Mastodon: @johnvoorhees@macstories.netEmail: voorhees@macstories.net
John, MacStories’ Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015. He also co-hosts MacStories’ podcasts, including AppStories, which explores of the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, a weekly recap of everything MacStories and more, and MacStories Unplugged, a behind-the-scenes, anything-goes show exclusively for Club MacStories members.
Great reads and links from around the web.
Home Assistant has launched a privacy-focused voice assistant device that costs $59 and works with Home Assistant’s other smart home hardware, according to this story by Jennifer Pattison Touhy. (Link)
According to the Pew Research Center, 38% of web pages that were accessible in 2013 no longer work. s.e. smith explores the implications of link rot in an in-depth story on The Verge. (Link)
More stories for Club members.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using Astropad’s Bookcase, a simple iPhone accessory designed to make reading on your smartphone feel more natural. I wasn’t sure what to think of the Bookcase when I first read about it; after all, it’s about as simple as an iPhone accessory could be. However, what the Bookcase lacks in high-tech features, it more than makes up for in its design, which does what it promises, creating a better way to read on an iPhone. There are a couple of places where I think the device could be improved, too, so let’s dig into the details.
The Bookcase is a simple plastic shell that fits around your iPhone (or any other Qi2-compatible smartphone for that matter). It holds your phone in place using a MagSafe-compatible magnet and features rails along the left and right side for holding the Bookcase itself. It’s a little like a case without a top or bottom, but the iPhone is far easier to remove than from a case, which is by design.
Noteworthy new app releases and updates, handpicked by the MacStories team.
Cheatsheet is an excellent app for storing bits of text you need to remember or access frequently using the app itself or its Home and Lock screen widgets. The latest update adds formatting, including bold, italic, strikethrough, links, and ordered and unordered lists. Note editing is now possible on the Watch app too. In addition to these new features, Cheatseet also includes extensive support for Shortcuts, makes good use of context menus, allows users to create deep links to specific notes, and supports exporting notes as Markdown-formatted plain text. The app has switched to a subscription pricing model for its iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch versions; a Mac version is available as a separate purchase as well.
Great reads and links from around the web.
OpenAI demonstrated ChatGPT’s live video capabilities months ago, but the feature, which allows a user to point their smartphone’s camera at an object and interact with ChatGPT based on the live video stream, is now live according to Kyle Wiggers’ report for TechCrunch. (Link)
Victoria Song of The Verge has a detailed look at demos she received of an Android XR device and Samsung’s Project Moohan. (Link)
More stories for Club members.
Two years after its introduction in macOS Ventura, I’m abandoning Stage Manager on the Mac. I had high hopes for the feature when it was released, and I still think it has potential. However, like so many alternative window management systems Apple has introduced for the Mac and iPad, Stage Manager seems to have been abandoned or simply deemed good enough. As a result, I’m not optimistic that it will get a significant update anytime soon.
I love the idea behind Stage Manager. It promises a way to quickly switch between groups of windows, allowing you to keep more active windows open without the messy complexity that would typically entail. The feature is a little bit like Spaces, but more visual and contained in a single desktop environment. The trouble with the reality of Stage Manager is that, too often, it works at cross purposes with users and is frustratingly uncustomizable.
Noteworthy new app releases and updates, handpicked by the MacStories team.
This is a nice-looking new iPhone utility by Alexey Sekachov that combines your calendar events, basic reminders, and habit tracking in a unified timeline UI to provide you with a broad overview of your day. This app won’t replace Reminders and Todoist for me, but I’m very intrigued by the concept of its pull-down gesture: when you swipe down, you reveal a daily summary written in natural language that aggregates data for the current day in a single sentence. I have to wonder if, at some point, Apple will provide developers with an Apple Intelligence API to offer this kind of summarization for data inside their apps.
Great reads and links from around the web.
Apple has quietly confirmed that HomeKit support for robot vacuum cleaners, originally promised for 2024, has been postponed to 2025. (Link)
I’ve recently learned that there is a whole market for advanced, custom Widgy widgets, and these by designer Lokki look pretty great. The Widgy subreddit is another good place to check out for inspiration. (Link)
