The headlining feature of iOS 16.1 is Live Activities, which allows apps to display status information in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen after a user closes an app. I’ve looked at over 40 new and updated apps and instead of just listing them, I thought I’d share a collection of the most innovative and useful ones that I’ve tried so far. This is just part 1 of this story. I’ll be back soon with even more as I continue to test the apps I’ve discovered.
Search results for "Bishop"
iOS 16.1 and Apps with Live Activities: The MacStories Roundup, Part 1
Pestle 1.2: The MacStories Review
One of the greatest strengths of the App Store is its abundance of choice. For every app category, there are always multiple excellent options from which to pick. That’s never been more true for the recipe app category. Paprika was my long-time personal favorite until Mela came along, but there are other great options like Grocery and Crouton too. Another app that belongs on that list is Pestle, an iPhone and iPad app by Will Bishop.
At its core, Pestle is a recipe manager, but it also integrates with Reminders to create shopping lists, offers a way to discover new dishes, and integrates meal planning, making it a well-rounded solution. The app also features a modern design that works well in the kitchen and some clever details like hands-free voice control for moving between recipe steps while cooking, making it worth a closer look.
MacStories Unwind: Gossip Girl and Hawkeye
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This week on MacStories Unwind, Federico watches the HBO Max reboot of Gossip Girl while John enjoys Hawkeye on Disney+, plus a recap of the past week on MacStories.
Links and Show Notes
Federico’s Pick:
- Gossip Girl (HBO Max)
John’s Pick:
- Hawkeye (Disney+)
- More on Hawkeye
MacStories Rewind
- Apple Frames 2.1: Apple Watch Series 7 and 2021 MacBook Pro Support, New Update Flow, Plus Chinese and Czech Localization
- WordleBot: A Shortcut to Annotate Your Wordle Results with Scores
- Accessing Shortcuts for Mac with Alfred Workflows and Universal Actions
- Obsidian In-Depth: Third-Party Plugins (Part 3)
- MacStories Weekly: Issue 303
MacStories Selects 2019: Recognizing the Best Apps of the Year
John: The process of picking the MacStories Selects awards is simple. During the past year as we used and reviewed hundreds of apps, Federico, Ryan, and I kept a shared note in Apple Notes with a list of the apps that struck us as potential candidates for one of our 2019 awards. Not long ago, each of us revisited that list and refined it. Then, we convened in the MacStories Slack and hashed out the winners and runners up.
Today, we are pleased to announce the winners of the second annual MacStories Selects awards. As we explained when we introduced the inaugural Selects awards, we expected that we would expand and evolve them in 2019, which is precisely what we’ve done.
This year, the Selects Awards feature four new awards:
- Best New Feature
- Best Watch App
- Best Mac App
- Readers’ Choice Award
Best New Feature recognizes a new app feature that stands out for its impact. We also added an award for the Best New Watch app; in a year that saw Watch apps gain independence from the iPhone, this is an award that felt like an obvious and natural addition to Selects. With Apple’s renewed focus on Mac hardware and apps, we also wanted to recognize the 2019 Mac app that we feel represents the best that macOS has to offer.
Finally, for 2019 we are debuting a Readers’ Choice award selected by members of Club MacStories. All of our readers care about the apps they use, or they wouldn’t be reading MacStories in the first place. However, Club members’ interest and dedication to discovering and using the very best apps available rises to an entirely different level, so we felt it would be fitting to tap into their refined tastes with this special award.
When we looked back on our 2018 Selects picks, we couldn’t help but feel that something was missing. The awards were well-received by readers and developers alike, but they lacked a sense of permanence and concreteness found in other awards ceremonies. So, we’re very pleased and excited to announce that this year, we have commissioned custom, hand-made awards that we will be sending to each Selects award recipient later this week. From New Zealand to Texas and many points in between, each of the eight MacStories Selects awards will be in the hands of winners soon.
Congratulations from the entire MacStories team to the winners and runners up this year. Every one of these apps represents the best the App Stores have to offer. Thanks too to the developers of all the apps we use and love; your hard work doesn’t go unseen. 2019 has been a fantastic year for apps, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with in 2020. Also, thanks to the Club MacStories members who participated in the Readers’ Choice award voting. The Club is an important part of MacStories, so it was great to find a way to involve its members.
With that, let’s get on with the 2019 MacStories Selects awards.
Chirp 2.0 Offers a Remarkably Full-Featured Twitter Experience on Apple Watch
It’s time for Apple Watch apps to grow up, and Chirp for Twitter is leading the charge.
Chirp 2.0 debuted today, offering a full-featured Twitter experience on the Apple Watch. Chirp was already the prime Twitter client on watchOS, but with version 2 the app becomes something truly special: an iPhone-quality app on the Watch. Thanks to SwiftUI and other new developer tools Apple has built for watchOS, Chirp can do all the things you would expect from a full-featured iOS app, such as load your whole timeline, with liking and retweeting functionality, display videos and open links embedded in tweets, offer tweet composition, full user profiles, DMs, and much, much more.
Watch developer Will Bishop has been shipping impressive apps for a while, but Chirp 2.0 undoubtedly represents his best work yet.
The World of Indie App Developers
Here at MacStories we write about apps. A lot. Many of those we write about, perhaps even most, are created by individuals and small teams. And typically, those hard-working individuals remain unknown to the public who just know an app as something they use. Today we want to bring a bunch those indie developers to the forefront.
I wasn’t sure exactly where it would lead, but last month I asked on Twitter for independent developers to @ reply me and say hi. Amplified by retweets by Federico and many others, I got dozens and dozens of replies, ultimately totalling just under 200 responses.[1] That’s both a pretty huge number (trust me, it was a time consuming process documenting them all) and also incredibly tiny (there are around 250,000 active developers and over a million apps for sale).
It would be completely ridiculous to perform any kind of analysis on such a small sample size, but it was nonetheless great to have a relatively varied spread of developers from all over the world (illustrated in the above graphic). But more valuable was the list of developers and their Twitter accounts. So I’ve created a Twitter list that includes every developer that @ replied me. We’ve also included the full table of every developer we collated, links to their apps, location and Twitter account (see below). Please note that developers and apps shown in the full list does not mean they are endorsed by me, Federico or MacStories. If a developer met some very minimal criteria, they were included.
Game In-App Purchases: A Conflict Between Developer Economics & Goodwill
In-App Purchases for iOS games. It’s a bit of a sensitive topic really, not many people like them at all, and quite a few people hate them and the impact they have had on the iOS games market. But today I want to explore the reason for their prevalence and explain why it has become an important part of the market for developers. I also want to reframe the discussion from one of “In-App Purchases are a problem” to one where we consider how they are being used and what developers could do to improve their implementation.
Below the break is Part 1: The Economics, in which I tackle the reason for their prevalence and importance in the iOS games market. Following that is Part 2: “Developers and Goodwill To Customers” in which I discuss how they are being used and perhaps what might be some best practices.
Homescreen.me Invites Winners Announced
We should have announced this last week, but as you may have noticed we were busy updating the sto - ehm, the site. So here it is, the announcement post for Homescreen.me invites winners.
You’ll receive the invites in a few hours directly from the Homescreen guys. Thanks for entering the contest, and congratulations! Read more
MacStories Apps Tree Winners Announced!
So, it’s finally over. The #appstree, the event I launched last week and which included over 500 licenses of Mac and iPhone apps has come to an end. I’d like to thank everyone who supported me during this event and the whole organization process: my Twitter followers, the readers who commented, the TechCrunch guys, the designers and developers who agreed to be interviewed or write a guest post.
Thank you.
Now, this is the post with the names of the winners. The list is pretty long, so I suggest you to Cmd + F on the page and search for the username you used in the comment. Some names come with a number next to them, that’s the number of the comment. As for the licenses, they’ll be sent during next week and the first week of January: there’s Christmas, the New Year Eve, so it’s impossible for me and the devs to send them right now. But don’t worry, you’ll receive the licenses straight into your inbox. Also, iPhone promo codes will be sent out first, as they’re very likely to expire. Last, I’m very glad to say that I’ve still got many interviews to publish, be sure to check them out.
The list is after the jump. And again, thank you!