[[stephen]] With reports swirling of Apple giving developers tools to bring their iPad apps to the Mac as soon as this year at WWDC, I’ve begun to think about what iPad apps I would like to see make their way to the Mac. There are some obvious winners here: media apps like Netflix and Hulu...
Thoughts on CarPlay
[[stephen]] Several months ago, I installed an aftermarket CarPlay receiver in my pickup truck. After many hours of wiring, I have everything good to go, and have been enjoying Apple’s take on the car media experience ever since. This has been my first experience with CarPlay, and for the most part, I am fairly happy...
The Future of Messages on the Mac
[[stephen]] macOS Mojave is set to bring a lot of change to the Mac when it ships this fall. Dark Mode alters the entire look and feel of macOS, but Apple bringing four iOS apps to the Macis the start of what will prove to be a huge wave of incoming software titles to macOS....
macOS 10.14 Wishlist
[[stephen]] WWDC is just around the corner, so it is time to think about our hopes and dreams for Apple’s software. Doing so for macOS is always hard. It’s a more mature operating system than iOS, and one that serves a very wide range of customers. Some use it to check their email and Facebook,...
iOS App Subscriptions Should be Simpler to Manage
[[stephen]] Our modern world of subscriptions is giving app developers more sustained revenue to keep working on their products. While I was initially worried about subscription fatigue, I’ve ended up supporting a handful of apps at the core of my workflow and feel good about it. In a helpful move, Apple alerts you via email...
Missing Mac Apps
[[stephen]] The Mac may have served as host for Apple’s first-party software for a long time, but in recent years, that has shifted. Things like the iWork suite, Photo Booth, and even GarageBand started on the Mac, but found new life on iOS. Some apps – like Maps, Reminders, and iBooks – started on iOS...
iTunes: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
[[stephen]] Sixteen years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the Digital Hub, a strategy that put the Mac in the center of a universe populated with music players, digital cameras and camcorders. In this era, Mac apps like iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD sprang to life, letting users create, edit and share their content with an ease-of-use...
Time Machine
[[stephen]] I write a lot about Apple history, and I tend to focus on products when I do, but picking apart hardware and software isn’t the only way to look back. So, let’s fire up the time machine and see what Aprils past brought to the Apple universe. April 1976: Apple I April 1 is...