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Posts tagged with "iPadOS"

Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 16.4 with New Emoji, Notifications for Web Apps on the Home Screen, Voice Isolation for Cellular Calls, New Shortcuts Actions, and More

iOS 16.4 brings new emoji, push notifications for web apps on the Home Screen , Mastodon link previews, and more.

iOS 16.4 brings new emoji, push notifications for web apps on the Home Screen , Mastodon link previews, and more.

Today, Apple is releasing iOS and iPadOS 16.4, the fourth major updates to the OSes that introduced support for the customizable Lock Screen and Stage Manager last year, respectively.

Ahead of the debut of Apple Music Classical tomorrow and just a few months before a WWDC that’s rumored to be focused on the company’s upcoming headset and a relatively small iOS 17 update, 16.4 is comprised of two big additions to iOS and iPadOS (new emoji and push notifications for web apps on the Home Screen) alongside a variety of smaller, but notable improvements such as some new Shortcuts actions, Mastodon link previews in iMessage, some tweaks to Podcasts and Music, and more.

Let’s take a look.

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Six 8BitDo Controllers Add Support for Apple Hardware

Source: 8BitDo

Source: 8BitDo

8BitDo, a popular maker of game controllers, announced today that six of its products now officially support Apple hardware:

  • 8BitDo Ultimate Controller 2.4g
  • 8BitDo Pro 2
  • 8BitDo SN30 Pro +
  • 8BitDo Pro
  • 8BitDo SN30 Pro for Android
  • 8Bitdo Lite SE

The controller firmware update, which can be applied using the company’s Upgrade Tool, will allow gamers to use 8BitDo’s supported controllers wirelessly with any iOS, iPadOS, macOS, or tvOS game that has adopted Apple’s game controller APIs. Playing wired is also supported on iPads and Macs with USB-C ports.

According to 8BitDo, up to four controllers can be connected at once for games with multiplayer support, but rumble and motion control are not supported “for the moment,” suggesting that a future update may support those features. Links to detailed directions and illustrations of how to connect 8BitDo’s controllers are available by hovering over the images of the controllers on the company’s dedicated Apple device webpage.

I have a bunch of the controllers for which Apple device support was announced, and I can’t wait to try them. A couple of the controllers I have already have some basic support for Apple devices, thanks to compatibility with Sony and Microsoft controllers. However, the firmware update should extend the functionality of the controllers to the full set of features that Apple now supports.

Tripsy 2.15 Adds Weather Forecasts, Time Zone Support, and Other Customization Options

Tripsy is more than just an app for storing details about your upcoming trips. It does that and does it well, but it’s also a great way to revisit old trips and get inspired about places you want to visit in the future. We’ve covered Tripsy before, so for more on what the app can do, I recommend checking out our reviews of version 2.10 and version 1.0. With version 2.15, which debuted this week, Tripsy is focused on trip itineraries, adding several ‘quality of life’ features along with better organization for multi-location trips, and improved customization.

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Apple Frames 3.1: Extending Screenshot Automation with the New Apple Frames API

Apple Frames 3.1 comes with a lightweight Apple Frames API to extend its automation capabilities.

Apple Frames 3.1 comes with a lightweight Apple Frames API to extend its automation capabilities.

Update, March 3: Version 3.1.1 of Apple Frames has been released with support for a new passthrough output command. This post has been updated to reflect the changes. You can redownload the updated shortcut at the end of this post.

Today, I’m happy to introduce something I’ve been working on for the past couple of months: Apple Frames – my shortcut to put screenshots captured on Apple devices inside physical device frames – is getting a major upgrade to version 3.1 today. In addition to offering support for more devices that I missed in version 3.0 as well as some bug fixes, Apple Frames 3.1 brings a brand new API that lets you automate and extend the Apple Frames shortcut itself.

By making Apple Frames scriptable, I wanted to allow power users – such as designers and developers who rely on this shortcut to frame hundreds of images each week – to save valuable time without compromising the accessible nature of Apple Frames for other people. This is why all of the new advanced features of Apple Frames are optional and hidden until you go look for them specifically. Furthermore, even if you do want to use the Apple Frames API, you’ll see that I designed it in the spirit of Shortcuts: it does not require any code and it’s entirely powered by simple, visual ‘Text’ actions.

I’m incredibly excited about what Apple Frames can do in version 3.1, so let’s dive in.

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macOS Isn’t as Small as You Think→

Interesting comparison of macOS and iPadOS interface elements by Matt Birchler:

I will say that there are certainly some macOS UI elements that could be tricky to use with touch, but I think they’re the exception, not the rule. Still, Apple will certainly make some UI changes to accommodate touch as an officially-supported input method on the platform.

And:

There’s a narrative out there that touch is just so incompatible with macOS and that in order to make it work, the macOS UI would have to get blown up to comical proportions, but I don’t think that’s the case. Changes will be made, but I think macOS is more touch-friendly today than many people give it credit for.

I don’t disagree, and count me among those who think Apple should consider bringing touch support to the Mac.

I’ve seen this argument regarding the concern of “blowing up” the macOS UI in recent years too, and I think it’s shortsighted. Look no further than the iPad Pro: in a single device, Apple was able to let touch, pointer, and now even hover interactions coexist. Even without display scaling, I don’t think iPadOS has a comically large interface, as some believe.

There is a lot of work to be done to achieve a similar kind of input balance on macOS (think of all the elements that haven’t been redesigned in recent years, like drag controls for windows; the list is long), but it is possible, and I hope Apple gets there in the near future.

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FoodNoms 2 Refreshes Its Design and Adds Refinements to Nutrition Logging and Goal Tracking Throughout

It’s been over two years since FoodNoms, the nutrition tracking app for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch by Ryan Ashcraft, debuted on the App Store, and I reviewed it. Over the past two years, the app has steadily improved, refining its database of foods, adding Home Screen widgets, and a lot more. With version 2 out today, FoodNoms has taken its biggest step forward since its launch with a long list of new features and a refreshed design.

At its core, FoodNoms lets you set goals, track what you eat, and monitor your progress toward your goals. There are a lot of apps that do something similar, but what sets FoodNoms apart is its design, ease of use, and emphasis on privacy.

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Twitter Intentionally Ends Third-Party App Developer Access to Its APIs

Late yesterday, The Information reported that it had seen internal Twitter Slack communications confirming that the company had intentionally cut off third-party Twitter app access to its APIs. The shut-down, which happened Thursday night US time, hasn’t affected all apps and services that use the API but instead appears targeted at the most popular third-party Twitter clients, including Tweetbot by Tapbots and Twitterrific by The Iconfactory. More than two days later, there’s still no official explanation from Twitter about why it chose to cut off access to its APIs with no warning whatsoever.

To say that Twitter’s actions are disgraceful is an understatement. Whether or not they comply with Twitter’s API terms of service, the lack of any advanced notice or explanation to developers is unprofessional and an unrecoverable breach of trust between it and its developers and users.

Twitter’s actions also show a total lack of respect for the role that third-party apps have played in the development and success of the service from its earliest days. Twitter was founded in 2006, but it wasn’t until the iPhone launched about a year later that it really took off, thanks to the developers who built the first mobile apps for the service.

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MacStories Selects 2022: Recognizing the Best Apps of the Year

Introduction

John: It’s time for the MacStories Selects awards, our annual celebration of the apps we love and the people who make them. Every year since 2018, we’ve paused at the end of a busy year to reflect on the hundreds of apps we’ve tried and recognize the best.

It’s been another big year for apps, driven by the ingenuity and creativity of the developers who make them combined with new technologies introduced by Apple. Note-taking apps were big again, and just as we get ready to put 2022 in the rear-view mirror, the read-later app space has begun heating up like it’s 2010 all over again.

Last year, we kicked off the MacStories Selects Awards with a new Lifetime Achievement Award, which we gave to PCalc by James Thomson whose app will celebrate its 30th anniversary in a couple of days. This year, we’ve got another app that has stood the test of time and had an outsized impact on the world of apps, which you can read about in a special story written by our Alex Guyot, whose history with the winning app makes him the perfect choice to present the award.

It’s also time to pause and honor the best apps of the year in the following seven categories:

  • Best New App
  • Best App Update
  • Best New Feature
  • Best Watch App
  • Best Mac App
  • Best Design
  • App of the Year

which were picked by the MacStories team, plus the winner of the Readers’ Choice Award, which was picked by Club MacStories members, for a total of nine awards, plus six runners-up, all of which are covered below.

We also recorded a special episode of AppStories covering all the winners and runners-up. It’s a terrific way to learn more about this year’s apps and includes an interview with our Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

You can listen to the episode below.

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01:06:13

So, without further ado, it’s my pleasure to introduce the 2022 MacStories Selects Awards to the MacStories community.

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iPadOS 16.2 and Stage Manager for External Displays: Work in Progress, But Worth the Wait

Stage Manager in iPadOS 16.2.

Stage Manager in iPadOS 16.2.

Ever since I last wrote about iPadOS 16, I have continued using Stage Manager on my iPad Pro. As I wrote in October, I like the idea behind Stage Manager more than its implementation. Despite the flawed design of its multitasking concepts and bugs I still encounter on a daily basis, it’s undeniable that Stage Manager lets me get more things done on my iPad by virtue of its concurrent app windows.

With today’s release of iPadOS 16.2, the idea behind Stage Manager achieves the full vision first presented in June, while its design and technical implementation remain stuck in an unpolished, half-baked state. Which is to say: conceptually, I love that Stage Manager in iPadOS 16.2 allows me to extend my iPad to an external display and put four additional windows on it; I’ve waited years for this feature, and it’s finally here. Technically speaking, however, the performance of this mode leaves a lot to be desired, with frequent crashes on my iPad Pro and an oft-confusing design that, I will reiterate, needs a rethinking.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve learned to live with Stage Manager, accept its quirks, and use what’s good about it to my advantage. As I recently wrote for Club MacStories members, I’ve put my money where my mouth is: I’ve gone all-in with Stage Manager on my iPad Pro and completely rebuilt my work setup around the M2 iPad Pro and Apple Studio Display, using Universal Control to seamlessly control iPadOS from a nearby Mac mini. (You can read the full story here.) After all, no other device in Apple’s ecosystem can effortlessly turn from a tablet into a laptop and into a desktop workstation like the iPad Pro can.

I’ve been working toward this vision for iPad modularity and contextual computing for the past several years. So now that Stage Manager has unlocked the final piece of the puzzle with external display integration, how good is it in practice?

And more importantly: was it worth the wait?

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