Alex Guyot

70 posts on MacStories since January 2014

Alex has been writing for MacStories since 2013. As a MacStories contributor he covers Apple and related technology on the site and for [Club MacStories](https://staging.macstories.net/club/). Alex also keeps the site running smoothly and works on new technology as MacStories' senior software engineer. Mastodon: [@alex@macstories.net](https://mastodon.macstories.net/@alex)
guyot@macstories.net

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iOS and iPadOS 15: The MacStories Overview

This morning at Apple’s second fully-remote WWDC keynote address, Craig Federighi introduced iOS and iPadOS 15. This year’s updates include significant improvements to core first-party apps, new controls for maintaining focus, system-wide text and object recognition in images, and much more.

On the iPad-only side of things, Apple has announced a variety of new multitasking interface elements, feature parity with the iPhone’s Home Screen, quick note capturing available at any time in any app, and an overhauled Swift Playgrounds which supports building and shipping complete SwiftUI apps to the App Store.

As usual, developer betas are available today, with final versions scheduled to ship to all users this fall. Let’s take a look at all the details that Apple has in store for us this year.

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Apple Introduces New Spring iPhone 12 Finishes and Accessory Colors

In celebration of spring, Apple is releasing a very nice new purple finish for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini. Purple joins the existing 5 colors and continues to make the 12 Apple’s most colorful iPhone lineup since the iPhone 5c.

The new purple iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini are available for preorder starting this Friday, April 23, and will arrive the following week on Friday, April 30.

As mentioned in our All the Little Things post, there are also new spring colors for iPhone 12 accessories. With availability beginning today, you can order Apple’s MagSafe Leather Case and Leather Sleeve in Deep Violet, their MagSafe Leather Wallet in Arizona, and their Silicone Case in Capri Blue, Pistachio, Cantaloupe, or Amethyst.

You can follow all of our April event coverage through our April 2021 Event hub, or subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.

Apple Announces Apple Card Family

At this morning’s keynote, Apple announced an update to Apple Card in which family members can be co-owners of a single card. Apple Card Family accounts will have merged credit lines so that all members can build their credit equally on shared purchases. The feature ties into Apple’s Family Sharing feature, and is available for sharing Apple Cards with children as well.

Apple Card Family includes parental controls like credit limits to help teach healthy credit card habits. For adults, all members of the family can track and manage their spending habits together.

Up to five people can be added to an Apple Card Family account, but all of them must first be part of an Apple Family Sharing group. While children can be added too, they must be at least 13 years of age. Existing Apple Card users can merge their accounts together into a new Apple Card Family account. Merging accounts will combine their credit limits, but the resulting APR will just be the lowest of the merged accounts.

Apple Card’s usual 1%-3% Daily Cash benefits are unchanged for Apple Card Family, but now even more merchants are part of the 3% Daily Cash program. These include Uber (and Uber Eats), Walgreens, Nike, Panera, T-Mobile, and ExxonMobil. You can find the full Daily Cash benefits and more information on Apple Card on Apple’s website.

Apple Card Family is launching this May.

You can follow all of our April event coverage through our April 2021 Event hub, or subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.

Apple Announces Apple Podcasts Subscriptions

During today’s keynote event, Apple announced their new Apple Podcasts Subscriptions service. Launching in May in over 170 countries, the service will allow users to subscribe to premium podcasts directly from the Apple Podcasts app. Premium shows will offer access to various perks for users, such as removing ads, releasing shows early, or providing exclusive content.

Podcast creators can participate in the service for $19.99/year, and can use the redesigned Apple Podcasts Connect website to manage their subscription offerings. Apple has partnerships set up with some creators and companies to kick things off, including NPR, The Athletic, Tenderfoot TV, and Pushkin Industries.

Accompanying the new subscription service is an update to the Apple Podcasts app. The updated app will allow subscribing to premium podcasts, and will also display new “channels.” Podcast channels are groups of shows curated by creators, and can be either free or paid.

While the integration into Apple’s ecosystem means users can easily subscribe using their existing App Store accounts, it also means that Apple will be taking its usual 30% of revenue from podcast creators. This will drop to 15% after the first year, the same way it does for in-app purchases.

You can follow all of our April event coverage through our April 2021 Event hub, or subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.

Nova Review: Panic’s Code Editor Demonstrates Why Mac-like Design Matters

I’ve been writing code for nearly a decade, and throughout all of that time, I’ve never quite been satisfied with a code editor. Each one I’ve tried has annoyed me in various ways, and eventually, I find myself looking elsewhere.

My code editor is the app I use more than any other. I spend hours in it nearly every day and often keep going deep into the night. The code editor is the main tool of my trade, and I want to be using the best one that I can.

One of my main frustrations with pretty much all of the popular code editors out there (and I’ve tried most of them, including Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom, IntelliJ, and Eclipse) is that none of them are Mac-assed Mac apps. They’re all clearly cross-platform apps with design senses that differ significantly from those of Mac-first developers.

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CARROT Weather 5 Introduces New Design Elements, Custom Interface Builder, and More

CARROT Weather has been a MacStories favorite for years now. Just last month we named it the Best Watch App of 2020 in our annual MacStories Selects awards. One of the impressive features in CARROT’s Apple Watch app is the ability to customize the interface to display exactly the weather data that you’re interested in. With today’s release of CARROT Weather 5, developer Brian Mueller has brought that same concept to the iOS and iPadOS versions of the app. The major update also includes a host of new icon designs, snarky weather responses, achievements, and fun Easter eggs.

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Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 14.3 with Apple ProRAW, App Clip Codes, Fitness+ Support, and Direct App Launches from Shortcuts

Today Apple released iOS 14.3, a mid-cycle update which includes quite a few very nice features. App Clip Codes were announced alongside iOS and iPadOS 14 at WWDC, so it’s good to see them finally making it out to the public. Similarly, Apple ProRAW was touted as a feature of the new iPhone 12 Pro cameras, but hasn’t been available to iPhone 12 Pro users until today (unless you were running the iOS 14.3 beta, of course). iOS 14.3 does include support for Apple’s impending Fitness+ subscription service, but as of this writing that feature is still disabled prior to the service’s launch.

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Apple to Discontinue Music Memos App in March→

As noted by MacRumors, Apple has a new support document on the upcoming discontinuation of its Music Memos app. Originally released in 2016, Music Memos was a specifically song-focused spin on Apple’s Voice Memos app. The app never received many updates, and it seems Apple has decided that Voice Memos serves the purpose well enough. The final update to Music Memos adds support for exporting its content out to Voice Memos:

The Music Memos app won’t be updated after Music Memos version 1.0.7, and you won’t be able to download it after March 1, 2021. If you have an iPhone with iOS 14 or an iPad with iPadOS 14, you can continue to use Music Memos. And if you’ve previously downloaded the app, you can still access it from your App Store purchase history. But you should export your Music Memos recordings to your Voice Memos library to make sure you keep all of your recordings.

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Hazel 5 Makes the Leap from System Preferences

Hazel is a classic Mac automation tool which we last covered several years ago for version 4. This week Hazel is back with version 5, a major update which brings the tool out of System Preferences for the first time.

Previous iterations of Hazel existed as a preference pane within the macOS System Preferences app. While the interface remains pretty familiar in Hazel 5, it has finally been pulled out into its own full application.

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