This week on AppStories, Federico and John revisit their 2021 Shortcuts wishes to see what came true and share a long list of additional ways they’d like to see the app evolve in 2022.
On AppStories+, John makes the case for a shelf for Universal Control and Federico explains how to update the firmware of an Xbox controller to take advantage of the latest macOS controller features.
Because Club MacStories now encompasses more than just newsletters, we’ve created a guide to the past week’s happenings along with a look ahead to what’s next:
about App Store In-App Events to see how they’re being used and what developers’ experience with them has been.
On Wednesday, February 16th, at 11:00 am Eastern US time, Federico, Alex, and I will be joined by Club members to discuss the Matrix movie series during a live audio Town Hall in our Discord community for Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members as part of the community’s A.V. Club channel.
If you’ve ever been frustrated by text you come across that you can’t copy, you need TextSniper, the premier Mac utility for copying the uncopyable.
Whether you’re working with photos, screenshots, apps, videos, or materials from webinars or online meetings that include uncopyable text, TextSniper has you covered. The app is the fastest and easiest way to extract that text no matter where you come across it.
TextSniper runs in the background and can be summoned with a single keystroke, so you can select the area of your display from which you want to extract text. A friendly thumbs-up lets you know that the text has been copied and placed on your Mac’s clipboard, ready for pasting elsewhere. You can use an iPhone or iPad to capture text directly to your Mac too.
The app is fast, accurate, includes customizable keyboard shortcuts, and works with multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Chinese. TexSniper also works with QR codes and barcodes, simplifying the process of accessing URLs, text, and numbers embedded in them. It can even read onscreen text aloud, a big plus for people who are visually impaired, have dyslexia, or prefer listening to reading.
Of course, TextSniper is privacy-focused too. The app doesn’t collect, store, or share any user data. Text recognition happens locally on your Mac and doesn’t require an Internet connection.
If you work with text – and who doesn’t really? – you owe it to yourself to download TextSniper today. The app requires macOS Catalina or later and is fully compatible with Apple silicon Macs.
Also, for a limited time, MacStories readers can purchase TextSniper for 25% off by using the code MACSTORIES at checkout. So, take advantage of this great deal today and start copying the uncopyable with TextSniper.
Our thanks to TextSniper for sponsoring MacStories this week.
MacStories Weekly: Issue 307
This week, John recommends the Video Game History Hour, a podcast from the Video Game History Foundation, and Federico takes us along on his videogame emulation journey from handeld Windows PCs to the Apple’s M1 Max MacBook Pro.
John’s Pick:
Federico’s Pick:
Apple has released a statement about its efforts to prevent unwanted tracking using AirTags. The company’s statement outlines its cooperation with law enforcement to apprehend people who have misused AirTags and details the steps it is taking to improve AirTags and the Find My network, including:
It’s good to see Apple open up about the steps it’s taking to address the misuse of AirTags. As I said last month:
This is also a topic where some added transparency about what Apple is doing to address concerns about stalking would help observers decide whether it’s enough instead of having only anecdotal news reports to go on.
Today’s statement is exactly the sort of increased transparency I was hoping we’d see from Apple. I’ll leave it to people with expertise in personal safety to comment on whether these steps go far enough. I’m just glad that those experts’ opinions can now be based on facts instead of speculation.
This week on AppStories, we conclude our tour of new apps we are trying for the first time or revisiting.
On AppStories+, we highlight our favorite changes coming to iOS and iPadOS 15.4 and macOS 12.3, including Face ID With a Mask, Universal Control, and Shortcuts refinements.
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.
Over three years ago, Tweetbot removed the app’s stats view as a result of Twitter API changes. Today, that view is back in Tweetbot 7 for the iPhone and iPad, thanks to the social media company’s increased willingness to open its platform to third-party developers like Tapbots.
The view includes a graph at the top, followed by statistics detailing your timeline activity for the last week, including Likes, Replies, Tweets, Retweets, Quotes, and Follows. You can swipe across the graph to see each category by day or tap the categories under the graph to jump straight to that view.
Tweetbot 7 also includes new dark themes called hej and bumblebee. Hej features a slate blue background with yellow highlights, while bumblebee has a near-black background with brighter yellow accents.
The pace of Tweetbot updates has picked up significantly in recent months, which is fantastic. I missed the app’s stats view, so it’s nice to see its return. However, with each new feature and refinement to Tweetbot’s iOS and iPadOS apps, the Mac app looks more and more dated. The two versions are badly out of sync in terms of features too. As someone who spends a lot of time on the Mac, that’s disappointing and something that I hope will change soon.
Tweetbot 7 is available as a free update on the App Store for the iPhone and iPad. However, some of the app’s features require a subscription.
Today, Apple announced Tap to Pay, a new contactless payment option coming later this year for the iPhone XS and later.
According to Apple’s press release:
Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available for payment platforms and app developers to integrate into their iOS apps and offer as a payment option to their business customers. Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to their business customers, including the Shopify Point of Sale app this spring. Additional payment platforms and apps will follow later this year.
The new payment system leverages NFC and the iPhone’s existing privacy-oriented Secure Element, which is part of Apple Pay existing technology infrastructure.
Apple’s press release explains how Tap to Pay will work from users’ perspective:
At checkout, the merchant will simply prompt the customer to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch to pay with Apple Pay, their contactless credit or debit card, or other digital wallet near the merchant’s iPhone, and the payment will be securely completed using NFC technology. No additional hardware is needed to accept contactless payments through Tap to Pay on iPhone, so businesses can accept payments from wherever they do business.
Although Tap to Pay won’t require new hardware, it will need to be incorporated into participating apps. Apple says developers can expect a Tap to Pay SDK in an upcoming iOS beta.
It’s good to see that Tap to Pay will work with a broad array of credit cards, debit cards, Stripe, and other payment processors. However, it’s disappointing that Tap to Pay will be US-only at launch, although it’s not surprising either. I use my iPhone for payments a lot, so I’m glad to see the addition of Tap to Pay, which will make that possible in even more circumstances.
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