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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Apple Announces Activity Challenge for WWDC Attendees→

Alongside the release of an updated WWDC app earlier today, Apple announced that developers attending the conference next week are invited to participate in an exclusive Activity challenge where they can earn a special reward.

Earn points each day, from Sunday, June 3 at 12:00 a.m. to Thursday, June 7 at 11:59 p.m., by wearing your Apple Watch and closing your Activity rings. Simply download the Challenges app on iPhone and allow Challenges to access Health app data, which includes data from your Activity rings. Work as a team of four with fellow WWDC18 attendees to earn as many points as you can. If everyone on your team closes their rings that day, you’ll get team bonus points (in addition to individual bonus points). Individuals who earn 200 points or more during the challenge will receive a reward on Friday, June 8 at McEnery Convention Center.

The Challenges app referenced has previously been used by Apple for internal employee fitness challenges, but this is the first time the company has utilized it with a broader group of participants.

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WWDC App Updated for 2018 Conference

Apple has updated the WWDC app ahead of its annual developer conference that begins June 4, 2018 in San Jose, California. Unlike last year, when the app received a new design inspired by apps like Apple Music and Apple News, this year the app has remained largely unchanged. Other than a new icon, the main change with this update is that the schedule for 2018 conference sessions is now included.

The most noteworthy news tidbit from browsing the app’s updated schedule is that the Apple Design Awards are making a return to public form this year. At WWDC 2017, Apple decided to eschew its normal tradition of a public ceremony, and instead honored ADA winners in a private ceremony, followed by an updated website. This year marks a return to form, with the ADAs being held the evening of the conference’s first day.

The WWDC app is a free download on the App Store.

HomePod Receiving AirPlay 2 and Calendar Support Today, Launching in More Countries Soon→

Apple is releasing iOS 11.4 today, alongside a companion 11.4 update for the HomePod. Ahead of that release, Apple Newsroom shared details on exactly what we can expect.

Today’s update will at last bring AirPlay 2 to iOS and, by extension, the HomePod. This will enable the multi-room audio and stereo pairing features that Apple first demonstrated on-stage at last year’s WWDC. More in-depth coverage of AirPlay 2 features will be available in our iOS 11.4 overview, publishing when that update launches. And look out for a hands-on story covering the HomePod’s new stereo pairing feature after it becomes available.

One other noteworthy feature coming to HomePod today is the addition of Calendar support. This works similarly to the other Personal Requests features of HomePod, which include Notes, Messages, and Reminders: only the Apple ID used to set up your HomePod will be able to share its Calendar information, and that data can only be accessed when you’re at home on the same Wi-Fi network as HomePod.

Finally, Apple has announced three countries where HomePod will be launching soon: Canada, France, and Germany. The smart speaker will be available beginning Monday, June 18th.

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Apple Confirms WWDC Keynote for June 4

In mid-March Apple announced that WWDC 2018 would take place the first week in June, and today the company confirmed that, following past tradition, the keynote for that conference will take place on June 4 at 10:00am Pacific.

Apple is expected to unveil the latest versions of its major operating systems at WWDC, including iOS 12, watchOS 5, and macOS 10.14. If the keynote is anything like last year’s, we may see several hardware products announced too. A live stream for the keynote has not yet been confirmed, but it remains likely since WWDC is one of the prime Apple events of the year.

‘Day One in Depth’ Is a New Video Course from The Sweet Setup

Following its recent courses on Things and Ulysses, today The Sweet Setup has launched a new ‘Day One in Depth’ video course aimed at helping you become an expert of the popular journaling app.

A major strength of Day One is its flexibility – it’s full-featured on both iOS and Mac, supports a host of both system-based and web-based methods for saving content, and therefore it can be used in a way that serves you best at any given moment. There’s a lot to cover about the app, and The Sweet Setup hits all the bases well in the eight videos of its new course, which are titled:

  • Walkthrough of Day One on Mac
  • Walkthrough of Day One on iPad & iPhone
  • Elements of a Journal Entry
  • All the Ways to Create New Entries
  • How to Filter and Search in Day One
  • How and Why to Use Multiple Journals
  • Cloud Sync, Back Up, and Security
  • Getting Things Out of Your Journal(s)

In addition to these videos, Day One in Depth provides access to nine exclusive articles from The Sweet Setup’s team, covering a wide range of subjects such as how journaling can change your life, a guide to all of Day One’s keyboard shortcuts, ideas for how you may want to use Day One, a 30-day journaling challenge, and much more. While the video course is presented as the main attraction, I found the articles included here invaluable.

I’ve used Day One only casually in my life for the most part – I knew the app had a lot of power to it, but I never took the time to dive in and get the most out of it. If you’re in a similar place and want to change that, this new course is an excellent way to equip yourself for a deeper investment into digital journaling.

‘Day One in Depth’ will normally be priced at $29, but it’s available now at a special launch week price of $23. You can purchase the course here.

Castro 3 Review: The Castro You’ve Always Wanted

Castro has long been one of the premier podcast clients on iOS, and its excellent version 2 – with an innovative triage system and delight-inducing design touches – helped solidify it as such. Those strengths in 2.0, however, were mitigated in part by the absence of a few key features that competing podcast apps tout. That changes with Castro 3.

If you’re unfamiliar with the app, Castro’s centerpiece feature is a triage system involving an inbox and queue. The premise is that, with the rising popularity of podcasting, there are more great podcasts available than ever before. If you subscribe to lots of shows, the standard episode management tools found in competing apps likely aren’t sufficient. With Castro, by default new episodes of shows land in your inbox, and can then be sorted to the top or bottom of your queue and downloaded, or archived if they’re not of interest to you. It’s an elegant solution to the problem of podcast overload, and, thanks to customization options that allow you to make certain shows populate the top or bottom of the queue automatically, it’s a system that works for you, tailored to your listening preferences.

Castro’s triage system clicked with me the first time I tried it, and I used the app daily for nearly a year. Eventually though, I became more selective about the portions of podcasts I listened to, and Castro’s lack of chapter support sent me elsewhere. I’ve seen comments from other prospective Castro users who were similarly turned off from the app due to one missing feature – and often, this feature was different for different people.

If an absent feature ever kept you from sticking with Castro 2, that almost certainly won’t be a problem anymore. Castro 3 addresses nearly all of those “one missing feature” requests in a single release. Trim Silence is Castro’s take on Overcast’s Smart Speed; full chapter support is now present, as is a new Apple Watch app; the player screen has been fully redesigned; Mix to Mono improves stereo mixes that are hard to hear; and finally, there are excellent new per-podcast controls in a variety of areas. Perhaps the only thing still missing is an iPad app.

Castro 3 is everything Castro already was, but better. It’s the app that Castro fans have always wanted.

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Google Introduces YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Subscription Services, Retires YouTube Red Moniker

Google seems to have an affinity for constantly rebranding its products, and today is the latest example of that. Soon, YouTube Red will be replaced by the more costly $11.99/month YouTube Premium service – the good news is that Premium members will get all the benefits of YouTube’s new Music service thrown in too. And if you’re an existing Red subscriber, or sign up quickly before Premium launches, you can lock in the existing $9.99 monthly rate and still get all the benefits of Premium and Music.

YouTube Music is Google’s attempt at taking on streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify directly. Launching May 22nd, YouTube Music will have both a free tier and a paid, $9.99/month option. The main focus here is the paid plan though, as it will be the only way to enable background listening – a pretty important feature for music. Paid subscribers will also benefit from downloads and ad-free listening.

YouTube Music will launch with a new mobile app and desktop player, and use Google’s intelligence to power advanced search capabilities and an aggregation of different song versions you may not find elsewhere. In a confusing move, Google Play Music will continue to exist as a separate service from YouTube Music, but if you’re a subscriber to the former, you get the latter service at no extra cost.

As someone who uses YouTube regularly, but not enough to justify a Red subscription, the new Premium plan definitely seems like a more attractive all-around product, despite the price hike: you get a full-fledged music streaming service, YouTube Originals, and a better viewing experience on the largest video source in the world thanks to downloads, no ads, and background playback, all for $11.99. Spotify and Apple Music subscribers may be content with their chosen services for now, but if YouTube Music truly does become a legitimate contender in the streaming market, it will be hard to resist the allure of YouTube Premium for all the extra perks it offers.

At launch, YouTube Music and Premium will be available in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico, and they’ll arrive shortly thereafter in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.