping better, made simple.
[Subscribe here.](https://appstories.net/plans)

Subscribe here.

On AppStories+, I have thoughts on Lock Screen widgets and the Always-On display. Plus, we revisit Apple’s place in gaming from the perspective of the growing handheld gaming market.

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.

Permalink

More iPad Models Will Get Stage Manager, but External Display Support Is Delayed and Will Be M1 iPad-Only→

Earlier today, Apple released iPadOS 16.1, developer beta 3, which adds Stage Manager support for 2018 and 2020 12.9” iPad Pros as well as the 11” iPad Pro. However, external display support will remain an M1 iPad-only feature that will be released in a future iPadOS update later this year.

In a statement to Engadget reported by N. Ingraham, Apple said:

We introduced Stage Manager as a whole new way to multitask with overlapping, resizable windows on both the iPad display and a separate external display, with the ability to run up to eight live apps on screen at once. Delivering this multi-display support is only possible with the full power of M1-based iPads. Customers with iPad Pro 3rd and 4th generation have expressed strong interest in being able to experience Stage Manager on their iPads. In response, our teams have worked hard to find a way to deliver a single-screen version for these systems, with support for up to four live apps on the iPad screen at once.

External display support for Stage Manager on M1 iPads will be available in a software update later this year.

In preliminary testing of the update, our Federico Viticci says that the latest beta also clears up many of the bugs users have experienced:

It’s excellent to hear that Apple is expanding the availability of Stage Manager based on the feedback from iPad users. I’m also glad to hear that iPadOS has stabilized. I’ve been using my iPad Pro more often lately and, like many others, have run into frequent crashes and visual glitches in the iPadOS 16.1 betas. It shouldn’t be too much longer before iPadOS 16.1 is released publicly.

Permalink

Last Week, on Club MacStories: iPad App Management and Customizing Your iPhone and Apple Watch Using Focus Modes

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 337

Kosmik: For All Mindkind [Sponsor]

Kosmik is a dashboard for your creativity. Built for designers, researchers, and writers, Kosmik’s infinite canvas for the iPad and Mac lets you bring together notes, your writing, images, websites, PDFs, and more on a single canvas called a Universe, so you can stop switching between apps and focus on what you’re creating.

Everything in a Kosmik Universe is a card, and cards from one canvas can be incorporated into another, making the first canvas app with the sort of transclusion found in note-taking apps like Roam Research and Obsidian. It’s a powerful yet simple architecture that reduces friction, so you can focus on your work.

The flexibility of Kosmik’s canvas means you can take notes, browse the web, collect PDFs, images and other resources, and write all in one place. That encourages spatial thinking, making new connections and links between materials, and reduces distractions all at once in a single easy-to-use interface.

Kosmik is a completely native, peer-to-peer solution that syncs your data between devices with no central server. Everything is encrypted end-to-end too.

You can publish your Kosmik canvases and cards to the web for sharing with colleagues, with even more collaboration features coming later this year. Kosmik is available on the web now, too, making it accessible in more places and to more users than ever before.

If you’re looking for a new way to organize your thoughts, writing, and, really, anything else, sign up for Kosmik today. MacStories readers can enjoy a free year of access just by following this link. From ideation to production, Kosmik lets you think better and more freely to uncover insights and have some fun too!

Kosmik is available to download on the App Store and also offers great resources for new users like its Substack newsletter and Discord community.

Our thanks to Kosmik for sponsoring MacStories this week.

iOS 16.0.2 Fixes iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max Camera Shake, Pasting Alerts, and More→

As reported by MacRumors’ Juli Clover, Apple released iOS 16.0.2 today to fix unspecified security issues along with several bugs. Among the bugs fixed are two that have been making headlines recently. One caused the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max’s cameras to shake when using some third-party camera apps, while the other displayed frequent alerts asking for permission to allow pasting from one app to another.

The full release notes are as follows:

  • This update provides bug fixes and important security updates for your iPhone including the following:
  • Camera may vibrate and cause blurry photos when shooting with some third-party apps on iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max
  • Display may appear completely black during device setup
  • Copy and paste between apps may cause a permission prompt to appear more than expected
  • VoiceOver may be unavailable after rebooting
  • Addresses an issue where touch input was unresponsive on some iPhone X, iPhone XR, and iPhone 11 displays after being serviced

Although Apple characterized the frequent alerts about pasting between apps as a bug, I have to wonder whether it was actually the intended behavior. It’s not as though nobody was talking about the issue throughout the beta period. In any event, it’s good to see all of these bugs being addressed so soon after the release of the phones.

Permalink

Pixelmator Pro 3.0 Adds Templates

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.

Templates are organized by type and branding style.

Templates are organized by type and branding style.

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.

Replacing a placeholder image is easy.

Replacing a placeholder image is easy.

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.

Examples of Pixelmator Pro's Document Colors.

Examples of Pixelmator Pro’s Document Colors.

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.

Device mockups are limited but look good.

Device mockups are limited but look good.

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.