Posts tagged with "featured"

Maybe I’m Not a Pro Anymore

Apple just wrapped up their September event revealing a bunch of updates to the Apple Watch, AirPods, and iPhone lineups, and I have only one major takeaway as a person who was absolutely, positively going to get the iPhone 16 Pro if it came in gold: I am seriously considering downgrading to the non-Pro iPhone 16 this time around. 

I’ve been an iPhone Pro user since it was first announced — and in some ways even earlier if we consider the iPhone X to be the first true Pro iPhone when it was released alongside the 8. I always went Pro because I take a huge amount of photos with my phone and, despite currently owning four dedicated photography cameras, none beat the ease of use, access, and versatility of the iPhone. It made sense to use the best camera system available. In a lot of ways, I credit the Pro models with keeping me interested in photography throughout all these years, and learning to utilize the different lenses for different scenes and subjects has felt like learning a skill, like the iPhone Pro was helping me become a pro. I truly believe a lot of those skills transferred directly to the photography I create today.

I read a piece by Allison Johnson over the weekend about the base iPhone experience that resonated with me. She wrote:

At the very least, it looks like Apple is about to bring a little more balance back with the iPhone 16 series. I think that’s how it should be — the Pro iPhone should feel like you’re getting something extra, not being cornered into paying more for an essential feature.

It occurred to me watching today’s presentation that this is the first year where the iPhone’s Pro models feel like they were actually made for professionals. The “extras” Allison is referring to used to be the marquee features of the newest lineup — the Dynamic Island, the Action button, etc — but are now seriously professional features. The latest additions and the reasoning behind their inclusion all felt completely alien to me. I kept wondering: how many people will actually use camera options like the ability to dynamically shift the audio mix while recording in ProRes or capturing 4K content in slow motion to use for a music video? It became clear that the reach of what “Pro” means to Apple has outpaced my own photographic use case. I simply went with the Pro models year after year because I liked having a third lens in my kit and also got some kind of fun bonus feature to mess around with, but I don’t think that’s enough of a reason to justify the jump anymore. And that’s okay!

The base iPhone lineup seems to have pretty much everything I could ever need this time around — including the dedicated Camera Control button and the more fun colors I’ve always been so envious of — so the idea of downgrading seems almost prudent despite being a nonstarter for me as early as this very morning. I think I can be perfectly happy with one less lens and Halide’s Process Zero to keep experimenting with. And maybe the limitation of having one less lens will help me grow as a photographer in an entirely new way this time around. That would be nice!

I’m legitimately very happy for the people out there who will get the iPhone 16 Pro and make use of the latest and greatest Apple’s incredible product design teams have to offer, but I think it’s finally time I step down from the precipice of what the iPhone is capable of. In some ways, it feels simpler now, and the “Pro” name has the weight it should have all along. No artificial reasoning behind which features make it to which device, just one iPhone for the people who need it and one iPhone for the rest of us.

I’m fine being lumped into that second bucket this time around.

You can follow all of our September 2024 Apple event coverage through our September 2024 Apple event hub or subscribe to the dedicated September 2024 Apple event RSS feed.

Apple Announces the New Apple Watch Series 10 and a New Color for the Apple Watch Ultra 2

Going into today’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ event, there were high expectations for a significant redesign for this, the tenth version of the Apple Watch. We’ve been burned before by rumors of a redesign, but thankfully, this year’s rumors turned out to be true. The new Apple Watch Series 10 looks like a noticeable upgrade; however the Apple Watch Ultra wasn’t upgraded and only received a new color option.

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iPhone 16 and 16 Pro: The MacStories Overview

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Today, Apple unveiled this year’s iPhone lineup consisting of four devices: iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. There are noteworthy improvements and additions across the line, so let’s dive in to what these phones have to offer.

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus

The iPhone 16 and its larger-screened variant add not one, but two new hardware buttons this year. They also include improved cameras and an important processor bump.

The A18 chip is built on a second-generation 3nm process. It features a six-core CPU with two performance cores and four efficiency cores, a five-core GPU that enables hardware-accelerated ray tracing in games, and Apple’s new 16-core neural engine. Its increased memory and bandwidth make the iPhone 16 capable of running Apple Intelligence, the first non-Pro iPhone to do so. The chip is also more efficient, which, in combination with a bigger battery and better heat dissipation, results in what Apple calls a “big boost” to battery life.

The Action button is the latest iPhone Pro feature to make its way down to the standard line. Everything true of last year’s Action button applies to this one: its size and shape, the fact that it’s physically pressable, and its software capabilities. I imagine many iPhone 16 buyers will just use the Action button as a slightly nicer mute switch, but for those who wish to, they can customize it to open the camera, turn on the flashlight, run Shortcuts, or perform any number of other actions.

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Moom 4: Mac Window Management, Upgraded

This summer, my all-time favorite window management utility Moom received a major 4.0 upgrade more than 12 years after the initial release of Moom 3. Ever since I went back to the Mac as my main computer, Moom has allowed me to create automations to arrange my windows and easily save and restore specific window layouts. From a fully customizable palette to new keyboard shortcut options to the ability to chain custom commands, Moom 4 offers a wide range of new features that make it an even more advanced utility that will appeal to anyone looking for more flexibility than Apple’s new window tiling feature, which is coming in macOS Sequoia.

Let’s check out the main new features in Moom 4.

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iPadOS 18’s Smart Script: A Promising Start But Don’t Toss Out Your Keyboard Yet

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The carefully controlled demos of Smart Script at WWDC reminded me of every time Apple shows off the Photos app, where each picture is a perfectly composed, beautiful image of smiling models. In contrast, my photo library is full of screenshots and random images like the blurry one I took the other day to capture my refrigerator’s model number.

Likewise, handwriting demos on the iPad always show someone with flawless, clear penmanship who can also draw. In both cases, the features demonstrated may work perfectly well, but the reality is that there’s always a gap between those sorts of perfect “lifestyle” demos and everyday use. So today, I thought I’d take iPadOS 18’s Smart Script for a spin and see how it holds up under the stark reality of my poor handwriting.

Smart Script, meet John's handwriting (auto-refine enabled).

Smart Script, meet John’s handwriting (auto-refine enabled).

The notion behind Smart Script is to make taking handwritten notes as easy and flexible as typing text. As someone who can touch type with my eyes closed, that’s a tall order, but it’s also a good goal. I’ve always been drawn to taking notes on an iPad with the Apple Pencil, but it’s been the constraints that held me back. It’s always been easier to move and change typed text than handwritten notes. Add to that the general messiness of my handwriting, and eventually, I abandoned every experiment with taking digital handwritten notes out of frustration.

Smart Script tries to address all of those issues, and in some cases, it succeeds. However, there are still a few rough edges that need to be ironed out before most people’s experience will match the demos at WWDC. That said, if those problem areas get straightened out, Smart Script has the potential to transform how the iPad is used and make the Apple Pencil a much more valuable accessory.

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Creating a Custom Weather and Home Climate Control Menu Bar App with MenuBot and Shortcuts

Last year, I wrote about how I was able to display the temperature from my outdoor sensor in my Mac’s menu bar using a combination of Shortcuts, SF Symbols, and small utilities like One Thing and Data Jar. I’ve been using this approach ever since, but this summer, I came across a tool that changed that: MenuBot.

MenuBot is an app for the Mac that lets you build your own indicators and applets for your menu bar directly from the output of a shortcut. The app is more powerful than it may seem at first: you can create entire submenus and even tie URLs and actions to each menu entry. In the end, I was able to use it to completely revamp my outdoor temperature indicator in the menu bar and even enhance it with HomeKit controls.

I’ve been having a ton of fun playing with MenuBot. Let me show you what I’ve done with it.

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A Video Version of NPC: Next Portable Console Debuts Today on YouTube

Today, we’re expanding NPC: Next Portable Console to include video on YouTube. The reception to the show has been fantastic. NPC debuted in the top five on the Apple Podcasts Video Game chart and has been attracting more listeners every week as an audio-only podcast on YouTube. However, with videogames being such a popular category on YouTube, we knew we could do more for listeners by adding a proper video version of the show.

So beginning today, you can watch NPC on the MacStories YouTube channel:

Today’s episode was the perfect place to start with video. I don’t want to give away Federico’s surprises here, but he plotted a big reveal for months that he springs on Brendon and me in today’s episode. It’s a deep dive into the console modding community and a classic Federico reveal. As always, we highlight the latest portable gaming news, too.

If you haven’t tried NPC or checked out the MacStories YouTube channel yet, you can subscribe to NPC on YouTube or subscribe to the MacStories channel for access to all six of our podcasts and more. Of course, all of our shows are available as audio-only podcasts too.

Thanks to everyone who has listened to NPC and our other new shows these past few months. It means a lot to us. Our ongoing experiments with YouTube are a direct result of the enthusiasm for the shows and something we plan to do more of in the coming months.

Shareshot 1.0: Pixel Perfect Screenshots, Beautifully Presented

I’ve used Federico’s Apple Frames shortcut to add device frames to screenshots for years. It’s a great way to quickly process multiple screenshots and upload them to the MacStories CDN with minimal effort. But as great as Shortcuts is for simplifying this sort of task, there are advantages to using a native app instead.

Editing screenshots on the iPad.

Editing screenshots on the iPad.

Shareshot is an app for iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro that occupies a lot of the same feature space as Apple Frames, using Apple hardware to frame screenshots. However, the app simultaneously does more and a little less than Federico’s shortcut. That one missing feature means that I won’t be abandoning Apple Frames, but because of the things the app can do that Apple Frames can’t, Shareshot will be joining the shortcut as a utility I expect to use a lot.

Let’s dig into what makes Shareshot shine.

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iOS 18 After One Month: Without AI, It’s Mostly About Apps and Customization

iOS 18 launches in public beta today.

iOS 18 launches in public beta today.

My experience with iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, launching today in public beta for everyone to try, has been characterized by smaller, yet welcome enhancements to Apple’s productivity apps, a redesign I was originally wrong about, and an emphasis on customization.

There’s a big omission looming over the rollout of these public betas, and that’s the absence of any Apple Intelligence functionalities that were showcased at WWDC. There’s no reworked Siri, no writing tools in text fields, no image generation via the dedicated Image Playground app, no redesigned Mail app. And that’s not to mention the AI features that we knew were slotted for 2025 and beyond, such as Siri eventually becoming more cognizant of app content and gaining the ability to operate more specifically inside apps.

As a result, these first public betas of iOS and iPadOS 18 may be – and rightfully so – boring for most people, unless you really happen to care about customization options or apps.

Fortunately, I do, which is why I’ve had a pleasant time with iOS and iPadOS 18 over the past month, noting improvements in my favorite system apps and customizing Control Center with new controls and pages. At the same time, however, I have to recognize that Apple’s focus this year was largely on AI; without it, it feels like the biggest part of the iOS 18 narrative is missing.

As you can imagine, I’m going to save a deeper, more detailed look at all the visual customization features and app-related changes in iOS and iPadOS 18 for my annual review later this year, where I also plan to talk about Apple’s approach to AI and what it’ll mean for our usage of iPhones and iPads.

For now, let’s take a look at the features and app updates I’ve enjoyed over the past month.

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