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Posts tagged with "iPadOS 15"

macOS 12.3: The Magic of Universal Control and More

macOS 12.3 Monterey has arrived, delivering Universal Control, the long-awaited feature that allows users to transition between Macs and iPads with a single set of input devices. Federico is covering the feature from the perspective of iPadOS 15.4, so I’ll focus on the Mac. In addition to Universal Control, macOS 12.3 includes other smaller features, which I’ll cover at the end of this story.

I’ve been using macOS 12.3 as my daily OS throughout the current beta cycle for a couple of reasons. First, Shortcuts has been steadily improving ever since Monterey’s fall introduction, so I wanted to stay on top of those improvements in real-time. Second, I’ve been fascinated by the possibilities created by Universal Control since it was announced at WWDC last year. I’m pleased to report that the feature hasn’t disappointed me and has quickly found a place as part of my core computing setup.

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iOS and iPadOS 15.4: Hands-On with Universal Control, Face ID with a Mask, and More

iOS and iPadOS 15.4 are available today.

iOS and iPadOS 15.4 are available today.

Today, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 15.4. The fourth major updates to iOS and iPadOS 15, originally released in September 2021, offer a long list of miscellaneous improvements and feature tweaks (which I will detail later in the story) as well as two major additions for iPad and iPhone users: the long-awaited Universal Control and the ability to use Face ID while wearing a mask, respectively.

I’ve been testing both iOS and iPadOS 15.4 since the first beta in late January, and I was able to spend some quality time with both of these features and everything else that is new and improved in these releases. Let’s take a look.

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iOS and iPadOS 15.2 Overview: Music, Privacy, Security, and Safety, and a Grab Bag of Other Additions and Refinements

Yesterday, iOS and iPadOS 15.2 were released with a grab bag of new features, refinements, and fixes. There are some handy details in this release, many of which are found deep within the Settings app, so it’s worth poking around to find the ones you want to try.

Music

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

One of the first things Apple announced in October alongside the new colorful HomePod minis was Apple Music Voice Plan, a more affordable version of the company’s music streaming service that is controlled solely by Siri. The new plan lets subscribers access Apple Music’s deep catalog of music, playlists, and radio stations with Apple’s voice assistant. Specific items from Apple Music’s catalog can be requested, or you can ask for songs that fit a mode or ones that are picked based on your like and dislike history. There’s also a feature called Play it Again that allows you to access recently played music.

The new Voice Plan costs $4.99/month and has some limitations compared to other Apple Music Plans. Like Individual Plans, the new Voice Plan is limited to one person. There is no multi-person family plan. Voice Plan doesn’t include the following features either:

  • Real-time lyrics
  • Music videos
  • Spatial audio
  • Lossless audio
Searching inside a playlist.

Searching inside a playlist.

Playlists are searchable now too. When you open a playlist in the Music app, swipe down to reveal the search field at the top of the screen, which will allow you to find individual songs – a nice addition for lengthy playlists.

However, I still wish Apple would allow me to search for playlists organized into folders. You can’t make folders of playlists on an iPhone or iPad, but you can on a Mac. Unfortunately, organizing playlists into folders comes with a substantial penalty. If you go to the Playlists section of Music and search for the title of a playlist that happens to be in a folder, it won’t show up in the results unless you first navigate to the folder where the playlist is stored.

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Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 15.1 with SharePlay, Safari for iPad Fixes, Shortcuts Improvements, and More

Screen sharing in FaceTime with SharePlay (left) and the updated Safari for iPad.

Screen sharing in FaceTime with SharePlay (left) and the updated Safari for iPad.

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.

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Mapper Safari Extension Automatically Redirects Google Maps Links to Apple Maps

All of these place links get redirected to Apple Maps with Mapper.

All of these place links get redirected to Apple Maps with Mapper.

Ever since Apple rolled out the redesigned and improved Apple Maps in Italy last month, I’ve been increasingly switching my usage of maps for exploration and turn-by-turn directions from Google to Apple Maps. I prefer Apple’s overall design sensibilities, I find Look Around drastically superior to Google Street View, and the integration with Apple Maps and the Lock Screen for turn-by-turn navigation is excellent.

However, I still have to keep Google Maps installed on my iPhone for all those times when a particular point of interest (usually a shop or restaurant) isn’t showing up in Apple Maps’ search results. And because the Google Maps app is still installed on my iPhone, every time I tap a search result with an address from Google search, it automatically redirects to Google Maps. I’ve always found this annoying, but now even more so since I consider Apple Maps my primary navigation app here in Rome.1 Now, thanks to a Safari extension, that Google Maps redirect nightmare is finally over.

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Yoink Brings Background Clipboard Monitoring to iOS and iPadOS 15 via Picture in Picture Workaround

Yoink's new persistent clipboard monitoring.

Yoink’s new persistent clipboard monitoring.

In the years I’ve spent working on iPad as my primary computer, I’ve learned to appreciate the platform’s advantages over the Mac (a richer app ecosystem and superior modularity, for instance), and I’ve accepted its limitations. Despite the advances in the past 18 months with iPadOS 14, the Magic Keyboard, and iPadOS 15, there are still several areas where iPadOS falls short: I can’t record podcasts on it with the setup I like (unless I deal with some ridiculous cable shenanigans); the Files app still lacks Finder features such as smart folders or the ability to navigate into hidden folders; and, due to Apple’s restrictions, iPad utilities like clipboard managers can’t run persistently in the background like they can on a Mac.

While I continue to believe Apple will have to address these issues in the next iterations of iPadOS, Matthias Gansrigler didn’t want to wait for Apple to let his clipboard manager Yoink run continuously in the background and automatically capture anything the user copies to the system clipboard. So, using a clever workaround made by possible by new APIs introduced in iOS and iPadOS 15, he figured out how to turn Yoink – already a capable and modern clipboard manager and shelf app – into a “true” clipboard manager that, like those you may have seen on macOS, can monitor everything you copy and automatically save it for you. The result is unlike anything else I’ve seen on iOS and iPadOS, and it unlocks the kind of flexibility and peace of mind I’ve long missed from macOS. It’s almost too good to be true, and I hope I won’t cause any trouble by writing about it.

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ActiveTab Safari Extension Launched on iPad

Last week, I wrote about ActiveTab, a Safari extension that draws a colorful line beneath the active tab in Safari for Mac, which makes it far easier to identify the tab you’re viewing. However, the Mac isn’t the only platform where Safari’s tabs are problematic. As Federico explained in his iOS and iPadOS 15 review, it’s every bit as difficult to decypher which tab is active on the iPad.

Fortunately, ActiveTab is now available on the iPad too. The extension has the exact same features as the Mac version, making the active tab stand out by drawing a line across the top of the content view underneath the tab. If you haven’t installed a Safari extension on the iPhone or iPad yet, be sure to check out my story on iOS and iPadOS 15 Safari extensions for details on how to set them up.

ActiveTab has added new Blend Modes and custom colors to the app too.

ActiveTab has added new Blend Modes and custom colors to the app too.

Since I first wrote about ActiveTab, the app has been updated to allow you to add a custom color using RGBA values, in addition to the set of pre-defined options. The extension has added a Blend Mode option on both platforms too, which can help set the extension’s colored bar apart from its background in some circumstances.

If you haven’t checked out ActiveTab yet, it’s available on the App Store for $1.99.

Google Appears to Have Stopped Serving AMP Search Results to Safari Users on iOS and iPadOS 15

Update: Although Google has not commented on the lack of AMP links in its search results, Danny Sullivan has tweeted that their disappearance from iOS and iPadOS 15 is a bug that Google is working to fix.

Earlier today, developer Jeff Johnson published a story, noting that AMP links have seemingly vanished from Safari on iOS and iPadOS 15. AMP is Google’s cached URL system that’s designed to speed up the mobile web but often ruins website functionality and junks up URLs. I’ve never been a fan of AMP and neither has Federico.

Google search results for an article that returns AMP results on iOS 14 but not iOS 15.

Google search results for an article that returns AMP results on iOS 14 but not iOS 15.

iOS and iPadOS 15 introduced extensions to Safari, and one of the most popular categories has been extensions that redirect AMP links to the canonical version of the URL. I covered two of our favorites, Amplosion by Christian Selig and Overamped, both of which continue to be among the top paid Safari extensions on the App Store.

Safari extensions that redirect AMP URLs have proven popular on the App Store.

Safari extensions that redirect AMP URLs have proven popular on the App Store.

Jeff Johnson, the maker of Stop the Madness, another Safari extension that redirects AMP links, noticed, while updating his extension, that AMP links had disappeared from Google search results.

Johnson ran some tests:

With this User-Agent [iOS 15’s], there are no AMP links in Google search results, but if I simply change Version/15.0 to Version/14.0 and keep the rest the same, Google search results suddenly have AMP links again! This is reproducible on my iPhone, in the Xcode iPhone simulator, and also in desktop Safari Mac with its User-Agent spoofed as iPhone.

Google search results still return AMP URLs on iOS 14.

Google search results still return AMP URLs on iOS 14.

I’ve done some digging myself, as has Federico, and we have been able to reproduce the same results. I searched Google for an article published today on The Verge. Sure enough, on iOS 14, I get AMP results, but not on iOS 15, where the links point to theverge.com. I ran the same test using Google Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft’s Edge browser on iOS 15, and all returned Google search results with AMP links. Safari for iOS and iPadOS 15 stands alone among these four browsers and is the only one that doesn’t return AMP links in Google search results.

I wondered what might be going on, so I contacted Google PR to see if they could explain it. I haven’t heard back yet but will update this story if I do.

Meanwhile, Johnson has a theory that seems plausible to me:

So, is it possible that Google has given up on AMP in Safari on iOS 15 because of the popularity of AMP blocking extensions? Who can say, but it’s certainly an interesting coincidence. I can say that it’s a very recent change. I know from my own testing that Google search results still included AMP links for the first week after iOS 15 was released on September 20.

The timing certainly lines up. I know there were AMP links to redirect when I was testing Amplosion and Overamped on the iOS 15 betas and shortly after its launch, but sometime in the past two weeks or so, they have completely vanished from Google search results in Safari for iOS and iPadOS 15. I hope the change sticks.

How iPadOS 15 Ruined Chris Welch’s iPad Home Screen→

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge, covers an aspect of iPadOS 15 I also pointed out in my review: iPadOS 15 no longer keeps the same icon grid layout in portrait and landscape orientations, and, if you place widgets on the Home Screen, its density is reduced.

Welch concludes:

Some will see this as a very minor inconvenience and carry on with updating to iPadOS 15 for all of the other benefits. Since the App Library is now there, you can even go in the complete opposite direction and load your homescreens up with widgets everywhere and only a few app icons. If that’s you, don’t let me stop you. On the whole, it’s a very good release.

But I’m really hoping in a future software update, Apple will add a setting to restore the old layout that kept everything more consistent. It’d be even better if the company made the grid more customizable on the whole. If we’re letting people choose between new and old Safari designs, why not offer a choice between having more things on-screen or a less dense grid that’s better optimized for widgets? There’s already a “Home Screen and Dock” section in settings, after all. Letting you adjust the grid to your liking is something that Android phones and tablets already get right. It’s not a huge ask.

I think the point about customization is exactly right, and also why I’m not complaining about the ability to choose a layout in Safari. As iPads are used by a variety of less tech-savvy and more experienced pro users, it’s now increasingly challenging for Apple to cover the platform’s full spectrum of workflows with non-customizable features. Welch makes a great point about the Home Screen grid’s rigidity and lack of control; I hope Apple provides more options for this in the future, along with a denser grid if you have widgets placed on the iPad Home Screen.

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