Strike: An Elegant, Collaborative Place to Write on the Mac and iOS [Sponsor]

Strike is a beautifully-designed, modern writing app for the Mac and iOS that brings together all the tools you need whether you’re working by yourself or with colleagues.

Strike streamlines the process of writing allowing you to get ideas down quickly with its Smart Markdown system. You can type Markdown directly into a Strike document, which is automatically previewed in the editor. You can also format text with a single click or tap on the app’s formatting bar that includes bold, italics, underlining, strikethrough, ordered and unordered lists, checklists, links, headings, and more.

Strike didn’t stop there though. You can drop charts, tables, and MathJax formulas into your documents too. Strike also supports file attachments as well as:

  • Password protected documents
  • Document locking to avoid inadvertent changes
  • Themes and handsome color schemes
  • Document statistics
  • Text transformation tools
  • Line sorting
  • Autocorrect and spellcheck
  • Attachment and PDF export

On the Mac, Strike supports recent powerful additions to macOS like Dark Mode and document versioning so you can roll back changes. On iOS, Strike supports the Apple Pencil.

Navigating longer documents is simple. The side panel is an outline of the major headings and list items in your document. Selecting any entry jumps straight to that part of the document. The side panel is where you’ll find a list of the tags in your document too, which you can use to go to where the tags appear in your text.

As fantastic as Strike is for writing solo, it’s just as reliable for writing with colleagues. Invite up to 10 people to join you in editing a document simultaneously in real-time. For example, it’s a great way to work with an editor, on a joint project with others, or to collect notes from fellow students.

Strike is a simple and elegant writing tool that distinguishes it from other writing apps through the power of collaboration. Download Strike on the Mac and iOS today to supercharge your writing.

Ulysses 15 Review: Split View on the Mac, Remote Images, Improved iPad Multitasking, and More

When a productivity app feels like it’s reached maturity, it’s in a dangerous position: if active development is neglected, the app will start to stagnate amidst a changing world, but on the other hand, if change is pursued for its own sake, the app can easily become bloated and an inferior product overall.

Ulysses 15 for Mac and iOS deftly navigates those potential dangers by offering thoughtful enhancements to existing features, plus new features that truly serve to enhance the core task of writing. There are improvements to image previews, writing goals, export previews, and keywords, plus big upgrades to how the editor can be set up on both the Mac and iPad.

The core app remains largely the same, but it’s now more compelling than ever before.

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Apple Music Commissions Custom Playlist Art→

If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you’re probably familiar with its playlist artwork styles. Some work well to tie together collections of related playlists like Decades, Essentials, and Deep Cuts. The trouble is though, that has also bred a certain sameness across Apple Music’s many playlists. That’s beginning to change as Apple rolls out custom playlist artwork from high-profile music industry artists.

Bijan Stephen of The Verge was told that the new artwork is designed to:

“connect more directly with the communities and the culture for which they were intended,” says Rachel Newman, Apple’s global director of editorial. Before now, Apple’s playlists had a uniform presentation that didn’t necessarily speak to the music. “In many ways, it’s a visual representation of the music that you will find inside that playlist,” said Newman.

Newman told Stephen that the company is rolling out the new artwork over the next few months and intends to redesign ‘many thousands’ of playlists.

The Verge also spoke to several artists involved in the project for its story. Stole “Moab” Stojmenov who created the cover of the Migos’ album Culture explained how he approached the challenge:

“Giving a shape and an image to music is never an easy process,” he wrote. “My style and my creative process have been always characterised by a significant presence of symbology and very powerful images, in addition to a very minimal and simple design. I think this project was somehow a bit different, but it also gave me the chance to create a real manifesto of my style.

The new playlist art published so far is excellent. There’s a wide range of styles that suit the music showcased in each playlist. By drawing on a wide range of talent from the music industry, the company should be able to imbue each playlist with a personality that was sometimes lacking in the past.

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Connected, Episode 233: AirDrop the Bass→

Federico talks about the new MacStories Shortcuts Archive and the guys check in with iOS 12 halfway through its lifecycle.

On this week’s episode of Connected, we reassess the impact of iOS 12’s major new features. You can listen here.

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Introducing the MacStories Shortcuts Archive, a Collection of 150 Custom Shortcuts for Apple’s Shortcuts App

After several months of work, I’m pleased to announce the MacStories Shortcuts Archive – the official repository for shortcuts I’ve created over the years (including when they used to be called “workflows”) and which have been updated, tested for the Shortcuts app, and collected in a single place.

You can find the archive at macstories.net/shortcuts. In this first version, the archive contains 150 shortcuts, but more will be posted over time. Each shortcut was created and tested by me and the MacStories team; all of them have been categorized, updated for the Shortcuts app, and marked up with inline comments to explain what they do.

Even better, they’re all free to download and you can modify them to suit your needs.

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Spark Adds Rich Text Formatting for Email: Lists, Text Colors, and Highlighting

Today in an update to its iOS and Mac apps, the email client Spark has introduced new rich text formatting options to enable greater flexibility in styling your messages.

Spark already included the expected bold, italics, and underline options, and its macOS version previously allowed creating bulleted or numbered lists, but those list options have now come to iOS as well. Additionally, both Mac and iOS users can now change the color of text in their emails, as well as add highlighting to text.

Rich text support is a particularly important feature for an email app, so I’m glad to see it come to Spark. While I likely won’t start sending messages with different colored fonts, it’s nice having the variety of options Spark provides here. Lists in particular were something I’ve missed having in the past, and I like the idea of employing highlights to call out anything of special importance in an email. I’ve historically used bold for that purpose, but highlighting definitely does an even better job of standing out.

Spark’s latest update is available now as a free download for iOS, and the Mac update is coming soon.

AppStories, Episode 101 – iOS 13 Wish List Part 1: Files and the iPad Home Screen→

On this week’s episode of AppStories, we discuss our iOS 13 wishes for the Files app and iPad home screen.

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