MacStories Unwind: Mac Catalyst, Due Reminders on Mac, and a Fiery Feeds Update

By John Voorhees

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This week on MacStories Unwind:

Club MacStories

Monthly Log
- Federico explains how his use of MindNode has changed for his iOS and iPadOS 14 review
- John imagines what a perfect cross-platform outlining app would look like
- Ryan shares his favorite features from iPadOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS
MacStories Weekly
- Federico explores the Apple Watch automation enabled by Shortcuts in the iOS and iPadOS 14 betas
- Ryan covers the Nighthawk Twitter client
- John explains why he’s returning to MindNode after a failed search for an outlining app
- A GameClub subscription giveaway
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Unwind Picks

Federico’s Pick:
- folklore by Taylor Swift
John’s Pick:
- Umbrella Academy, Season 1

MacStories Weekly: Issue 235

By MacStories Team

This week, in addition to the usual links, app debuts, and recap of MacStories' articles and podcasts:

Monthly Log: July 2020

By MacStories Team

In this month's edition of the Monthly Log:

Apple Q3 2020 Results - $59.7 Billion Revenue

By John Voorhees

Apple has just published its financial results for Q3 2020. The company posted revenue of $59.7 billion. Apple CEO Tim Cook said:

“Apple’s record June quarter was driven by double-digit growth in both Products and Services and growth in each of our geographic segments,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “In uncertain times, this performance is a testament to the important role our products play in our customers’ lives and to Apple’s relentless innovation. This is a challenging moment for our communities, and, from Apple’s new $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative to a new commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030, we’re living the principle that what we make and do should create opportunity and leave the world better than we found it.”

Estimates and Expectations for Q3 2020 and the Year-Ago Quarter (Q3 2019)

Due to the uncertainty caused by the global pandemic, Apple did not provide financial guidance for Q3 2020 during its last earnings call.

Going into today’s call, Yahoo Finance said that:

Much of the earnings focus, however, will be on whether Cook and company will provide guidance for fiscal Q4, which could offer a hint about any potential delays to the launch of the firm’s upcoming iPhone 12.

Despite the lack of guidance, Yahoo Finance says that Bloomberg’s research shows that analysts expect the following results:

Revenue: $52.2 billion expected versus $53.8 billion in Q3 2019.

Earnings per share: $2.06 expected versus $2.18 in Q3 2019.

Graphical Visualization

After the break, we’ve compiled a graphical visualization of Apple’s Q3 2020 financial results.

Fiery Feeds Adds Full-Text Search, Saved Searches, iPad Pointer Support, and More

By Ryan Christoffel

When I imagine the quintessential RSS user, I think of someone who wants full control of their web reading experience. They don’t want to leave news curation up to an algorithmic service like Apple News, or a social media platform like Twitter or Facebook. They also care about tools like filtering controls, and tweaking the reading experience to their preferences. For such a user, Fiery Feeds may be a natural choice due to its abundance of supported RSS services and settings to tweak, along with some key pro features. Today, Fiery Feeds is better prepared to meet the needs of that kind of user thanks to a pair of important additions: full-text search and saved searches. Throw in optimized iPad pointer support, plus a new native article rendering option, and the latest Fiery Feeds update is a compelling one.

Mac Catalyst 2.0: Doubling Down on the Alignment of the Mac and iPad

By John Voorhees

WWDC 2020 brought Mac Catalyst into sharper focus than ever before. Introduced as an unnamed ‘sneak peek’ in 2018, Mac Catalyst offered the promise of a simple and efficient way for iPad developers to bring their apps to 100 million Mac users. The reality was that it can be hard to transition an app from an iPad to a Mac, and the results weren’t always great.

The trouble was the result of a confluence of multiple factors, including:

The first iteration of Mac Catalyst used iPad design conventions in places that felt out of place on the Mac
There was too little documentation
Excitement surrounding SwiftUI left developers wondering whether Apple was committed to Mac Catalyst

WWDC 2020 was different. Apple introduced what was effectively Mac Catalyst 2.0 with its Optimized for Mac initiative, a separate Mac Catalyst path that follows Mac conventions more closely but requires more work. The company also built Messages and Maps, two of its flagship apps, using Mac Catalyst, demonstrating a deeper commitment to the technology than ever before. The result is a brighter future for Mac Catalyst that clearly has a role to play alongside SwiftUI and Apple’s other frameworks.

To understand where Mac Catalyst is heading, though, we first need to understand where it has been over the past two years.

AppStories, Episode 177 – What is Great App Design?→

Linked By John Voorhees

This week on AppStories, we consider what makes an app’s design great, the balance between form and function, and some of our favorite app designs.

https://staging.macstories.net/episodes/177/embed/

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Due for Mac Modernized with New Design and Features

By John Voorhees

A full-fledged task manager is terrific for many projects, but if you dump your entire life into one, it can quickly become a cluttered mess. At the same time, if you’re focused on a big project, it’s easy to let everything that’s not in your task manager slip through the cracks. One strategy for attacking the problem that has worked well for me is using a separate, lightweight app for tasks like remembering to take out the garbage, pick up medicine at the pharmacy, or publish an article when an embargo lifts.

In the past, I’ve used Due on the iPhone and iPad for these sorts of tasks. There has been a Mac version of Due for years too, but it hadn’t been updated in about two years and was showing its age. However, with today’s update, Due for Mac joins the iOS version with a fully-modern design and slate of new features, putting it on par with the outstanding iOS version, which I’ve covered in the past.

AppStories, Ep. 177 - 38 minutes