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Matt Birchler’s watchOS 7 Wish List→

Matt Birchler has made a tradition of publishing a watchOS wish list every year at BirchTree that is accompanied by concept art, showing how his ideas might be implemented. This year for watchOS 7, Birchler has a long list of excellent ideas that focus on virtually every aspect of the OS, including fitness tracking, communications, and battery life.

Like Birchler, I’d love to see more flexibility built into the Activity app. For example, he expects more ring options in watchOS 7:

I think this year not only will Apple let you customize these rings more than before, but they’ll also add more rings. Want to add sleep or mindfulness: go right ahead.

As he suggests, the ability to set custom metrics for each ring and edit workouts in the Activity app on the iPhone would be fantastic additions as well.

It’s also a little hard to believe that autocomplete hasn’t been added to the scribble keyboard on the Apple Watch. Perhaps that’s a technical limitation, but like Birchler, I think it would go a long way to making text input more tolerable on the Watch.

Those are just a couple of my favorite ideas from Birchler’s story this year. Be sure to check out the full post. There are some terrific ideas here, and the concept art looks wonderful as always.

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Book Track Review: A Modern, iOS-Friendly Library Manager

The App Store contains millions of apps, yet for some app categories there can be a real scarcity of quality options. Book tracking, for example, features a few solid choices that are still actively developed, but largely this category receives less developer attention than I’d hope. One new option that debuted recently is Book Track, an app designed to provide key library management features in a clean and simple interface. When it comes to utilities like book trackers, I prefer that apps keep complication to a minimum while still providing the key functionality I need. Book Track, with a few exceptions, largely succeeds at that.

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Jason Snell’s 2019 Apple Report Card→

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple.

This is the fifth year that I’ve presented this survey to a hand-selected group. They were prompted with 12 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5 and optionally provide text commentary per category.

It’s always a pleasure to share my thoughts about Apple’s past year in Snell’s annual report. Not only is it a great read – at this point, it’s also a fantastic historical resource collecting years of commentary about Apple.

You can read Snell’s complete report card here. For context, I’ve included my full responses to Snell’s questionnaire below.

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Overcast Refines Podcast Listening with AirPlay 2 Support and a New Version of Voice Boost

Overcast, Marco Arment’s iOS podcast player, received its first update of 2020 today, which enhances the listening experience with improvements focused on playback and audio quality.

Today’s update adds support for AirPlay 2, which means much faster switching between devices like an iPhone or iPad and a HomePod or another AirPlay 2 speaker or device. AirPlay 2 also buffers more audio than Apple’s original AirPlay technology. As a result, Overcast can continue playing a podcast episode even if you are temporarily out of range of the AirPlay 2 receiver.

I’m delighted that Overcast supports AirPlay 2 now. I often listen to podcasts as I’m doing things around my house. When I move to a room with one of my HomePods, the process of switching to the HomePod from my iPhone’s built-in speaker is much faster and smoother now, whether I use Control Center or tap my phone on the top of the HomePod. The delay with the original version of AirPlay wasn’t a deal-breaker, but it was a constant small annoyance that kept me from using AirPlay with Overcast most of the time. With AirPlay 2 baked into the app, I’m using my HomePods to listen to podcasts far more than ever before.

There's a lot going on under the hood with Voice Boost 2, but you don't need to understand the details to enjoy it.

There’s a lot going on under the hood with Voice Boost 2, but you don’t need to understand the details to enjoy it.

The latest version of Overcast also adds Voice Boost 2. The feature has been rebuilt from the ground up, and the results are subtle but noticeable. The first time I played a podcast using Voice Boost 2 over my iPhone’s speaker in a noisy environment, I immediately sensed the difference. Where in the past, I would have to turn the volume up all the way to hear a podcast over constant, loud background noise like running water, now I can turn the volume down and still listen to what was said and with less distortion.

Over the weeks I’ve been testing the update to Overcast, Voice Boost 2’s volume and clarity improvements have become the ‘new normal,’ making the difference feel less pronounced than they were at first. However, that’s also why the update to the feature is so good. The change is so natural that you don’t notice it except side-by-side with the old version of the feature or another podcast player.

Under the hood, Voice Boost 2 has been entirely re-written and draws on Arment’s experience editing hundreds of podcast episodes. As he describes it in a post on Marco.org:

Voice Boost 2 is a mastering-quality audio-processing pipeline that applies broadcast-standard loudness normalization, light compression and EQ, and a true-peak lookahead limiter to your podcasts, in real time, without sacrificing quality or battery life.

You don’t need to understand what that means to appreciate Voice Boost 2, but Overcast is applying sophisticated, professional-grade audio processing techniques on the fly to generate audio that sounds more natural and is less jarring in contrast to system audio like Siri. Moreover, Overcast accomplishes this while using hardly any CPU resources (1% on an iPhone SE according to Arment), which means you get the benefits of Voice Boost 2 without paying a high price in battery drain. Voice Boost 2 is a remarkable technical accomplishment with practical, real-world benefits that make listening to podcasts more enjoyable.

According to Arment, Smart Speed has been updated to handle background noise better, too. The feature works the same way as it always has, but now it relies on dynamically changing based on Voice Boost’s loudness analysis. I haven’t noticed a difference here, but shows I listen to regularly don’t have a lot of background noise.

Overcast has added the ability to skip a show's intro and outro from its settings.

Overcast has added the ability to skip a show’s intro and outro from its settings.

Overcast also includes a couple of other smaller features in this release too. First, you can set a number of seconds to skip at the beginning and end of an episode on a per-podcast basis, which allows you to skip a show’s intro and outro. The period can be set in five-second increments and is a nice addition for shows with long intros and outros that you’ve heard over and over and would prefer to skip, though it’s not a feature I expect to use personally.

Second, clip sharing and starring episodes are now available for private podcast feeds. I haven’t tried this feature because I don’t subscribe to any private feeds, but it’s good to see those features added to private feeds too.

The most significant changes to Overcast in this update are completely invisible to the user but have a considerable impact on how podcasts are enjoyed. With Voice Boost 2 and AirPlay 2 support, Overcast makes your favorite shows sound better, and they are easier to enjoy on more devices, which is a significant improvement for anyone who listens to podcasts in a lot of different environments and contexts.

Overcast 2020.1 is available on the App Store as a free update.

Spelltower+ Review: New Modes and More Resurrect the Classic Word Game

Word game addicts, say goodbye to your family, friends, and productivity: Spelltower is back and better than ever. The newly launched Spelltower+ from Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger takes the original game, modernizes it for the latest iPhone and iPad screen sizes, adds lots of new game modes, and packs several other key feature enhancements. Whether you’re a longtime Spelltower fan, or the game missed your radar entirely in its glory days, Spelltower+ deserves your attention.

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The Omni Group Shares 2020 Roadmap→

As per tradition, The Omni Group has shared its product roadmap for the year ahead. Though these plans are always subject to change, especially pending new OS updates Apple will announce this June, the roadmap still gives a solid idea of where apps like OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, and more are heading.

Included on the roadmap is the launch of OmniPlan 4, expansion of OmniFocus for the Web features, simplifying licensing so you can authenticate your purchases with a sign-in rather than using activation codes, and automation improvements. Check out the full list of planned work here.

One section of the roadmap that stood out to me:

We’re also continuing to improve the flow of using our apps—particularly on iPad and iPhone. We want easy navigation, so everything in the app feels like it’s right at your fingertips—whether your fingertips are using the mouse, touch screen, or a hardware keyboard.

While this is a passing comment in the broader post, it’s also something that many developers fail to consider. Optimizing an app for different platforms, and those platforms’ respective strengths, takes a lot of work and careful thought. Devices like the iPad in particular can suffer from a lack of optimization – do developers optimize for touch input or that of a keyboard? In the age of the iPad Pro and iPadOS, the correct answer is “both.” I look forward to seeing what The Omni Group does in this area.

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Connected, Episode 279: Like, Zero Bubbles→

On this week’s episode of Connected:

This week, the gang reflects on the iPad 10th’s birthday, complains about Google AMP and then reviews Fantastical 3.

You can listen below (and find the show notes here).

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01:48:20

Connected, Episode 279

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The New Fantastical Review

The new Fantastical.

The new Fantastical.

Over six years after the debut of the second major iteration of Fantastical – version 2.0 for iPhone, which I reviewed in October 2013 – Flexibits is introducing a new version of their popular hybrid calendar client/task manager today. The new Fantastical1, available today on the App Store, is a single app that runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

In many ways, the new Fantastical is a distillation of themes typically found in the modern productivity app scene: the app is free, and the developers have switched to a subscription model to unlock a variety of premium features. Fantastical Premium – the name of the new service – costs $4.99/month or $39.99/year and brings a collection of brand new functionalities, integrations, as well as enhancements to existing features. Users of Fantastical 2, regardless of the platform they were using, get to carry all existing features into the new app for free, and can try the Premium service at no cost for 14 days.

I’ll cut right to the chase: I’ve been using the new Fantastical for the past few months (hence the inclusion in my Must-Have Apps story), and it’s become the only calendar app I need, offering more power and flexibility than any alternative from Apple or the App Store. The free version of the new Fantastical – effectively, Fantastical 2 with a fresh coat of paint and some smaller bonuses – is a capable alternative to Apple’s Calendar app, but the Premium version is where Flexibits’ latest creation truly shines. At $40/year, Fantastical Premium may be a big ask for some users, but as a busy individual who deals with teammates all over the globe and likes Fantastical’s new features, I plan to subscribe.

In addition to the unification of the app across all platforms, design changes, and new premium features, which I will detail below, Flexibits has devised one of the most reasonable, generous upgrade flows from the old, paid-upfront app to the new, subscription-based one I’ve seen to date. There will be backlash from folks who are against subscriptions on principle – a discussion that is beyond the scope of this review – but I believe Flexibits has done a commendable job granting existing users access to all features they’ve already paid for, while replacing Fantastical 2 (the new app is an update over the old version) with something that is faster, visually more attractive, and potentially more useful.

With the new Fantastical, I’ve replaced a series of apps I was using for calendars, calendar sets, and time zones, and integrated everything into a single dashboard, kicking Apple’s Calendar app off my Home screen in the process. Even with a few shortcomings and system limitations, the new Fantastical is, at least for me, the non plus ultra of calendar apps at the moment.

Let’s dig in.

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Portal Review: Immersive Ambient Noise with Philips Hue Integration

Ambient noise apps exist to help you focus or sleep, primarily. They provide a calming effect and complement mode-switching, whether that’s switching to a specific work project, switching from awake to asleep, or some other purpose. Portal, the ambient noise app that bears no relation to Facebook, works well for these purposes – in fact, focus and sleep are two of the three pillars Portal highlights in its name. However, the third pillar – escape – is what speaks most to the app’s distinct strength.

Portal doesn’t just offer a pleasant soundtrack to work or sleep by. As its name implies, its purpose is more specific and holistic than that, providing an escape portal into another environment entirely. Portal employs 3D soundscapes, Philips Hue integration, and imagination-inspiring visuals to make you truly feel, as much as possible, like you’ve escaped to a new place.

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