Todoist Foundations: Key Refinements Modernize the Popular Task Manager

Today Todoist has launched a major update across all platforms under the branding Todoist Foundations. That name implies a complete ground-up revision to the app, and while that’s accurate in terms of under-the-hood code changes, from a user-facing standpoint this is still the Todoist you know, but with a variety of new features: project sections, a dynamic add button, new task and sub-task views, and more. Todoist’s team also says that Foundations lays the necessary coding groundwork for more substantial features that are coming in the future, such as Boards and an Upcoming View.

Todoist didn’t need a big rethinking, but what it did stand to benefit from was design enhancements and streamlining that makes everything quicker, easier to use, and more flexible, and that’s exactly what this release brings. If you haven’t tried Todoist in a while, Todoist Foundations is a compelling reason to give the task manager another try.

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Remote Control for Mac: Turn Your Mac into a Home Media Center [Sponsor]

Remote Control for Mac is a powerful app for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch that works with a helper app on your Mac to free you from your desk, so you can enjoy your Mac anywhere on your network. Whether you’re running a Mac as a media center, want to launch apps remotely, or control your Mac’s system settings while doing something else, Remote Control for Mac can handle it all.

A Mac makes a fantastic media center. However, balancing a mouse or trackpad and a keyboard from the couch or in bed isn’t ideal, which is where Remote Control for Mac comes in. With it, you can control the apps on your Mac from your iOS devices or with the brand new Apple Watch app, which offers keypads, mouse interactions, and system commands. It’s an incredibly flexible combination that opens up amazing new options.

On top of that, the app’s AirPlay controls are a fantastic way to send the screen of your Mac or it’s audio to your Apple TV. You can also control the apps on your Mac with Remote Control for Mac and even use system commands to put your Mac to sleep, turn its display on and off, and even restart it. There is Shortcuts integration too. Add the app’s actions to Siri, so you can run them by voice or as part of a custom shortcut. They’re perfect for combining with HomeKit accessory actions in a smart home environment.

Remote Control for Mac has a special giveaway just for MacStories readers. The first 50 readers who visit this link will get a free copy of the app.

Take control of your Mac today. Download Remote Control for Mac from the App Store now.

Our thanks to Remote Control for Mac for supporting MacStories this week.

MacStories Shortcuts Icons Receives Free Update with 50 New Glyphs

I’m happy to announce that MacStories Shortcuts Icons, our custom icon set for adding shortcuts to the Home screen, has received an update today that adds 50 new glyphs.

The update is available now for free for existing customers (just download the file again with the link in your original email receipt); for new customers, the update is part of the standard MacStories Shortcuts Icons purchase, which is available at $14.99 for a total of 350 custom Home screen glyphs.

All sales are final. You can read our license and terms of use here.

For those who may have missed it last month: MacStories Shortcuts Icons lets you customize the look of your shortcuts added to the Home screen by choosing from hundreds of glyphs designed specifically with Shortcuts users in mind, going beyond what’s provided by Apple in the Shortcuts app.

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Adapt, Episode 11: Parameters in Shortcuts for iOS 13→

On this week’s episode of Adapt:

Federico walks through one of the biggest changes to Shortcuts in iOS 13: parameters. Afterwards, Ryan shares his experiences using Microsoft Word to write a MacStories article.

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.

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
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Adapt, Episode 11

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

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Arcade Highlights: Card of Darkness

Do you like fantasy-themed games? How about Zach Gage’s work – Flipflop Solitaire, Really Bad Chess, Typeshift, SpellTower, etc.? Would a mobile game brought to life by the art of Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward be of interest to you? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then Card of Darkness should be one of the first games you download from Apple Arcade.

If you answered no to all three questions, you should probably play Card of Darkness anyways.

Card of Darkness is a roguelike game where each stage contains a grid of stacked cards, with each stack holding a random mix of monsters to defeat, weapons to equip, and potions and treasure to find. There are also magic spell scrolls that help you more easily navigate what can be a treacherous quest to get from the start of the grid to its end. You don’t have to clear every card stack to complete a level, but you do need to forge an open path to the finish line, and every stack you take even a single card from will need to be finished. As you clear each card stack, more stacks further into the grid will be revealed, slowly reducing the amount of cards that stand between you and the end of the grid.

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Connected, Episode 265: What Are You, a Dictionary?→

On this week’s episode of Connected:

Apple has revealed its new emoji set, so it is time for Federico to guess their names as Stephen and Myke listen and keep score. After that, Myke shares his thoughts about his Galaxy Fold.

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

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps
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Connected, Episode 265

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Eternal City, Modern Photography: The iPhone 11 Pro in Rome

The Colosseum at night. Shot on iPhone 11 Pro using the wide lens, with night mode enabled. Unedited. Zoom in for details.

The Colosseum at night. Shot on iPhone 11 Pro using the wide lens, with night mode enabled. Unedited. Zoom in for details.

In many ways, the iPhone 11 Pro’s camera system feels like the culmination of over a decade’s worth of judicious, relentless improvements. Not only is the device’s camera the best and smartest Apple has ever shipped, but it also affords the most photographic freedom, allowing non-professional photographers like me to produce amazing shots with minimal effort.

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    Mac Catalyst Isn’t Only for Bringing iPad Apps to the Mac for the First Time

    So far, the most common path to releasing a Mac Catalyst app on the Mac App Store has been to adapt and release an existing iPadOS app as a first-time Mac app. However, that’s not the only route to the Mac App Store. Apple allows developers to use Mac Catalyst in a variety of ways, as Steve Troughton-Smith has demonstrated with HCC Solitaire, a Mac-only game built using Mac Catalyst. He and Brian Mueller, the creator of CARROT Weather, have also used Mac Catalyst to release new versions of Mac apps that were previously built with AppKit.

    As Troughton-Smith’s HCC Solitaire confirms, developers are not required to have an iPad app on the App Store to release an app on the Mac App Store using Mac Catalyst.

    https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1183880710840635400

    The game is an implementation of classic solitaire that’s just $0.99 and displays no ads. Perhaps most interesting from a developer standpoint, though, is that you won’t find HCC Solitaire if you search for an iOS or iPadOS version on the App Store. Troughton-Smith built the game using UIKit and the tools provided as part of Mac Catalyst without also creating an iPadOS version.

    Brian Mueller's CARROT Weather.

    Brian Mueller’s CARROT Weather.

    Mac Catalyst apps can also be swapped in for existing Mac apps. That’s what Brian Mueller did with CARROT Weather, which was launched the day macOS Catalina was released as version 4.13 of his existing AppKit app. Troughton-Smith took the same approach with SameGame, a color-matching game in which you earn points by eliminating contiguous blocks that are the same color, releasing version 2.2 shortly after Catalina’s release.

    Steve Troughton-Smith's SameGame.

    Steve Troughton-Smith’s SameGame.

    I don’t expect either of these approaches to become the main way that Mac Catalyst apps are released, but I’m glad to see that it’s possible. Most developers will be bringing an iPadOS app to the Mac for the first time, but business models, developer backgrounds, the APIs used in an app, and many other variables play a role in the decision of whether to use Mac Catalyst. It’s encouraging to see Apple take a flexible approach and allow developers to experiment because that makes Mac Catalyst useful to more of them. However, as I noted in my Catalina review and elsewhere, that flexibility needs to be coupled with bug fixes, documentation, and rapid evolution of Mac Catalyst for it to become a viable option for a wider audience of developers.