MacStories Unwind: Sticky Notes for Your iPhone, GoodLinks and Deliveries Updates, Plus New iPad Features for Pixelmator, and Emoji

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This week on MacStories Unwind:

MacStories

Club MacStories

  • Monthly Log
    • Federico on how he uses Sour’s Magic Mixes
    • John’s first impressions of the Nike edition Series 6 Apple Watch
    • Ryan switches to Todoist
  • MacStories Weekly
    • 10 more Giveaways
    • Tempo: Workout Log for Runners
    • A collection of apps with widgets
    • An interview with Tanmay Sonawane, developer of Poor
    • Mail and Twitter tips
  • AppStories

Unwind

GoodLinks Updated with Three-Column iPad Layout, Widgets, and New Keyboard Shortcuts

GoodLinks has only been out since June, but it quickly became my go-to read it later app that I dip in and out of every day. That position has only been reinforced with its frequent updates in the months following release, including its most recent update which adds a new three-column iPad layout, widgets, and new keyboard shortcuts.

The new iPad sidebar design is particularly well-suited to GoodLinks. The first column, which can be hidden, allows users to navigate between Unread, Starred, Untagged, Read, and Tags. The Tags section is collapsible, which declutters the sidebar when you don’t need to view a specific tag.

The second column is the article list that displays the favicon for each post, its title, a short excerpt, image, site and author information, and associated tags. The top of the second column features a button to sort from oldest to newest and vice versa, and one to add new links.

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Justin O’Beirne Details Apple’s Update to Its Maps Data in the United Kingdom and Ireland→

Source: justinobeirne.com

Source: justinobeirne.com

As announced at WWDC, Apple has expanded its modern maps to the United Kingdom and Ireland. As usual, Justin O’Beirne has begun documenting the changes on his blog with GIFs and charts cataloging the differences.

Apple’s ninth Maps data update is its first outside the US and covers all of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Although the update represents one of the smaller additions by land area, it’s the second-largest in terms of the total population and population density.

Source: justinobeirne.com

Source: justinobeirne.com

As with previous updates, O’Beirne’s GIFs do a terrific job visualizing the changes with examples from urban areas like London, Edinburgh, Belfast, and Dublin, along with places like Stonehenge, Loch Ness, Wales, and the Cliffs of Moher. The new maps are a clear improvement with more clearly defined green spaces, detailed landmarks, and other improvements.

Be sure to visit O’Beirne’s website for his complete set of GIFs, charts, and ongoing updates.

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Deliveries Modernizes with Improvements in Every Corner of the App

There can be no doubt that 2020 has been a record year for package deliveries. Perhaps things were already trending that direction pre-pandemic, but during a year in which many people have unexpectedly found themselves staying home more than ever, the number of deliveries being made has surely seen a huge spike.

Deliveries, the package tracking app for iOS and Mac, has received a strong update today with a wide variety of quality of life improvements. There’s nothing huge or flashy here, but the sum of the many small changes should help Deliveries continue being one of the best and easiest ways to track that steady stream of packages heading your way.

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Pixelmator 2.6 Adds Pointer Support and More Than 70 Keyboard Shortcuts for iPad Users

The modernization of Pixelmator continues apace with the addition of more iPad-friendly features in version 2.6. Earlier this year, Pixelmator 2.5 added the native iOS and iPadOS document browser along with nine categories of preset image templates.

The latest version picks up where 2.5 left off with iPadOS pointer support. Whether you’re using the Magic Keyboard’s trackpad with your iPad or another trackpad or mouse, Pixelmator 2.6 fully supports pointer interaction with all UI controls, transforming to indicate available actions when performing actions like editing an image, in which case it turns into a double arrow for resizing.

Pixelmator 2.6 includes pointer support throughout.

Pixelmator 2.6 includes pointer support throughout.

The Pixelmator update also includes a long list of keyboard shortcuts. There are over 70 shortcuts, which are catalogued on Pixelmator’s website. There’s little that isn’t covered by the shortcuts. You can enter the app’s various editing modes to do things like crop an image, use the app’s selection tools, and arrange layers. There are also shortcuts to view an image at its actual size or zoom in so it fills the screen, and when you’re finished editing, there’s a keyboard shortcut for exporting too.

Pixelmator Photo is one of my favorite image editors on the iPad, but it’s strictly a photo editing app. To composite images, I rely on Pixelmator, which is why I’m so glad to see that it continues to get the sort of updates that make working with images on my iPad easier than before.

Pixelmator 2.6 is available on the App Store and is a free update for existing users.

iOS, iPadOS, and macOS Betas Reveal New Emoji Coming Soon→

Source: Emojipedia

Source: Emojipedia

It’s become something of a tradition for Apple to include new emoji in one of the early point releases to a major iOS and iPadOS release. Like last year, the new emoji are coming in the second major update to iOS and iPadOS. This year, though, the new emoji look like they will make it into the first released version of macOS Big Sur because they are included in beta 9 of macOS too.

In July, Apple shared some of the designs for its emoji based on the Unicode Consortium’s specifications for Unicode 13.0. Today, as detailed by Emojipedia, iOS and iPadOS 14.2, beta 2 were released and include Apple’s full set of upcoming emoji. There are 66 in total, not counting every possible variant.

Designs not revealed by Apple earlier this summer include:

  • Smiling Face with Tear
  • Disguised Face
  • Gender variations for people wearing a tuxedo and veil

The release also includes four realistic bugs and an abstract depiction of a hug that I expect to be a highlight of this year’s Jeremys.

Earlier this month, the Unicode Consortium approved Unicode 13.1, another set of emoji specifications that are expected to be adopted by Apple sometime in 2021.

For the full details on the emoji unveiled today, don’t miss Jeremy Burge’s post on Emojipedia.org.

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AppStories, Episode 186 – Our Newly Customized iOS 14 Home Screens→

This week on AppStories, we revisit our iPhone Home Screens, including the third-party widgets we’re using, and how we are optimizing our mix of apps and widgets since the iOS 14 update. Federico also shares a trick for integrating certain widgets and folders of icons into his wallpaper.

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

AppStories Episode 186 - Our Newly Customized iOS 14 Home Screens

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