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Stardew Valley review, Mario Odyssey preperations, and details on the new Nintedo Switch console update.
On this week’s episode of Remaster, we go over the changes in the latest Switch software update and Myke explains why he’s been enjoying Stardew Valley so much. You can listen here.
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Amazon’s Kindle app for iOS received a major update today, bringing redesigned navigation tabs, a new light theme, and more. The change that excited me most, small as it may be, is the greatly improved app icon – it includes a beautiful new illustration, and the word Kindle has been removed.
The Kindle app now feels more at home on iOS, with a familiar navigation tab layout lining the bottom of the screen. The first tab, Library, is essentially what the main interface of the app was before – all your books are found there. The Library tab is cleaner and simpler now, as several options it formerly contained have been assigned to other areas of the app. The Goodreads and Discover pages, for example, now live in the main navigation bar as Community and Discover tabs, respectively. Extra items like settings and sync have been moved into the navigation bar’s final tab, More. There’s also now a search bar at the top of the screen that’s accessible from nearly anywhere in the app. Overall, these layout changes make the app easier to navigate and less cluttered than before.
Joining the app’s original dark theme, you can now turn on a light theme for the app; this navigation theme is separate from the reading theme, which has long had dark and light options. The light theme looks nice, and I plan to keep it turned on. Another change is that while reading, it’s easier to get back to your library – the upper left corner contains a down-facing arrow that instantly closes your book.
I do nearly all of my book reading digitally, and I’ve long preferred reading in iBooks over Kindle due to it having the superior app in my mind. Today’s update fixes several of the issues I’ve had with Kindle, but unfortunately there’s one big problem outstanding: Kindle still doesn’t support Split View on iPad. Once Amazon adds that to its app, I’ll have less reason to always go with iBooks.
As we’ve seen with the release of iOS 11, the emerging market of shelf apps for iPad has proven to be a fun playground for developers to figure out how to enhance the system’s drag and drop experience. We’ve published two stories on our favorite shelf apps released so far (here and here), and I’m keeping an eye on new developments every week. One of the most recent updates is Workshelf 1.1, which has gained a new icon and refreshed interface (thankfully, the original blue background is gone) as well as welcome tweaks to in-app previews and shelf management.
Workshelf, developed by Ross Kimes, is one of the more power user-oriented shelf apps thanks to its support for multiple shelves and raw file representations. In version 1.1, Workshelf can import documents from the Files app, it comes with new sorting options, and it lets you open URLs from an item’s detail page. This feature remains one of my favorite touches of Workshelf: in addition to viewing all the “flavors” of an item dropped in the app (such as a link and an image for a JPEG dragged from Safari), you can also tap & hold a specific file representation to drag it out of Workshelf.
I’ve been using Gladys on my iPad for the past few weeks (another shelf app that offers a variety of advanced features, plus a Files provider extension), but I’m going to give Workshelf another try.
Reddit is one of those spaces on the Internet that I’ve historically stayed mostly away from. Due to my role at MacStories, however, and a thriving Apple subreddit, I’ve been there more in the past year than all prior years combined. During that time I’ve tried all the best iOS Reddit clients in an attempt to find one that’s right for me. For one reason or another, none have stuck; today, however, that changes, with the release of Apollo.
We are on the cusp of a financial revolution fueled by crypto-currencies and Balance makes it easy for everyone to get involved. You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin, one of the earliest crypto-currencies, but there are others including Ethereum. Balance connects to the most popular crypto-currency exchanges like Coinbase along with traditional financial institutions bridging the gap between the old financial world and the new one.
Balance connects with crypto-currency exchanges as well as traditional bank accounts, investment accounts, credit cards, and online services like PayPal using Plaid, a super-secure platform that works with financial institutions around the world.
When you set up accounts in Balance, the app automatically updates them periodically with new transactions, so you’re always up to date. You can view balances, transactions, notifications and gain insights about your spending. Soon, Balance will release an iOS version of their app too.
Balance is ready for the future. The current financial system is based on outdated, legacy software. Blockchains are the bedrock of a more secure and open system based on cryptocurrencies, but not many people are using them yet. Balance is poised to change that by becoming a single destination for traditional financial accounts and crypto-currency exchanges.
Balance has a great offer for MacStories readers who want to see what crypto-currencies are all about. Just go to bal.money/macstories this week and submit your email address to join the Balance iOS beta when it’s released along with $2 worth of Ether in a Coinbase account that you can track with Balance. It’s a great way to see for yourself what the financial world’s future looks like.
Our thanks to Balance for sponsoring MacStories this week.
Very often in life, we see things like products, athletic careers and even relationships end way later than they should. When this happens, sometimes the end goes unnoticed and with little fanfare.
Occasionally, things end on a high note, like when an athlete announces their retirement after winning a championship or a band calls it quits after a massive album and tour.
In the world of Apple products, the iPod mini is an example of the latter. It’s perhaps the best example of Apple killing one of its darlings.
For 14 years, Apple’s flagship retail store was a fixture at the north end of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, the shopping district known as the Magnificent Mile. Built in 2003, Apple’s Michigan Avenue location was the company’s first flagship store, featuring a glass staircase that seemed to float to the second floor just beyond the store’s entrance. Yesterday though, after many months of construction, Apple opened a new flagship store to the public along the Chicago River that reflects the new direction in which Apple began taking its retail locations last year.
This summer Ulysses announced a major business model shift, with its iOS and macOS apps moving from up front purchases to subscription supported. As tends to happen, the move stirred up some controversy. In my mind at least, the company’s reasoning was sound – as the app’s co-founder stated, “Writers want to rely on a professional tool that is constantly evolving, and we want to keep delivering just that.”
Today brings the first major update to Ulysses following its switch to subscriptions. Bolstered by Apple’s recent focus on evolving the iPad platform, Ulysses 12 is primarily an iOS release; while the Mac version gains some improvements, it clearly isn’t the centerpiece here. Ulysses on iOS gains drag and drop support, multi-pane editing, streamlined library navigation, and image previews – all of which make an already powerful writing tool even better.
On this week’s episode of AppStories, we compare the apps and services we use to listen to, discover, and share music.
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