Spark: The Future of Email [Sponsor]

Email doesn’t have to be difficult. Instead of letting it rob you of your precious time use Spark on iOS and the Mac to recover those lost moments automatically.

Spark is loaded with smarts starting with its Smart Inbox that categorizes messages as Personal, Notifications, and Newsletters, which makes it easy to focus on what’s important and return to what’s not later.

Intelligent search makes it simple to find messages no matter where they are too. Spark features a natural language algorithm that thinks just like you. Spark also uses Smart Notifications, so you only get notified what you need to know now.

Spark features beautifully designed card-style calendar invitations that can be accepted with just one tap, the ability to send later and set up reminders for messages that don’t receive a reply, message snoozing, and Quick Replies that let you acknowledge a message with a single tap. Spark also has customizable gesture actions and works with Dropbox, Box, iCloud Drive, and more.

As if that weren’t enough, Spark for Teams completely changes the way colleagues collaborate giving them the ability to do things like comment on and discuss messages and even write messages together. Messages can be delegated to team members for follow up too. Once you’ve tried Spark for Teams, you won’t know how you worked without it.

The future of email is now. Download Spark today for free on iOS and the Mac to take control of your inbox.

Thanks to Spark for supporting MacStories this week.

My MacStories Story: How iOS Automation Changed My Life

Six years ago I was a senior in high school – a laughably short timeline compared to the immensity of growth and change which took place within it. Graduation, all of college, and a lonely move across the country; a career imagined, pursued, and achieved; friends and relationships come and gone. Not many threads of life make it all the way from the start of your late teens through the end of your early twenties, but those that do feel special in a way not much else can. MacStories is one of mine.

This week we’re celebrating MacStories’ 10th anniversary, and this year marked the fifth anniversary of my first article on the site. It boggles my mind to think that I’ve been part of this incredible team for more than half of MacStories’ life, but that’s nothing compared to the feeling of when it all began.

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A Brief History of The Prompt and Connected

“I think we should talk to Federico about joining the show.”

With that, my podcasting career – and life – got a lot better.

This was the spring of 2013. Myke Hurley and I were packing our bags at Myke’s original podcast network, heading over to 5by5. He and I had been publishing a weekly Apple show named “The 512 Podcast,” but we wanted to do something bigger and better, and Myke had the idea to wrangle Federico into things.

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How MacStories Instigated My iPad-First Journey

When I started reading MacStories, the site had already shifted its focus from the Mac to the iPad – and that’s what drew me in.

I’ve been an Apple admirer for as long as I can remember, but in my younger years the company’s products were simply outside my budget. It wasn’t until the age of 18 that I owned my first Apple device, an iPod, which was followed a couple years later by a second-hand MacBook. In both of these cases, it was the surprisingly short lifespans of my previous non-Apple MP3 player and laptop that led me to finally splurge and pay the Apple premium. I quickly discovered that, for me at least, it was well worth it.

Despite loving my iPod and MacBook, I didn’t start diving deeper into the Apple ecosystem until after the iPad’s release in 2010. At that point the iPhone had been around for a few years, but in frugality I had stuck with a cheap flip phone and evaded the smartphone era as long as I could. After the iPad, though, things quickly changed.

Shortly following the launch of Apple’s tablet, my boss at the time purchased that very first iPad for me, which was the gateway that led to an iPhone 4 later that year, a MacBook Pro the year after that, and many more Apple products since then. The iPad catalyzed my deepening interest in Apple, and it was the iPad that also, several years later, led to my discovery of MacStories.

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New Club MacStories Perk: 6 Months of 1Password Families Free for New Subscribers

It’s been a special week for us. In reflecting on the first decade of MacStories, two things have stood out to me as being crucial elements’ of the site’s continued flourishing: an enthusiastic, supportive base of readers, and a steady stream of great apps to cover. It was those two things that led to the formation of Club MacStories, where we get to highlight even more of the best apps the App Store has to offer, for a base of readers who value getting more out of MacStories.

As part of our anniversary week celebrations, we’ve teamed up with 1Password for a special perk for Club members: 6 free months of 1Password Families for first-time 1Password customers. Details on eligibility and how to sign up will be in this Friday’s MacStories Weekly newsletter.

Longtime MacStories readers will know that 1Password has consistently been one of our favorite and most trusted utilities (the app even has its own site tag). A few years back 1Password transitioned from a paid up front business model to that of subscriptions, with various plans and tiers available. The Families plan includes full access to 1Password apps across all platforms (iOS, Mac, and even Windows, Android, and the web) for up to five family members, plus 1GB of secure document storage for the family. We’re grateful that the team at 1Password has made this special offer available.

If you’re not a Club MacStories member, you can join the Club today to score this special offer on Friday, as well as gain instant access to our members-only MacStories Unplugged podcast, the full back catalogue of over 200 previous newsletters, and other perks. Membership is $5/month or $50/year and directly contributes to helping us continue doing what we love.

Apple Marks Earth Day with Expanded Recycling Programs and an Apple Watch Challenge

With Earth Day just around the corner, Apple has issued a press release announcing the expansion of its existing iPhone recycling program, an Apple Watch fitness challenge and more.

Last year for Earth Day, Apple took the wraps off of Daisy, a recycling robot that replaced Liam, an iPhone disassembly robot first introduced to the world in 2016. Daisy can take apart 15 different models of iPhones for a total of 1.2 million devices every year. The recycling process allows Apple to recover materials like cobalt from batteries, tin from logic boards, and aluminum, which is being remelted into cases for Mac minis and now, MacBook Airs.

This year Apple has announced that it is expanding its recycling program to include iPhone returned to Best Buy stores in the US and KPN stores in the Netherlands. Previously, iPhones could only be returned to an Apple Store as part of the company’s Trade In program. Apple says this will quadruple the number of locations where customers can return iPhones in the US. The company also announced the opening of a 9,000 square foot Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas.

Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives said:

“Advanced recycling must become an important part of the electronics supply chain, and Apple is pioneering a new path to help push our industry forward. “We work hard to design products that our customers can rely on for a long time. When it comes time to recycle them, we hope that the convenience and benefit of our programs will encourage everyone to bring in their old devices.”

Additional information is about Apple’s environmental efforts are available in its 2019 Environment report.

Finally, Apple is celebrating Earth Day, which is next Monday, April 22nd, with an Apple Watch Earth Day Challenge. Apple Watch users who complete a 30-minute outdoor workout on April 22nd will receive a special Earth Day award and stickers for Messages. The company will also be conducting special Earth Day-themed Today at Apple sessions in its retail stores.

I just finished Leander Kahney’s book about Tim Cook, which does an excellent job chronicling Apple’s environmental programs over the years, and it’s interesting to see the steady march of progress as Apple recovers more and more of the materials used to build iPhones. The addition of retailers like Best Buy to the recycling program is just as significant a step forward though because it makes those programs more accessible for the first time to iPhone owners who don’t have an Apple Store near their homes.

Connected, Episode 239: Pizza Trousers→

This week, in the absence of adult supervision, Myke and Federico discuss their new favorite time zone app and consider some recent iOS 13 rumors before Ticci talks about what arrived in his mailbox.

On this week’s Connected, in addition to CalZones and iPad keyboards, we talk about some recent iOS 13 rumors, including something I heard about mouse support on iPad a few months ago. You can listen here.

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Review: Touchtype Pro Offers an Ingenious All-in-One Solution for iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard Users

The Touchtype Pro is a clever new accessory created by Salman Sajid that aims to combine the iPad Pro with Apple’s Magic Keyboard using a flexible cover case and magnets. Sajid launched a campaign for the product earlier this month on Kickstarter, where you can check out more details about pricing and the design process of the Touchtype Pro. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early production unit before the Kickstarter went live and I’ve been using the Touchtype Pro with my 2018 12.9” iPad Pro for the past few weeks. After sharing some first impressions on Connected, I wanted to post a few more thoughts here, along with some photos.

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MacStories’ Heart

Ten years is a long time on the Internet. So many companies have come and gone in that time, making it worth considering what it is about MacStories that has endured.

Having worked with Federico for roughly a third of that time, I can’t claim to be objective, but before I joined the team, I was a long-time reader of MacStories and a developer who pitched an app to Federico. That’s given me a perspective on MacStories that goes beyond my current role, so it will probably surprise no one that I have a few thoughts on the matter.

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