Mac Power Users 561: iPad Check-In with Federico Viticci

On this episode of Mac Power Users, MacStories founder Federico Viticci talks about the iPad and its ecosystem of apps for power users. As the iPad itself becomes more capable, what users can do with it continues to expand, but as we discuss, there are still pain points.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.

  • 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.

  • The Intrazone by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast hosted by the SharePoint team.

  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code MPU to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2021, and can be used only once.

Automators 62: Automation Fun, with Alex Cox

Alex Cox joins Rosemary and me on this episode of Automators to talk home automation, Drafts, Shortcuts, and how to learn new automation.

This episode of Automators is sponsored by:

Take Control of Your Email with SaneBox (Sponsor)

Email is a challenge for all of us. This week’s sponsor, SaneBox is the solution for most of your email problems. SaneBox is an email service that adds a pile of productivity features to your email, regardless of what email client you use. With SaneBox at your back, you can:

  • Wake up every day to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant. 

  • Defer email for hours, days, or weeks, so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time. They’ve even added a new feature that can optionally auto-reply to snoozed email with something like, “I’m sorry, but I’m underwater right now. I’ll get back to you in a few days.” SaneBox can even auto-reply when you defer an email.

  • Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.

  • Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).

  • Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.

  • Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

The list goes on, and MacSparky readers love this service.

The SaneBox team has been hard at work lately improving the SaneBox interface and releasing even more new tools. Why not straighten out your email by getting a SaneBox account today. If you sign up with this link, you even get a discount on your subscription. 

iOS 14.2 – Emojis Released. Scores Settled.

Today Apple released iOS 14.2 and iPad OS 14.2. As usual, the point two release gets a ton of new Emoji. I’m sure there is a good reason for holding the new Emoji for the point two updates, but it also is a way to ensure that everyone downloads it. Emojipedia breaks them all down. This year’s release, in particular, helps me personally settle a dispute with my children.*

Additional features include some new wallpapers, updated lock screen controls, and the ability to add a Shazam button to the Control Center.

Notable this year is that this update does not have to deal with as many bugs as it did last year. iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 are more stable than last year.

Looking forward, I would love to see Apple add better widget support to the iPadOS at some point in a future 14.X update. The world loves widgets, and the iPad needs the ability to put them anywhere, not just the left side. A nerd can dream.


thong-sandal_1fa74.png

* As a Californian, I have to acknowledge the inclusion of this sandal in the 2020 new Emoji. I grew up wearing them, and we always called them “thongs” or “flip flops”. My children inform me (frequently) that while the term “flip flops” can still work (though it dates me), the term “thongs” is very much not acceptable and embarrassing to them. So I call them “thongs.” Apparently, I’m not alone because the official name of this new Emoji, as handed down from the Emoji standards commitee is “Thong Sandal”. I look forward to sharing this with my children. (Also, if you really want a pair of Californian-approved “thong sandals” I recommend Rainbows.)

One More Thing


Apple has now announced next week’s One More Thing event for next Tuesday. This will be the third event in three months and the one I’ve been looking forward to most. There are a lot of contrary rumors about exactly how Apple will start rolling out Apple Silicon Macs. I can tell you that I am personally very excited to see how this goes down. Using Apple Silicon, I expect Apple will have the ability to turn up the dial quite a bit on battery life or performance (or perhaps a little bit on both). It will be interesting to see how they decide to go. Also, I’ve been looking at all the white space in Big Sur for months and imagining some cool new Macs with touch screens and iPad apps running alongside traditional Mac apps and all the possibilities that come with that.

Mark Gurman’s sources say that we’ll initially get new models of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with Apple Silicon. I have no idea if those will include a touch screen or instead just be the same design as the existing models with a different processor. Regardless, we are going to learn a lot more next Tuesday.

The Apple One Subscription Bundles


Apple One.png

The Apple One Subscription bundles are now available. There are three tiers available:

  • Individual ($14.95) Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud storage.

  • Family ($19.95) Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of shared iCloud storage for up to six family members.

  • Premier ($29.95) Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Fitness+, Apple News+, and 2TB of shared iCloud storage for up to six family members. (Currently only available in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia)

It represents a moderate saving over the sticker prices if you added the services individually. Because I’m on a family plan and am including my kids, I’ll spend some time over the next few days making sure to remove any duplication. For instance, I know my daughter subscribes to Arcade+.

To sign up, go to your subscriptions page on your iPhone or iPad. When I tried it, I couldn’t get the Apple One page to load. Rebooting my phone fixed the problem.

Mac Power Users 560: Workflows, with Luc Beaudoin

We’re joined by Luc Beaudoin, a cognitive scientist, author, and developer of the Mac app Hook on this episode of Mac Power Users. Luc explains how we typically gather, process, and use data, and how our computing devices can assist—and detract—in that work.

This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:

  • SaneBox: Stop drowning in email!

  • Mailbrew: Your personal email digest. Sign up for a 30-day free trial and get 30% off when you upgrade.

  • Sync Up, a OneDrive podcast: Takes you behind the scenes of OneDrive.

  • Indeed: Get a free $75 credit to boost your job post.

Fire Aftermath

I took a walk in the neighborhood last night and took some pictures. The landscape around here is like another planet. I enjoy hiking the local trails but I suspect they’ll be closed for a while until things start to recover. We had a similar fire back in 2007 and it is remarkable how quickly things grow back. I was speaking with our local park ranger and he reports the deer are already returning, though nobody is exactly sure where our local pride of mountain lions are right now. When these trees catch on fire, the burn continues inside long after and often down into the roots. Some of these trees will one day just fall over.

Save Time with TextExpander (Sponsor)


TextExpander Thanks

This week MacSparky.com is sponsored by TextExpander, the easiest way to start automating your work on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. TextExpander is a text replacement tool. With it, you can type a phrase like “ccell” and it will automatically fill in your cell phone number. But TextExpander is so much more than that.

Using TextExpander, you can have it automatically create the date and time. For example, when I talk with someone on the phone related to the day job and want to keep notes about the conversation, I just type “xdts” which, in my head, means date and time string. Then TextExpander automatically creates something like this, “2018-03-28 06:42”. If I need to put the full date in a letter, I just type “fdate” and TextExpander puts in the current date, like this, “March 28, 2018”.

TextExpander can still go deeper. It can use the contents of your clipboard to auto-fill in snippets. It can press keyboard keys, like the tab key, to automate filling in forms on the web or creating an email. You can get it for yourself and your team members so you can share snippets with your team members. 

I’ve done so much with TextExpander over the years that I even have a page of snippets I’ve created that you can download ranging from movie to reviews to conference calls. One of my personal favorite groups is foreign thanks where you can say thank you to people in most language. Sending an email to a French friend, just type “french thanks” and TextExpander gives you “Merci”. It’s like your own, personal translator.

To learn more, head over to TextExpander.com and let them know you heard about it at MacSparky in the “Where did you hear about us” field.

Back Home

Thanks everyone for the kind wishes. I’m finally back home now that the fires have subsided and I’m back at work.