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Apple Has Built a New Home for ‘Manuals, Specs, and Downloads’→

Apple has consolidated documentation for its products, including manuals, technical specifications, and downloads on a new webpage that was first discovered by the Japanese-language website Mac Otakara and reported on this morning by MacRumors.

Most of what you’ll find on Apple’s new page was previously published elsewhere, but the new structure of the page is an improvement. It’s simple to drill down by product category to find information on the device for which you need information or use the prominent search field below the product icons. As you may spot from the screenshot above, I’ve not only bookmarked the site, I’ve also addd it to my Safari Favorites bar.

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The App Store’s Updated Purchase History→

Matt Birchler discovered a change to the App Store’s Purchase Page that seems to have largely flown under the radar. There are more details on the new page than before, which makes it easier to review past purchases. By default, you’ll see your last 90 days of paid purchases grouped by day. However, you can filter by free and paid, purchase type, and family member who made the purchases. You can also limit results to the last 30 or 90 days, this year, last year, or a custom period, which Matt points out displays, at most, one year of purchases.

A few of my recent purchases.

A few of my recent purchases.

It’s also worth noting that your purchase history is not limited to apps. My purchases go all the way back to 2005, when I started buying music on iTunes. Playing with the filters is like opening a time capsule full of classic media finds and embarrassing ‘What were you thinking?’ purchases.

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Ruminate, Episode 180 – Spoilers for Colin

This week, Ruminate joins MacStories, we follow up on the AI/Arc discussion from episode 179, Tim Berners-Lee’s open letter, Robb explains Colin the Caterpillar, and John dives into Southern food.

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NVIDIA Introduces Remote Scene Rendering for Vision Pro Development→

NVIDIA is in the midst of its 2024 GTC AI conference, and among the many posts published by the company yesterday, was a bit of news about the Apple Vision Pro:

Announced today at NVIDIA GTC, a new software framework built on Omniverse Cloud APIs, or application programming interfaces, lets developers easily send their Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD) industrial scenes from their content creation applications to the NVIDIA Graphics Delivery Network (GDN), a global network of graphics-ready data centers that can stream advanced 3D experiences to Apple Vision Pro.

That’s a bit of an NVIDIA word salad, but what they’re saying is that developers will be able to take immersive scenes built using OpenUSD, an open standard for creating 3D scenes, render them remotely, and deliver them to the Apple Vision Pro over Wi-Fi.

What caught my eye about this announcement is the remote rendering and Wi-Fi delivery part. NVIDIA has been using its data centers to deliver high-resolution gaming via its GeForce NOW streaming service. I’ve tried it with the Vision Pro, and it works really well.

NVIDIA says:

The workflow also introduces hybrid rendering, a groundbreaking technique that combines local and remote rendering on the device. Users can render fully interactive experiences in a single application from Apple’s native SwiftUI and Reality Kit with the Omniverse RTX Renderer streaming from GDN.

That means visionOS developers will be able to offload the rendering of an immersive environment to NVIDIA’s servers but add to the scene using SwiftUI and RealityKit frameworks, which Apple and NVIDIA expect will create new opportunities for customers:

“The breakthrough ultra-high-resolution displays of Apple Vision Pro, combined with photorealistic rendering of OpenUSD content streamed from NVIDIA accelerated computing, unlocks an incredible opportunity for the advancement of immersive experiences,” said Mike Rockwell, vice president of the Vision Products Group at Apple. “Spatial computing will redefine how designers and developers build captivating digital content, driving a new era of creativity and engagement.”

“Apple Vision Pro is the first untethered device which allows for enterprise customers to realize their work without compromise,” said Rev Lebaredian, vice president of simulation at NVIDIA. “We look forward to our customers having access to these amazing tools.”

The press release is framed as a technology focused on enterprise users, but given NVIDIA’s importance to the gaming industry, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the new frameworks employed there too. Also notable is the quote from Apple’s Mike Rockwell given the two companies’ historically chilly relationship.

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Ruminate Joins MacStories

2015 was a busy year. At the beginning, I released an app, and at the end, I joined MacStories. In between, Robb Knight and I started Ruminate, making it the longest-running thing I currently do.

Ruminate began on a sunny day at a Chicago country club.

Ruminate began on a sunny day at a Chicago country club.

I remember the show’s origin well. I was still working at a law firm in Chicago and was sitting outside on a warm summer day at a compulsory work outing, where most people played golf. I, however, was planning my exit from the world of law, working on a long list of project ideas and soaking up some sun. That’s when Robb, who I’d gotten to know online over the previous year or two, contacted me to say, ‘We should do a podcast,’ which is perhaps the most 2015 thing he could possibly have proposed. I was a little hesitant at first, but I was ready to try anything that might help me quit my job, so with that, Ruminate was born.

You can subscribe to Ruminate using the buttons below:

What I’ve always loved about Ruminate is its casual, low-key vibe. We’ve covered serious topics like content moderation on social media, but there’s always a healthy dose of our latest online discoveries, weird snack food, and videogames, too. It’s a mix that I think makes the show fun and entertaining, while offering some food for thought about the web from two very online people.

That time I encouraged people to tweet at Robb, so the tweets would show up on a huge screen in the middle of his graduation ceremony.

That time I encouraged people to tweet at Robb, so the tweets would show up on a huge screen in the middle of his graduation ceremony.

Some of you may wonder why Ruminate is joining MacStories after so many years on its own. It’s a good question. My motivation is to reach more listeners and mix things up a little to keep the show fresh and interesting.

Now is the perfect time for a show like Ruminate to broaden its audience, too. Centralized social media has splintered, ActivityPub and federation are on the rise, and AI is upending online media companies that rely on Google Search. Those factors have left many people ready for a smaller, indie web built by humans instead of big companies or AI bots.

Robb and I have covered topics like RSS, static websites, micro-blogging, and the many amazing online projects we come across for years. Those things never really went away, but suddenly, people are ready for their tech lives to get weird again, whether it’s the hardware they use or how they spend time on the web. Robb and I are here to bring the weird web to your podcast player every two weeks, just like we’ve been doing for years.

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AppStories, Episode 375 – Why’d You Download That?→

This week on AppStories, we take a look at our latest app downloads on a variety of Apple devices.

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Why’d You Download That?

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On AppStories+, I cover is attempts to integrate text-to-speech engines with read-later apps.

We deliver AppStories+ to subscribers with bonus content, ad-free, and at a high bitrate early every week.

To learn more about the benefits included with an AppStories+ subscription, visit our Plans page, or read the AppStories+ FAQ.

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Exploring Apple Jing’an→

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Earlier today, Apple announced that its Jing’an store will open in Shanghai on March 21st. Apple’s press release includes several images of the new store, but for more context and an extensive collection of images, you can’t beat Michael Steeber’s Tabletops newsletter.

As Steeber explains:

Apple Jing’an illustrates the idea that good things take time. Years have slipped by since rumors of this store first appeared. Other stores have opened and closed in all corners of the globe, an entirely new retail design language materialized, and the world emerged from the pandemic while Jing’an Temple Square sat dormant. This week, spring arrives. It was worth the wait.

The years that have passed since the Jing’an store project began mean that the underground store is an interesting hybrid of designs found in other landmark stores in recent years. Undoubtedly, the most striking aspect of the new store is that it’s almost entirely subterranean:

It’s only after passing through the portal that the magnitude of the store is revealed. Much deeper and taller than the plaza suggests, entering Apple Jing’an is a bit like discovering a glimmering cavern on a walk around a bluff face. The familiarity of the Apple Retail experience collides with the mystery of a dramatic architectural landmark… underground.

I would love to see this store someday. Elements of its architecture remind me of Apple’s store along the Chicago River, but like all of the company’s flagship retail locations, Jing’an has a unique character all its own.

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RoamPod: Exploring the Untapped Potential of a Portable HomePod mini

A couple of months ago, my partner and I were contemplating purchasing a Bluetooth speaker for the bathroom. We both like to listen to podcasts and music while in the shower, and using our iPhones at maximum volume outside of the shower booth was getting old.

Here’s the thing, though: Bluetooth speakers aren’t great. I tried a bunch of small portable Bluetooth speakers. The JBL Go 3, in particular, was pretty good. It has a decent sound, it’s small and easy to move if we want to use it in other rooms, and it’s waterproof. Unfortunately, when it comes to connectivity, the JBL Go 3 was no exception in the sea of similarly-priced portable speakers: you often have to re-pair your iPhone, and that becomes especially painful if you’re sharing the speaker with your partner like I am. I really didn’t want to go back to this life of spending two full minutes to pair my iPhone every time I’m headed for the shower. We would only end up giving up on it and going back to blasting our iPhones at maximum volume.

In the end, I had a suggestion for my partner: what if we used a HomePod mini instead?

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Club MacStories Sample: BetterTouchTool Tips, Vision Pro Shortcuts, a Task Manager Review, and the Effect of AI on the Internet

We often describe Club MacStories as more of the MacStories you know and love reading on this website. That’s an apt shorthand for the Club, but when you’re being asked to sign up and pay for something, it still helps to see what you’re buying. That’s why every now and then, we like to share samples of some of what the Club has to offer every week.

So today, we’ve made Issue 408 of MacStories Weekly from a couple of Saturdays ago available to everyone. Just use this link, and you’ll get the whole issue. You can also use the links in the excerpts below to read particular articles.

Everybody in the Club gets MacStories Weekly and our monthly newsletter called the Monthly Log, but there’s a lot more to the Club than just email newsletters. All members also get MacStories Unwind+, an ad-free version of the podcast that we publish a day early for Club members. All Club members also have access to a growing collection of downloadable perks like wallpapers and eBooks.

Club MacStories+ members get all of those perks along with exclusive columns that are published outside our newsletters, access to our Discord community, discounts on dozens of iOS, iPadOS, and Mac apps, and advanced search, filtering, and custom RSS feed creation of Club content. Club Premier builds on the first two tiers by adding AppStories+, the extended, ad-free version of our flagship podcast that’s delivered a day early, as well as full-text search of AppStories show notes, making it the all-access pass for everything we do at MacStories.

To learn more and sign up, you can use the buttons below:

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Issue 408 of MacStories Weekly, which you can access here, starts with two excellent tips from Niléane on how to use BetterTouchTool to remap the Mac’s yellow and green ‘stoplight’ buttons. Like a lot of tips and workflows we share, Niléane’s was inspired by a similar technique Federico employed a couple of weeks before:

Two weeks ago, in Issue 406 of MacStories Weekly, Federico shared a tip for BetterTouchTool that resonated with me. Just like him, I am used to minimizing my windows instead of hiding them, which can be annoying since minimized windows no longer come up when you Command (⌘) + Tab to their app’s icon…

…after poking around in BetterTouchTool for a few minutes, I realized that the app allows you to change what the red, yellow, and green window buttons do. As a result, I was able to make it so that the yellow button will actually hide a window instead of minimizing it to the Dock.

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