This Week's Sponsor:

Textastic

The Powerful Code Editor for iPad and iPhone — Now Free to Try

Posts tagged with "iOS"

What Siri Isn’t: Perplexity’s Voice Assistant and the Potential of LLMs Integrated with iOS

Perplexity's voice assistant for iOS.

Perplexity’s voice assistant for iOS.

You’ve probably heard that Perplexity – a company whose web scraping tactics I generally despise, and the only AI bot we still block at MacStories – has rolled out an iOS version of their voice assistant that integrates with several native features of the operating system. Here’s their promo video in case you missed it:

This is a very clever idea: while other major LLMs’ voice modes are limited to having a conversation with the chatbot (with the kind of quality and conversation flow that, frankly, annihilates Siri), Perplexity put a different spin on it: they used native Apple APIs and frameworks to make conversations more actionable (some may even say “agentic”) and integrated with the Apple apps you use every day. I’ve seen a lot of people calling Perplexity’s voice assistant “what Siri should be” or arguing that Apple should consider Perplexity as an acquisition target because of this, and I thought I’d share some additional comments and notes after having played with their voice mode for a while.

Read more

Contabulation→

Rumors have been flying for a while about a planned redesign for iOS 19. One of the rumors is that iOS tab bars will support search bars, which led Ben McCarthy, the developer of Obscura, to write a terrific breakdown of how tab bars should be used:

If search is the primary form of navigation, as in Safari, Maps, or Callsheet, it should be at the bottom. If a search bar is just used for filtering content already on screen, then it can make more sense to leave it at the top, as scrolling is probably the more natural way to find what you’re looking for (the Settings app is a good example of this). So I’m delighted at the rumours that iOS 19’s Tab Bars can adapt into Search Bars when needed. I think it’ll be [a] big improvement and allow for more flexible navigation patterns with less code.

But Ben didn’t just provide pointers on how tab bars should be used. They also explained that tab bars:

  • should support actions and context menus,
  • accommodate more than five tabs,
  • and allow for user-generated tabs, something that is common on macOS.

It’s a great post, well worth studying as we wait to see whether and how far Apple will go in modifying the tab bar. As Ben notes, the tab bar has been around since the beginning of the iPhone, has changed very little, and is due for a redesign. I agree.

Permalink

Terminology 5: Rebuilt and Better than Ever

It’s been quite a while since I did a full review of Agile Tortoise’s Terminology, an extensible dictionary and reference tool for the iPhone and iPad. It’s hard to believe the app has been around for 15 years now, but with today’s release of version 5.0, Greg Pierce has introduced a thoroughly modern ground-up rewrite of the app that is richer and more extensible than ever, making it one of my favorite research tools.

Let’s take a look at what’s new.

Read more

Hands-On with Multiple Pinned Item Lists in Callsheet

It’s been over a year and a half since the debut of Callsheet, the app from Casey Liss for looking up information about films and TV shows, and the app has grown a lot in that time. From new app icon variations to more fine-grained spoiler settings to actors’ heights and ages, Callsheet has gained many new capabilities. My favorite addition thus far is the indicator for mid- and post-credit scenes in movies.

The app’s latest update expands greatly upon a feature that’s been present since the beginning: pinned items. Users can now create multiple separate lists of pinned items and organize them to their hearts’ content. As someone who watches quite a bit of TV and covers it regularly, I could certainly benefit from this feature, so I decided to give it a try.

Read more

How I’m Learning Japanese 14 Days In→

Brendon Bigley, my co-host on NPC: Next Portable Console, is getting married soon and planning a honeymoon to Japan. Before leaving, he and his partner decided to learn Japanese together. In doing so, Brendon has done a ton of research, quizzing friends who have learned the language, and trying a long list of resources, which he’s published on Wavelengths.

I love the idea that one of the biggest steps in learning Japanese is to learn how to learn Japanese:

So there are about one million different ways to go from here, and because every person is different it means you’ll need to try a few different things to get going. Many people say the first step of learning Japanese is to learn how to learn Japanese, and I’d say that’s almost correct. The first step, once again, is to learn hiragana and katakana… second is learning how to learn Japanese.

The reason things get so wild here is that people will say that you need to start learning kanji, vocab, and grammar simultaneously and it’s not not true. Learning even the most basic grammar helps make sense of sentence structure, which enables you to discern kanji and vocab words in the context of real written language. Conversely, the more kanji and vocab you learn the easier it will become to intuitively parse new grammatical rules as they’re introduced.

Learning how to learn something is a crucial step to any new and complicated undertaking but often gets overlooked. That’s because, as Brendon points out, everyone’s path to expertise in anything is different. It pays to listen to the advice of people you trust, as he did, but it’s just as important to listen to yourself and understand how you learn.

Brendon’s story has great advice for learning anything, but in particular, it’s packed with resources for learning Japanese. There are Mac and iOS apps, web apps, Android apps, textbooks, and more. As someone who has a kid traveling around Tokyo and Kyoto right now, I immediately sent him the link. It’s a great one to file away if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Maybe I’ll try to learn Japanese some day.”

Permalink

Recipes Are Coming to Apple’s News+ Service

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple continues to layer new features into its News+ service. With iOS and iPadOS 18.4, the company says the service will add recipes from well-known publishers including Allrecipes, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Good Food, and Serious Eats:

With the new Food feature, users will be able to find stories curated by Apple News editors, as well as browse, search, and filter tens of thousands of recipes in the Recipe Catalog — with new recipes added every day. The beautifully designed recipe format makes it easy to review ingredients and directions, and a new cook mode takes step-by-step instructions to the full screen. Users can also save their favorite recipes for later and access them offline.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Interestingly, Apple’s press release makes no mention of the Mac. I’d rather use my iPhone or iPad in the kitchen, but a Mac is a great place to browse recipes, so hopefully News+ Food will be brought to the Mac eventually.

My Latest Mac Hacks Column: Using Google Gemini with Read-Later and Listen-Later Services for Research→

A Google Gemini report on the Sony PlayStation Portable.

A Google Gemini report on the Sony PlayStation Portable.

Yesterday, I published the latest installment of my Mac Hacks column, an exclusive perk of Club MacStories+ and Club Premier, covering how I use Google Gemini combined with read- and listen-later services to do preliminary research for projects.

What started as a way to reduce distractions when doing research with the help of Google Gemini quickly evolved into something more. As I explain in the conclusion:

The result of this workflow is that I can generate a Gemini report for an ongoing project and then read it at my leisure somewhere other than at my desk, whether I’m using my laptop, an iPad, or an e-ink device. I also have the option of heading out to my local coffee shop for a change of scenery and listening to a report as I walk. On a busy day, it’s a nice way to get some exercise and knock out some research at the same time. That flexibility, combined with fewer up-front distractions, has proven to be a great productivity boost.

Research is a universal task that touches every sort of project. It’s also a place where it’s easy to get bogged down. If you’re interested in streamlining the process, don’t miss the latest Mac Hacks.

Discounts are just one of the many Club MacStories perks.

Discounts are just one of the many Club MacStories perks.

Mac Hacks is just one of many perks that Club MacStories+ and Club Premier members enjoy, which also include:

  • weekly and monthly newsletters,
  • a sophisticated web app with search and filtering tools to navigate eight years of content,
  • customizable RSS feeds,
  • bonus columns,
  • an early and ad-free version of MacStories Unwind, our Internet culture and media podcast,
  • a vibrant Discord community of smart app and automation fans who trade a wealth of tips and discoveries every day, and
  • live Discord audio events after Apple events and at other times of the year.

On top of that, Club Premier members get AppStories+, an extended, ad-free version of our flagship podcast that we deliver early every week in high-bitrate audio.

Use the buttons below to learn more and sign up for Club MacStories+ or Club Premier.

Join Club MacStories+:

Join Club Premier:

Permalink

Game Tracker: A Powerful App to Track, Organize, and Customize Your Videogame Library

Game Tracker is a new videogame tracking app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac from Simone Montalto, who is probably best known to MacStories readers for developing the excellent Book Tracker. In fact, Montalto has created an entire suite of tracking apps that also includes Movie Tracker, Music Tracker, and Habit Tracker. That experience with various tracking apps shows with Game Tracker, which does a fantastic job of tailoring to the particularities of videogames and leveraging metadata to allow users to make the app their own.

Let’s take a closer look.

Read more