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Announcing the Club MacStories Fall Membership Event and Discount

Today, we’re announcing our first-ever Club MacStories Membership Event and Discount. I’ve got more details below, but the highlights include 20% off on all annual Club MacStories plans plus special columns, a live Discord event, giveaways, deals, downloadable content, and more every day through October 31st. There’s a lot going on, so let’s look at the details.

To take advantage of the discounted plans, please use the coupon code CLUB2023 at checkout or click on one of the buttons below.

Join Club MacStories:

Join Club MacStories+:

Join Club Premier:

Visit our [Plans page](https://club.macstories.net/plans) for more details on each Club option.

Visit our Plans page for more details on each Club option.

Club MacStories has become a big part of MacStories. The Club has grown steadily every year since it was started in 2015, and every plan is packed with more of what you love about MacStories. With this month’s event, we want to accomplish two things:

  • Thank our current members with two weeks packed with what makes the Club special
  • Offer a special 20% off on annual plans to grow the Club further and make switching to a higher-tier membership more affordable for existing members.

The support of Club MacStories members is the foundation of MacStories. It’s given us the freedom to expand, focus on our in-depth stories and reviews, and build a closer relationship with readers. And most recently, while websites are shutting down and laying off staff due to plummeting ad revenue, we’re growing and have plans to do even more in the coming year. That wouldn’t have been possible without the Club.

What’s unique about Club MacStories is that it’s the perfect complement to MacStories.net. If you’re a fan of the site, you’ll find that the Club is a natural extension of what you already love, with more of everything.

Our Club Discord community has become a fantastic resource for Club MacStories+ and Premier members.

Our Club Discord community has become a fantastic resource for Club MacStories+ and Premier members.

That’s been the case since the Club launched over eight years ago. We didn’t hide MacStories content behind a paywall when the Club was started. Instead, the Club has always been designed to supplement MacStories with more app coverage and complex automations, longer podcast episodes, and more. Then, with the introduction of Club MacStories+ and Club Premier, we built on that model further with a vibrant, respectful Discord community of app and automation fans who help each other get the most out of their technology.

Club newsletters are available in our fully-searchable web app for Club MacStories+ and Premier members.

Club newsletters are available in our fully-searchable web app for Club MacStories+ and Premier members.

We know that folks are inundated with subscriptions these days, which is why we work hard to offer what we think is a great value at every tier of the Club. Our eight-year track record of consistency and content, which includes nearly 500 issues of our newsletters, speaks for itself, but we also realize that committing to an annual plan is still a lot. So that is why we’re excited to offer the biggest discount on Club MacStories plans we’ve ever done. Here’s a breakdown of each tier and the discounts we’re offering through October 31, 2023:

Normally Through Oct. 31
Club MacStories $50/year $40
Club MacStories+ $100/year $80
Club Premier $120/year $96

If you’re not familiar with the Club, you can learn more and compare plans side-by-side here and read our FAQ page.

These discounts are available to anyone signing up for one annual Club membership for the first time, reactivating an expired plan, or upgrading a current plan.

To take advantage of the discounted plans, please use the coupon code CLUB2023 at checkout or click on one of the buttons below.

When you change a monthly plan to an annual one, you'll get credit for the remainder of your current month's subscription.

When you change a monthly plan to an annual one, you’ll get credit for the remainder of your current month’s subscription.

Join Club MacStories:

Join Club MacStories+:

Join Club Premier:

As a thank you to members, we’re also rolling out daily content, giveaways, deals, and more over the next two weeks, starting with a new addition to our Club MacStories+ and Club Premier app discounts page, which we’ll reveal tomorrow on Mastodon and Threads. Then on each day for the next two weeks, we’ll have columns, giveaways, a special Discord audio event, eBooks, and more, so keep an eye on the MacStories and Club MacStories Mastodon accounts and the MacStories Threads account every day to hear what’s coming next. We’ll be sure to keep any giveaway entries open throughout the fall Membership Event, too, so no matter when you join, they’ll be available.

Thanks again to our many loyal Club MacStories members, and welcome to everyone joining for the first time. You’ve all helped us grow MacStories, launch new projects, and build MacStories on a strong foundation while staying independent and true to our editorial values. We look forward to bringing you even more of what makes MacStories special for a long time to come.

Bartender 5 Is the Essential Menu Bar Upgrade for macOS Sonoma

The last time Bartender received a major update was back in 2021. Bartender 4 brought many new powerful features to help declutter the menu bar, particularly on the new MacBook models with a notch, which made menu bar real estate become even more valuable. Bartender 5 was officially released last month, and not only is it a fantastic maintenance update that brings support for macOS Sonoma – it’s also a release full of fun additions for all Mac users.

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Introducing MultiButton: Assign Two Shortcuts to the Same Action Button Press on Your iPhone

MultiButton.

MultiButton.

I got my iPhone 15 Pro Max last week, and I’m loving the possibilities opened by the Action button combined with the Shortcuts app. But as I was playing around with different ideas for the Action button, I had a thought:

Wouldn’t it be great if instead of just one shortcut, I could toggle between two shortcuts with the same Action button press? That’s exactly what my new MultiButton shortcut does.

With MultiButton, you’ll be able to assign two separate shortcuts to the Action button. Unlike other solutions you may have seen that always make you pick shortcuts from a menu, MultiButton automatically cycles between two shortcuts if you press the Action button multiple times in rapid succession. You don’t need to pick shortcuts from a list; just press the Action button and MultiButton will take care of everything.

Toggling between two shortcuts with MultiButton.Replay

Allow me to explain how MultiButton works and how you can configure it for your Action button. In the process, I’ll also share some new shortcut ideas that you can start using today on your iPhone 15 Pro.

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macOS Sonoma: The MacStories Review

In one sense, the story of this year’s macOS update is that there is no story, but that’s not exactly right. Instead, it’s a bunch of stories. It’s the tail end of the realignment of macOS with Apple’s other OSes that began with macOS Catalina in 2019. However, Sonoma is also part of a work-at-home story accelerated by COVID-19. The OS is also linked to the story of visionOS, only part of which has been revealed. Sonoma is a bundle of narrative threads built on the foundation of past releases, adding up to a collection of updates that will be less disruptive for most Mac users than recent macOS updates. Instead, Sonoma is packed with a variety of useful new features that help draw it closer to iPadOS and iOS than ever before, design enhancements, and a few disappointing omissions.

The timing for a more modest macOS update is right. In recent years, Mac users have had to adjust to substantial redesigns of everything from their favorite system apps to the Finder’s windows and toolbars. The changes were inescapable and necessary to harmonize the Mac with Apple’s other products, but also disruptive for some long-time users.

Sonoma adds a vast collection of new wallpaper and screensaver options.

Sonoma adds a vast collection of new wallpaper and screensaver options.

With macOS Sonoma, the biggest design shifts seem to be behind us – at least for the time being. Interactive widgets on the desktop are a big change this year, but it’s not like macOS dumps a bunch of them on your desktop by default. If you never want to see a widget anywhere near your desktop, you don’t have to. Other than the subtle way the login screen has changed and the new screensavers and wallpapers that are available, the core macOS experience has barely changed.

Instead, this year’s update is primarily about refining and building upon the foundation of the past few years, coupled with a handful of more significant updates to system apps. So, while the marquee features and design changes may be less notable than in recent years, there is still a long list of new and refreshed items that touch nearly every aspect of the OS, so let’s dive in.

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iOS and iPadOS 17 Review Extras: eBook, Special Editions of MacStories Weekly and AppStories+, and Two New Obsidian Plugins

Today, Federico published his iOS and iPadOS 17 review. As in past years, we’re releasing a wide variety of perks exclusively for Club MacStories members throughout the week, including an eBook version of the review, a special ‘making of’ edition of MacStories Weekly, a behind-the-scenes AppStories+ segment, and two new Club-exclusive Obsidian plugins.

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iOS and iPadOS 17: The MacStories Review

In the year when the vision is elsewhere, what do you get the OS that has everything?

Well, last year was weird.

For the first time since I started writing annual reviews of Apple’s two mobile operating systems – iOS and iPadOS – I published a review without the iPad part. Or rather: I had to publish it a month later given the mess Apple found itself in with Stage Manager for iPadOS 16 and its half-baked, embarrassing debut.

I don’t want to go over the specifics of that entire saga again and how we got to a shipping version of Stage Manager for iPadOS 16 that didn’t meet my expectations. Spoiler alert: as we’ll see later in this review, Apple listened to feedback and fixed the most glaring issues of Stage Manager in iPadOS 17, striking the balance between “guided multitasking” and freeform window placement that was missing from last year’s debut. Stage Manager for iPadOS 16 will remain another blip in the iPad’s long and storied history of ill-fated multitasking features. There’s no need to talk about it again.

I want to explain, however, why the past 12 months have been different than usual in iOS and iPadOS land beyond the fact that I couldn’t work on my iPad Pro for the first half of 2023.1

Following the launch of iOS 16 with its Lock Screen widgets and after Apple wrapped up work on the last big-ticket item on the iOS 16 roadmap (Live Activities for the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, which launched in late October), it felt like the entire Apple community only started thinking about one product for the next six months: the headset. What would later be known as the Vision Pro and visionOS platform became the topic of conversation in Apple-related publications, podcasts, and YouTube channels. Leading up to WWDC 2023, anticipation surrounding the upcoming headset eclipsed anything related to other platforms.

And rightfully so. As I explained in the story that I wrote after I was able to try a Vision Pro at Apple Park, the excitement was justified. It’s always a rare occurrence for Apple to introduce a new hardware product with associated software platform; but to do so with a mind-blowing experience unlike anything I ever tried before in my life is truly something special. Apple had been working on visionOS and Vision Pro for years, and we were all thinking about it and waiting for it at WWDC. And the company delivered.

This context is necessary because the visionOS/Vision Pro development timeline explains what’s going on with iOS and iPadOS 17 this year. Both OSes are grab-bag style updates with a collection of welcome enhancements to different areas of experience. I quipped years ago that modern iOS updates need to have a little bit of everything for everyone; that has never been more true than with iOS 17, albeit for a different reason this time: most likely, because Apple didn’t have time to also deliver big, vision-altering upgrades on the iPhone this year.

iOS and iPadOS take a bit of a secondary role in 2023, happily conceding the spotlight to a new software platform that hasn’t launched yet, but which developers around the world are already testing in person.

To be clear, I am not complaining. iOS and iPadOS 17 may not have an industry-defining, obvious tentpole feature, but in their approach to offering miscellaneous improvements, they’re fun and interesting to cover. Of the two, iPadOS is the one that suffered from lack of development resources the most and whose strategy could be easily summed up as “it’s iPadOS 16, but we fixed Stage Manager”. Which, again, given the circumstances, is absolutely fine with me.

While Apple was busy with visionOS this summer, I was having fun exploring iOS 17’s collection of app updates and, as we’ll see in this review, extensive upgrades to one system feature: widgets.

As always every year: let’s dive in.

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  1. Did I ever tell you the story of how I used a Microsoft Surface in secret as my main computer from January to June 2023 until Apple unveiled the new Stage Manager for iPadOS 17 and everything was good with the world again? How I spent six months in computing wilderness and questioned every single one of my tech decisions? And how I ultimately accepted that I prefer Apple platforms because, at the end of the day, they're made by people who care about great design and user experience? I did, and you can listen to the story here. ↩︎

The Weather App Adds More Detailed Data in iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma

Apple’s Weather app is packing more data than ever before on iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma. The thing about weather is that beyond the basics, everyone cares about different things, and some people care about it all. With Apple’s latest version of Weather, there’s more weather to nerd out on than ever before.

Hourly precipitation predictions for a full 10 days.

Hourly precipitation predictions for a full 10 days.

The Weather app includes hourly precipitation predictions in its 10-day forecast detail view. Is there really a 45% chance of rain in Nashville a week from Monday? Probably not, but if that sort of precision is what you’re looking for in a weather app, Weather has it.

The wind animates on the new radar map overlay.

The wind animates on the new radar map overlay.

Wind map overlays have been added to Weather, too. The overlay looks excellent and animates to show you which way the wind will blow over the next 24 hours. It’s a great addition if you’re going out to fly a kite or a drone, sail a boat, and more.

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iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma Expand Password Management and Access System-Wide

Passwords permeate our lives. With an ever-growing number of sites, services, and apps to log into, people need help generating, managing, and accessing them. There are excellent third-party apps that can help, but the reality is that most people aren’t going to download a third-party app, and even fewer are likely to pay for one. That’s why Apple’s work with passwords is so important.

However, what makes that work impressive is the lengths to which the company has gone to make good password practices easy for users. The password updates to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma are fantastic examples, making it easier than ever to share passwords and for users to begin adopting passkeys, a superior method of authentication compared to traditional passwords.

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These Are the iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma Features Coming Later This Year

Next week, Apple will begin releasing its new OSes, which are packed with a lot of new features. However, those updates won’t include everything you may have heard about over the summer. For the past few years, OS features that are announced at WWDC have been increasingly released after the fall release of major OS revisions. Sometimes, those later releases are signaled at WWDC, but often they’re not, so we’ve compiled a list of features that won’t be available in Apple’s fall OS updates but have been promised to come in a later release. Unless otherwise indicated, the following features will be coming later to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma:

  • One of the tentpole features of Messages this year is the ability to create stickers using every OSes’ ability to lift subjects from a photo. The option to share stickers from Messages’ ‘Plus’ menu is already in this fall’s updates, but later, you’ll also be able to send stickers using the Tapback menu, too.
  • Messages will also sync settings, like text message forwarding, SMS filters, and send and receive accounts, via iCloud in a later release.
  • The ‘catch up’ arrow button found now on iOS 17 that takes users to the top of new messages in a busy thread will come to iPadOS 17.
  • The News widget will add playback controls for Apple News podcasts and News+ audio stories on iOS and iPadOS 17.
  • AirDrop will add the ability to finish a file transfer using the Internet if a local peer-to-peer connection drops.
  • A lot of Music’s promised updates are coming later, including:
    • Collaborative playlists that will allow a group to add, rearrange, and remove songs.
    • Emoji reactions to song collaborative playlist song choices in the Now Playing view.
    • A new Favorite Songs playlist, something which I’ve maintained as a smart playlist forever, will be available automatically in your Library and via Siri.
    • Marking items as favorites is expanding to include songs, albums, playlists, and artists. Favorites will automatically be added to your Library, eliminating what is now a two-step process, and will be used to improve your recommendations.
    • Also, Music will add a macOS Sonoma widget to allow users to play or pause a song or album or see a list of top charts and, for Apple Music subscribers, recommendations.
  • Intelligent PDF form detection with enhanced AutoFill will be available systemwide in apps like Files and Mail, as well as for scanned documents.
  • The Fitness app will allow you to prioritize the volume of trainers’ voices or the training session’s music on iOS and iPadOS 17.
  • Proximity sign-in using the particle cloud used by devices like the HomePod and Apple Watch will be expanded to make it easier to use a signed-in, trusted iPhone or iPad to sign in to other devices.
  • Your iPhone will add the ability to tap to unlock Matter-enabled smart locks with a home key or set up a PIN code in the Home app on iOS 17.
  • Finally, there’s no word yet on when Journal, Apple’s journaling app, will make its debut.

Of these features, I’m especially looking forward to the updates to Music, checking what Journal is capable of, and sending stickers using Tapback, which I expect will increase my use of them a lot. There’s no word yet when these features debut, but I expect we’ll see them trickle out starting later this year.