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Posts tagged with "club"

Building Calliope: A Technical Journey Through MacStories’ Big Software Project

Last week the MacStories team launched Project Calliope, an enormous new software project that we’ve been working on tirelessly for the last year. If you’ve been following along, you’ve heard us describe Calliope as a CMS; but from a software-engineering perspective, it’s actually a whole lot more. While we introduced Calliope as the foundation of our all-new Club MacStories and AppStories websites, we have much bigger plans for the new platform going forward. This is the foundation for the next generation of MacStories, from the website itself to many special projects in the future.

We’re extremely proud of what we’ve created here, and as the sole developer of Calliope, this post will be my deep dive into the more technical side of the project. Fair warning: this will be easier to follow if you’re a software developer (particularly a web or back-end developer), but I’ll be doing my best to give understandable explanations of the technologies involved. I also just want to talk about the journey we took to get here, the challenges we faced along the way, and the factors that drove us to this particular set of solutions.

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Automation Academy and The Macintosh Desktop Experience: Exclusive Monthly Features for Club MacStories+ and Club Premier Members

MacStories’ roots are in writing, so it’s only natural that Club MacStories+ and Club Premier are expanding beyond our weekly and monthly newsletters to offer two new exclusive features: Automation Academy and The Macintosh Desktop Experience. Freed of the constraint of an email newsletter, Federico and I will be tailoring our columns to take advantage of the new features made possible by Calliope, the web app that powers the new Club website.

Let’s take a look at what members can expect.

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Deeper on Calliope, Our New Web App for Club MacStories and AppStories

Our new web app for Club MacStories and AppStories, Calliope.

Our new web app for Club MacStories and AppStories, Calliope.

Yesterday, we unveiled the all-new Club MacStories, featuring the new Club MacStories+ and Club Premier tiers, a new web app, a Discord community, new original content for members, and more. You can read my announcement here, and sign up for (or upgrade to) the new Club MacStories plans here. We believe the best option is Club Premier, which bundles Club MacStories+ and AppStories+ in a single package at $12/month.

Today, I want to dive deeper into Calliope, our brand new web app that, for the first time, allows all Club members to read our content, including MacStories Weekly, on the web. As I highlighted in my article from yesterday, there’s a lot more Calliope can do, especially if you subscribe to Club MacStories+ or Club Premier; I want to take a closer look at its advanced features so members can properly take advantage of everything we built over the past year.

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Introducing the All-New Club MacStories: New Tiers for More Original Content, Discord Community, Search and Custom RSS, and Our New ‘Calliope’ Web App

Welcome to the new Club MacStories.

Welcome to the new Club MacStories.

TL;DR: Today, we’re announcing the all-new Club MacStories featuring two additional tiers: Club MacStories+ and Club Premier. The new plans offer extra content, a brand new, powerful web app to read Club articles on the web with advanced search and RSS features, exclusive discounts, and a new Discord community.

Club Premier is the ultimate plan that includes all of Club MacStories, Club MacStories+, and the new extended, ad-free AppStories+ podcast in a single, $12/month package. It is the best value and the easiest way to get access to everything we do. It is, effectively, the MacStories all-access pass.

You can find out more on our new Plans page and sign up or upgrade there. Nothing is changing for the regular Club MacStories tier; in fact, we’re giving existing members access to our new web app at staging.macstories.net/club as well. Existing Club members can choose to upgrade their existing accounts to the new tiers.

Today, we’re launching the future of Club MacStories and MacStories itself. Read on for the full announcement below.

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This Holiday Season, Give the Gift of Club MacStories

The holiday season is just around the corner, and as you shop for gifts for friends and family, we wanted to remind everyone that Club MacStories memberships can be given as gifts all year long. The Club extends what we publish at MacStories, which makes it the perfect gift for someone who wants more of the kind of in-depth app, automation, and other coverage you find on the site every day. It’s also a great time to join the Club because we have a lot planned for 2021.

Better yet, it’s a gift that can be enjoyed every week all year long, with great exclusive content, including:

  • MacStories Weekly, our weekly newsletter that’s sent on Fridays and packed full of our favorite apps, themed collections, tips, Shortcuts automations, answers to reader questions, featured Home screens, interviews, and much more.
  • The MacStories Unplugged podcast, a bi-monthly show featuring a discussion of what’s going on behind the scenes at MacStories, articles we’re working on, the gear we’ve been testing, and more.
  • The Monthly Log, a monthly newsletter that includes long-form and behind-the-scenes stories.
  • Access to giveaways, discounts, and other treats like eBook versions of Federico’s annual iOS review, John’s macOS review, and other long-form stories.
  • The full archive of over 300 issues of MacStories Weekly and the Monthly Log.

All told, that’s around 60 newsletters and lots of other perks over the course of a year.

So, if you have a MacStories reader on your holiday shopping list this season, consider a Club MacStories membership that they can enjoy all year long. Monthly ($5/month) and annual ($50/year) memberships can be given using the following links:

Finally, thanks to all our loyal Club members who have joined since the Club’s debut in 2015. You’re an essential part of what we do here at MacStories, and we hope you’ve enjoyed the Club as much as we enjoy creating its special content for you every week.

Happy Holidays!

  • The MacStories Team

Using Soor’s Widgets and Magic Mixes

Soor's iOS 14 widgets.

Soor’s iOS 14 widgets.

As I detailed in a recent episode of AppStories, I’ve spent several weeks tweaking my iPhone’s Home Screen and playing around with different approaches to widgets and app icons. The layout I eventually settled on (which you can find in the AppStories show notes) takes advantage of dark mode to create the illusion of widgets “blending” into the wallpaper – specifically, the Soor widgets at the top of the page. Given how I believe Soor’s developer Tanmay Sonawane has taught Apple a lesson when it comes to building Apple Music widgets for iOS 14, and considering the app’s most recent update, I thought I’d write about these widgets in more detail.

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iOS and iPadOS 14 Review Extras: eBooks, Wallpapers, Shortcuts, Podcasts, and Newsletter

Today, Federico published his iOS and iPadOS 14 review. The review comes after a busy month at MacStories in which we published Alex Guyot’s fantastic watchOS review, covered a long list of new and updated apps on MacStories, and celebrated Club MacStories’ 5th anniversary with over 70 app discounts and giveaways.

As busy as it’s been though, there’s a lot more coming. In addition to Federico’s comprehensive, in-depth iOS and iPadOS 14 review, we’ve got a bunch of perks exclusively for Club MacStories members.

Among the Club-only extras this year are three eBooks, a set of stunning, widget-friendly iPhone wallpapers, advanced shortcuts, podcast episodes, and a special edition of MacStories Weekly. Check out all of the details after the break. If you’d like to learn more about the Club or sign up to take advantage of all these extras, plus perks from previous years and our jam-packed, year-round newsletters, please visit staging.macstories.net/club.

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Club MacStories Turns 5: A Month-Long Thank You to Members Featuring Exclusive Discounts and Many More Perks

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Club MacStories. For the past five years, the Club has grown to become an integral part of what MacStories is. It’s the fuel that has allowed us to do more on the site, add new perks for Club members, and expand into podcasts.

Thank you to all of our Club members, past and present. You’re a big part of what allows us to do what we love, and we truly appreciate it. A special thanks to those of you who have been along for the ride for all five years too. There are quite a few of you, and your loyalty is humbling.

To celebrate this year’s anniversary, we’ve got a lot planned over the next four weeks:

  • App, Service, and Hardware Discounts: Below are discounts from developers of some of our favorite apps, services, and hardware.
  • App Giveaways: We periodically do app giveaways in MacStories Weekly, one of the Club’s email newsletters, but we’re taking that to a whole new level over the next four weeks, as you’ll begin to see in this Friday’s issue.
  • eBooks: When Federico’s iOS and iPadOS 14 review is published, and we’ve concluded our Summer OS Preview series, both will be available as eBooks exclusively to Club members.
  • Shortcuts and Automations: Alongside his review, Federico will share a set of advanced iOS 14 shortcuts and automations in MacStories Weekly.
  • ’Making Of’ the iOS 14 Review: When Federico’s review is published, we’ll have a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the review in MacStories Weekly.
  • MacStories Unplugged: We’ll also publish special episodes of MacStories Unplugged, our Club podcast, covering the nerdy, behind-the-scenes details of Federico’s review and our favorite iOS and iPadOS 14 apps.
  • Surprises: Of course, it wouldn’t be a MacStories celebration without a few surprises, so keep an eye on MacStories Weekly for more details in the coming weeks.

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