Apple’s opened up pre-orders on that interesting new iPad keyboard. I’ve pre-ordered the big one and I’m looking forward to trying it out.
The iPhone SE
This is actually yesterday’s news, but the rumored iPhone SE update is now for sale. It seems like a pretty good phone for 400 bucks. With prior iterations of the iPhone SE, the story was always about it being the smaller phone (it used to use the iPhone 5 body). While the new one is smaller than some the iPhone 11, it’s not that much smaller. Now I’d call it the economy iPhone more than the small iPhone.
Focused 97: Emotional Overload
Mike and I continue the overload series with a look at emotional overload on the latest episode of Focused. We consider the value of introspection, share some fun distractions, and discuss being ok with not being productive.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by:
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Universal GoodNotes
Just a few weeks ago Apple announced the ability for developers to bundle Mac apps along with their iPhone and iPad apps. You might remember this was a sticking point with last year’s Catalyst release where developers were required to charge for the Mac versions of their apps.
There was a paid version of Catalyst-based GoodNotes on the Mac App Store, but yesterday they became one of the first developers to take advantage of the new ability to bundle their Mac app for free. Because of App Store mechanics, this required releasing a new version of the Mac app. So if you bought it previously, download the bundle Mac version now. That’s the only one that will continue to get updates.
As a daily user of this app, I appreciate GoodNotes getting on this early, but I’m also not surprised. GoodNotes is one of the best note-taking apps available and it comes as no surprise that its developers are on the ball.
The Hypothetical iPad Pro Inspired iPhone
Mark Gurman and Debbie Wu at Bloomberg now report a new design for the iPhone is in the works that takes cues from the current iPad Pro with flat, stainless steel sides and flat screens. When the new iPad Pro design premiered in 2018, a lot of us thought that the iPhone would soon follow. It seemed obvious that the iPad Pro design was the way to go but, at the same time, I’m not actually in the business of making hundreds of millions of iPhones every year and it’s probably a little complicated.
Regardless, I hope this is true. I’ve been using that iPad Pro for a few years now and its design still delights me. My favorite iPhone design thus far was the iPhone 4, which is very reminiscent of this look and I’d like to see it come back to the iPhone.
Mac Power Users 531: Teaching with GoodNotes, with David MacDonald
Dr. David MacDonald is a musician and professor with a unique way of using the iPad, Apple TV, and GoodNotes together to engage and equip his students. Listen to our conversation on this week’s episode of Mac Power Users.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
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Rogue Amoeba: A superior sound control. Get 20% off.
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The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
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FreshBooks: Online invoicing made easy.
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1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Automators 47: The Daily Brief
On the latest episode of Automators, Rosemary and I dive into how we do a daily brief with Shortcuts on our devices.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
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Jazz Friday: Ellis Marsalis
Among the many tragedies we are experiencing with Covid-19, we recently lost Ellis Marsalis. Ellis was a remarkable jazz pianist that was known for his clever riffs and his passion for teaching. Among his many students that went on to have their own music careers are Harry Connick, Jr. and Stephen Colbert sideman Jon Batiste.
Ellis was also the patriarch of the Marsalis family and nearly all of his sons went on to have music careers including Branford Marsalis, one of my favorite contemporary saxophonists, and Wynton Marsalis, who is the artistic director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center.
Ellis made a lot of albums over his career and I’ve spent the last week listening to a lot of them. One of my very favorite tracks he recorded was West Side Story’s “Maria” with his son, Brandford on soprano sax (Apple Music) (Amazon). I love the way he just fills the piano with the right notes. There are so many great Ellis Marsalis tracks, however, that I’d recommend going into your streaming service of choice and listening to him.
Wynton Marsalis summed it up best about his dad, “He could swing like nobody’s business.”
Pixelmator Updates
The team at Pixelmator certainly isn’t sitting around watching Netflix. They have had a few recent updates of note.
Pixelmator Pro 1.6 Magenta is now out with a major update. The all-new, color picker makes it easier than ever to choose and manage colors. They made a simple way to select multiple objects: just drag over multiple objects to select them. And now it’s a snap to identify and replace missing fonts. The update also includes some performance improvements and new features to make image editing more convenient and fun. Pixelmator Pro 1.6 Magenta is free for existing users and $39.99 for new customers.
Also, Pixelmator Photo for iPad also got a nice update with cursor and Split View support. I hope we have a parade of iPad app developers giving us customized cursor support now that the iPad supports trackpad and mouse so nicely.
Take Charge of Your Email with SaneBox (Sponsor)
This week’s sponsor, SaneBox is the solution to so many of my email problems. SaneBox is the email service that adds a pile of productivity features to your email, regardless of what email client you use. For a lot of folks, email is a constant pain point, and it doesn’t need to be. With SaneBox at your back, you can:
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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.
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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.”
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Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up.
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Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).
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Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.
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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. For instance, now you can have SaneBox send an auto-reply when you defer an email. 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.