This Week's Sponsor:

Fello AI

All-In-One AI Chat Client for macOS

Understanding Apple’s Response to the DMA

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

What a week. When it began to look like Apple would announce how it planned to comply with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), I expected small changes at the margins that wouldn’t significantly move the needle in the EU or anywhere else. Boy, I was wrong.

Instead, we got a far-reaching, complex response that touches aspects of iOS, system apps, the App Store. There’s a lot of ground to cover, but Federico and I have talked to Apple a couple of times each about what was announced and ask questions, so it’s time to dive and try to make sense of everything.

Before getting too deep into the weeds, it’s important to understand why Apple made its announcement last week and, whether you share it or not, the company’s perspective. That makes understanding the details of what was announced easier and will hopefully help you parse legitimate criticisms of Apple’s plans from hollow hot-takes.

Read more

Add Timestamp Links to Apple Podcasts Next→

Matthew Cassinelli:

Yesterday, Apple began adding transcripts to Apple Podcasts, detailing the change on the Apple Podcast for Creators site and making them available for in iOS 17.4 developer beta 1.

This change is a huge win for accessibility, will surely improve searching in the Podcasts app, and makes quoting your favorite podcast an easy task by letting you copy and paste the text out – something I’ll definitely have to turn into a shortcut soon.

All these benefits are great in their own way and will make podcasts more shareable as a whole, allowing us to unlock so many people’s great ideas that are currently stored within hours of audio files and obscured behind URLs that point only to the show or episode as a whole.

However, I think Apple needs to go one step further in their next step and add timestamps to Apple Podcasts, a long-overdue feature that’d enable users to share links to individual moments within a podcast, directly to a specific point in the transcript.

I couldn’t agree more. From sharing to personal note-taking and research purposes, there several use cases I can think of to take advantage of timestamp links for podcast episodes – especially now that they have transcripts. (Pocket Casts, my favorite third-party podcast player, goes even further: it lets you share timestamp links and save private, time-synced bookmarks for specific parts of any episode.)

I like Matthew’s suggestions for how Apple could implement this feature, and I’ll add: Apple has already built this system for the Music app. When the company added shareable lyrics to the Music app in iOS 14.5, they did so with the ability to share selected lyrics as a special “snippet” on iMessage that is actually an interactive, timestamped song preview based on a special URL. Here’s what I wrote:

Besides Apple’s custom implementation of lyrics selection in the share sheet, what’s also interesting about this is the method the company is using to share Apple Music lyrics URLs. Unlike regular music.apple.com links that reopen a particular song or album in the Music app or play a generic preview snippet in iMessage, lyrics URLs are timestamped: in iMessage, the lyrics card has a play button that will preview the lyrics you shared inline within a conversation; if you tap the link in iMessage and the same song is already paused in the Music app, the Now Playing screen will automatically advance to the section highlighted in shared lyrics.

I’m assuming that Apple is aware of this missing feature from the Podcasts app in iOS 17.4 beta 1; I have to believe their future implementation will be very similar to what already exists in Music.

Permalink

Obsidian’s ‘2023 Gems of the Year’→

Silver, writing on the Obsidian blog:

It has been nearly four years since the first line of code of Obsidian was written on January 31st, 2020. Today we’re thrilled to announce the winners of our fourth annual Gems of the Year awards!

This year the Obsidian community nominated 287 projects, including plugins, themes, tools, content, and templates. After our panel narrowed down the selection and the community voted on the entries, we’re now excited to announce the winners.

Solid list of plugins and themes for the best note-taking app out there, many of which I wasn’t familiar with or hadn’t tested yet. The Border theme looks stunning and I’m going to give it a try as my primary theme in the app; the Home Tab plugin does exactly what I want from a new empty tab in Obsidian (a search box + recently opened files); Omnivore, which I’m testing as my read-later app after they added better Shortcuts integration, does a fantastic job syncing highlights to Obsidian with its plugin. Go check out this list of gems if you haven’t yet.

Side note: I’m really curious to see how the Obsidian team prioritizes updates to its iPhone and iPad apps (by far, the weakest spot of the app) in 2024.

Permalink

MacStories Unwind: Diablo Mode, Part 3 of Federico’s Gaming Surprise

0:00
38:36

This week, Federico concludes his grand surprise with one more enhancement to his mobile gaming setup.

MacStories Unwind+

We deliver MacStories Unwind+ to Club MacStories subscribers ad-free and early with high bitrate audio every week.

To learn more about the benefits of a Club MacStories subscription, visit our Plans page.

Read more

Apple Shares List of Alternate Browsers That Will Be Available to EU Users in iOS 17.4

One element of the changes coming to iOS in the European Union is that beginning with iOS 17.4, EU users will see a choice of browsers when they first launch Safari that can be set as the systemwide default browser. For each country, that list will contain the 12 most popular browsers from its App Store storefront displayed to the user in a random order.

As you can imagine, there is overlap among EU member countries, but there are plenty of differences, too. If you’re curious which browsers will be listed in your country, check out the lists for each of the 27 EU member countries after the break that Apple has told us will appear the first time Safari is launched in iOS 17.4.

Read more

Apple Introduces Transcripts for Podcasts

I switch to Apple system apps every summer to test the latest versions of the company’s OSes. I usually return to my favorite third-party apps over time, but Apple Podcasts has been an outlier since last summer for various reasons. The app has come a long way in recent years, and while it still doesn’t quite fit with how I like to listen to shows, it has stuck when many other system apps haven’t.

With other podcast apps struggling in recent months and Apple offering unique features that aren’t found elsewhere, Podcasts has become a compelling choice for a lot of listeners. And judging from the download numbers for AppStories, Unwind, and Magic Rays of Light, I don’t think I’m alone in this assessment.

An AppStories transcript.

An AppStories transcript.

Today, Apple added another reason to use its system app: transcripts. The new feature couldn’t be easier for podcast creators:

Apple automatically generates transcripts after a new episode is published. Your episode will be available for listening right away, and the transcript will be available shortly afterwards. There will be a short delay while we process your transcript. If portions of your episode change with dynamically inserted audio, Apple Podcasts will not display the segments of the audio that have changed since the original transcription. Music lyrics are also not displayed in the transcripts.

Listeners will be able to follow along with its transcript, much like how real-time lyrics work in Apple Music, with the text highlighting in sync with the audio for shows.

Viewing a transcript in Podcasts Connect.

Viewing a transcript in Podcasts Connect.

I’ve experimented with OpenAI’s Whisper for creating transcripts of MacStories’ podcasts, and although the results are good enough for creating a searchable episode database for our internal use, they haven’t been good enough to publish. As a result, I’m very keen to see how well Apple’s solution works. If they prefer, podcasters will be able to upload their own transcripts, too.

A downloaded transcript.

A downloaded transcript.

The transcripts generated by Apple are saved as VTT files, which is a W3C standard for displaying timed text using HTML 5’s track element. I looked at AppStories, and sure enough, there’s a transcript available for the latest episode already. As one of the show’s creators, I can access, download, edit, and re-upload the transcript. Based on my preliminary scan of the latest episode, though, the transcription is very good, including timestamps and identification of each speaker, although not by name, which isn’t surprising.

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the App Store changes coming to the EU next month. Those changes are important and will drive the story of the App Store for years to come, but there’s more to iOS 17.4, and Podcasts transcripts are a prime example of a feature that adds value and makes podcasts more accessible to everyone.

The macOS App Icon Book: A Mini Review

Are you still basking in the glow of the Mac’s 40th anniversary and longing for a little more nostalgia? Well, I’ve got it for you with Michael Flarup’s latest book of iconography, The macOS App Icon Book. I loved Flarup’s book of iOS icons and was excited when I heard months ago that he was working on a follow-up dedicated to Mac iconography. I received my copy about a week ago, and it’s a fantastic mix of icons, history, and designer profiles.

The macOS App Icon Book includes designer profiles.

The macOS App Icon Book includes designer profiles.

Flarup wrote the forward, introduction, an essay on visual design, and a brief history of Mac app icons, which help put the beautifully reproduced icons in context. The book also features profiles of ten icon designers, including many of my favorites like Christa Mrgan, Matthew Skiles, Malin Sundberg, and Gavin Nelson. There’s also a section on icon sets, which is packed with great examples.

If you appreciate good design, I highly recommend picking up a copy of The macOS App Icon Book. I’m sure developers and designers will be inspired by the book’s contents, but it’s also perfect for app fans who are picky enough about the apps they use to be reading this post.

The macOS App Icon Book was funded with a Kickstarter campaign, but it’s now available on Michael Flarup’s online store for $77.

Apple Shares the Secret of Why the 40-Year-Old Mac Still Rules→

Steven Levy, writing for Wired, interviewed Apple executives about the secret to the Mac’s 40-year run:

“With the transition to Apple silicon that we started in 2020, the experience of using a Mac was unlike anything before that,” says John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.

Ternus’ comment opens up an unexpected theme to our conversation: how the connections between the Mac and Apple’s other breakout products have continually revitalized the company’s PC workhorse. As a result, the Mac has stayed relevant and influential way past the normal lifespan of a computer product.

In the past few years, Mac innovations sprang from the transition to custom Apple silicon chips first pioneered to power iPhones. “I joke that we had to create the iPhone to create the scale to build the Mac we wanted to build,” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. Ternus also notes that the iPhone’s contribution to Apple’s bottom line has been very good to the Mac. “As the business has been successful, it’s enabled us to invest and do the things we always wanted to do,” he says.

One example of that, I mention, must have been the recent boost to battery life in Mac notebooks. “When we broke physics?” jokes Joswiak. Indeed, the almost daylong span, 22 hours of battery life in some Macbook Pros, can feel life-changing. Again, this was a collateral effect of efforts to extend battery life in the iPhone.

“When we first started working with Apple silicon, it honestly did feel for us like the laws of physics had changed,” says Ternus. “All of a sudden, we could build a MacBook Air with no fan with 18 hours of battery life,” he says. “The best arrow in our quiver is efficiency. Because if you can improve efficiency, everything gets better.”

Levy has been covering the Mac from the beginning. His article is a fascinating look back at important moments in the computer’s history and at where it stands today.

Apple silicon is just the latest inflection point for a computer that has seen more than its fair share of changes over four decades. For a while, it looked like the Mac would be relegated to history’s dustbin – left behind by the iPhone. But, it’s the very success of the iPhone formed the foundation of some of the greatest strengths of today’s Mac. It’s an age-old story of reclaimed success built on reinvention necessitated to avert irrelevance.

Permalink