Apple in 2018: The Six Colors Report Card→

Jason Snell:

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple.

This is the fourth year that I’ve presented this survey to a hand-selected group. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote. I received 55 replies, with the average results as shown below:

It was my pleasure to participate (again) in the latest edition of the Six Colors Apple report card, which features average scores and answers on a variety of Apple topics. As usual, it is a solid, balanced overview of where Apple stands today in different areas of its business. Personally, I was positive about iPad Pro hardware, iOS 12, and Apple Watch, but I noted I’d like to see Apple do more on iPad software, iPhone camera, and HomeKit in 2019.

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For AirPods Early Adopters, Apple’s Hit Wireless Earbuds Are Showing Their Age→

I found myself nodding in agreement with this post by Zac Hall about how AirPods purchased in December 2016 are starting to show their age in terms of battery life:

Apple rates AirPods for up to five hours usage at 50% volume, and early testing proved that rating was actually slightly conservative. In practice, brand new AirPods could last almost five and a half hours before their batteries depleted. The carrying case doubles as a charging case, too, providing over 24 hours of battery life without needing to recharge from the wall.

But batteries are consumable, we all know so well now, and that’s proven true for the tiny batteries inside AirPods after two years of daily use. Battery life that once exceeded five hours now struggles to power AirPods through three hours of continuous usage at the same volume. Battery life results can be cut in half if you need to play audio at a louder volume.

In practice, I used to never hear the low battery alert during usage. I rarely listened to audio with AirPods for five straight hours before charging in the carrying case without thought. More recently, I’ve heard the bloop sound much more regularly, frequently followed by AirPods dying before I’m ready to recharge.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately (in fact, I proposed it as a topic for this week’s Connected) and I feel like Hall and I have gone through the same process. When my AirPods were new, I could listen to a full episode of Upgrade or Cortex at max volume and still have plenty of battery life left; now I cannot get to the end of an episode (roughly 90 minutes in length) without hearing the low-battery alert. My AirPods can’t hold a charge like they used to and I’m not surprised.

I could buy a fresh pair of AirPods now, but that seems like a waste of money given the (possible?) upcoming release of a new model. I could buy a third-party wireless charging adapter to make charging the case more convenient, but I don’t feel comfortable with an unofficial, bulky add-on case, which wouldn’t fix the battery issue of the AirPods anyway. I love my AirPods – they’re one of my favorite Apple products in recent years alongside the iPad Pro and Apple Watch – but I’m reaching the point where I’m always charging them, and I really want Apple to release whatever they’ve been working on.

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Apple Shares Behind the Scenes Look at the Creation of iPad Pro ‘A New Way’ Videos→

Earlier this month Apple published a series of videos showcasing iPad Pro workflows for things like hosting a podcast, taking notes, and creating a presentation. Each ad’s title began ‘A new way to’ followed by the description of a productivity-themed task.

While these videos were great showcases of the iPad’s potential in their own right, what made them particularly interesting was that each ad ended by stating that it was made using the iPad Pro. Today, Apple has shared a follow-up video that goes behind the scenes into exactly which apps and processes were used to create this video series.

According to the video, Apple’s production team used Procreate and Notability to handle design work for the ads, FiLMiC Pro to shoot each video, LumaFusion for video editing, Keynote and Core Animator for animation, and finally, GarageBand was the composition tool for the ads’ music.

Federico and John discussed Apple’s iPad Pro video series on this week’s episode of AppStories, including some spot-on speculation that Apple used LumaFusion for editing the videos. This peek behind the curtain of iPad Pro video production further demonstrates the power of the iPad, and helps point users toward some of the best apps the App Store has to offer.

One of my favorite touches comes as the video ends, when we learn that, of course, the behind-the-scenes video itself was made on iPad Pro. A video made on iPad Pro, about the making of videos on iPad Pro, which all cover the subject of making things on iPad Pro. Perfect.

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Banktivity: Achieve Your Financial Goals for 2019 [Sponsor]

Managing your finances doesn’t have to be difficult. With Banktivity, you can track expenses, know when to pay upcoming bills, gain valuable insights into the performance of your investments, and a whole lot more. Best of all, everything you need for financial peace-of-mind is available on your Mac and iOS devices.

Banktivity empowers its users to manage all of their financial accounts in one place, includes real-time budgeting, and syncs with the free iPhone version of the app, so your finances are always right at your fingertips. With version 7 of the Mac app, Banktivity’s functionality adds all-new ways to track and analyze your finances.

Banktivity for the Mac has added a stunning new dark mode that looks great alongside other macOS Mojave apps. IGG Software, the makers of Banktivity, painstakingly examined and redesigned every corner of the app to take full advantage of dark mode.

The app also has a new ‘Calendar View’ that ensures you’ll never miss a bill again by letting you see past and upcoming bills and transactions. You can even customize which accounts are displayed and track their running balance over time.

Direct Access, which can be purchased separately, is faster than ever. Now, you can connect to over 14,000 banks and import your financial transactions quickly and seamlessly whether you’re on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

There’s an all-new real estate account type too, so you can track property you own and link it to related loans and mortgages. If you’re in the US, you can automatically follow your property’s estimated value with Zillow, and there’s a new view with details like your home’s available equity.

Say goodbye to financial stress and hello to Banktivity. Visit IGG Software’s website to learn more about Banktivity today. There’s a free 30-day trial available, so there’s nothing to lose. And when you’re ready to purchase, use the discount code MACSTORIES10 at checkout for 10% off.

Our thanks to Banktivity for sponsoring MacStories this week.

Hands On with iOS 12.2’s HomeKit Support for Smart TVs

As I noted yesterday, the launch of the developer beta of iOS 12.2 has brought the necessary underlying APIs for manufacturers of smart TVs seeking to integrate their television sets with HomeKit. Originally announced at CES 2019, the initiative encompasses both the HomeKit and AirPlay 2 technologies, which the likes of Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Sony will roll out (albeit to varying degrees) in their upcoming smart TVs over the course of 2019. Thanks to the HomeKit Accessory Protocol and the work of enterprising third-party developers, however, it is already possible to get an idea of what the HomeKit part of these integrations will be like by installing unofficial plugins that add HomeKit compatibility to existing TV sets via software.

Thanks to developer (and homebridge contributor) Khaos Tian, I’ve been able to test native HomeKit integration with my 2017 LG TV running webOS, which does not currently support HomeKit out of the box and which, according to LG, will not receive an official software update for HomeKit support in iOS and tvOS 12.2. In this post, I’m going to share my first impressions of HomeKit’s new TV features in the iOS 12.2 beta, describe how it all works in practice, and share some suggestions for changes I’d like Apple to implement by the final release of iOS 12.2.

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Developer Demos HomeKit’s New Integration with Smart TVs→

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5Mac:

Developer Khaos Tian hacked the HomeKit protocol to simulate adding a smart TV accessory to the Home app. He shared some screenshots and videos of these features ‘in action’ …

By essentially faking the existence of a HomeKit-compatible Smart TV accessory on his network, he was able to add a television tile into his Home app.

This reveals new interfaces for controlling the TV. You can tap on the tile to turn it on or off and access the Details menu to change input.

Tian has posted a series of examples of this new HomeKit integration on his Twitter account, including one where he was able to control his LG TV running webOS from the iPhone’s Home app.

Interestingly, Tian has already contributed an update to homebridge – the third-party plugin to add all kinds of different accessories and platforms to HomeKit – with support for HomeKit’s new TV control APIs. Here’s where this gets really interesting for me: despite the launch of an online petition, LG has only confirmed that their latest 2019 TV sets will receive official HomeKit support. Thanks to homebridge, however, it should be possible to add native HomeKit integration to older LG televisions (such as my 2017 model) with plugins that bridge the webOS API to HomeKit’s new endpoints. This is precisely what Tian is doing for his demo.

Now, as someone who’s been running homebridge and the homebridge-webos-tv plugin for the past few months (and I promise I will write about this eventually), I’m excited about the idea of having a native interface for controlling my TV from the Home app (and, ideally, Siri too). As you can see, the plugin I’m currently using can only “fake” controls in the Home app by adding switches. It can get…confusing:

Configuring homebridge plugins (left) requires working with a JSON document.

Configuring homebridge plugins (left) requires working with a JSON document.

But it works. I’ve been running homebridge and this plugin without issues for months now, and I’ve gotten so used to asking Siri to change inputs on my TV, I can’t imagine not having these integrations anymore. A recent update to homebridge-webos-tv even added support for individual channel input and more remote control buttons. For this reason, assuming that the folks at LG don’t change their mind and ship a HomeKit software update for older TV sets, I think I’m going to experiment with a dual setup for webOS TV support in HomeKit: some controls based on the official HomeKit API, and others provided as custom switches – both based on homebridge plugins. But that’s a story for another time.

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Microsoft Office Debuts on the Mac App Store

Promised at WWDC last June, Microsoft Office 365 has arrived on the Mac App Store today. Office 365, which includes the company’s flagship Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook productivity apps are free to download but require a subscription available via an In-App Purchase to create and edit documents and to send and receive email messages. Before today, the Mac versions of the apps were only available as direct downloads from Microsoft.

At WWDC 2018, Apple announced a redesign of the Mac App Store. During the presentation, the company said the following apps would be coming to the Mac App Store:

  • Microsoft’s Office 365
  • Adobe’s Lightroom CC
  • Panic’s Transmit
  • Bare Bones’ BBEdit
  • Snap’s Live Studio
  • Houseparty

The addition of the apps announced has been slow. Houseparty debuted on the Mac App Store several months ago, but Transmit didn’t appear until last November. With today’s addition of Office 365, that leaves Lightroom, BBEdit, and Live Studio to go.

Office is a significant addition to the Mac App Store. The apps in the suite are used by millions of people worldwide, and the convenience of downloading them and updating the apps from the Mac App Store alongside other apps should be a welcome addition for many users. Hopefully, the remainder of apps promised aren’t far behind and will help reinvigorate the Store, which has not seen the same level of success as its iOS sibling.

Office 365 is available on the Mac App Store as a bundle. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook can also be downloaded individually.

Connected, Episode 227: Caveats Ruin People→

After Stephen ruins the intro, Federico finally gets around to talking about his second iPad Pro and Myke shares a secret.

On this week’s episode of Connected, I finally addressed why I bought a second (11”) iPad Pro last December. You can listen here.

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AppStories, Episode 95 – Interview: Directing Animated Feature Films Using an iPad Pro with Yarrow Cheney→

On this week’s episode of AppStories we interview Yarrow Cheney, whose animated feature film credits include directing The Grinch and The Secret Life of Pets and production design for the Despicable Me movies and The Lorax, about the role the iPad plays in his filmmaking process.

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  • Toggl – Hassle-free time tracking, wherever you are.
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