Logitech Crayon Availability Is Expanding on September 12th

The Logitech Crayon stylus that was announced at Apple’s spring education event was available originally to education customers only. Logitech has announced however, that beginning on September 12th the Crayon will be available to anyone who wants one.

The Crayon has many of the same features as Apple’s Pencil but lacks pressure sensitivity. The device is also designed with kids in mind. The rubberized cap that hides a Lightning charging port is tethered to the device, and the replaceable tips can only be removed with a special tool. The barrel of the Crayon is also squared off so it won’t roll off a table.

Logitech says the Crayon will be available initially at Apple retail stores, Apple.com, and Logitech.com. However, beginning in October, availability will expand to other retailers.

The Crayon will continue to be available to education customers for $49.99. Everyone else can purchase the Crayon for $69.99, which is $30 less than the Apple Pencil.

It’s interesting that the Crayon goes on sale to the general public the same day as Apple’s fall event. Perhaps this indicates that new iPads will debut during the event, despite the lack of iPad rumors and leaks compared to the iPhone and Apple Watch.

WhatsApp Adds Media Previews in Notifications

WhatsApp for iOS was updated earlier this week with the long-awaited ability to preview media (pictures and animated GIFs) using rich notifications on iOS. As you can see in the screenshots below, this new feature allows you to expand a notification and preview its embedded image attachment without having to open the app and before composing a reply from the notification itself.

As a heavy user of WhatsApp (it’s my second most used social/communication app, second only to iMessage), this feature was perhaps the single most important option I was hoping the app would eventually adopt. The entire flow of previewing and responding to messages that contain pictures is so much better now. Of course, I’m also waiting for an iPad version of WhatsApp.

For context, the rich notification API for media previews was introduced with iOS 10 in 2016. Here’s to hoping it won’t take the WhatsApp team until 2020 to implement Siri shortcuts.

Getting Behind the Mac as a Productivity-First Platform

Apple’s recent Behind the Mac series is one of my favorite marketing campaigns of late. I find the visual of people sitting behind their Macs so romantic and nostalgic. It’s a sight that’s ever-present whenever I spend time in a coffee shop, and the series’ tagline, “Make something wonderful behind the Mac,” causes me to now wonder in public: what are these people making as they sit behind the iconic Apple logo’s glow?

Following WWDC earlier this year, I shared that one of the things I least expected from the conference was that it would get me excited about the Mac. I’ve been iOS-first for three years now, with no regrets whatsoever. During that time, while the Mac has received incremental improvements, its growth has lagged significantly behind iOS and the iPad. While I never expected the same level of innovation on macOS that iOS received – since the Mac didn’t need as much work, frankly – it was frustrating to constantly see iOS score new apps and technologies before the Mac.

It has long seemed to me like the Mac was on its way to an eventual death. But WWDC breathed new life into the platform, with Apple doubling down on the Mac’s strengths as a productivity tool, and the prospect of ported iOS apps starting next year. Each of these changes will bring, I believe, genuine excitement back to the platform.

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MacPaw Releases a Redesigned and Updated CleanMyMac X

There’s a lot of junk that builds up on a Mac over time. The Trash fills up as do caches. There are also large language files, localizations, and other system files that most people don’t need. To eliminate the junk and keep as much space free as possible on my Mac, I’ve used CleanMyMac by MacPaw for several years. Today, MacPaw released an update to the app called CleanMyMac X in honor of the app’s ten-year anniversary.

The vast majority of the time I use CleanMyMac to free up space on my Mac. However, CleanMyMac does more than scan your Mac for junk and remove it. The app has grown over the years into a suite of utilities that also includes an uninstaller, system maintenance checks, privacy tools, large and old file removal, and a file shredder. That list has grown with CleanMyMac X, which has also been significantly redesigned.

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Google Debuts Nice New Look, Password Management Improvements, and Other Enhancements With Chrome 69

Chrome just turned 10 and Google is celebrating with a big update to its Chrome browser on iOS and the Mac. The update, which was announced on Google’s The Keyword blog, includes a redesign of the app’s UI, improvements to password management, answers to common queries directly from Google’s Omnibox, new personalization options, and under-the-hood enhancements.

Front and center is a redesign of Chrome’s UI. Iconography, text fields, and tabs all have more rounded corners than previously. Google has also adjusted the color palette used. The overall effect has a more lightweight feel, especially on the Mac where there is abundant white space.

Chrome’s password manager is improved too. Google says the app is better at filling in names, addresses, and credit card information in web forms. Chrome also generates, saves, and syncs your passwords across platforms.

If all you need is a simple answer to a question, Google’s combination search bar/address bar, which it calls the Omnibox, will now display relevant information as you type on the Mac. Google says the Omnibox will return definitions in the drop-down results as you type as well as information about people and other subjects. In my limited testing, I was able to display definitions from the Omnibox, but I couldn’t recreate the other results demonstrated by Google in its announcement.

Definitions and other information is available from the Omnibox.

Definitions and other information is available from the Omnibox.

Google has also added shortcut management to newly opened tabs, which can also feature a photo of your choice in the background. Google also mentions that it is experimenting with under-the-hood changes to improve Chrome’s overall performance that are covered in detail on its developer blog.

The iOS update is available on the App Store and the Mac version directly from Google.

AppStories, Episode 77 – Expanding Apple Reminders with Third-Party Apps→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we take a look at apps that integrate with Apple’s iOS Reminders app, which besides being a default app, is also a system framework.
Sponsored by:

  • Casper: The Internet’s favourite mattress. Get $50 off select mattresses with the code ‘APPSTORIES’.
  • Linode: High performance SSD Linux servers for all of your infrastructure needs. Get a $20 credit with promo code ‘appstories2018’
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Creative Selection Delves into Apple Software Design with Stories about Safari, the iPhone, and the iPad

Today, former Apple engineer Ken Kocienda’s book Creative Selection, which covers his career at Apple and insights about the company’s software design process, was released. As an engineer at Apple, Kocienda worked on several high-profile projects including Safari on the Mac and the touch keyboards on the iPhone and iPad. Much of the publicity surrounding the book focuses on Kocienda’s work on the iPhone. However, there is a treasure trove of interesting anecdotes about other products and people that make Creative Selection an absorbing read for anyone interested in the creative process and Apple.

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Tap Forms: The Digital Filing Cabinet for Your Life [Sponsor]

Tap Forms is a powerful Mac and iOS app for organizing anything and everything in one place. It’s a customizable database app that’s simple to use, but best of all, scales to fit your needs as they grow.

Whether you’re organizing your comic book collection, recipes, work documents, or business inventory, Tap Forms can help. The app is secure, searchable, and accessible from any Mac or iOS device via iCloud, IBM Cloud, Apache CouchDB, and WiFi sync, so you always have your data with you. Tap Forms also features support 7 days a week via email and its forums.

To get you started quickly, Tap Forms has dozens of pre-made, customizable forms. Of course, you can also build a form from scratch too. There are also 26 built-in field types that can be added to forms including Text, Number, Note, Calculation, Script, Photo, Location, Contact, Table, and Link to Form.

Tap Forms is just as powerful at using the data it collects. Records can be viewed in List, Multi-Column, Map, Calendar, and Photo Grid views. You can also generate 24 types of barcodes and print labels.

This fall, when macOS Mojave and iOS 12 ship, Tap Forms will gain fantastic new features including:

  • Dark Mode and Apple Script support on the Mac
  • JavaScript support for scripting actions on your form data
  • A Script field type
  • Siri Shortcuts on iOS 12 for running Form Scripts in Siri without launching Tap Forms

For this week only, Tap Forms 5 is available for 30% off the Mac and iOS versions. Don’t miss this chance for a great deal and to get organized today with Tap Forms.

Our thanks to Tap Forms for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Connected, Episode 207: The Best Easter Egg Is You→

Stephen struggles with vowels and Federico dreams about buying a Mac mini while Myke ponders the future of the Apple Pencil.

On last week’s episode of Connected, we discussed our potential use cases for a new Mac mini and why the Apple Pencil could make sense as an iPhone accessory. You can listen here.

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  • Casper: The Internet’s favorite mattress. Take advantage of Casper’s limited time Labor Day offer.
  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
  • Green Chef: The first USDA certified organic meal delivery service. Get 0 off your first box.
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