The Latest from Magic Rays of Light, Comfort Zone, and MacStories Unwind

Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

Sigmund and Devon round up the new features in this week’s tvOS 18 update, discuss Devon’s review of visionOS 2 on MacStories, and recap Sunny.

Matt needs to praise the iPad, Chris drops some iPadOS knowledge, and Niléane is intrigued by window management on other tablets looks like.

This week, Federico and I unwind on air about how we’re doing post-review week, preview Federico’s Playstation Portal theory, and share family members’ reactions to iOS 18.

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The European Commission Opens Two iOS Interoperability Proceedings Against Apple

The European Commission (EC) issued a press release today summarizing two specification proceedings that they have commenced against Apple:

The first proceeding focuses on several iOS connectivity features and functionalities, predominantly used for and by connected devices. Connected devices are a varied, large and commercially important group of products, including smartwatches, headphones and virtual reality headsets. Companies offering these products depend on effective interoperability with smartphones and their operating systems, such as iOS. The Commission intends to specify how Apple will provide effective interoperability with functionalities such as notifications, device pairing and connectivity.

The second proceeding focuses on the process Apple has set up to address interoperability requests submitted by developers and third parties for iOS and IPadOS. It is crucial that the request process is transparent, timely, and fair so that all developers have an effective and predictable path to interoperability and are enabled to innovate.

In a nutshell, the EC is unhappy with connectivity between iOS and third-party devices and plans to tell the company how to comply. The second part requires Apple to set up a process for third parties to request connectivity with iOS.

The EC has given Apple six months to comply with its latest proceedings, during which the commission will share its preliminary findings with Apple and publish a non-confidential summary of the findings publicly so third parties can offer comments.

Apple prides itself on its tight integration between hardware and software, and the EC is determined to open that up for the benefit of all hardware manufacturers. While I think that is a good goal, we’re getting very close to the EU editing APIs, which I find hard to imagine will lead to an optimal outcome for Apple, third-party manufacturers, or consumers. However, if you accept the goal as worthwhile, it’s just as hard to imagine accomplishing it any other way given Apple’s apparent unwillingness to open iOS up itself.

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What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

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Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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NPC’s Connected Takeover: I Got the RGB Going On→

Friday is Relay’s annual Podcastathon for St. Jude. They’re raising money during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and the Podcastathon is a fun 12-hour live streamed show from your favorite Relay hosts that begins at Noon Eastern on Friday, September 20th. If you haven’t donated, yet, you can do so here. It’s a great cause that we’d love MacStories readers to get behind. For more details be sure to see my post from August.

As you can imagine, our pals Stephen and Myke are a little busy getting ready for their big show at the end of the week. So, they did something very trusting and handed over this week’s Connected episode to Federico who invited me and Brendon, his co-hosts on NPC: Next Portable Console, to join him.

The episode was a blast, covering topics like:

  • Flappy Bird’s questionable upcoming return to the App Store that was announced recently;
  • The devices we purchased in the aftermath of Apple’s Glowtime event and why;
  • Federico’s different approach to this year’s iOS and iPadOS 18 review and what it means for MacStories more broadly; and
  • How we’d fix Apple’s approach to videogames if we were in charge.

Plus, for the Connected Pro segment, subscribers got to hear all about our weird super powers.

Thanks to Myke, Stephen, and Federico for having Brendon and me on Connected today, so we could put a temporary NPC spin on the show.

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Control Center and Lock Screen Controls for iOS 18: A Roundup of My Favorite Indie Apps

This week, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 18 to the world. One of the main new features this year is the ability to fully customize Control Center. And not only is Control Center customizable, but it now also supports controls from third-party applications. If you open the new Controls Gallery in iOS and iPadOS 18, you will find controls and toggles from some of your favorite indie apps that have been updated to support the new release.

In addition to being available in Control Center, every one of these third-party controls can be mapped to the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro or newer, and they can used to replace the two default controls at the bottom of Lock Screen – Flashlight and Camera – which have been there since the introduction of the iPhone X in 2017.

While you may think at first that there’s only so much you can do with a simple toggle in Control Center, the range of possibilities that this enables is actually pretty wide. That is why, today, I’m taking a look at a selection of apps that have been updated to offer their own controls for Control Center and the Lock Screen. They’re all unique, and some of them are unexpectedly powerful.

Let’s jump in.

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What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

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Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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visionOS 2: The MacStories Review

Special Thanks

I consider it an incredible honor to get to write and publish this MacStories review covering a platform I believe in and enjoy deeply. Thank you so much for taking the time to read it. This project wouldn’t have been possible without the support of some wonderful people, so I’d like to thank a few in particular:

  • My wife Katherine, who is the most amazing partner and pushes me to pursue my dreams, including this one.
  • My son Noah, my inspiration for trying to make the world a little better in my own nerdy way.
  • Federico and John, for giving a guy with zero professional writing experience a chance to be a part of the incredible team they’re assembling.
  • The rest of the MacStories team, whom I endlessly enjoy working with every day.
  • Sigmund Judge, my podcasting partner in crime and consistent go-to for bouncing around ideas.
  • Tim Chaten, for never saying no to nerding out about Vision Pro with me.
  • Indie app developers, who create tools that improve my life and inspire me to create.
  • Joseph Simpson, for generously sharing developer perspective on visionOS.
  • The Vision Pro team at Apple, for their incredible work on this release and for blazing the trail of spatial computing.
  • Magic Rays of Light listeners.
  • Club MacStories members.
  • Our Discord members, for having such interesting conversations I always learn from.

And once again, a huge thank-you to MacStories readers like you for supporting our work and being so welcoming to me as I joined the team this year. This community is amazing, and it’s a privilege to be a part of it.

    Join

    Access Extra Content and Perks

    Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

    What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

    Learn more here and from our Club FAQs.

    Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

    Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

    Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

    Learn more here and from our Club FAQs.

    Apple Opens Up About Language Support for Apple Intelligence→

    Apple previously said Apple Intelligence will launch with support for U.S. English only, but other languages will be added over the next year. The company has gotten a little more specific than before with statements to The Verge and others that, over the next year, additional languages will include:

    • German
    • Italian
    • Korean
    • Portuguese
    • Vietnamese
    • and others

    In addition, according to Allison Johnson at The Verge:

    Apple’s AI feature set will expand to include localized English in the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand in December, with India and Singapore joining the mix next year. The company already announced plans to support Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish next year as well.

    It’s good to see Apple becoming more open with information about its plans for Apple Intelligence language support. The iPhone 16 will be out this Friday, and Apple Intelligence’s language support will undoubtedly be a factor for many customers considering whether to upgrade to the latest model.

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    The Latest from AppStories and Ruminate

    Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:

    This week, Federico and John tackle Apple’s updates to iOS and iPadOS 18 and Federico’s review of both.

    In a special AppStories+ segment available as a special review season perk to all listeners, Federico explains what led him to take a different approach to this year’s annual review.

    This episode is sponsored by:

    • Sentry: Mobile crash reporting and app monitoring. Try it for free.

    Robb goes on an epic quest and fails, John has been writing reviews, and the they discuss Astro Bot.

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    Founded in 2015, Club MacStories has delivered exclusive content every week for nearly a decade.

    What started with weekly and monthly email newsletters has blossomed into a family of memberships designed for every MacStories fan.

    Learn more here and from our Club FAQs.

    Club MacStories: Weekly and monthly newsletters via email and the web that are brimming with apps, tips, automation workflows, longform writing, early access to the MacStories Unwind podcast, periodic giveaways, and more;

    Club MacStories+: Everything that Club MacStories offers, plus an active Discord community, advanced search and custom RSS features for exploring the Club’s entire back catalog, bonus columns, and dozens of app discounts;

    Club Premier: All of the above and AppStories+, an extended version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered early, ad-free, and in high-bitrate audio.

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    Six Colors Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary→

    A decade is an eternity on the web, which makes Six Colors’ tenth anniversary something special. It’s weird how “web time” works. On the one hand, Six Colors feels like the sort of institution that’s always been there. On the other hand, it also feels like yesterday that Jason Snell and Dan Moren left Macworld and Six Colors got its start.

    Here’s Jason on his immediate jump from corporate media to working for himself:

    Ten years ago I took a leap into working for myself, not working in corporate media. For most days since, I’ve worked in my garage, writing articles for my site, recording podcasts, and writing the occasional piece for other places (including my former employer, which I couldn’t ever have predicted). Lauren and I agreed we’d spend six to nine months giving it a try before judging if it was a success or a failure, but it all started succeeding so quickly that we never really even got to the point where we needed to have the conversation. All of a sudden, Six Colors and Upgrade were my primary jobs… and they still are, here in 2024.

    I can only imagine what those first weeks were like. I had the benefit of an overlap of nearly two years between my corporate job and MacStories and the transition was still hard.

    The good news is that a decade later, Six Colors is going strong producing great writing and podcasts. Congratulations on ten great years.

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    Chris Lawley’s iOS and iPadOS 18 Walkthrough→

    It’s been an unprecedented week for Apple’s OSes, with updates to every OS landing at the same time at the beginning of the week. Today we’ll publish our fourth and final OS review with Devon Dundee’s visionOS review, which means I’m finally getting a chance to catch my breath and enjoy what others have to say about Apple’s OSes.

    If you haven’t seen it, Chris Lawley, co-host of Comfort Zone here on MacStories, has a fantastic walkthrough of iOS and and iPadOS 18 that covers everything from Home and Lock Screen customization and the all-new Control Center to updates to system apps like Freeform, Shortcuts, Safari, and Messages. The video is especially good if you’ve had a busy week and want to get up to speed on iOS and iPadOS 18 quickly.

    Chris has included a lot of excellent lesser known tips in his video that will help you get the most out of the OS updates too.

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