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Halide Mark II: The Best Pro Camera For iPhone [Sponsor]

Halide Mark II is the brand new camera app from the makers of Spectre, Apple’s iPhone App of the Year for 2019.

Halide is the sort of elegant, intuitive app casual photographers appreciate that also offers the sophisticated, advanced features that expert photographers demand. The app was created by three friends who share a passion for photography and believe that apps should be exceptionally well built and designed, simple to use, and free of any nonsense.

The makers of Halide understand that advanced features don’t have to come at the expense of usability. Halide’s beautiful interface relies on gestures that make using the app fast and efficient. All of the manual controls that pro users expect are available when you want them but are neatly tucked away out of sight when you don’t. It’s a carefully-crafted balance that sets Halide apart from other camera apps.

Halide supports the latest iPhone technologies like Apple’s new ProRAW format on the iPhone 12 Pro and live XDR (Extended Dynamic Range) exposure tools, ensuring that you’re always on the forefront of what’s new with iPhone photography. The Halide team also provides what you need to take advantage of those features by offering an easy 10-day set of photography lessons right inside the app to help you get the most out of it.

There are no ads, tracking, or anything else you don’t want in Halide – just an obsessive focus on helping you take the best possible photos every time. Halide offers a 7-day free trial for subscribers, or, if you prefer, you can take advantage of its one-time purchase option.

Either way, download Halide Mark II today to get ready for ProRAW and make the most of your iPhone’s camera.

Our thanks to Halide Mark II for its support of MacStories this week.

MacStories Unwind: Apple’s Year-End Award Winning Apps, Music, Podcasts, and Books, youtube-dl on iPad, Texting Alexa, and the iPhone MagSafe Wallet

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Sponsored by: pCloud – How Does 2TB Lifetime Cloud Storage Sound?

This week on MacStories Unwind:

MacStories

Club MacStories

  • MacStories Weekly
    * A collection of focused Mac utilities
    * Federico’s custom menu bar URL scheme launcher

AppStories

Unwind

Amazon Rolling Out ‘Type with Alexa’ Feature in iOS App→

Paul Lamkin, writing at The Ambient:

Amazon is rolling out a new feature within its smart home app. Type with Alexa allows you to send messages to your digital assistant using a keyboard and text messages, rather than using your voice.

The new feature, which is rolling out as part of a public preview - _The Ambient _contributor Jennifer Pattison Tuohy noticed it pop up on her phone - means you can send discreet messages to Alexa for occasions when your voice might not be the best option; think cinemas, on the train, at a funeral and so on.

Sure, you could already search within the app for Alexa Routines and smart home device controls, but the new keyboard based input also allows you to ask queries such as diary updates, calculations, news headlines and the like - as well as acting as a pretty nifty search tool for smart home routines and devices with your Alexa ecosystem.

I also noticed the public preview of this feature in the Alexa app on my iPhone, and I’ve been playing around with it since last night. My first impression is that ‘Type with Alexa’ is what I’ve long wanted from Siri: having a silent conversation with a smart assistant that can control smart home accessories, interact with web services, and play music or podcasts is terrific. Anything you can ask Alexa with normal voice commands can also be typed now, so sending a message such as “play 305 by Shawn Mendes in the kitchen” from your iPhone will result in Alexa playing that song via an Echo speaker in the kitchen. (I’m aware that Google Assistant has offered a typing mode for a long time; however, I don’t use Google’s smart home products.)

Type with Alexa.

Type with Alexa.

I could achieve something similar with Siri by enabling iOS’ ‘Type to Siri’ Accessibility setting. The problem with that option, as I mentioned several times before, is that it replaces Siri’s voice interactions: if you enable ‘Type to Siri’, you’ll no longer be able to issue voice commands and the keyboard will always be displayed instead. I’m not the first one to ask this, but I’d love the ability to have a separate conversation with Siri in iMessage in a future version of iOS.

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Family Sharing of In-App Purchases and Subscriptions Is Now Available

Yesterday, thanks to the excellent information storage and management app Keep It, Federico discovered that Apple had activated Family Sharing of In-App Purchases, including subscriptions.

First announced at WWDC in June, the new feature expands what’s included as part of Family Sharing. Previously, In-App Purchases, including subscriptions, were excluded. Now, however, there’s a toggle in Settings → iCloud → Subscriptions that permits sharing of new subscriptions automatically with family members. Family sharing of subscriptions can be turned on and off on a per-subscription basis, too, by tapping the individual subscriptions in Settings, where you’ll find a Family Sharing toggle for that particular app. Sharing of existing subscriptions is turned off by default and must be enabled manually one app at a time.

Family Sharing of In-App Purchases and subscriptions is optional for developers who must turn it on in the App Store Connect as Keep It developer Steve Harris explains in this Twitter thread:

I’m glad to see Apple has activated In-App Purchase and subscription sharing among families. With the increasing popularity of subscriptions, Family Sharing was quickly becoming less valuable to users who wanted their entire family to have access to an app. Although the feature requires developers to opt-in, three of my subscriptions have adopted Family Sharing, so I’m optimistic others will follow suit.

Peter McKinnon on Apple’s MagSafe Wallet→

I received my MagSafe wallet a few days ago, and it didn’t take me long to observe how I was in complete disagreement with the general consensus from most reviews: the majority of reviewers I follow didn’t like it and criticized its flimsiness; I loved it, couldn’t figure out what issues other people had with putting it in their pockets, and generally found it everything I hoped it would be.

Fortunately, I’m not alone in thinking the MagSafe wallet is great. I wish I could quote a single part from Peter McKinnon’s video about it, but I found myself nodding in agreement with every word, so just go watch the whole thing below. (My thanks to MacStories reader Chuck for sharing this.)

Not only does McKinnon know a lot about leather-based products and wallets, but he also perfectly encapsulates the qualities that make the MagSafe wallet an ideal accessory for people like me: its build quality is terrific; it’s thin and feels good to hold in the hand when paired with an iPhone; thanks to MagSafe, the connection between the iPhone and wallet is strong but it’s still easy enough to remove when you need to access one of your cards. I’ve been using a Bellroy wallet case for over a year; I prefer the MagSafe wallet since it’s less bulky and doesn’t require me to swap cases when I’m back at home. When I’m driving, I can leave the wallet in my pocket and put the iPhone 12 Pro on Belkin’s new MagSafe car vent mount (which I also like a lot), and everything comes together beautifully thanks to the new MagSafe standard.

Based on my usage over the past few days, I think I’m going to be a MagSafe wallet person for the foreseeable future. Imagine if it turns out I’m also going to like the much-criticized MagSafe Duo charger?

Oh.

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Year-End Music Insights From Apple’s Replay 2020 and Top 100 Playlists, Plus MacStories’ Apple Music Wrapped Shortcut

Apple’s annual Replay playlists are available and updated throughout most of the year by visiting replay.music.apple.com. However, as of this week, if you visit the site, you will see your year-end statistics too, which provide insights about your listening habits in 2020.

When you click or tap the ‘Get Your Replay Mix’ button, a webpage is generated with:

  • The total number of hours you’ve listened to Apple Music in the past year
  • Your 2020 Replay playlist of top-played tracks, including the number of times you played each song
  • The number of artists you’ve listened to this year and a list of the ones you’ve listened to the most, including the hours you spent listening to each
  • The number of albums you listened to along with a personal top 10 that shows how many times you listened to each album
  • Links to past annual Replay playlists

I find these statistics fascinating and wish that they didn’t require you to visit a special website. I understand there is a privacy angle here, which undoubtedly is why Apple doesn’t generate these statistics for you automatically. However, the Replay playlists are still a feature that should be built into the company’s apps.

Spotify does a much better job with the year-end Wrapped playlist and related statistics it creates for users. In addition to the playlist, Spotify breaks down the year in music, reporting on trends on its ‘For the Record’ podcast and the company’s blog. For anyone interested in where the global music scene is heading, these Spotify features and articles are a terrific resource.

The report created by the Apple Music Wrapped shortcut. It's true, I really like [Kyoto](https://music.apple.com/us/album/kyoto/1504699857?i=1504699860).

The report created by the Apple Music Wrapped shortcut. It’s true, I really like Kyoto.

If you’re looking for a way to approximate Spotify’s Wrapped playlist for Apple Music and extend Apple’s Replay report, check out the Apple Music Wrapped shortcut that Federico created a couple of years ago and has updated for 2020. The shortcut, which is part of the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, generates a report on your music listening for the past year that can be viewed in Safari, creates a PDF you can save to Files or Dropbox, and can build a Top 25 playlist that it saves to the Music app. You can read more about Apple Music Wrapped’s features here.

Apple Music Wrapped

Create a detailed report for the music you’ve listened to in the past year. The shortcut can optionally create a Top 25 playlist for your most played songs and generate a PDF report. The shortcut is primarily designed for Apple Music subscribers.
To calculate number of plays, the shortcut looks at songs that have been played in full without skipping and added to your library in any given year.

Get the shortcut here.

Apple's many Top 100 playlists.

Apple’s many Top 100 playlists.

Apple has also debuted a series of Top 100 year-end playlists. There are global, Shazam, most-read lyrics, and country-specific Top 100 lists for a total of 51 playlists available to US Apple Music subscribers. The Top 100 I find most interesting is the Shazam list, which is generated from 9.2 billion songs identified by the app. The top song, Dance Monkey by Tones And I was identified by Shazam a whopping 24.6 million times in 2020.

I’ve enjoyed looking through my Replay statistics for 2020 and checking out a few of the Top 100 lists, but there’s so much more Apple can do to extend its year-end lists for individual users and in aggregate. The issue is part of a broader Apple Music discovery problem that extends from the inability to track Apple Music 1 radio shows to the almost non-existent promotion of Apple Music TV. Although the situation has improved, Apple Music still needs better discovery and personalization tools to compete effectively with Spotify.

Apple Names App of the Year Winners

Every year, Apple chooses a handful of standout apps and games from among the millions available on the App Store, naming them the Apps of the Year. In recent years, the company has also picked trends its editorial team has spotted on the App Store.

For 2020, Apple has honored fifteen apps and games as the App of the Year winners from a wide variety of categories. According to Apple’s press release:

“This year, more than ever before, some of our most creative and connected moments happened in apps. This was thanks to the amazing work of developers who introduced fresh, helpful app experiences throughout the year,” said Phil Schiller, Apple Fellow. “Around the world, we saw remarkable efforts from so many developers, and these Best of 2020 winners are 15 outstanding examples of that innovation. From helping us stay fit and mindful, to keeping our children’s education on track, to helping fight hunger, their impact was meaningful to so many of us.”

This year’s app winners are:

Apple also recognized games on each of its platforms, plus its Arcade service:

The App Store editorial team sees a lot of apps every year, and the trend it saw emerge in 2020 was ‘Helpfulness,’ a theme embodied in the following apps that also received an award:

In addition to naming this year’s winners, Apple called out each of the developers of the apps and games on a special page that lists the developers of each of the award-winning apps and published its top free and paid apps of 2020.

To commemorate this year’s App of the Year winners, Apple’s designers created physical awards for the first time. The blue awards resemble the App Store’s icon and are made from 100% recycled aluminum with the winner’s name engraved on the back.

It’s nice to see Apple provide a physical token of its awards this year, an opinion that I’m sure surprises no one. Congratulations to this year’s Apple App of the Year award winners. It’s always great to see developers’ hard work and contributions to Apple’s platforms recognized.

Apple Recognizes Best Books, Audiobooks, and Podcasts of 2020

Today Apple updated its Books and Podcasts apps with recognition of the most popular, and Apple’s selection of the best books, audiobooks, and podcasts of the year. There are ten different groups of selections, some just being the most popular items based on Apple’s metrics, and others being Apple’s own subjective favorites. Here’s a subset of Apple’s choices, but be sure to check out the full lists of picks in the Books or Podcasts apps on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad:

Books

Best Books of the Year:

Most Popular Fiction Books:

Read more

Downloading YouTube Videos on iPad with youtube-dl and a-Shell→

Greg Godwin, writing at NonProfit Workflows:

There are various apps for the Mac that’ll download YouTube videos, but there’s nothing comparable for the iPad. I discovered that it’s possible to download these videos using the iCab browser if you change the user agent, but I could never get this to work consistently. There is a command-line program you can run called youtube-dl that will download videos from YouTube (and other sites). The problem is, the iPad doesn’t ship with a Terminal app like the Mac does, so while I could do this on my Mac, I struggled to find a way to use this command on my iPad.

Greg has written an excellent tutorial on how to install the (recently reinstated) youtube-dl utility (which I’ve been using to download YouTube videos on my Mac mini for years) and use it on iPad via a-Shell. I followed their tutorial and was able to get youtube-dl up and running on my iPad Pro – with support for encoding files via ffmpeg – in literally two minutes. There’s probably less of a need for downloading YouTube videos on iPhone and iPad now that the YouTube app supports native 4K playback on Apple platforms, but I think it’s great to be able to download videos offline for research and archival purposes regardless. I always like to download the best possible version of a video in the WebM format, which plays beautifully at crisp 4K in the free VLC app for iPad.

One crisp Tyler.

One crisp Tyler.

Side note: I’ve been trying to use this shortcut to pass the URL of the current video from Safari/YouTube to a-Shell via the share sheet. Unless I’m missing something obvious, the a-Shell app launches but doesn’t run my command, which is passed as a ‘Text’ parameter to its Shortcuts action.

Update: Thanks to MacStories reader Jay, I was able to make a-Shell’s Shortcuts action work by switching from single- to double-quotes. I’ve made a shortcut that lets you pass a YouTube URL from either Safari or the YouTube app to a-Shell – which will start downloading it – so you don’t have to type the command (and related options) manually each time. You can find it below and in the MacStories Shortcuts Archive. Also, don’t miss this tip by Greg on navigating a-Shell’s local folder structure.

youtube-dl

Download a video from YouTube using youtube-dl and the a-Shell app for iPhone or iPad. The shortcut accepts any YouTube URLs passed from Safari or the YouTube app via the share sheet. Detailed instructions on how to set up youtube-dl and a-Shell can be found here.

Get the shortcut here.

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