Categories
Links

YouTuber Personas Take FaceTime Call on Apple Vision Pro

Shared alongside with their videos today, YouTube creators iJustine, MKBHD, and Brian Tong appeared in a FaceTime call together to discuss Apple Vision Pro – or, should I say, their Personas did?

On Justine’s page, she posted a video of the call as the three demo their Personas, generated from scans taken with Apple Vision Pro, where Marques Brownlee says:

The faces are impressive… I think…

It’s very, very… it’s just at the edge of uncanny valley. I know what you guys look like so I know they look like you…”

The effect is almost unsettling, and yet obviously them – it’s sort of like a previous generation video game character version of each person.

Brian Tong says:

I feel like this is a 9/10 to how we actually look

And Justine agrees, continuing:

It’s pretty good. And also skin tones too, because all three of us have very different complexions and I feel like it actually (laughs) It actually did a pretty good job.

Marques continues:

Every single time I’ve gotten on a FaceTime call with this, it’s the same reaction of “Whoa!” Like, “This is weird…

And I realize I’ve gotten used to it, and I think after a while everyone using this is just going to get used to using it after getting over the initial “Holy crap, look at this thing.”

View the video clip or watch the segment in Justine’s full video.

 

Categories
Links

Joanna Stern wears Apple Vision Pro on Live TV

Joanna Stern, journalist at The Wall Street Journal, made a live TV appearance today while wearing the Apple Vision Pro on CBNC’s The Squawk on the Street:

“I think this is a Apple die-hard product right now.”

@WSJ columnist @joannastern joins @SaraEisen and @CarlQuintanilla to break down her review of Apple’s new headset: the Vision Pro. $AAPL

Iconic.

Check out Joanna’s review (web, YouTube), which stands out among the list of early reviewers, and view the video on CNBC.com or X.

Categories
Links

PSA: Test your App Shortcuts via Siri on Apple Vision Pro

From Emmanuel Crouvisier , developer of CardPointers:

PSA: Test your App Shortcuts via Siri on Apple Vision Pro if you’re shipping on Friday.

A bunch of things don’t work, including NavigationLink, GroupBox, and more, resulting in the “McDonald’s box of death”.

Once you’ve tweaked them though, they feel so great.

As for the “McDonald’s box of death,” Emmanuel describes it in another reply:

Haha yellow box with the red slash across it. What you surely saw with your widgets when iOS 17 came out and didn’t have the widget background stuff set.

View the full thread, plus learn about Cardpointers on the web or get it on the App Store.

Categories
Links

John Gruber: “The Vision Pro”

Gruber being Gruber, for Daring Fireball:

For the last six days, I’ve been simultaneously testing three entirely new products from Apple. The first is a VR/AR headset with eye-tracking controls. The second is a revolutionary spatial computing productivity platform. The third is a breakthrough personal entertainment device.

A headset, a spatial productivity platform, and a personal entertainment device.

I’m sure you’re already getting it. These are not three separate devices. They’re one: Apple Vision Pro. But if you’ll pardon the shameless homage to Steve Jobs’s famous iPhone introduction, I think these three perspectives are the best way to consider it.

I also like this bit:

You can do seemingly crazy things like put a VisionOS application window outside a real-world window.

Read the full post on Daring Fireball.

Categories
Apps Links

Ulysses Writing App Adds New Home Screen and Lock Screen Widgets »

From the Ulysses v34 release notes, quoted via 9to5Mac:

Widgets on iOS:

  • Better late then never…
  • Open projects right from your home screen.
  • Create new sheets right from your home screen.
  • Both actions are also available for your lock screen.
  • There‘s even a dedicated Inbox widget, which works similar.

I’m very, very, very appreciative of these initial widgets—check out my Writing widgets in the post header image—and have even sent detailed feedback to the team asking for more access to Groups (since I don’t use Projects) 😇.

View the story on 9to5Mac and buy Ulysses on the web or get it the App Store.

Categories
Links

Blackbox: Rebooting an Inventive Puzzle Game for VisionOS »

From the Apple Developer blog:

If you’ve ever played Blackbox, you know that Ryan McLeod builds games a little differently.

In the inventive iOS puzzler from McLeod’s studio, Shapes & Stories, players solve challenges not by tapping or swiping but by rotating the device, plugging in the USB cable, singing a little tune — pretty much everything except touching the screen.

“The idea was to get people in touch with the world outside their device,” says McLeod, while ambling along the canals of his Amsterdam home base.

In fact, McLeod freed his puzzles from the confines of a device screen well before Apple Vision Pro was even announced — which made bringing the game to this new platform a fascinating challenge.

I briefly had the chance to talk with Ryan at WWDC after it was announced he’d been developer for the device in early access, and it got me thinking about how Shortcuts could work in spatial computing – fascinating to consider.

This image of his notebook from the story is very cool to look over in particular.

View the full story on the Apple Developer site.

Categories
Links

Apple Vision Pro Early Unboxings and Reviews

Apple Vision Pro is available this Friday, which means the typical Tuesday-before set of pre-release reviewers are sharing their thoughts – some are unboxings, while some are full reviews.

Here’s the set of reviewers that got early access (listed in order I came across their links):

  1. Nilay Patel of The Verge: Web | YouTube
  2. Marques Brownlee/MKBHD: YouTube
  3. Justine Ezarik/iJustine: YouTube
  4. Brian Tong: YouTube
  5. Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal: Web | YouTube
  6. Scott Stein of CNET: Web | YouTube
  7. Mark Spoonauer of Tom’s Guide: Web | YouTube
  8. Todd Haselton of CNBC: Web
  9. Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies: Web
  10. John Gruber of Daring Fireball: Web

View the Apple Vision Pro on Apple’s website.

Update: Included Carolina Milanese’s coverage, which I initially missed.

Update to the update: Included John Gruber’s coverage, which was published after this was released.

Categories
Feedback

Apple Adds Dedicated View for Up Next in TV App

Earlier this summer, I filed a Feedback report to Apple under FB12491762 with the title “The Up Next queue should have a dedicated full view,” something they’ve now added in iOS 17.4 developer beta 1 to the TV app.

In my report, I included the following description:

TV app users who take advantage of the Up Next queue might find themselves with a long queue and only a single-file list on the main Watch Now tab in order to view the full list.

I propose that Apple add a “tap-in” for the Up Next queue that brings you to a grid view of the shows/ movies, allowing users to see their whole Up Next queue at once.

What was previously only a sideways-scrolling view in the TV app now has a sub-menu, represented by a sideways chevron (>) showing that you can tap in and see a dedicated view.

In that view, which is a single column on iPhone and a double column on iPad, you can see the show art, title, status (recently added, next, continue), as well as the streaming service (if applicable) – and a menu button that lets you act on the TV show or movie.

Currently, there are no swipe gestures in this view, which could have let you remove items from the list quickly – perhaps that doesn’t work in the dual-column view on iPad.

My original report also included a reference to another Feedback report—FB12491737 (The “Up Next” queue in the TV app should be user sortable)—that I filed separately asking for the Up Next list to have a manual sort option.

Right now, this new dedicated view is determined by the order you add things to the list, and you can’t change it later without removing things and re-adding them. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t add this manual sorting functionality either – something I hope they consider in future versions of iOS.

Even still, this just goes to show – you should file Feedback to Apple asking for features you want added!

Categories
How To Shortcuts

How To Check Your App Store Subscriptions with Reminders and Shortcuts

This morning, I saw creator Tyler Stalman talking about his app subscriptions, giving a tip about free trials:

Pro Tip: first thing I do when I sign up for an app free trial is immediately cancel it

The trial period still works & if I don’t end up using the app I’ll probably forget to cancel the subscription before I get charged

If I do like it I’ll be sent a reminder to renew

If you’re unsure about new subscriptions and want to evaluate the true value of your apps, this is a great strategy.

I have a technique (which I shared in the replies) to access this same page using Shortcuts, plus set a reminder to run that shortcut regularly – using my Check My App Subscriptions shortcut.

This shortcut uses a deep link into the App Store’s infrastructure, taking the URL itms-apps://apps.apple.com/account/subscriptions and opening the link using Open URLs. When run, Shortcuts opens the URL into the App Store page, showing your list of current subscriptions – including those trials you may have cancelled by default using Tyler’s method.

Once you have the shortcut in your collection, you can ask Siri using the name of the shortcut (which you can customize to your own preferred trigger phrase) and open right to this page at any moment. Or, you can keep it in an instance of the Shortcuts widget – I have mine in a small widget to the left of my Home Screen in a widget stack that I can rotate to when needed.

If you really want to stay on top of your subscriptions, however, I recommend using a little-known technique involving Shortcuts, Reminders, and Siri’s capability to “Remind me about this” – which you can use with Shortcuts to create a special button in your new reminder that, when tapped, opens Shortcuts and runs the shortcut.

With my “Check My App Subscriptions” shortcut open, you can ask Siri to “Remind me about this” (and even “Remind me about this once a month”) to create the special reminder.

Then, you can customize the details like putting it in a different Reminders list or making the reminder repeat on a schedule – once on the weekends, or monthly on the 15th or the last Sunday are good starting points.

Get the Check My App Subscriptions shortcut in the App Store folder of my Shortcuts Library, and check out Tyler’s original post.

Categories
Editorial Feedback

Transcripts Are Great; Add Timestamp Links to Apple Podcasts Next

Yesterday, Apple began adding transcripts to Apple Podcasts, detailing the change on the Apple Podcast for Creators site and making them available for in iOS 17.4 developer beta 1.

This change is a huge win for accessibility, will surely improve searching in the Podcasts app, and makes quoting your favorite podcast an easy task by letting you copy and paste the text out – something I’ll definitely have to turn into a shortcut soon.

All these benefits are great in their own way and will make podcasts more shareable as a whole, allowing us to unlock so many people’s great ideas that are currently stored within hours of audio files and obscured behind URLs that point only to the show or episode as a whole.

However, I think Apple needs to go one step further in their next step and add timestamps to Apple Podcasts, a long-overdue feature that’d enable users to share links to individual moments within a podcast, directly to a specific point in the transcript.

Similar to what’s already now available for Transcripts, listeners could tap on a paragraph, seek to the beginning of a sentence, and the use the Share sheet to not only “Copy” the text, but “Copy link at timestamp” – something I’m surprised didn’t come along with this feature.

Apple Music has a similar implementation on the Lyrics page, which lets you select one or more lines – and the Copy Link at Timestamp feature is already available in the Apple Developer app as well.

Other podcasts apps like Overcast have already created their own implementation, letting you open an Overcast link into a podcast at a specific moment – developer Marco Arment uses a timestamp function appended to the URLs to create the deeplink to a specific moment that reads like this: https://overcast.fm/+4dUt3SDKg/38:23.

Apps like YouTube instead use the total seconds progressed in a video, a perhaps more-functional version for implementation (but less user-friendly to type out manually, if need be) – their URLs end in ?t=181 to represent 3 minutes and 1 second, like this: https://youtu.be/O2BOOdUCe90?t=181.

Whichever method they decide on, I propose Apple adopt a timestamp protocol for Apple Podcasts, append the information the URL, and make a new system that lets anyone link to a specific moment in a podcast, share that with others, and let that new listener enjoy the same moment in their Podcasts app.

I’ve filed this to Apple in their Feedback app as FB13561512 (Add timestamps to Apple Podcasts to allow linking to specific moments) – if you think this is a good idea, send a duplicate of my feedback and mention my # in your report to Apple; or, share this online if you agree.

Maybe we can get timestamp links added too!

Categories
Shortcuts

New shortcuts for Callsheet to Search Cast & Crew Details

I’ve just added a new folder to the Shortcuts Library — my set of Callsheet shortcuts.

Built for the Callsheet app from indie developer Casey Liss, these shortcuts are designed to help you find more information about TV shows or movies you are watching.

Use these to pull up the Callsheet search field, query right away, or even search TMDB directly using Toolbox Pro and open the redirect into Callsheet:

  • Activate Callsheet: Opens Callsheet with the input field open and the keyboard active
  • Search Callsheet: Asks you to enter a query, then encodes the text and opens the deep link into Callsheet.
  • Find movie and open in Callsheet: Searches The Movie Database for a movie using Toolbox Pro, extracts the ID, and opens the deep link into Callsheet.
  • Find show and open in Callsheet: Searches The Movie Database for TV shows using Toolbox Pro, extracts the ID, and opens the deep link into Callsheet.
  • Open Callsheet instead of IMDB: Simple shortcut for an App Automation for the IMDB app to instead open Callsheet – this name will appear as the title of your automation.
  • Open in Callsheet: Redirects a link from The Movie Database to Callsheet by replacing the URL with the deep link.

Check out the folder of Callsheet shortcuts on the Shortcuts Library and get Callsheet on the App Store.

Categories
Links News

Apple Debuts Contingent Pricing for App Store with Structured and One Sec

Today on X, the team from Structured announced that Apple had allowed them to partner with the team from One Sec on the new contingent pricing in the App Store, a feature announced in December that allows subscribers from one app to unlock discounts in another:

Apple chose us together with @onesecapp to be one of the first to offer the new contingent pricing 🏷️. As a subscriber to Structured or @onesecapp , you unlock a special 30% discount for the other app. Check your AppStore!

In a follow-up post, they clarified the qualifications:

The offer applies only to the yearly plan and while you are an active subscriber.

This partnership makes a lot of sense – Structured is a daily planner designed to help you focus on what’s important in your day, and One Sec is designed to help you take breaks when you open apps like social media apps from muscle memory; both are made by indie developers who want to help you be mindful about your time.

The apps actually already have a native integration making it easy to set up One Sec automations from within Structured – now the partnership extends financially both to the customer’s benefit, as well both the developers.

See the post from @Structuredapp, and check out Structured and One Sec in the App Store.

Categories
Gear

Elevation Lab Introduces TagVault: Pin Mount for Attaching AirTags to Your Kids’ Shirt

The folks at ElevationLab have launched an interesting new product for AirTags called the TagVault: Pin designed to pin to a backpack or a shirt, specifically marketed as “the best AirTag mount for kids.”

The TagVault: Pin works with two safety pins and a brightly-colored (or black) faceplate that sits low-profile on your shirt and won’t dangle around – making it perfect for your kids’ shirt as they run around and play. In addition, the safety pins make it easy to attach and remove as needed – I might just have to get one for my nephew.

They come in a single pack at $12.95, a 2-pack for $19.95, or 4-pack for $29.95, plus there’s a launch sale of up to 52% savings on the 4-pack.

This products joins their TagVault Keychain, Pet, Wallet, Bike, Surface, Strap, Ghost, Mountain Bike, Magnetic, and Fabric lines that provide all types of secure and waterproof mounts for AirTags – they’ve definitely got the AirTag mount market cornered.

Plus, they’re from Portland too 🙂

Get the TagVault: Pin from ElevationLabs or on Amazon.

Categories
Shortcuts

New shortcut: Crop Podcast Artwork with Pixelmator

I’ve just started a new folder in the Shortcuts Library — the first of my set of Apple Podcasts for Creators shortcuts:

  • Crop podcast artwork with Pixelmator:
    Extracts the name and artwork for a given podcast, crops it to 16×9 using Pixelmator Pro for Mac, and saves the renamed file into Downloads.

I built this to help with any future “podcast mentions” on my site, like today’s from the show Magic Rays of Light – all my blog posts require a 16×9 image, so this shortcut scrapes the Artwork from Apple Podcasts and uses Pixelmator’s Machine Learning crop to find the best position.

Check out the folder of Apple Podcasts for Creators shortcuts on the Shortcuts Library.

 

Categories
Links

Podcast Mention — Magic Rays of Light: Ep. 106

My thanks to Sigmund Judge and Devon Dundee for mentioning my Netflix shortcuts on their podcast Magic Rays of Light (who recently joined MacStories.net – congratulations!) – find the segment in Chapter 7 around 36:23 (and my mention around 38:00):

Sigmund and Devon share their experiences with Apple Vision Pro preorders, highlight Apple Original war drama series Masters of the Air ahead of its debut this weekend, and break down all of the Apple FYC news in the wake of BAFTA and Oscar Awards nominations.

They’re basically referencing my post from Mastodon in regards to the Bloomberg article on “YouTube and Spotify Join Netflix in Not Launching Apple Vision Pro Apps” where I cheekily said:

I sure wish there was some sort of, say, shortcut to help you access these resources in lieu of apps

Check out Magic Rays of Light in Apple Podcasts, get my Netflix shortcuts, and listen to the episode below:

Categories
Apps Links

Day One Introduces Shared Journals »

From the Day One blog:

Introducing Shared Journals—a new way to bring your stories and memories together with those you cherish most, with the same privacy and security you expect for your journals.

What an excellent, deep feature from Day One – I’m glad to see this level of development continue with the company in the hands of Automattic, the developers behind WordPress.

Read the full article.

Categories
Links

MacStories Surveys Popular Apps Currently Compatible With Apple Vision Pro using Shortcuts »

From John Voorhees at MacStories:

As it turns out, it’s possible to tell if a developer has opted out by using App Store API endpoints. So, with a little help, we built a shortcut to check some of the most popular apps on the App Store.

They haven’t shared the full shortcut, but that just means I’ll have to poke around myself to see if I can find my way… 👀

Read the full article.

 

Categories
Newsletter

What’s New in Shortcuts – Issue 102

From Issue 102 of my Shortcuts newsletter:

Welcome to Issue 102 of What’s New in Shortcuts!

In this first issue of the new year, I’ve recapped everything from December and early January – from multiple sets of shortcuts I’ve released, to news about former Shortcuts team members, to the upcoming Apple Vision Pro launch.

Plus, I’ve redesigned the front page of my site – check it out: matthewcassinelli.com.

Until next time, here’s what’s new in Shortcuts:

Read the full issue on MailerLite.

 

Categories
Shortcuts

New shortcuts for the Shortcuts app

I’ve just added a new folder to the Shortcuts Library — my set of shortcuts for the Shortcuts app itself:

  • Create a new shortcut: Prompts you to enter a name, then creates a shortcut.
  • Add a new shortcut in a folder: Asks you which folder to open, then prompts for a name and creates a new shortcut with that title in that folder.
  • Search in Shortcuts: Use this shortcut to quickly find a shortcut in your library to run or open and edit. Works well if you have a large shortcuts collection.
  • Open a folder: Prompts you to type in a folder name, then opens that folder in Shortcuts. Assigned to Shift + Control + O as a keyboard shortcut on macOS, and placed in the iPad dock.
  • Run a shortcut from a folder: Asks you to pick a folder, then a shortcut, then runs it right away.
  • Run a shortcut: Asks you to enter the name of a shortcut, then finds and runs that shortcut. Also uses scripting to check if more than one exists with that name and asks which to run.
  • Open a shortcut: Asks you to type in the name of a shortcut, then opens it so you can edit the actions.
  • Open a shortcut by folder: Asks you to pick from all your Shortcuts folders, then a shortcut from that folder, then opens the shortcut.
  • Open into a Shortcuts folder: Opens a Shortcuts folder of your choosing; accepts the name of a folder as input as well.
  • Get a list of my shortcut names: Using a text field populated from “List Folder names,” lets you select multiple folders, grabs the shortcut names from all of the folders, and lets you copy out the titles.
  • Copy my Shortcuts folder names: Gets a list of all the titles for your Shortcuts folders. On macOS, uses the Shortcuts Command Line Interface (CLI) to make the request; on iOS, uses a Regular Expression to find the results. Also saves a .txt file of the output.

The second half of the folder is designed for accessing different pre-built folders in the Shortcuts app – I use these in the iPad widget, searching on macOS, and the Stream Deck:

  • Show all of my shortcuts: Use this to open the main view of Shortcuts and see everything in your collection. If you have a lot of App Shortcuts, this is the best view to see them all.
  • Open the Gallery: Use this shortcut to quickly access the Gallery and see what kinds of shortcuts Apple recommends based on your usage, as well as curated categories put together by the Shortcuts team.
  • Open my Automations: Use this shortcut to see your Personal and Home automations set up on iPhone and iPad. Works well from the Shortcuts widget or using Siri when you want to set up a new Automation.
  • Show my Menu Bar shortcuts: Use this shortcut to sort the list of shortcuts that appear in the Menu Bar on macOS.
  • Show my Apple Watch shortcuts: Use this shortcut to sort your shortcuts set to show up on the Apple Watch. Use this view to rename them, change the colors, sort the order, or drag & drop shortcuts out to remove them.
  • Show my Share Sheet shortcuts: Use this shortcut once you have a few Share Sheet shortcuts and want to organize them accordingly. You can also drag shortcuts into and out of this folder to add/remove them from the set, which works well with multi-select and drag & d
  • Show my Quick Action shortcuts: Use this shortcut to quickly access, organize, and edit your Quick Actions shortcuts set as Services on macOS. This shortcut uses the Open Folder action, which includes the auto-generated folders Shortcuts creates for features like Quick Action.
  • Open my Services folder: Opens the macOS folder System > Library > Services so you can see shortcuts you’ve added as Services.

Check out the folder of Shortcuts shortcuts on the Shortcuts Library.

Categories
News

21 Movies to Watch in 3D on Apple Vision Pro

Apple has announced the Vision Pro will be coming with over 150 movies in 3D to start, out of over 400 available on the Apple TV Store. Apple of course demonstrated Avatar: The Way of Water as coming to the device, but 3D has been around for a long time – there’s a lot of movies worth revisiting on this new headset experience.

To get you started, I collected a list of 21 movies listed in the Apple TV app that were released in 3D – just search for “3D” in the app to get these:

  1. Jurassic World Dominion
  2. Shrek
  3. The Super Mario Bros. Movie
  4. Hugo
  5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
  6. Skyscraper
  7. Wonder Woman 1984
  8. The Secret Life of Pets 2
  9. Ralph Breaks the Internet
  10. 47 Ronin
  11. The Little Prince
  12. Warcraft
  13. Pacific Rim: Uprising
  14. No Time to Die
  15. Mortal Engines
  16. Godzilla vs. Kong
  17. Minions: The Rise of Gru
  18. The Boss Baby: Family Business
  19. Trolls
  20. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
  21. Sing 2

(Note: While all of these were released in 3D, as well as listed in the TV app as results for the term “3D”, there’s still a chance some might not be available on Vision Pro – if you’re unsure, you can bookmark this page and come back when the device launches February 2).

There’s also listings for Sanctum, Everest, Noah, Cirque Du Soleil: Worlds Away, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Tad: The Lost Explorer And the Secret of King Midas, and The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, all of which were released in 3D originally – the first four listed might be worth bringing to the platform, but I can’t say as much about Jeremy Renner’s sequel to the gingerbread house incident…

News about 3D movies coming to Apple TV was first broken by FlatPanelsHD.com – however, official 3D labels have been removed from the TV app since then.

Check out of my folder of TV app shortcuts – I’ve already got shortcuts for Godzilla and Mission Impossible in there, with more on the way.