Following the release of my WordleBot shortcut last week, I’ve received a lot of useful and informative feedback from users in the accessibility community regarding the shortcut’s ability to annotate Wordle results with descriptions. Although well-intentioned, my original approach was misguided: even with line-based scores, the grid of emoji characters still performed horribly with screen-reading technologies such as Apple’s VoiceOver. WordleBot didn’t do much to make results more accessible for VoiceOver users since it was only reformatting the grid of emoji characters with additional text.
Posts tagged with "iOS"
WordleBot 1.1, Now Fully Accessible with Native Emoji-to-Image Conversion
Apple Frames 2.1: Apple Watch Series 7 and 2021 MacBook Pro Support, New Update Flow, Plus Chinese and Czech Localization
Today I’m pleased to announce the release of Apple Frames 2.1, the first major update to version 2.0 of my popular Apple Frames shortcut, which I launched last October. It took me longer than I hoped to put together this update, but I’m happy that I was able to add compatibility fo all the latest device frames supported by Apple, new languages, as well as a brand new update flow that will make it easier to download the latest templates powering Apple Frames in the future.
Let’s take a look.
The Curious Case of Apple’s Missing App Integrations for Shortcuts
In researching topics for the Automation Academy over the past few months, I’ve been digging into all the details of Apple’s built-in actions and comparing them against older versions of the Shortcuts app as well as third-party options offered by developers. In doing this, I’ve realized something that has been bothering me for a while: there is a clear inconsistency between modern features in Apple apps and their associated Shortcuts actions. The gap between functionalities in apps and matching Shortcuts actions has expanded over the years, and I think it’s time Apple takes a serious look at its app actions to reverse this trend.
Michael Flarup Announces The iOS App Icon Book→
Four years in the making, designer Michael Flarup has launched a Kickstarter campaign to finalize, print, and ship The iOS App Icon Book.
As Flarup explains, the iPhone sparked a golden era of icon design. The iOS App Icon Book is a 150-page art book that traces the history of iconography on iOS, with full-color, detailed reproductions of some of the best icon work from the past decade. In addition to the artwork, the book also includes a primer on Flarup’s approach to icon design and profiles of leading icon designers. The book traces the evolution of notable icons too.
The book is also meant to preserve the history of iOS iconography. As Flarup explains, the history of iOS icons is:
A history that is quickly fading. Many apps featured in this book aren’t around anymore or have evolved — which means the work we’ve been doing to capture this artwork have borded on internet archaeology. If we don’t preserve these things now, while we still have the opportunity to, they will be gone forever.
Flarup says the book is about 90% complete and should be finished by late January 2022, with the final product shipping in April 2022.
I’ve been following Michael Flarup’s progress on The iOS App Icon Book since its earliest stages, and I’m excited that it’s nearly finished. Icons are an important piece of iOS history, and I can think of no better person to chronicle its evolution.
Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 15.1 with SharePlay, Safari for iPad Fixes, Shortcuts Improvements, and More
Alongside macOS Monterey, Apple today released iOS and iPadOS 15.1 – the first major updates to the operating systems introduced last month. Don’t expect a large collection of changes from this release, though: 15.1 mostly focuses on enabling SharePlay (which was announced at WWDC, then postponed to a later release a few months ago), rolling Safari back to a reasonable design, and bringing a few tweaks for the Camera app and spatial audio. Let’s take a look.
Apple Frames 2.0: Faster, Lighter, and Featuring Support for iPhone 13, iPad mini, iPad 10.2”, iMac 24”, MacBook Air, and Multiple Languages
Today, I’m pleased to introduce Apple Frames 2.0, an all-new version of my popular shortcut to put screenshots inside physical device frames of Apple products. The new Apple Frames, which you can download at the end of this post or on the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, has been completely rewritten so it’s faster and lighter, comes with support for the latest iPhone 13 lineup and iPad mini, brings support for framing iMac and MacBook Air screenshots, and, at long last, is available internationally in seven different languages.
This is a massive update to Apple Frames, so let’s dive in.
CARROT Weather 5.4: XL Widgets, Time Sensitive Notifications, Complication Customization, Themes, Icons, and More
Last week, Brian Mueller released CARROT Weather 5.4 alongside the iOS and iPadOS update. The update takes advantage of new iOS and iPadOS 15 features and continues to put more control in the hands of users with new customization options, themes, and icons.
CARROT Weather 5.4 takes advantage of the new XL widgets in iPadOS 15 and the time sensitive notifications on both platforms. On the iPad, CARROT Weather now offers XL Maps and Forecast widgets. The added space allows the XL Maps widget to show weather maps for a wide geographic area. For me here in the Chicago area, that means I can see weather conditions for a big chunk of Illinois as well as parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, an area covering about 500 miles from east to west and 200 miles north and south.
The XL Forecast widget is big enough to include the:
- Current conditions
- High and low temperatures for the day
- Wind speed and direction
- Chance of precipitation
- Sunrise or sunset times
- Moon phase
- An hourly forecast for the next 10 hours
- A 7-day forecast
With just one widget, you’ve got all the information that most people want in one place without even opening CARROT Weather.
Safari Extensions for iOS and iPadOS 15: A Roundup of Our Favorites
With the introduction of iOS and iPadOS 15, Apple has created an entirely new class of utility app on the App Store: Safari web extensions. Mac users have enjoyed extensions for years. However, for iPhone and iPad users, they’re brand new and promise to make Safari more useful than ever by opening up new power-user functionality that extends Safari in ways that Apple hasn’t. Judging from the initial crop of extensions available, I think Safari users are going to be very happy.
There are a couple of ways to install Safari extensions for iOS and iPadOS 15. First, you can go to the Settings app, select Safari, and inside the Extensions section, turn on any extensions you’ve installed and give them permission to interact with webpages. Second, you can enable or disable extensions by tapping on the puzzle piece icon in the address bar and then choosing ‘Manage Extensions.’ The same popover that appears when you tap the puzzle piece icon also lets you ‘Edit Actions,’ picking favorite extensions that will appear at the top of your extensions list in whatever order you drag them into, similar to the way picking favorite share and action extensions and rearranging them works.
Okay, let’s dig into some of the best extensions already available.
iOS and iPadOS 15 Review Extras: eBooks, Shortcuts, Making Of, Obsidian Plugins, Safari Extension Beta, and AppStories Live
Today, Federico published his iOS and iPadOS 15 review. The review has become the centerpiece of what is always a busy fall season at MacStories. It has also become a tradition that we release a wide variety of perks exclusively for Club MacStories members alongside Federico’s review.