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The Something-More-Useful Edition Friday, October 6, 2023

Review: iPhone 15 Pro & Pro Max, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

Let’s get this out of the way first: If you’re one of those people who could always remember which position of the ring/silent switch meant silent and which meant ring and could feel that in your pocket, this is a regression. You will now have to pull out your phone to look at the status or use the Action Button as a ring/silent button and feel for the proper haptic to indicate the status. I understand why that would stink.

As for literally everyone else—the people who couldn’t remember which position meant which, the people (I’m one) who always left their phone in silent mode, and the monsters who never silenced their phones… that switch was a waste of space. And now the Action Button lets us choose to use that space for something more useful.

Stuff

Mimestream Is A Great, Reliable Gmail App For The Mac, by Matt Birchler, The Sweet Setup

The best part of Mimestream for me is its pure speed. No email app I’ve ever used has received new emails quicker, synced so quickly, or just let me move around the app nearly as fast as Mimestream. Seriously, it never feels like the app is even breaking a sweat, and like most good productivity software, it keeps up with me no matter how fast I’m working.

Three Ways To Use BetterTouchTool To Enhance Window Management With A Trackpad, by Niléane, MacStories

I mainly use a Magic Trackpad at my desk. It’s a great way to navigate a Mac: smooth scrolling, great haptic feedback, and gestures for multitasking with Mission Control. However, Apple has not gone far enough to make the trackpad as useful and easy to use as it could be when it comes to managing windows. So, to fix three tiny window management annoyances, I use BetterTouchTool.

Thoughts Debuts An App Designed To Inspire You, Not Distract You, by Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

Instead of scrolling mindlessly through a social feed of updates, a new app called Thoughts offers a way to scroll through and collect inspirational content. Created by indie developer Henri Bredt, Thoughts is described as a “focused inspiration manager” that’s designed to help you remember things that inspired you, whether that’s hand-picked quotes, famous sayings from great thinkers, or even your own ideas you want to recall.

Develop

Apple Launches SF Symbols 5 With 700+ New Icons For Developers To Use In Apps, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Some of the new symbols in the update include game controller buttons, weather conditions, additional currencies, and automotive indicators.

Notes

S.Korea Considers $50.5 Mln Fine Against Google, Apple Over App Market Practices, by Joyce Lee, Reuters

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said in a statement that the two tech giants forced app developers into specific payment methods and caused unfair delay in app review.

The KCC is notifying the companies for corrective action, and will deliberate on the fines, the statement said.

French App Developers Abandon US Apple Antitrust Lawsuit, by Mike Scarcella, Reuters

Apple's attorneys argued that the plaintiffs cannot bring U.S. antitrust claims over "transactions between French developers and foreign consumers, made on foreign App Store storefronts, in foreign currency, and through a foreign (non-party) Apple entity."

Bottom of the Page

I've started using the battery widget on my macOS desktop, so now I can constantly see the battery level of my keyboard and mouse. Hopefully, I will never be surprised and have to stop work and start charging stuff.

Of course, now that I am staring at this widget whenever I am at my Mac, I have to ask: why limit the number of devices to just four? Everyone into the Apple ecosystem, I am sure, has more than four devices that need charging regularly.

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Thanks for reading.