Posts in reviews

Arc Search Review: My New Default iPhone Browser

Arc Search for iPhone.

Arc Search for iPhone.

Every once in a while, I come across a new app whose design, feature set, or combination of the two redefines my expectations for a particular category of software. The new Arc Search app for iPhone, which is launching today on the App Store as a separate app from The Browser Company’s previous Arc Companion utility, is one of those experiences.

From the first moment I tried Arc Search for iOS, I knew I wanted to use it as my default iPhone browser. And the reason isn’t because Arc Search does more than Safari (there’s actually a long list of missing features that I’ll cover below), but because despite offering less functionality, the essence of how Arc Search rethinks one-handed web browsing on a phone is so refined and thoughtful, going back to another browser feels like a downgrade.

Arc Search has a long way to go to become a full-featured, mature browser for iOS, and it doesn’t even come with an iPad counterpart yet. But, at the same time, it’s the best take on mobile web browsing I’ve seen in years.

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The macOS App Icon Book: A Mini Review

Are you still basking in the glow of the Mac’s 40th anniversary and longing for a little more nostalgia? Well, I’ve got it for you with Michael Flarup’s latest book of iconography, The macOS App Icon Book. I loved Flarup’s book of iOS icons and was excited when I heard months ago that he was working on a follow-up dedicated to Mac iconography. I received my copy about a week ago, and it’s a fantastic mix of icons, history, and designer profiles.

The macOS App Icon Book includes designer profiles.

The macOS App Icon Book includes designer profiles.

Flarup wrote the forward, introduction, an essay on visual design, and a brief history of Mac app icons, which help put the beautifully reproduced icons in context. The book also features profiles of ten icon designers, including many of my favorites like Christa Mrgan, Matthew Skiles, Malin Sundberg, and Gavin Nelson. There’s also a section on icon sets, which is packed with great examples.

If you appreciate good design, I highly recommend picking up a copy of The macOS App Icon Book. I’m sure developers and designers will be inspired by the book’s contents, but it’s also perfect for app fans who are picky enough about the apps they use to be reading this post.

The macOS App Icon Book was funded with a Kickstarter campaign, but it’s now available on Michael Flarup’s online store for $77.

BenQ ScreenBar Halo: Lighting Your Entire Desk Setup

Years ago, I bought a BenQ ScreenBar with Dial. It sat perched on top of my display, bathing my desk in light. I loved it, except for the cables that snaked down the back of my monitor: one to power it via USB-A and the other leading to a knob for turning it on and off and adjusting brightness and light temperature.

I stopped using the BenQ ScreenBar when I moved my desk to an area of my old house where the back of my screen was exposed. The wires hanging off of the ScreenBar were just too messy looking, no matter what I did.

Not long ago, I pulled the ScreenBar out of storage and began using it again. I still wasn’t a fan of the wires, but with my Studio Display facing a wall, it was usable again. That’s why I was interested in trying the ScreenBar Halo when BenQ offered to send me one to test. It’s similar to the older model I was using but with a couple of crucial differences.

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ScreenFloat 2.0: Floating Reference Screenshots and Management from the Mac’s Menu Bar

ScreenFloat 2.0.

ScreenFloat 2.0.

ScreenFloat 2.0 is a Mac-only screenshot utility from Matthias Gansrigler of Eternal Storms Software. As Gansrigler explains, the app is like Picture-in-Picture for screenshots, allowing you to float screenshots or screen recordings above other windows to use as reference material on your Mac. That’s a great explanation of one of the core use cases for ScreenFloat 2.0, but the update opens up exciting new possibilities that go even further, which I think anyone who works with screenshots will like a lot.

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Globetrotter: Your Photos and Memories on a World Map

Every time I open the Memories tab in Apple’s Photos app, I feel disappointed. The memories it surfaces always seem to rehash the same events in my life, and they never really achieve to put my photos back in context. This is a big reason why, for so many years, I’ve been keeping a personal journal in Day One, which lets me revisit my journal entries by looking at a map of everywhere I’ve recorded a memory. Likewise, the ‘Places’ section in Apple Photos is my favorite way to browse through my older photos.

Globetrotter is a delightful new app created by indie developer Shihab Mehboob that embraces this idea of revisiting your photo memories by looking at them on top of a world map. The app does so in a beautifully-designed interface, with a focus on your travel memories. Let’s take a look.

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GoodLinks Adds Even Deeper Shortcuts Integration with Ability to Retrieve Current Article, Selections, and More

The new Shortcuts actions for GoodLinks.

The new Shortcuts actions for GoodLinks.

A few weeks ago on AppStories, I mentioned to John that I was looking for the “Things of read-later apps”. What I meant is that I wanted to find an app to save articles for later that felt native to Apple platforms, had a reliable text parser, but, more importantly, featured deep Shortcuts integration to let me create automations for saved items. As I followed up after a few episodes, I realized the app I’d been looking for was the excellent GoodLinks, which we’ve covered on MacStories several times before.

Today, GoodLinks developer Ngoc Luu released a small update to the app that, however, cements it as the premier solution for people who want a read-later utility for iOS and iPadOS that also features outstanding Shortcuts support.

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Adding Colorful, Animated Flare to the Holiday Season with Hue’s Festavia Lights

Source: Philips Hue.

Source: Philips Hue.

A couple of weekends ago, after we put up our Christmas tree, I broke out Hue’s Festavia lights, which the company recently sent me to test. Ever since we moved in late 2022, we’ve had a generic string of big-bulb white lights hanging around the perimeter of the second-floor balcony that I controlled with the help of an outdoor smart plug. The setup provided a little extra light and atmosphere whenever we sat outside in the evening, which I enjoyed. However, I was also curious to see how I could take the setup further and add some holiday cheer with a set of the Festavia lights. So, instead of putting the lights on our tree, I replaced our existing balcony lights with the Hue lights.

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Apple’s Journal App: Journaling for All?

I’ve been keeping a journal in Day One since at least 2015, and I’ve got to say, the practice has become very engrained in my otherwise chaotic daily routine. Whenever I get asked about journaling, I always say that it’s a habit that can take any form you like. It can take place in a paper journal, in an app as written entries, as voice notes, or even as captioned photos in a photo diary. The reason I stuck with Day One over the years is because the app is incredibly flexible. It kept up with me during periods of my life when it was harder to write down my daily thoughts, and easier to type a couple of bullet points every day instead. I believe the best journaling tools are those that can adapt to you, not the other way around. But still, when Apple announced they were building their own Journal app, built right into iOS 17, I was excited by the prospect of switching things up in this little habit of mine.

This week, Apple released the Journal app as part of iOS 17.2. As expected, the app is unfortunately only available on the iPhone. Nevertheless, Apple’s first entry in this category is very interesting, to say the least, as it revolves almost entirely around a system of smart journaling suggestions and prompts. I’ve been using it alongside Day One for a couple of weeks now, to both get an idea of what Apple’s approach to journaling is like, and to see how it intends to bring journaling to a wider audience.

Let’s jump in.

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Screens 5: An Updated Design, Improved User Experience, and New Business Model

Screens 5.

Screens 5.

Screens, the remote screen-sharing app for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac by Luc Vandal of Edovia is one of those apps that I feel like I’ve always used. It’s installed on all of my devices, letting me lazily check on the Mac in my office from my couch or grab a file that I forgot to put on my laptop when I’m working remotely. It’s also the app that makes working with my headless Mac mini server that’s humming away in a closet feel like it was sitting right on my desk.

The last time I reviewed Screens was in 2017 when version 4 was released. In the years since, the app has received regular updates, refining the workflow of connecting to remote computers and keeping up with the latest changes to Apple’s OSes. However, as an app that’s designed to be a window to another system, the UI hasn’t seen a lot of change until today’s update to version 5, which adds a bunch of refinements to how connections are organized and makes significant improvements to the app’s toolbar.

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