Category: Links

Quick thoughts that link out to other sites

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How Federico Viticci Rediscovered The Mac (And Shortcuts’ Essential Role)

Federico’s annual pre-WWDC piece is out and you should read all 8,000 or so words of it, particularly this section about Shortcuts:

While the Shortcuts app shouldn’t have been released in those precarious conditions last year (it should have been labeled a beta), my usage of the app has increased alongside Apple’s work on improving its performance and stability;

[…]

[T]oday, I consider Shortcuts for Mac an essential tool in my workflow and, in some ways, the most important change Apple could have brought to allow people like me to try macOS again.

I agree with the overall conclusion of the piece, but this summary of Shortcuts on iPad vs. the Mac struck a chord with me as well:

Continue reading “How Federico Viticci Rediscovered The Mac (And Shortcuts’ Essential Role)”
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Submit your shortcuts to MacStories’s Automation April contest

I am super happy to announce that I’m a judge for the new Shortcuts contest hosted by MacStories as part of their new “Automation April” campaign – the contest is live now!

As part of the Shortcuts contest, anyone can submit two shortcuts to be judged by a panel of Shortcuts users, including myself, for Best Shortcut in five categories:

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Links

Talking iPad vs. Mac with Chris Lawley (Livestream)

Join me today, Monday, March 7 at 4pm Pacific/ 7pm Eastern with special guest Chris Lawley as we talk about his latest videos and the iPad versus Mac debate.

We’ll talk about Chris’ latest videos, the upcoming Apple event, and how we’ve been using the Mac (and what that means for iPad) since the M1 transition last year.

Come join us in the chat!

Follow Chris online:

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What’s New in Shortcuts: #32

New issue of my Shortcuts newsletter is out:

Welcome to Issue 32 of “What’s New in Shortcuts” – what a week for Shortcuts tweets!

Florian Bürger shared his Fjorden automation (say that five times fast), an important SOS shortcut is making the rounds on TikTok, there’s a handful of new apps with great Shortcuts support, and an impressive list of ideas straight from the community.

Plus, stay for the end as I guide you through my super-intelligent choice to delete my entire Shortcuts database on the Mac – and learn how I barely made it through the other side with my library (partially) intact:

Read the full newsletter on Revue (~2800 words).

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Links

Livestream: Shortcuts for Mac (feat. Matthew Bischoff)

Check out my stream with special guest Matthew Bischoff, cofounder of development studio Lickability, from Friday, February 11th where we talked about their experience getting into Shortcuts for Mac:

We discussed Matt’s recent deep dive into Shortcuts, Stream Deck, Bunch, and more to build the automations they’ve always wanted for their personal and work life but never had the time to create…until now.

Feel free to leave comments in the chat replay and I’ll make sure to answer them. ?

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“What’s New in Shortcuts” Issue 31

New issue of my Shortcuts newsletter is out:

Welcome to Issue 31 of “What’s New in Shortcuts” – this week is full of feedback reports, beta testing, and, as always, great ideas from the Shortcuts community.

I was up to no good with Jason & Dan on the stream, Federico followed up an impressive week with another impressive shortcut, the Albums app & Ochi caught my eye, and and Stephen Robles & Chris Lawley shared their expertise on YouTube.

Plus, I’ve got a stream with Lickability cofounder Matthew Bischoff coming this Friday, as well as some new posts dropping throughout the week – enjoy:

Read the full newsletter on Revue (~2400 words).

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Guest appearances Links

Guest Spot — Clockwise #435: Never Clean Out Your Inbox

For episode 435 of the Clockwise podcast, I had the pleasure of joining Dan Moren and Mikah Sargent as a guest along with Jean MacDonald to talk about:

How Apple should address AirTag misuse, the techniques we use for cleaning out our inbox, whether Twitter’s “Close Friends” feature interests us, and our applications for a smart foot pedal.

Check out Clockwise on Relay.FM, subscribe in Apple Podcasts, and listen to the episode on the web below:

Continue reading “Guest Spot — Clockwise #435: Never Clean Out Your Inbox”
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Bartender beta for macOS Monterey

If you’re like me and have long relied on the Bartender app for macOS to clean up your Menu Bar, plus you tend to live on the dangerous side and install macOS betas, then you’ll want to grab the beta of Bartender so it works on your Mac again.

Looks like it won’t support every feature of Monterey until the full release, but it’s still worth grabbing now to clean things up as best it can.

Get the update here.

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Apps Links Offsite Video

Walking through the Home app (with Joey Banks)

On Thursday March 25, I streamed with my designer friend Joey Banks and walked him through some of the oddities of the Home app, working on scenes, grouping devices, and HomeKit automations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie5DZ_p_6F4

Catch the replay on YouTube – and add my livestream calendar to tune into future streams.

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Links Siri Shortcuts

Add my livestream calendar for public & members-only streams

I’ve created a new Google Calendar for all of my livestreams so that folks can add it to their devices and see when I’ll be live for both public and private member streams:

I’ll include links for each event for public YouTube streams, member posts with unlisted streams embedded inside, and my Twitch channel.

Check out the calendar online here and add it directly to your Calendar using the iCal format.

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Guest appearances Links Siri Shortcuts

Guest spot: Automators #70 – Matthew Cassinelli and Changing Your Shortcuts Usage

Last Friday, the episode of Automators that I recorded with Rosemary Orchard and David Sparks dropped — and it’s a great hour-and-a-half conversation about the current state of Shortcuts.

Rose, David, & I haven’t talked since the release of iOS 14, so this is a dive into how I’ve been applying those features, my latest breakthrough with my shortcuts, and my updated Shortcuts Library.

Rose & David are my kind of people, so this conversation was naturally a blast — listen to the full episode:

Continue reading “Guest spot: Automators #70 – Matthew Cassinelli and Changing Your Shortcuts Usage”
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Guest appearances Links Siri Shortcuts

Guest Spot: Sigmund Judge’s podcast Magic Rays of Light

Last week, I had the pleasure of being a guest on episode 4 of Sigmund Judge’s podcast Magic Rays of Light, a new show dedicated to all things Apple TV.

That episode is out now and available to download in your podcast app of choice.

Talking with Sigmund was a treat and we had a great conversation about:

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Links News Newsletter Offsite Siri Shortcuts

Announcing my new “What’s New in Shortcuts” newsletter

As part of my new Shortcuts Catalog1, I’ve created a brand-new newsletter called What’s New in Shortcuts?.

This free newsletter is designed for anyone interested in learning more about Siri Shortcuts, covering:
* feature updates as they’re discovered,
* interesting ways to use Shortcuts related to topical stories, and
* creative new shortcuts or apps with Shortcuts actions.

In addition, What’s New in Shortcuts acts as a way to subscribe to learn about future updates to my Shortcuts Library, Action Directory, and upcoming additions to the Shortcuts Catalog.

What’s in the newsletter?

Continue reading “Announcing my new “What’s New in Shortcuts” newsletter”

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Links Siri Shortcuts

New Shortcuts Directory curates links for getting started with Siri Shortcuts

Shortcuts creator and designer Brad Siefert has created a dedicated website for people looking to discover various links and creators related to Siri Shortcuts – check out the new Shortcuts Directory.

Continue reading “New Shortcuts Directory curates links for getting started with Siri Shortcuts”
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Links

What is Spatial Audio, Why Does it Matter, and What’s Apple’s Plan?

Em Lazer-Walker, Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, on what she’s calling the “audio version of ARKit” in iOS 14:

They talked about this largely in context of playing movies with multi-channel surround sound, but that’s probably the least interesting application of spatial audio.

As someone who’s been working in the field for a long time — my research at the MIT Media Lab in 2015 and 2016 focused on location-based storytelling in public spaces using spatial audio — I wanted to try to give some context around why this is interesting and what it might enable.

Fascinating summary of Apple’s new Spatial Audio feature and its potential – this covers what it is, how it differs from surround sound, and goes into detailed applications for this like wayfinding, vocal content, and real-world play/gaming experiences.

Read the full post on dev.to.

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Links News

Apple execs talk updates on The Talk Show, WVFRM with MKBHD

Every year for the past few years, John Gruber of Daring Fireball has interviewed an Apple executive or two on his podcast The Talk Show, just after WWDC and often in a venue right nearby the conference.

This year, as with everything else WWDC, it was done online, with special guests Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Apple, and Greg Jozwiak, Apple’s Vice President of Product Marketing.

Federighi and “Joz” filmed from Apple Park (in seemingly separate rooms, as one does nowadays) over the web with Gruber for over an hour and a half, which you can watch on YouTube:

Continue reading “Apple execs talk updates on The Talk Show, WVFRM with MKBHD”
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Links Siri Shortcuts

I’m washing my hands

New shortcut: I’m washing my hands:

Sets a timer for 20 seconds so that you can wash your hands thoroughly without thinking about how long it takes.

Use this to help internalize how long it takes to wash your hands, especially amongst the Coronavirus concerns.

Get the shortcut or view a full screenshot of the shortcut.

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Links Siri Shortcuts

Entering your home with just a tap (using NFC & iOS)

Matt Haughey, writing for his site A Whole Lotta Nothing:

As you might have guessed from a previous post, I’m not a fan of carrying keys and or even having to use them. When I moved to a new place, I knew I’d use the front door as my main point of entry (instead of a garage attached to a house), so I wanted to get it as automated as possible, where the front door unlocks as I approach it, and locks when I leave.

Matt started with an August Smart Lock and ended up getting NFC tags so that everyone in his family could tap in and out of the house. Be sure to check out the full article for all his photos of the setup too.

This bit is excellent – I’m definitely thinking about NFC “skins” instead of having white dots all over the place:

To make them blend in a bit more, I went to my local Lowe’s and bought a $5 roll of adhesive-backed shelf paper in a maple pattern that mostly matched my wood posts. I used a NFC tag as a template, traced it onto the paper, and cut out two holes, then pulled off the backing and stuck them over the tags. From a distance, you can barely tell they’re there since I put the NFC stickers over wood knots and they look like wood repair patches now.

I’ve joked before that Matt is my smart home spirit animal – he continues to fill that role well ?.

Read the full article on A Whole Lotta Nothing.

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Gear Links Offsite Podcasts

Smart Tech Today #14: Loads of Smart Tech at CES 2020

On episode 14 of Smart Tech Today, Mikah and I talked about what I saw at CES 2020.

But before I get to what we covered in the show, I have exciting news – Smart Tech Today is now available as a video show in addition to our regular podcast feed!

We’ve always had the cameras on for our livestream, but the show’s been doing well enough to add in video production as well.

So, make sure to subscribe on YouTube if you want to watch along afterwards, or add the video podcast feed to get them delivered directly in Apple Podcasts.

Continue reading “Smart Tech Today #14: Loads of Smart Tech at CES 2020”
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Links Siri Shortcuts

How far did I walk today?

Today’s new shortcut is How far did I walk today? is designed for CES attendees but is also good for anyone really:

Looks at the Health app for total steps and distance for today, then formats the information to display in an alert or be spoken back from Siri.

Uses only the Apple Watch as the main source of data so no information is duplicated from the phone.

Continue reading “How far did I walk today?”