The Festival of Artisanal Software
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:
This week, Federico and John cover the highlights of macOS Sequoia, a good update that feels unfinished.
In the latest episode, we share our thoughts on the Nintendo Switch 2 rumors, Sony’s PS5 nostalgia-fest, and more handheld news. Plus, Federico explains how Astro Bot makes sense of the PS Portal, I share a look at the Anbernic RG40XXV retro handled, and we reach peak Joy-Con with Mobapad’s M6 HD.
Today, Logitech revealed the MX Creative Console, the company’s first product that takes advantage technology from Loupedeck, a company it acquired in July 2023.
I’ve been a user of Loupedeck products since 2019. When I heard about the acquisition last summer, I was intrigued. Loupedeck positioned itself as a premium accessory for creatives. The company’s early products were dedicated keyboard-like accessories for apps like Adobe Lightroom Classic. With the Loupedeck Live and later, the Live S, Loupedeck’s focus expanded to encompass the needs of streamers and automation more generally.
Suddenly, Loupedeck was competing head-to-head with Elgato and its line of Stream Deck peripherals. I’ve always preferred Loupedeck’s more premium hardware to the Stream Deck, but that came at a higher cost, which I expect made it hard to compete.
Fast forward to today, and the first Logitech product featuring Loupedeck’s know-how has been announced: the MX Creative Console. It’s a new direction for the hardware, coupled with familiar software. I’ve had Logitech’s new device for a couple of weeks, and I like it a lot.
The MX Creative Console is first and foremost built for Adobe users. That’s clear from the three-month free trial to Creative Cloud that comes with the $199.99 device. Logitech has not only partnered with Adobe for the free trial, but it has worked with Adobe to create a series of plugins specifically for Adobe’s most popular apps, although plugins for other apps are available, too.
Unlike most reviewers who were given an iPhone to test, Austin Mann didn’t head home, he headed to Kenya. Mann, whose iPhone camera reviews we’ve covered many times in the past, took the new iPhone 16 Pro on safari (not the browser), photographing a variety of wildlife, landscapes, and people. The video Mann shot of the trip is stunning:
Both the video and Mann’s accompanying article and photographs do more than just showcase the kind of shots that are possible with the iPhone 16 Pro. They both go in-depth about the new features and what each means to photographers:
The iPhone 15 Pro had the same 13mm (.5x) ultra-wide lens, but the sensor was only 12 megapixels—just 25% of the resolution of the 24mm (1x) lens. Over the past year, especially while working with the iPhone 15 Pro, I often found myself torn. Sometimes I wanted the wider perspective, but I didn’t want to sacrifice resolution. I was thrilled when the new Ultra Wide was announced with 48 megapixels, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint.
An added bonus is that the iPhone’s Macro mode also uses the Ultra Wide camera, meaning Macro shots are now 48 megapixels as well. The detail is remarkable, and the iPhone 16 Pro might just be my new favorite camera for macro photography.
Mann likes the Camera Control button for quick access to the Camera app, too, but found that in circumstances like shooting from a helicopter, it could be hard to operate.
The video and post are both worth spending time with. You’ll learn what the new cameras in the Pro iPhones can do and perhaps be inspired to go out and try the new features yourself.
iFixit has released the results of its teardowns of the iPhone 16 lineup. I love these posts because not only do they provide insights into the repairability of the new iPhones, but they also answer interesting questions like:
However, this year, perhaps the most interesting discovery in all models of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro lines is the use of a new battery adhesive:
The adhesive that secures the battery, in the vanilla and Plus models, is this fancy new sticky stuff that can debond when you pass an electrical current through it. That means no more reliance on finicky, brittle adhesive strips, just a consistent, easily repeatable process.
The post goes in-depth on just how simple it is to remove the battery using tools as simple as a 9-volt battery and alligator clips.
The ease with which the battery can be replaced in the iPhone 16 line went a long way in the repairability score iFixit bestowed on the devices this year. Whereas the iPhone 15 received a score of four out of ten, the iPhone 16 received a seven, a significant year-over-year increase.
One of my favorite parts from Nilay Patel’s review of the iPhone 16 Pro at The Verge was the answer he got from Apple’s VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack about the company’s definition of a “photograph”:
Here’s our view of what a photograph is. The way we like to think of it is that it’s a personal celebration of something that really, actually happened.
Whether that’s a simple thing like a fancy cup of coffee that’s got some cool design on it, all the way through to my kid’s first steps, or my parents’ last breath, It’s something that really happened. It’s something that is a marker in my life, and it’s something that deserves to be celebrated.
“Something that really, actually happened” is a great baseline compared to Samsung’s nihilistic definition (nothing is real) and Google’s relativistic one (everyone has their own memories). As Jaron Schneider wrote at PetaPixel:
If you have no problem with generative AI, then what Google and Samsung said probably doesn’t bother you. However, many photographers are concerned about how AI will alter their jobs. From that perspective, those folks should be cheering on Apple for this stance. Right now, it’s the only major smartphone manufacturer that has gone on the record to steer photography away from the imagined and back to reality.
I like Apple’s realistic definition of what a photo is – right now, I feel like it comes from a place of respect and trust. But I have to wonder how malleable that definition will retroactively become to make room for Clean Up and future generative features of Apple Intelligence.
Enjoy the latest episodes from MacStories’ family of podcasts:
Sigmund and Devon round up the new features in this week’s tvOS 18 update, discuss Devon’s review of visionOS 2 on MacStories, and recap Sunny.
Matt needs to praise the iPad, Chris drops some iPadOS knowledge, and Niléane is intrigued by window management on other tablets looks like.
This week, Federico and I unwind on air about how we’re doing post-review week, preview Federico’s Playstation Portal theory, and share family members’ reactions to iOS 18.
The European Commission (EC) issued a press release today summarizing two specification proceedings that they have commenced against Apple:
The first proceeding focuses on several iOS connectivity features and functionalities, predominantly used for and by connected devices. Connected devices are a varied, large and commercially important group of products, including smartwatches, headphones and virtual reality headsets. Companies offering these products depend on effective interoperability with smartphones and their operating systems, such as iOS. The Commission intends to specify how Apple will provide effective interoperability with functionalities such as notifications, device pairing and connectivity.
The second proceeding focuses on the process Apple has set up to address interoperability requests submitted by developers and third parties for iOS and IPadOS. It is crucial that the request process is transparent, timely, and fair so that all developers have an effective and predictable path to interoperability and are enabled to innovate.
In a nutshell, the EC is unhappy with connectivity between iOS and third-party devices and plans to tell the company how to comply. The second part requires Apple to set up a process for third parties to request connectivity with iOS.
The EC has given Apple six months to comply with its latest proceedings, during which the commission will share its preliminary findings with Apple and publish a non-confidential summary of the findings publicly so third parties can offer comments.
Apple prides itself on its tight integration between hardware and software, and the EC is determined to open that up for the benefit of all hardware manufacturers. While I think that is a good goal, we’re getting very close to the EU editing APIs, which I find hard to imagine will lead to an optimal outcome for Apple, third-party manufacturers, or consumers. However, if you accept the goal as worthwhile, it’s just as hard to imagine accomplishing it any other way given Apple’s apparent unwillingness to open iOS up itself.
Friday is Relay’s annual Podcastathon for St. Jude. They’re raising money during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and the Podcastathon is a fun 12-hour live streamed show from your favorite Relay hosts that begins at Noon Eastern on Friday, September 20th. If you haven’t donated, yet, you can do so here. It’s a great cause that we’d love MacStories readers to get behind. For more details be sure to see my post from August.
As you can imagine, our pals Stephen and Myke are a little busy getting ready for their big show at the end of the week. So, they did something very trusting and handed over this week’s Connected episode to Federico who invited me and Brendon, his co-hosts on NPC: Next Portable Console, to join him.
The episode was a blast, covering topics like:
Plus, for the Connected Pro segment, subscribers got to hear all about our weird super powers.
Thanks to Myke, Stephen, and Federico for having Brendon and me on Connected today, so we could put a temporary NPC spin on the show.
This week, Apple released iOS and iPadOS 18 to the world. One of the main new features this year is the ability to fully customize Control Center. And not only is Control Center customizable, but it now also supports controls from third-party applications. If you open the new Controls Gallery in iOS and iPadOS 18, you will find controls and toggles from some of your favorite indie apps that have been updated to support the new release.
In addition to being available in Control Center, every one of these third-party controls can be mapped to the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro or newer, and they can used to replace the two default controls at the bottom of Lock Screen – Flashlight and Camera – which have been there since the introduction of the iPhone X in 2017.
While you may think at first that there’s only so much you can do with a simple toggle in Control Center, the range of possibilities that this enables is actually pretty wide. That is why, today, I’m taking a look at a selection of apps that have been updated to offer their own controls for Control Center and the Lock Screen. They’re all unique, and some of them are unexpectedly powerful.
Let’s jump in.
