The Shortcuts improvements in particular are excellent to see, especially so quickly after users made the case for direct launching.
The update adds support for AirPods Max, the long-awaited App Store privacy labels, and Apple News widgets.
ProRAW combines the editing flexibility of RAW with Apple’s computational photography tricks like Smart HDR and Deep Fusion for the first time. You no longer have to choose between the flexibility of a standard RAW file and a JPEG or HEIC file that has all of Apple’s computational magic but limited potential for post-processing because ProRAW gives you both.
Apple has broken down data collection into three categories: “data used to track you,” “data linked to you,” and “data not linked to you.”
The Originals tab acts as a top-level navigation to the TV+ channel, which provides access to the Apple Original TV shows and movies.
Apple has released iOS 12.5 for older iPhone models today, bringing support for COVID-19 exposure notifications. This is a major change as it expands contact tracing to iPhones that don’t support iOS 14, including devices like the massively popular iPhone 6 series.
I don’t think it all “clicked” until I took a dance “class” with one of the trainers, Ben Allen, that Fitness+ became fun. “It doesn’t have to be pretty. You just need to be having a good time!” he said as he busted a move and encouraged a flailing me to keep going.
Something about that hit differently. I stopped thinking of fitness as something to keep me sane, but as an enjoyable distraction from the bleakness of the world right now. Alright Apple, you got me. Take my money. It’s yours.
In my experience as a fitness instructor, all most people want out of workouts is to show up, get told what to do, put in as much (or as little) effort as they feel like, go home. Fitness+ is very well-suited to that bracket.
If you're at the hardcore end of the fitness spectrum, Fitness+ can't replace the intensity of your "real" workouts. But it might supplement them.
Apple’s app and Peloton Digital have high production value, motivating music playlists and charismatic trainers. But Fitness+ doesn’t have as many workout types, and the library of workouts isn’t as large. It also lacks Peloton’s live and social features. The Apple app does have one edge over Peloton’s: You can download classes and play them offline.
If you need to get a gift for an Apple-loving person in your life this holiday season, that $5 shipping could be a handy way to get that gift in a pinch. The company says it offers scheduled courier delivery of eligible items “in most metros.”
New in this version is a feature that creates a new file specifically for each video platform, and users will be able to select resolution, compression, and captions. From there, users can easily upload the files to Facebook or YouTube.
The new Shazam UI makes the app feel more at home with modern iOS design trends, although it continues to feature some cross-platform quirks like a vertical three-dot more button, an Android paradigm.
Ecosia is a search engine that promotes privacy first and plants trees around the world, and with Mondays updates, it is now available as a default search engine setting on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
Signal on Monday announced the launch of group calls which, like everything else on the platform, is end-to-end encrypted.
Path Finder enables users to view hidden files; compare, merge, and synchronize folders; batch-select and batch-rename files; view and navigate within two browser panes in a single window; and more.
Starting today, developers can generate custom App Clips Codes for their apps, which offers a “beautiful and distinct” way to access these App Clips by just pointing the camera at the code or even turning it into an NFC tag.
The Mac broke all those rules. Every single one of them. Everything on the Mac was a graphic. Your primary method of interaction was by pushing a pointer around on the screen by way of a new peripheral, the mouse. You ran programs by clicking on the icon that represented them. Their commands were all visible via the menu bar at the top of the screen, organized by category. You could learn what a program did by just clicking through the menus.
But after years of new services joining the fray and begging for their eyeballs, if the pandemic doesn’t get them to sign up for Apple TV+ or HBO Max or Disney+, nothing will. Chances are that a good portion of 2021 will feature closed theaters and lockdowns. Streaming services will likely have a few more months to sign up new users, but after that, the battle may be over. It will just be a matter of which is left streaming.