Professional Email Marketing Built Just for Mac Users
This week on AppStories, we take an in-depth look at iOS and iPadOS 14.5, which was be the subject of Federico’s comprehensive review earlier this week.
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As announced by Spotify earlier today, the company is rolling out a redesigned ‘Your Library’ page in its iOS and Android apps that should make it easier to browse your music collection and podcast episodes with a new grid view, better filters and sorting options, and more. From the Spotify Newsroom:
Your collection of music and podcasts is a representation of you—and it’s something deeply personal. But with 5,000+ hours of content released globally every day on Spotify and hundreds of those saved in Your Library, we know it’s crucial to be able to quickly find what you’re looking for, jump back into your latest discovery, or rediscover a beloved track you saved years ago.
Starting today, we are rolling out a new version of Your Library to all Spotify mobile users. Now, you’ll have a more streamlined way to easily explore your collection and find your saved music and podcasts faster. Your Library’s updated design and added features will enable you to spend less time looking for content and organizing your collection, and more time rediscovering the music and podcasts you’ve loved over the years. And as always, keep adding even more content for a library that grows alongside you into the future.
I’m particularly intrigued by grid view and the new filters to switch between music and podcasts. I’m also curious to see if this new design applies to the iPad app (which continues to pale in comparison to Apple Music’s solid iPad client) or not.
Apple has just published its financial results for Q2 2021. The company posted revenue of $89.58 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook said:
“This quarter reflects both the enduring ways our products have helped our users meet this moment in their own lives, as well as the optimism consumers seem to feel about better days ahead for all of us,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple is in a period of sweeping innovation across our product lineup, and we’re keeping focus on how we can help our teams and the communities where we work emerge from this pandemic into a better world. That certainly begins with products like the all-new iMac and iPad Pro, but it extends to efforts like the 8 gigawatts of new clean energy we’ll help bring onto the grid and our $430 billion investment in the United States over the next 5 years.”
As reported by CNBC, Apple beat Wall Street expectations:
Apple reported a blowout quarter on Wednesday, announcing companywide sales up 54% higher than last year, and significantly stronger profits than Wall Street expected.
Apple stock rose over 4% in extended trading.
After the break, we’ve compiled a graphical visualization of Apple’s Q2 2021 financial results.
I’ve used 1Blocker to block ads from cluttered websites for years. No ad blocker is perfect. Some ads still get through, and blockers can sometimes interfere with the functionality of a website, but of all the ones I’ve tried, 1Blocker strikes the best balance. The app is also available on all of Apple’s platforms, making it easy to block intrusive ads but allow them on sites where they don’t wreck the reading experience.
1Blocker, which I have covered many times in the past on MacStories, was the first iOS app I know that bundled multiple sets of content blocking rules to offer more filters than the iOS would otherwise allow. The system also allows 1Blocker to filter more than just advertising, such as social media widgets, comments, and adult sites.
Today, 1Blocker has expanded its coverage even further with a feature called Firewall. If you’ve read Federico’s in-depth story about iOS and iPadOS 14.5, you’re familiar with App Tracking Transparency. That’s the OS feature that requires apps to request permission before tracking your activity across multiple apps and websites. Firewall takes that a step further by automatically blocking trackers and doing so even if the trackers are what are known as first-party trackers because they don’t correlate your data with data collected by other companies. It’s an extra layer of protection between you and data brokers.
Eve Systems has announced the availability of an update to its Eve Energy Smart Plug and Power Meter, which now supports HomeKit over Thread. Thread is the technology that began appearing in HomeKit devices late last year with the introduction of the HomePod mini. It’s a mesh networking system that allows devices to communicate with each other in your home without first communicating with a central hub or over the Internet. Thread-enabled devices also tend to be more responsive and use less power than devices that only use Bluetooth or rely on WiFi connections.
Because the new Eve Energy is a smart plug, it has a continuous source of power that allows it to act as a Thread router like the HomePod mini. That’s significant because the more edge routers you add to a Thread system, the more robust the mesh network becomes. However, there have been few devices other than the HomePod mini that could act in that capacity.
As a HomeKit device, the new Eve Energy plug can be controlled by Apple’s Home app or the Eve for HomeKit app. The device also reports the energy used by whatever it powers, giving users a way to assess the power consumption of their appliances and any power-hungry electronics.
I haven’t had a chance to try the new Eve Energy yet, but I hope to in the coming weeks. I’ve owned a couple of earlier-generation Eve Energy smart plugs, and both have worked better than other smart plugs I’ve tried in the past.
With the announcements over the past several months, it’s clear that Eve Systems is committed to building Thread into their products, which I’m glad to see. Thread support is still relatively rare to find in HomeKit devices, but the pace seems to be picking up. I’m eager to see how a larger, mixed Thread network of devices performs compared to older Bluetooth and WiFi-based ones.
The Eve Energy Smart Plug and Power Meter is available directly from Eve Systems today for $39.99 and will also be available from Apple and Amazon soon.
In the aftermath of the release of iOS and iPadOS 14.5 and other OS updates yesterday, Apple updated the Browse tab of the Music app with a collection of Apple Music playlists called ‘Chart-Toppers in Cities Around the World’ that are available on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS. The playlists collect the top 25 songs in 103 cities around the globe.
The new collections occupy a row just below the featured content at the top of Music’s Browse tab. To access all 103 playlists on iOS, tap ‘See All.’ The twelve playlists that I see in my US-based account are US cities presented in no discernible order. After that, cities are listed alphabetically.
Browsing through playlists, I’ve occasionally come across a grayed-out song that isn’t available in the US, but that’s been very rare. It’s been fun browsing through playlists to see what’s popular here in the Chicago area compared to other cities in the US and elsewhere. My music tastes aren’t very well aligned with the top 25 lists, but I’m glad the playlists have been added. The collections are a fascinating peek into pop culture worldwide and an easy way to listen to what’s popular with other Apple Music subscribers.
Beautifully animated video by Apple on App Tracking Transparency, which launched today alongside iOS 14.5.
See also: Joanna Stern’s interview for The Wall Street Journal with Apple’s Craig Federighi.
Apple today released version 14.5 of iOS and iPadOS, a substantial update to the operating system for iPhone and iPad that debuted in September and introduced features such as Home Screen widgets, multi-column app layouts on iPad, compact UI, a redesigned Music app, and more.
Version 14.5 is the biggest – or, at the very least, most interesting – update to iOS and iPadOS we’ve seen in the 14.0 release cycle to date. That’s not to say previous iterations of iOS and iPadOS 14 were low on new features and refinements – it’s quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps the pandemic and Apple’s work-from-home setup played a role in the company spreading new iOS functionalities across multiple releases throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021, but, regardless of the underlying reason, iOS and iPadOS 14 have evolved considerably since their public launch six months ago.
With iOS 14.2, Apple shipped the traditional “emoji update”, but was also able to include a redesigned AirPlay interface, face detection in AR, and a brand new Shazam integration in Control Center; with iOS 14.3, the company rolled out its new ProRAW photography API alongside support for the Fitness+ service, App Clip codes, and the ability to launch apps directly from Home Screen shortcuts; version 14.4, released earlier this year, saw the arrival of proximity-based music handoff for iPhone and HomePod mini alongside new options for Bluetooth settings and other performance improvements.
It’s difficult to tell whether some of these features were originally planned for a September release and got delayed because of the pandemic1, or how many of these are Apple’s response to user feedback following the release of iOS and iPadOS 14, but one thing’s for sure: Apple hasn’t stood still over the past few months, and today’s iOS and iPadOS 14.5 are continuing the trend of major iOS and iPadOS updates released ahead of WWDC.
Let’s dive in.
Apple announced today that it has increased its planned investment in the US over the next five years. The company had previously set a goal in 2018 of investing $350 billion but is now planning on spending $430 billion and adding 20,000 new jobs in the US, a 20% increase over the previous goal.
At the center of Apple’s revised plans is a new campus that it will build in the Research Triangle area of Raleigh-Durham, which will create at least 3,000 jobs. The company is also setting aside $100 million to support local schools and other community initiatives.
In addition to the North Carolina campus, Apple has committed to creating 20,000 new US-based jobs over the next five years. According to the company’s press release, those jobs will be located in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Texas, Washington, and Iowa. Apple’s plan to spend $430 billion in the US also includes increased spending with more than 9,000 manufacturers and suppliers in all 50 states. Finally, the company plans to continue its investment in clean energy initiates across the US, including a new solar storage facility in Monterey County, California.
