It’s a big week ahead for Apple fans, with the company launching the next major versions of iOS, watchOS, and more later today, plus the arrival of the iPhone XS/XS Max and Apple Watch Series 4 in a few days time. It’s also a big week for MacStories, with coverage planned for many exciting app updates and the publishing of Federico’s iOS 12 review.
Over the last few years, Federico’s annual iOS review has grown into the center-point of our September Apple coverage, and as such we always enjoy providing a variety of extras to accompany the review. Here’s what we have in store for this year.
After years of unabated visual and functional changes, iOS 12 is Apple’s opportunity to regroup and reassess the foundation before the next big step – with one notable exception.
Credits
This review wouldn’t have been possible without the help, feedback, and existence of the following people, animals, beverages, videogames, and apps:
My girlfriend Silvia, for her patience, love, design skills, and wisdom
Myke Hurley, who gave his voice to this review again
Zelda and Ginger, for keeping me company while I was writing the review
Ryan Christoffel, for his editing skills and incredible patience
John Voorhees, a friend and amazing colleague
Alessandro Vendruscolo, who made the web layout happen (again)
Not long ago, I reviewed an update to a new text transformation utility for iOS by Chris Hannah called Text Case. That update added support for title casing text according to popular style guides including the Chicago Manual of Style that we use here at MacStories. The app can do 13 other text transformations too like URL encoding and decoding, all caps, sentence capitalization, and many more.
I have the title casing rules of the style guide internalized for the most part, but every now and I want to check on a headline to be sure. In the past, I used an online service, which works well, but switching to a browser is an interruption. It’s a small interruption, but it’s one that may lead me to check another open tab or do something else that distracts me from completing an article. When I’m writing, I’d rather stay immersed in my text editor.
With Text Case’s extension, I can run a headline conversion right inside my text editor from the share sheet that’s accessible from the contextual popup menu that appears when you select text. With version 1.3 out today, Hannah takes the app a step further by adding Siri Shortcut support too.
There are a lot of habit trackers on iOS, but Streaks was one of the first and remains the gold standard against which I measure all other trackers. Even as Crunchy Bagel has added new features and customization options, Streaks’ simple, elegant design has remained at the center of its user experience. That’s important because habit tracking only works if it’s easy to log events. Even the slightest friction makes it too easy to abandon your efforts.
I’ve reviewed Streaks 2 and last summer’s major 3.0 update before, so I won’t cover that ground again here. Instead, I’ll focus on what’s new: an all-new iPad app, timed tasks, improved health tasks, and Siri shortcuts.
Focus is a time manager that helps you beat procrastination and work more efficiently using the Pomodoro Technique. Available on iOS, the Mac, and the Apple Watch, Focus teaches you to work in intervals and reminds you to take regular breaks.
Taking breaks enables you to reenergize and concentrate better, be more thoughtful, and ultimately, work more productively. With its simple and lightweight way to organize and manage your tasks, Focus is the best way to get organized and achieve daily goals that keep you motivated. Because its task management features are unobtrusive by design, you’ll spend your time working on your tasks instead of fiddling with the app.
Focus is designed to work seamlessly across all platforms and devices through Apple’s latest technologies. You can switch devices by using Handoff and count on fast, reliable iCloud sync among devices. On iOS, you can see your current progress with a Today widget, and use rich notifications to start, stop, and extend your work. The beautiful and clear design feels right at home on macOS, and a menu bar app lets you see your current progress at a glance. Focus also helps you gain powerful insights about your work with charts comparing your activities day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month.
Focus is right on top of Apple’s new OS releases too. The iOS and watchOS apps feature Siri shortcut support, and the Mac app will include a Dark Mode that looks fantastic in Mojave when it’s released next week.
Be more productive and effective by adding Focus to your workflow. This week only, MacStories readers can purchase a Focus Pro subscription for 15% off the usual price using the promo code macstories18 from within the app. So don’t delay, get Focus on iOS and on the Mac today.
Our thanks to Focus for sponsoring MacStories this week.
PCalc, James Thomson’s advanced calculator for iPhone and iPad, has been updated this week to version 3.8. I’ve been testing PCalc 3.8 for the past couple of months on my devices running iOS 12, and it features one of the best implementations of Siri shortcuts I’ve seen from a third-party developer yet. Even more than the app’s excellent widget, shortcuts have enabled me to integrate PCalc features into different aspects of my daily workflow, including conversations with Siri via my HomePods.
It’s hard to imagine that Club MacStories is already three years old. In that time, the Club has grown steadily allowing us to expand its offerings every year. Today, Club MacStories is a cornerstone of MacStories allowing us to share more about apps and the people who make them every week through the Club newsletters and on MacStories.
The success of the Club wouldn’t be possible without its members, many of whom have been part of it since the very first day. Thank you. We sincerely appreciate your support and for helping make it possible for us to do what we love.
To celebrate the Club’s anniversary this year, we have assembled a stellar list of exclusive Club discounts on apps and service from our friends in the developer community. Their generosity has been overwhelming, and we can’t thank them enough for contributing to the celebration. This year we have over 50 apps and services from 30 developers, including:
Club members can log into their membership account and access these deals from a special webpage that we’ve set up just for you. The discounts will be available for two weeks from today through September 28th.
There are even more perks coming for Club members, including a free edition of the eBook version of Federico’s iOS 12 review, the ‘Making Of’ the review, a bonus episode of AppStories, and other special surprises.
Thanks again to our Club members. We appreciate the hard-earned money you spend to be part of our growing community. We love making the newsletters for you every week. If you’re an annual member and your subscription is expiring, we hope you’ll join us for year four. We’ve got big plans for the Club and would love for you to be part of them.
“The clues for the future are when you can have a high degree of confidence that you personally are connected to the Net — not your phone, you,” said Ive.
The addition of a cellular radio to the Series 3 made a big difference in freeing the Watch from the iPhone. This year, I expect the difference will be felt more on the software side as developers implement apps that take advantage of the new watchOS 5 APIs.
Despite the Series 3’s cellular radio, I almost always took my iPhone with me for runs because I wanted to listen to podcasts. More than anything else, the ability to listen to my favorite shows untethered has the potential to free me from my iPhone.
