Carpool Karaoke Will Be Released Every Tuesday Starting August 8th →

Apple announced that Carpool Karaoke: The Series will debut for Apple Music subscribers on August 8th. According to Apple’s press release, the show, based on James Corden’s popular segment from The Late Late Show with James Corden:

…will welcome a different group of superstars every Tuesday, with new episodes available exclusively to Apple Music subscribers in more than 100 countries. Celebrity pairings include Will Smith and James Corden; Miley, Noah, Billy Ray and the entire Cyrus family; Shakira and Trevor Noah; Game of Thrones stars Sophie Turner and Maisie Williams; Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith; John Legend, Alicia Keys and Taraji P. Henson; LeBron James and James Corden; and many more.

Originally anticipated to be released earlier, Apple pushed the debut of Carpool Karaoke back last month.

Permalink

WWDC App Updated with New Design and Features

By John Voorhees

Apple has updated the WWDC app ahead of its annual developer conference that begins June 5, 2017 in San Jose, California. The app has an all-new design this year. In 2016, the UI was dominated by dark tones causing speculation that it was a precursor to a system-wide dark mode that didn’t materialize. This year’s update shares some of the same design language as the Apple Music and News apps.

In addition to the refreshed design, Apple has added curated video playlists focused on themes like Developing for iPad, interactive maps of the WWDC venue and surrounding area, for the first time, the ability to use of all of the app’s features without signing into a developer account, and a new ‘Venue’ tab. Apple is also making a podcast studio available as part of WWDC for attendees who need a space to record shows.

Though not mentioned in the release notes, the WWDC app has a little surprise in store in the form of iMessage stickers. The set includes 17 colorful cartoon-style images with an assortment of classic Apple iconography, logos for Metal and Swift, and more.

The WWDC app is a free download on the App Store.

You can also follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2017 hub, or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2017 RSS feed.

Trails is Your GPS Tracker and Logbook for iPhone & Apple Watch [Sponsor]

By John Voorhees

When you start your next outdoor adventure, make sure you bring along Trails. Trails is a GPS tracker and logbook that gathers statistics like altitude, ascent and descent, speed, pace, and duration. It also includes topographic maps available for offline use when you have no data connection. Soon, Trails will add a dashboard display with summary statistics and graphs of your activities using a customizable date range and with optional filtering by tags.

Trails takes advantage of the latest Apple hardware and features like 3D Touch, Spotlight search for tracks and waypoints, Siri to start and end a trip, a Today Widget, and AirDrop sharing. In addition, with a Series 2 Apple Watch, you can start recordings, use it as a second screen to display live statistics, and gather heart rate and calorie data.

Trails features a wide array of ways to export and share the data you collect like integration with Apple’s Health app, GPX export, the ability to upload to Trails.io to share your trips, like the hike through San Francisco embedded above, local WiFi sharing, and full database backups. You’re in full control of your data. You don’t have to signup for anything to get started, your data isn’t uploaded anywhere without your permission, and there are no ads to get in the way.

Trails has a special promotion for MacStories readers. Trail is giving away 10 one-year subscriptions to Trails Pro. Just enter your email address here by 9:00 pm US Eastern time on June 4, 2017. Winners will be selected randomly and be given a code that they can redeem for the one-year subscription by contacting the Trails team.

Our thanks to Trails for sponsoring MacStories this week.

AppStories - Ep. 7 - 32 minutes

Tip Jars with Benefits

Federico

John

AppStories Episode 7 - Tip Jars with Benefits

0:00
32:13

↓

AppStories+ Deeper into the world of apps

Federico and John cover more app pricing models including tip jars, patronage, fan clubs, bundles, and in-app merchandise sales.

Game Day: Steredenn

By John Voorhees

I live near a huge arcade called the Galloping Ghost that’s packed with classic arcade games. I visit once or twice a year and am always struck by how hard some of the early space shooters, like Defender, are. I got the same feeling the moment I launched Steredenn, a fast-paced, insanely difficult space shooter from French indie game studio Pixelnest that is equal parts addictive and fun.

Hand Drawn Sticker Packs

By John Voorhees

John

We’ve seen a lot of trends develop on the iMessage App Store since it was introduced with the release of iOS 10. One of my favorites is sticker packs with an intentionally hand-drawn, doodle, or sketch style. It’s an approach that adds a homemade feel to messages – a touch of the analog world...

App Debuts

By John Voorhees

Ryan

Castro My podcast player of choice received a nice update today to version 2.4. The standout feature of the update is called Enhanced Audio, a feature similar to Overcast’s ‘Voice Boost’ that aims to improve the listening experience in a couple different ways. When a podcast features voices playing at different levels, Enhanced Audio...

Album

By John Voorhees

John

Fingerprint Me Fingerprint characters are a fun art project to do with kids. These stickers leave the mess behind and let you share these cute cartoon characters in your conversations. Animated Pipe Machine This set of stickers doesn’t screenshot well, but it’s a fun way to connect messages in a conversation with leaky pipes....

Q&A

By John Voorhees

Question: Is there any way I can mimic Evernote’s Presentation Mode? They recently removed this great feature. It basically spaced out your text and cleaned up your screen to easily view your note. I just purchased DEVONthink for iOS and I’d love to find a way to take a rich text note and clean it...