Ryan Christoffel

684 posts on MacStories since November 2016

Ryan is an editor for MacStories and co-hosts the Adapt podcast on Relay FM. He most commonly works and plays on his iPad Pro and bears no regrets about moving on from the Mac. He and his wife live in New York City.

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Serial Reader Adapts Books for the Smartphone Age

Our Internet-driven society has seen a decline in book reading, though not necessarily a decline in reading altogether. Despite book readers being less common than in past decades, we all do a fair amount of reading each day on our smartphones – reading messages from friends, or tweets, emails, Facebook posts, notifications, articles, and so on.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed reading books, and I continue to read them regularly – though not as much as I’d like. However, I also read an abundance of emails, tweets, messages, and articles every day. A day may pass with me not reading a book, but that never happens with the likes of email and messages. Part of the reason my Internet-driven reading habits are more consistent than my book reading habits is that I have to read those things to do my job. But there’s another reason too: email and Slack demand my attention each day via push notifications, while books do not. Add to that, emails and messages come in bite-sized quantities, whereas books are much longer, and thus more intimidating.

Serial Reader aims to fix that.

No stranger to the App Store, Serial Reader has been around for several years, but I recently gave it a try for the first time. The premise of the app is simple: it contains a collection of over 550 classic books that can be delivered to you in bite-size chunks. At a time of your choosing, Serial Reader will send a daily notification informing you that your latest issue of, say, War and Peace, is available to read. Each issue is compiled with an estimated reading time under 20 minutes, though most I’ve seen are around 10 minutes – very easy to digest. We all receive regular interruptions from Internet services that take 10 minutes out of our day at a time, and with Serial Reader you can plan those interruptions in a way that helps you read more books.

By offering up small helpings of a book each day, and delivering that book’s latest “issue” through a notification, Serial Reader fixes key barriers to book reading. While I wish I could use it with my own collection of books, the public domain classics included in the app offer a wealth of quality options.

If you want to read more books, Serial Reader offers a clever, convenient way to do that. And there’s no better time than the present to give the app a try – it just received a big update to version 3.5, with a new multi-column reading mode for iPad, curated book collections, alternate app icons, and a design refresh.

Serial Reader is available on the App Store.

Anchor Launches Listener Support, Helping Podcasters (and Itself) Get Paid

As an app and service, Anchor is a compelling product that I’m personally a big fan of. It’s the best way to podcast from an iPad, the most mature and accessible platform for new podcasters, and it includes innovative features like transcribed video generation for sharing clips on social media.

My one area of hesitation with Anchor has been its business model. The service is entirely free, and the company has never before shared its plans for any sort of monetization strategy. Today that changes, however, as Anchor is launching a Patreon-style listener support feature.

Starting now, any Anchor podcaster can choose to activate listener support for their show, which enables listeners to sign up for automatic monthly payments of $0.99, $4.99, or $9.99 to support the show. The implementation here is important, and Anchor is making it very accessible: a podcast support link will be automatically added to the show notes for each episode, making the link available no matter which podcast app a user listens through. This link takes users to the support page on a podcast’s Anchor profile, with payments processed by Stripe and available via Apple Pay on iOS and Mac, or Google Pay on Android.

All support funds are subject to Stripe’s standard fees, plus Anchor’s own 4.5% cut, but the overwhelming majority of funds end up in podcasters’ hands.

I think listener support is an interesting development for Anchor in two main ways. First, after working to democratize podcasting with its easy-to-use tools, it makes sense that Anchor now has its sights set on democratizing the payment of podcasters. Any podcaster with a decent following could use a third-party service like Patreon to get paid – and many do. And while Patreon isn’t too much more complicated for listeners wanting to pledge support, it definitely brings more complexity to the side of podcasters. Using Anchor, a podcaster can flip a switch enabling any present and future listeners to offer support. Ultimately, complexity is diminished for both parties.

The second thing making this news significant to me is that it’s the first sign of a monetization strategy for Anchor. It’s very possible the service will still introduce an ad platform in the future, but whether that happens or not, this is a thoughtful first move. It’s respectful to both podcasters and listeners alike, and as such it feels like a good fit for the service and its goals.

While I certainly don’t want to see podcasting dominated by a single platform, the way video is owned by YouTube, I nonetheless continue to be impressed by Anchor. Whatever the company’s future holds, it’s a good thing making podcasting more accessible, and a good thing for podcasters to be rewarded for their work.

Anchor users can activate listener support from their dashboard on anchor.fm.

Apple Books: A Love Letter to Readers

When iOS 12 launches this fall, it will introduce a newly redesigned iBooks app simply named Books. Though the reading experience in Books is largely the same as before, the rest of the app is drastically different, offering the biggest app redesign on iOS since last year’s App Store.

Modern design is a clear centerpiece of Books, but the app also includes new features, big and small, that make it feel all-new. From tools that borrow from Goodreads, to more robust collections, to dark mode, and much more. There’s a lot to explore here, so let’s dive in.

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Logitech Purchases Blue Microphones to Better Serve Gamers, Podcasters, and More→

Logitech is expanding its lineup of tools for content creators by acquiring the popular microphone company Blue. From Blue’s announcement post:

Logitech has announced plans to acquire Blue Microphones—and we are super excited about it! Blue’s mission is to help our users find and amplify their voice by making the coolest microphones on the planet, and we’re going to keep doing exactly that. With Logitech’s vast resources behind us, we can be supercharged. We can be better, stronger, faster…

The union of the companies makes a lot of sense, as each creates gear in overlapping domains like gaming, YouTube, and podcasting.

We both have strong brands in the gaming market. We make the most popular streaming mic, they make the most popular streaming cam. And we both want to put excellent, high-performance gear on every desktop.

Blue also makes professional-level microphones for musicians, but to most consumers the company may be best known for its Yeti and Snowball mics, which are favorite choices among podcasters. It will be interesting to see how Blue’s additional resources enable it to better serve the needs of its existing customer base.

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Nike Training Club Debuts on Apple Watch

Over the last year it’s become far too common to hear about a popular app dropping support for the Apple Watch – fortunately, today the opposite is happening: Nike Training Club has added an Apple Watch app for the first time.

Nike Training Club is a workout app containing over 180 different training sessions to choose from. The app offers guided instructions to help you complete your workout, along with activity data to see your exercise track record. It’s a really solid, well designed app that gives you the tools needed to hit your workout goals.

The new Apple Watch app for Nike Training Club is merely a companion to the iOS app. You can’t start workouts directly from the Watch, so despite the Series 3 model’s cellular capabilities, you’ll need to have your phone nearby at all times.

Despite its limitations, the Watch app can still be very useful during workouts. During a yoga session, for example, the Watch will show you which pose to take with a countdown for how long to hold it; you’ll also see your heart rate and calories burned. Swipe over in the app to see the total length of your workout and an option to pause or end the session.

If you’re a heavy Nike Training Club user, the new Watch app provides a much more convenient way to keep track of your workout’s progress. I really hope some day the app becomes completely independent of the iPhone, but this is a nice first step.

Nike Training Club is available on the App Store.

Apple Releases Software Fix to Address MacBook Pro Throttling→

Jason Snell, writing for Six Colors:

After a week of controversy following the posting of a video that claimed the new 15-inch MacBook Pro could experience massive slowdowns, Apple on Tuesday acknowledged that the slowdowns exist—and that they’re caused by a bug in the thermal management software of all the 2018 MacBook Pro models. That bug has been fixed in a software update that Apple says it’s pushing out to all 2018 MacBook Pro users as of Tuesday morning.

Here’s the official Apple statement, furnished to Six Colors by an Apple spokesperson:

Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro. A bug fix is included in today’s macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended. We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems. Customers can expect the new 15-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 70% faster, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to be up to 2X faster, as shown in the performance results on our website.

The controversy caused this past week over throttling reports surely isn’t the kind of publicity Apple was hoping for with its latest updates to the MacBook Pro. There’s been all kinds of speculation as to the reasons for the excessive throttling that’s been reported, with one popular theory claiming it’s an issue with the MacBook Pro’s thin body – an error similar to that found with the current Mac Pro, whose enclosure can’t sufficiently handle the additional heat caused by powerful chips and heavy workflows.

While official tests will take some time to confirm Apple’s message, it’s great to see that the i9 MacBook Pro’s issues don’t appear to be hardware-related, and Apple moved swiftly to solve them.

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iMessage Business Chat Continues Slow Rollout, Adding Multiple New Brands and Supported Platforms→

Apple launched iMessage Business Chat earlier this year as part of iOS 11.3, but at the time only a select few companies were signed on to support the feature. Four months later, we’re now starting to see the next Business Chat partners go live. Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch:

In addition to Dish becoming the first TV provider to support Business Chat, Apple says it has also added four other brands, Aramak, Four Seasons, Harry & David, and American Express, in addition to five new technology platforms businesses can integrate with.

To this point Business Chat has primarily been deployed as a customer support solution, but with these new companies comes more diversity in how the feature is being used. In particular, I’m intrigued by what Aramark is doing with Business Chat as a customer service tool. Perez writes:

Aramak is piloting a 10-game “Brew2You” program at Citizens Bank Park, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies. Fans will be able to scan a QR code on their seat back in three sections to order beer or water over iMessage, and have it delivered right to their seat.

Ordering drinks at a ball game is a perfect use case for Business Chat, and one I hope catches on with related markets, both sports and otherwise. Movie theaters, concerts, or Broadway shows that offer the ability to order refreshments from your seat would be another great fit.

I used Business Chat for the first time last week with Dish, and the service worked as advertised, offering a pain-free support experience that’s miles ahead of a traditional phone call or other web chat service. While expansion has gotten off to a slow start, I’m hopeful that with Apple targeting not just individual brands, but also large platforms like Cisco, it will be easy for more businesses to get on board sooner rather than later.

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Doppler Enables Pain-Free Importing of Music and Podcasts from Safari on iOS

I’ve been an iOS-first user for nearly three years now, and during that time there have been very few tasks that required me to pull out my old MacBook Air. One remaining holdout has been downloading music or podcast files from the web and saving them somewhere I can conveniently access them on iOS. The ideal scenario would enable importing those files into iTunes, where they get added to my iCloud Music Library – unfortunately, that remains impossible on iOS today. But the next-best option I’ve discovered can be found in an iPhone app called Doppler.

Doppler launched a few months ago as a music app aimed at the non-streaming market. Despite the increasing popularity of services like Apple Music and Spotify, there are still plenty of users who want greater ownership of their music library, and that’s where Doppler comes in. It specializes in offline playback and custom library curation. You can import your existing iTunes purchases, or import songs or podcasts saved in the Files app, and customize metadata so your library’s organized exactly as you like it.

Today in version 1.2, Doppler adds a feature I’ve long wanted on iOS: the ability to import files directly from Safari.

My main use cases for Doppler’s new feature include downloading MP3 tracks from an artist I support on Patreon, and downloading special members-only podcasts, like AppStories Unplugged from Club MacStories. In both cases, getting the audio files from Safari into a music player, or even just a cloud storage provider, has historically been way too difficult on iOS. Last year when iOS 11 introduced the Files app, I thought this problem would finally be taken care of; surely I’d be able to use Files’ share extension from Safari to save the audio tracks. Unfortunately, Safari only presents the Files extension when downloading certain file types, and audio files aren’t included. And that’s where Doppler comes in.

Doppler now offers an action extension that can be used in two contexts: either when an audio file is already loaded in Safari, or even just when long-pressing a link to an audio file and hitting the ‘Share…’ option. The action extension then pulls in the file, lets you modify track metadata, and saves it to your Doppler library. The app is billed as a music player, but this same process works well for podcasts too – just know that due to their increased track size, podcasts will take longer to import.

Doppler is still a young app, so it’s missing key features that will hopefully be added in the future, such as an iPad app and iCloud sync. Its design is solid though – I like how it evokes past versions of Apple’s Music app with backgrounds matching the color scheme of each album. Despite being feature-light, Doppler works well as a basic music player for your non-streaming service needs. And now, thanks to its Safari import feature, it’s become a crucial utility that’s staying installed on my device.

Doppler is available for iPhone on the App Store.

Apple Showcases New Emoji Arriving in iOS 12, macOS Mojave, and watchOS 5

In celebration of World Emoji Day, Apple has released a preview of the new emoji arriving later this year in updates to iOS, macOS, and watchOS. There will be 157 new emoji in total, but today’s preview only features a select few.

A centerpiece of the emoji additions this year will be improved diversity in hair options, including red hair, gray hair, curly hair, and bald.

Last year the new set of emoji was added with iOS 11.1 in October, while the year before that new emoji didn’t arrive until iOS 10.2 in December. One way or another, it’s only a matter of months until some version of iOS 12 puts the 157 new emoji in the hands of users.