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Miximum Review: Smart Apple Music Playlists on iOS

Leading up to WWDC last month, rumors indicated that iTunes on the Mac was being split into multiple apps, including standalone Music, TV, and Podcasts apps. It was expected that Apple might use its Catalyst technology (formerly known as Marzipan) to base the new Music app on Music for iPad, or vice versa. The hope among many iPad users was that the iPad might benefit from a more robust Apple Music client featuring power user features already available on the Mac, such as Smart Playlists.

WWDC came and went, and that wish was left unfulfilled. While macOS Catalina does introduce a new Music app, it wasn’t built using Catalyst, and as a result the iPad version of Music is light on meaningful improvements this year.

Filling the void left by Apple, however, is a new third-party app called Miximum, which is an Apple Music-integrated utility dedicated to smart playlist creation on iOS.

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AppStories, Episode 118 – Reminders in iOS 13→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we continue our series of episodes on the new and updated apps coming from Apple in the fall with Reminders.

Sponsored by:

  • Direct Mail – Create and send great-looking email newsletters with Direct Mail, an easy-to-use email marketing app designed exclusively for the Mac.
  • Astropad Studio – Turn your iPad into a professional graphics tablet. Get started today with a 30-day free trial.

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Screenwriting, Novels, Apps, and More with John August (Part 1)→

Today on Dialog, we published the latest interview of Season 1 featuring screenwriter and author John August.

John August is a screenwriter whose credits include films like Go, Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, Titan A.E., Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, and Frankenweenie. He also wrote and directed The Nines and is the author of the Arlo Finch series of middle-grade fiction books. John is the co-host of the podcast Scriptnotes, the maker of the Highland text editor for the Mac and Weekend Read for iOS, and commissioned the Courier Prime typeface too.

A common thread across the wide variety of projects August has been involved in is dissatisfaction with the status quo. That’s led him beyond writing to projects like app development and commissioning a font. First and foremost though, August is a writer, which is where our conversation begins.

In this week’s episode of Dialog, we talk to August all about screenwriting: how he got started, how screenwriting differs from other forms of writing, his process for getting started, dealing with getting stuck, his writing environment, and more. We also talk about Arlo Finch, his middle-grade fiction trilogy and the role of luck, hard work, and privilege in his success.

Next week, we’ll cover more about August’s podcast, Scriptnotes, his apps, Highland and Weekend Read, as well as Courier Prime, the font he commissioned because he wasn’t satisfied with other Courier variants.

You can find the episode here or listen through the Dialog web player below.

Sponsored by:

  • Astropad Studio – Turn your iPad into a professional graphics tablet. Get started today with a 30-day free trial.
  • Working Copy – Git client for iOS that works well with other apps.
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Agenda 6.0 Adds Full Integration with Apple’s Reminders

Apple has a big update coming to Reminders in iOS 13, and despite all that’s changing in the app, one important thing is not: developers will still be able to integrate with Reminders so you can create, check off, and manage your tasks from a third-party app. The latest app to take advantage of this is Agenda, the date-based note-taking app which launches full Reminders integration in version 6.0 today on both iOS and the Mac.

While some apps aim to be a complete Reminders replacement, such as GoodTask, Agenda’s approach is to use Apple’s built-in task system for two main purposes: creating to-dos linked to Agenda notes, and complementing the existing calendar integrations.

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Ars Technica Interviews Apple Representatives and Developers about Catalyst→

Samuel Axon spoke to developers and marketing, developer relations, and engineering representatives from Apple in a story for Ars Technica about Catalyst, Apple’s project for bringing iPad apps to the Mac.

Prior to WWDC, Apple gave a handful of companies access to Catalyst. Axon spoke to three of them about their experiences so far. Nolan O’Brian of Twitter, which discontinued its Mac app in 2016, had this to say about the experience:

“What Project Catalyst specifically offers is the ability to use our existing codebase, meaning that we don’t have to maintain separate code or a separate team to support Twitter for Mac,” he went on to say.

O’Brien said it was relatively easy to get going with the new app: “The surprising thing that got us excited about Project Catalyst was how much of our existing iOS codebase was able to just work.”

TripIt and Gameloft had similar experiences bringing their apps to the Mac.

Addressing the concern that Catalyst means the end of powerful AppKit-based apps on the Mac, Shaan Pruden, Apple’s senior director of partner management and developer relations, explained that there’s a place for ground-up AppKit apps as well as Catalyst apps:

“Good developers will know their audience and their users and what they’re going to want,” she said. “This just opens the door for lots of people to consider coming that wouldn’t have even thought about it before. And I think that’s more the target for this particular technology as opposed to someone who has a very complicated, big, heavy-lifting kind of creative app.”

Todd Benjamin, Apple’s senior director of marketing for macOS, elaborated saying that he:

…believes there are fundamentally multiple types of apps, and they’re not mutually exclusive with one another on a platform. And this is key to understanding Apple’s approach, here. He said:

I think apps on the Mac have always been these large and complex and highly capable apps that are very broad. And I think apps on iOS by nature are a little bit more focused. They’re highly designed. They’re very much considered in what they do and how they do it. And I think that’s changed how people look at apps, right?

The full story, which is full of detailed developer and Apple insights about Catalyst, is worth a read especially since it demonstrates just how nuanced the issues surrounding Catalyst are.

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Game Day: Worse Than Death

Worse Than Death is a narrative-driven horror game from Toronto-based Benjamin Rivers, the developer of Home. The two games share some similarities. Both games feature creepy, small-town mysteries where you play as a pixelated protagonist in a chunky-pixel world. What’s different about Worse Than Death is that it interweaves comic book-style, hand-drawn art throughout the story including cut scenes, when examining objects, and for dialogue. It’s a unique style that helps bring the characters and their surroundings to life in a way that pixel art alone can’t.

In Worse Than Death you play as Holly, who has returned home from the city to attend her high school reunion. When she arrives in town, she stops by the local bar where she meets with Flynn, an old friend who we learn was engaged to a woman named Grace before she died in an accident.

I don’t want to spoil the story, but what seems like a typical reunion when Holly and Flynn arrive turns out to be anything but ‘typical.’ Soon you’re racing around town faced with a growing number of gruesome deaths and chased by unseen monsters from whom you need to hide to survive.

The game does an excellent job of ratcheting up the tension as it progresses. I found myself jumping more than once as unexpected things happened during the game. As you make your way through the town trying to solve the mystery of what has happened, you face a series of puzzles that get progressively harder to solve, but clues are everywhere, so be sure to examine everything.

The gameplay is simple. Tap the left and right sides of the screen to walk that direction and double tap to run. Examining objects and interacting with other elements of the game is as simple as tapping icons that appear around Holly.

Worse than Death also supports MFi controllers. The onscreen controls aren’t difficult to use, but with a narrative game like Worse Than Death, I like to lean back with a controller with my iPad Pro in the Brydge Pro Keyboard so I can get the angle just right and relax. The SteelSeries Nimbus’ thumbstick and buttons were perfect for exploring the game.

I also highly recommend playing while listening with headphones. The sound design is fantastic and an integral part of the tension built by the story. Sounds come at you from every direction thanks to a 3D audio track that’s a perfect match to the game.

I also love the hand-drawn art and the way it contrasts with the pixelated gameplay. It’s a combination that makes Worse Than Death stand out from other action adventure games and succeeds in conveying strong character emotions, which adds to the tension that builds through the game. What’s more, the many hand-drawn images used in the game were drawn entirely on an iPad Pro using the app Procreate. Here’s a time-lapse that developer Benjamin Rivers posted on Twitter of the art being created:

https://twitter.com/benjaminrivers/status/1131553256960942080

It’s a testament to the iPad Pro and Procreate that such a large part of this game’s artwork could be done using the combination.

The hand-drawn artwork in Worse Than Death was created on an iPad Pro using Procreate.

The hand-drawn artwork in Worse Than Death was created on an iPad Pro using Procreate.

I’m not usually a fan of horror games, but I love a good mystery and puzzles, which Worse Than Death delivers on. With simple gameplay and story-driven action, Worse Than Death is like a creepy mystery you take with you on summer vacation. Wrapped in terrific artwork and absorbing sound design, Worse Than Death is a game that shouldn’t be missed.

Worse Than Death is available on the App Store for $3.99.

Track Your Time Automatically with Timing [Sponsor]

Have you heard of Screen Time, Apple’s time tracking feature for iPhone and iPad that shows how long you use each app on your iPhone or iPad? Good news — Screen Time is coming to macOS Catalina this fall! And if you haven’t heard of this feature yet, you may want to check out the Timing guide to Screen Time.

However, Screen Time’s feature set is fairly limited: it only lets you view the past 30 days of activity, and you only get a rough overview of what apps you used. That’s not sufficient for time tracking in a professional environment.

Enter Timing. Like Screen Time, Timing automatically tracks how much time you spend on each app and website. In addition, Timing also tracks every document you work on and lets you categorize your time into custom projects. This gives you a much more detailed overview of where your time went.

You can also add manual time entries for occasions like phone calls and breaks — another feature not present in Screen Time. The built-in calendar integration even lets you create time records for calendar events in just one click. And when it’s time to export a detailed report, Timing has you covered, too.

So, if you’d like to take advantage of all these benefits right now, check out Timing’s blog article on getting Screen Time’s functionality on your Mac with Timing. Then, download the 14-day free trial and save 10% when you buy!

Our thanks to Timing for supporting MacStories this week.

Adapt, Episode 4: Making an eBook and Multitasking’s Evolution→

Federico gets creative making an eBook with Apple’s Pages app, then the guys go deep into the strengths and challenges of the new multitasking system in iPadOS 13.

In this week’s episode of Adapt, I had a lot of fun playing around with Pages for Ryan’s challenge; we also dig deeper into the multitasking changes of iPadOS. You can listen below (and find the show notes here), and don’t forget to send us questions using #AskAdapt and by tagging our Twitter account.

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Adapt, Episode 4

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The End of the Genius Era→

Excellent piece by Dieter Bohn at The Verge following news of Jony Ive’s coming departure from Apple:

While Apple might have a good story about having been founded in a garage, the true founding myth of Apple is the myth of genius. You know the fable, which has the benefit of also being true. When Steve Jobs was in charge, Apple made amazing things: the Apple computer, the Mac. Jobs not in charge: the very bad ‘90s with Scully and the Newton. Jobs back in charge: the renaissance, the iPod, the iPhone.

After Steve Jobs, that mantle was passed to Jony Ive. And he quietly (quite literally) took it. It was important to our concept of Apple that there be a single, discerning decision maker. Somebody uncompromising about quality. Somebody with very good taste. A capital G Genius.

Bohn makes the case, based on solid evidence from other sources, that Apple has operated for years without being driven by a singular “genius” but rather a collaborative, highly-capable team – and while that seems to have been more true than ever lately, to a degree it’s always been the case. In spite of the mythos surrounding Steve Jobs, responsibility for Apple’s best work falls not just on his shoulders, but on that of the team he was surrounded by.

Ive’s absence will certainly be felt, but the hole he leaves is likely much smaller than his “legend” would imply. As Bohn remarks, “we should stop thinking of Apple as the singular expression of one person’s genius. History has moved beyond the Great Man theory, and so too should our ideas about how Apple operates.”

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