Join us for the latest episode of Focused. Mike and I tackle the Hustle. Is that a good thing or bad thing? We also get around to gratitude and virtual help.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
Timing: The automatic time-tracking app for macOS. Use this link to save 10% on your purchase.
Blinkist: Read 3,000+ books in 15 minutes or fewer. Start your 7-day free trial.
I’m pleased to announce the release of the new iOS 13 edition of the Shortcuts Field Guide.
The new Shortcuts Field guide was shot entirely new with the new Shortcuts for iOS 13. Apple changed a lot and it is all covered in this field guide:
Over 6 hours of downloadable video tutorials
New materials for both beginners and advanced users
New Downloadable Shortcuts
So much Automation
As a blog reader, you get a limited-time $5 discount with the code “BLOGSHORTS”.
If you’d like further explanation, read on …
Mobile Automation Is within Your Grasp.
Apple continues to put the gas down on iOS automation. The iOS 13 version of Shortcuts represents a significant improvement over the prior version. Best of all, anyone can do it. Shortcuts does not rely on scripting languages but instead a common-sense approach to Automation. Here are just a few possible things you can do with Shortcuts in iOS 13:
Get an automatic weather report for the location of tomorrow’s appointments
Block schedule an entire week
Put your iPhone into focus mode when you connect to a coffee shop’s WiFi
Build simple apps, like a self-creating packing list customized for you
Automate your meetings
Automate sending a message when you are running late with an accurate, automatically generated ETA.
These are just a few examples of what you can do with Shortcuts, and all of these examples (along with many others) are included among the many video lessons in this course.
With Shortcuts, you can automate just about anything. In addition to teaching you all of the mechanics of Shortcuts, this course includes many walkthroughs of automation workflows you can use, download, or alter to automate your own iPhone and iPad.
There are 107 lovingly crafted screencasts totaling over six hours of content. Each tutorial includes a full transcript and closed captioning. Where appropriate, the tutorials also include downloadable Shortcuts that you can install and run alongside the video.
Course Outline:
1. Introduction
Learn the basics of Shortcuts, including installation and interface. This section covers basic application concepts and how it organizes your Shortcuts. Also, build your first Shortcut.
2. Shortcuts Key Concepts
Shortcuts is a simplified type of programming, and there are several basic, key concepts you’ll want to know to get the most out of it. This section covers those basics, including the Shortcuts programming model, variables, magic variables, conversational shortcuts, share sheet-based shortcuts, and more.
3. Triggers
With Shortcuts, there are a lot of ways to kick off your automation. It can be something you physically trigger, such as a button on your screen, or something automated, like at a specific time or when you connect your phone to WiFi (or CarPlay!) or tap your phone against an NFC sticker. It’s brilliant. This section includes sixteen videos explaining every possible Shortcuts trigger.
4. Actions
Once you have figured out all of the triggers, you will want to start making your iPhone and iPad dance. Just like triggers, Shortcuts is capable of so many actions including the ability to control applications; control settings; add notifications; type text; get directions; create and modify calendar events, bulk adjust photos; make a better share sheet; automate mail; and so much more. There is so much that Shortcuts can do. This section includes 28 videos showing off all of Shortcuts’s tricks.
5. Advanced Concepts
Shortcuts is a lot more powerful than you may think. Once you work through the basic concepts, triggers, and actions, it’s time to dig in on advanced concepts like nesting, programming logic, URL schemes, Base64, regular expressions, and more. This section demystifies some of Shortcuts’s more powerful tools so anyone can use them.
6. Useful Shortcuts
Here you will find a laundry list of useful shortcuts. This section includes 32 screencasts of helpful walkthroughs and downloadable scripts to get more out of your iPhone and iPad. You can download and start using these scripts immediately, or use all of the knowledge that you will have picked up to customize these scripts and make them your own.
7. Conclusion
Learn about more Shortcuts resources.
Here is the course, by the numbers:
Over 6 hours of streaming or downloadable video
107 separate videos, 7 separate sections
Many downloadable shortcuts
Heaps of dangerous knowledge, tricks, and hacks to make your iPhone and iPad dance
The Shortcuts Field Guide is Now Available for Purchase.
Want a preview? How about a 40 minute preview …
Shawn Blanc and his team are re-opening the Focus course. I’m a fan and think this course is a great way to help pull yourself out of the mud. The course is only open until September 23, so if you’re interested now’s your chance.
The battle to protect your passwords never ends. Today 1Password announced it’s new Advanced Protection service for businesses that want better password protection.
1Password Advanced Protection adds several security controls:
Enforce two-factor authentication. Enforce two-factor authentication company-wide, and choose which second factors your team can use when they add 1Password to a new device.
Restrict access with firewall rules. Create rules to allow, report, or deny sign-in attempts from certain locations, IP addresses, and more.
View and manage sign-in attempts. Review recent sign-in attempts and take any action required to protect your team.
Set complex Master Password policies. Define requirements employees must adhere to when they choose their Master Password.
Require modern app usage. Check which version of 1Password your employees are using to ensure they have the latest security and feature updates.
I can’t help but feel the Internet security situation is going to only get worse before it gets better. Does your company need to protect something like seven secret herbs and spices? If so, get yourself some advanced protection.
We have some great merchandise celebrating episode 500 of the Mac Power Users. There are shirts, challenge coins, patches, and stickers. I really love how it all came out, and it’s available for a limited time only.
This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service I use every day to manage my email. SaneBox acts as your own personal email assistant, sorting your inbox for you so you only see the most important emails with less important email getting relegated to other mailboxes for later.
I'm not the only one that relies on SaneBox. It’s also used by companies like eBay, Coca-Cola, Adidas, and LinkedIn to help their employees stay on top of the most important email.
SaneBox has many additional features, like the ability track and notify you if people don’t respond to your email and defer incoming email until later. It really serves as a set of power tools to make every aspect of using email easier and it works with just about any email platform: including iCloud, IMAP, Google, and Exchange. No matter what system, platform, or app you use to do email, SaneBox can help. It’s like feature upgrading every email application. If you’d like to become the boss of your email, go sign up for free SaneBox trial today and use the links in this post to get a significant discount when you sign up.
Stephen marks the 500th episode of Mac Power Users by interviewing me about my career, technology, and choice of light saber color.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
eero: Get your WiFi fixed as soon as tomorrow! Free overnight shipping.
1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don't have to worry about that anymore.
The Omni Group: We're passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Jason Snell did a great job getting the skinny on the new U1 chip shipping in the iPhone 11. I’m very curious to see exactly what they do with it in the future. It’s too early, but it sure would nice if I could locate a runaway AirPod within 4 inches.
The latest episode of Automators is posted. In it Rose and I cover the breakdown of how Shortcuts will fit into iOS 13.0 and 13.1, some of our favorite new shortcuts, and the looming release of the Shortcuts Field Guide next week.
Sponsors include:
PDFpen, from Smile : The ultimate tool for editing PDFs on the Mac.
Zapier: The easiest way to automate your work. Start your 14-day free trial today.
Backblaze: Unlimited cloud backup for Macs and PCs for just $6/month.
I’m closing in on finishing the new Shortcuts Field Guide. It is coming out great. Here’s one of the over 100 videos that will be included with the course when it gets released next week.
There are a lot of great resources out there if you want to learn about using Terminal on your Mac. One of my favorites is a collection of posts by Brett Terpstra called “Bash Fun”. You could easily spend an afternoon combing through Brett’s posts. Maybe a fun project for this weekend?
This week MacSparky is sponsored by inShort (website) (Mac App Store) (iOS App Store). inShort is a project planning application for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad that lets you plan projects and processes graphically across all of your Apple devices.
One of the more innovative features is the way it allows you to embed processes and drill down to the level of detail you need at the moment. The trick with inShort is to build a detailed diagram, and from there the application creates a Gantt chart to execute your plan. If this has your interest, I recommend checking out the inShort Very Quick Guide.
inShort takes a unique approach to project planning and is worth checking out. The inShort development team has also added a satellite service, workflow.link that gives you a way to work with, edit, and manage your projects from any device with a web browser.
Want to learn more? Check out the website and read the developer's PDF.
One of the most popular posts ever at MacSparky.com was all about printing to PDF with the Command-P key combination. Over the years, that post went through several iterations as Apple made small changes to the operating system. (I actually got the original idea from an old MacOSXHints post.) Regardless, I hear from folks all the time who love the Command-P print-to-PDF trick. Last week, the print-to-PDF trick became canonical when Apple included it in an article on the App Store.
If you'd like some help setting it up, here is a video.
As we all come to grips with the fact that Apple is becoming more of a services company, it was interesting to see they kicked off the event with a discussion of the television and gaming subscription services. I think the pricing on the gaming service, $5 a month, seems about right. I had no idea what to think about the television content pricing going in. It feels to me like Disney has disrupted everyone with excellent pricing for a massive amount of new and old content. In contrast, Apple is going to launch with just a few shows. Had they charged $10 a month, I would’ve felt like it was dead on arrival. Five dollars a month feels better but still strange for such a limited number of shows. The fact that they are going to bundle 12 free months with the purchase of any Apple hardware makes a ton of sense. I guess now it is up to Apple to make good programming.
There was no surprise about the additional third lens on the iPhone 11 Pro. The interesting part of this presentation was the explanation of what they intend to do with that extra lens through software. The new features look cool, but I need to see them in action. I think Apple gets the fact that camera improvements drive phone sales and I don’t think they’ll lose sight of that any time soon.
One of the announcements concerning the new iPhones was improved battery life of four hours for the small one and an additional five hours for the big one. That is a significant increase. I suspect it has a lot to do with the improvements to the processor and the way it is so aggressive with battery management. If these improvements are real, a lot of iPhone owners are going to be happy. Indeed, that may be the killer feature with the new phones if it weren’t for that slow-motion selfie camera, because …
As someone who spends too much time at Disneyland, I can tell you that a lot of people take more pictures with the lens on the front of their phone than the one on the back. Those folks are going to love a slow-motion selfie. This feature will sell iPhones.
I like the new naming conventions of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro. I hope that the “S” days are behind us and next year sees an iPhone 12. I do wish they had come up with something other than “Pro Max” for the big one.
There was plenty of diversity and new faces among the presenters, and they all did great. I have to think that after Craig Federighi’s first presentation, Apple instituted some training program for their presenters. They’ve all been so reliable since, and of course, Federighi is now amazing at it. I do still have a soft spot for Phil Schiller when he gets to talk about the iPhone camera. Here’s a guy that likes talking about mobile photography … and pixel density.
A common complaint against Apple is that they do good at the high end but don’t deliver much in terms of value pricing. I would argue that one exception to this is the iPad. That new iPad, which is just $329, includes smart connector (and Smart Keyboard) support and Apple Pencil support. It looks pretty great, and you could buy three of them for what I paid for my iPad Pro. There are a lot of people that could get by just fine with this new iPad and the new iPadOS, particularly with the improvements to Safari.
Because today was a hardware event, I didn’t expect many surprises. Nevertheless, Apple delivered. The new iPhone Pro line got a new color, midnight green. (I love it, and I’m going to buy one.) It was also a surprise to me that the back on these new iPhones is a matte finish. I prefer that. Hopefully, it’s a bit more grippy and makes the phone feel less like a bar of soap.
An even bigger surprise was the fact that the new Apple Watch, Series 5 features an always-on watch face. I thought that was several years away and I am delighted that we can now get it. I had no intention of upgrading my Apple Watch this year, but now I’m in.
While it is always fun watching an Apple event, I had some low-level anxiety throughout this one. I am very nearly done with the new Shortcuts Field Guide, and I wanted to make sure it was available on day one of the iOS 13 release. They never explained in the keynote when iOS 13 is going to release, but an Apple press release sets the date as September 19, next Thursday. That’s a few more days than I was expecting, and I’ll take that. Speaking of which, the new Shortcuts Field Guide will be my biggest yet, and it is coming out great. Stay tuned.
Backing up our Macs, iPhones, and iPads is easier than ever, but many people don't bother making sure their data is safe and sound. On this week’s episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I talk through some basic backup strategies before offering some advice when considering upgrading to new versions of macOS and iOS.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
SaneBox: Stop drowning in email!
TextExpander from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
Hover: Make a name for yourself. Get 10% off any domain name.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code MPU at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
Last month saw the release of the latest major update to Keyboard Maestro. Version 9 adds several new features, including multiple editor menus, a method for extracting text from images, and dark mode. That’s just the start. They also added support for the Elgato Stream Deck, which is pretty fun. I’m going to be doing a free update to the Keyboard Maestro Field Guide adding videos on the version 9 features just as soon as I get done shipping the new Shortcuts Field Guide, which is imminent.
I’ve already written (and posted a video) on my love of macOS Catalina and iOS 13’s Voice Control accessibility feature. Steven Aquino fills in a lot more detail about the new feature on MacStories. My appreciation for Voice Control has only increased throughout the beta process. I’ve canceled my Dragon Anywhere subscription, and I’m using the feature daily for dictation. I like it so much that I find myself dictating to my iPadOS 13 iPad while I’m sitting in front of my Mojave Mac.
The custom dictionaries still aren’t syncing between the devices. (I’m not even sure if they are supposed to sync, but that sure would be nice.) Either way, if you’re interested in voice to text, things are going to get much better with the new operating systems.
The Omni Group is sponsoring MacSparky this week, so I guess you can take this with a grain of salt, but I continue to be impressed with OmniFocus for the Web. For a web implementation of an iOS application, it has a lot more power than I expected. I didn't realize the way they were pulling it off.
They are running Objective-C and Swift on Mac servers that then output to the web. This isn't a simple web application. This is a Mac application driving to the internet. The OmniGroup explains in further detail at Inside OmniFocus.
Bell not included.
The Relay Fifth Anniversary live show was a lot of fun. You can watch the video below. Since my team came out victorious, I find myself in possession of a precious trophy, one of only five in the world. I have, however, decided to part with it. As you may know, Relay has partnered with St. Jude to help them raise money to take care of sick children. I’m going to give my extremely rare and valuable trophy to whoever makes the biggest contribution to St. Jude between the time of this post and midnight Pacific on September 13. If you want to be considered, send me proof and write “Trophy Contest” in the email subject line. I’ll pay for shipping, so long as you are not on the moon. Wouldn’t this look nice on your desk?
This week MacSparky is sponsored by OmniFocus. OmniFocus is, in this nerd’s opinion, the best task management solution for busy people. Right now I’m juggling multiple client matters, three podcasts, this blog, and I’m in the home stretch of finishing the new Shortcuts Field Guide.
While I might be able to do all those things without OmniFocus, there is no way I’d be able to do them all and sleep easy every night. OmniFocus gives me that comfort level, to know that everything is managed and, even (or perhaps particularly) when things get hectic, I can cope.
With tools like tag and project indexing, repeat support, amazing automation support, and powerful project review tools, OmniFocus helps me do all my projects and get a good night’s sleep every night. If you are busy and you like to sleep, check out the free trial of OmniFocus and get back on target.