By Jason Snell

December 13, 2022 10:58 AM PT

Blank Canvas: Hands on with Apple’s new Freeform app

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

It’s not every week that Apple releases a new app, but this is that week. As a part of rolling out iOS 16.2 and macOS Ventura 13.1, Apple’s introducing the world to Freeform, an app it introduced back in June as a part of a WWDC keynote segment about iPad collaboration features.

Freeform is fun. It’s got a bunch of rough edges that I hope can be sanded out over time as it grows and evolves, but I love the idea that Apple decided that its collaboration tools (and, by extension, its platforms) really needed a free space for individuals and groups to use as an infinite sheet of Internet-connected note paper.

It’s all in the name, really. Freeform is a place for you to share “Boards” with other users—you invite them via iMessage, and can quickly bring up a chat or audio or video call with collaborators who are active in the document.

Freeform feels like an app that was built on Apple’s existing markup tools, since if you open a Board and start sketching with Apple Pencil, it all just works exactly as you’d expect. But beyond the obligatory pen/pencil/eraser tools, Apple has loaded in a bunch of other media types: text blocks, sticky notes, a very large library of vector shapes and other clip art, and quick access to import photos or videos from your library, capture them with a camera, import links from the web, and more.

The result can be a free-for-all where all these media types live together, though even if all most Boards end up being is a shared whiteboard, that’s not the end of the world. Apple’s iPad drawing tools are pretty good, and getting them out of places like Notes and into an app like Freeform really gives them a chance to shine.

My complaints about Freeform are mostly about how it frequently just didn’t do what I wanted it to do. Sometimes tapping an object and dragging would move it on the canvas, while other times it would lift a copy of the item for me to drag around… but when I dropped it elsewhere in the app, nothing would happen. Sometimes I could drag an image on a shape to automatically use the shape as a mask for the image… other times it just didn’t work. I can crop imported photos, but not videos.

Most frustratingly, Freeform needs to work better for iPad users who are using both an Apple Pencil and their fingers. One of my favorite iPad apps, Ferrite, lets me use pencil gestures for some tasks (cutting audio clips) while I can also use my fingers for other functions (moving and selecting objects).

Freeform doesn’t seem to want to differentiate, so if I’m drawing with the Apple Pencil and then tap to move something on screen, I end up just drawing with my finger. Instead, I need to tap the drawing tools, then tap to move an object. I also don’t love Freeform’s insistence that the Apple Pencil is only a drawing tool; I can’t use it to select objects or drag them around on the Board.

In summary, Freeform feels like an app that Apple realized it needed to make in order to test its new integrated collaboration features. I’m glad it did; it’s not going to change the world, but even Apple may be surprised at the different ways that users take advantage of that. It’s fitting that the future of the app is itself a blank canvas, waiting to be filled in.

By Jason Snell

December 8, 2022 6:00 AM PT

Ferrite 3: iPad audio editor adds variable-speed playback and more

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

One of my favorite iPad apps of all time is Wooji Juice’s Ferrite Recording Studio, a complete multi-track audio editor that I prefer to the likes of Logic and GarageBand for editing podcasts. I use Ferrite primarily with an Apple Pencil, though it also works with your fingers, a keyboard, a pointing device, or a combination of any of those.

Four years after the release of Ferrite 2, version 3 has just been released. It’s a major update that modernizes the app’s interface, organizes its file structure, and updates its audio engine to supercharge editing productivity.

The banner feature in Ferrite 3 is variable-speed playback and timeline scrubbing. Just as many podcast listeners consume them at more than 1x speed, it can be a huge time saver for podcast editors to play back the program they’re editing at speeds up to 2x. (I tend to listen at 2x while editing until I hear something I need to drill down on, at which point I’ll slow down to 1x to do the detail work.)

Ferrite 3 now supports speeds other than 1x, and users can populate the app’s toolbar with icons to play back at normal/fast/faster/2x speeds, as well as an icon that toggles between the currently selected speed and 1x. And you can hear audio play back while scrubbing the playhead, in order to identify just where a certain sound is coming from. This is a huge step forward.

Ferrite 3 is also all about organization. Because of a lack of a real filesystem on the iPad back when Ferrite was first conceived, the app organizes its files its own way. While today files are common enough on iPad that Wooji Juice might not make that same decision, having control over its file space does offer some real advantages. Ferrite has a template system, which has been updated with improved previews, and has added per-file tags and improved search, as well as rules-based Smart Folders.

I keep a couple dozen audio files in Ferrite on my iPad, mostly podcast theme songs, common sound effects, and stock background music that’s used in a few podcasts I edit. With Ferrite 3, I can tag those audio files appropriately—say, “themes,” and then tap on a Themes Smart Folder to quickly find the file I want to insert in my project. Or I can just search for “themes TPK” in the Ferrite search box to quickly display all Total Party Kill theme files.

The entire app interface has been modernized, with new fonts and control icons. A new Library sidebar also helps with organization, providing quick access to folders, import tools, templates, and documentation. Slide-over effects controls are easier to control, with knob-style radial controls replaced with much more straightforward sliders.

A new Sharing Extras dropdown also organizes a bunch of features that were previously scattered throughout the app into one location, to quickly export, convert, or duplicate the output of a project.

Ferrite is free to try, but the full feature set is unlocked via a $30 in-app purchase. Given the cost of most multi-track audio editors, it’s perhaps the best deal ever. Users of Ferrite 2 Pro will need to pay $15 to unlock the new Ferrite 3 Pro features.

By Jason Snell

December 7, 2022 10:42 AM PT

Apple to extend end-to-end encryption, add other security features

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

On Wednesday Apple announced some major new security initiatives that the company will be rolling out from now through later in 2023. The biggest one is the addition of nine Apple services to end-to-end encryption, meaning that Apple can’t access cloud data even if authorities demand it:

iCloud already protects 14 sensitive data categories using end-to-end encryption by default, including passwords in iCloud Keychain and Health data. For users who enable Advanced Data Protection, the total number of data categories protected using end-to-end encryption rises to 23, including iCloud Backup, Notes, and Photos. The only major iCloud data categories that are not covered are iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendar because of the need to interoperate with the global email, contacts, and calendar systems.

iCloud Backup is the centerpiece of this, because unencrypted iCloud Backups have been used to provide access to data (like Messages conversations) that are otherwise encrypted. Other items that can be end-to-end encrypted are iCloud Drive, Notes, Photos, Reminders, Safari bookmarks, Shortcuts, Voice Memos items, and Wallet passes.

While it’s certainly been convenient that Apple has been able to provide law-enforcement entities with unencrypted data under subpoena, another reason Apple has fought against encrypting all the things is that it has some serious side effects for users, most notably that Apple can’t unlock your data if you no longer have the password to your Apple ID. To solve this problem, Apple is placing these new nine encryption services in a new feature called Advanced Data Protection that isn’t on by default and, according to Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal, requires that users generate at least one additional method of unlocking their account. (Methods include a printout of a very long string that can be stored somewhere secure, or the designation of a different Apple ID as having the authority to unlock the account.)

Stern’s interview with Apple’s Craig Federighi also suggests that the company has entirely given up on its plan to scan for child sex-abuse media in iCloud Photos.

According to Apple, Advanced Data Protection will be available for OS beta users today and will be available to everyone—including in China, according to Stern—by the end of the year. This is a big step with potentially huge ramifications for Apple’s relationship with governments around the world that might expect Apple to provide access to data on its users devices. (A slight mitigating factor is that the feature is off by default.)

Finally, let’s not gloss over the two other security additions Apple plans on adding in 2023, which—like Lockdown Mode—are more focused on potential targets such as journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats. iMessage Contact Key Verification appears to alert users when unknown devices are added to an Apple ID, which might indicate that some other party has breached one of the IDs and may be monitoring an iMessage conversation. And Security Keys adds support for hardware security keys such as a Yubikey for Apple ID authentication.

By Dan Moren

December 7, 2022 8:03 AM PT

MarsEdit 5 brings microposting, Markdown highlighting

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

If you’ve been blogging on the Mac for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with Red Sweater Software’s excellent MarsEdit blogging software.

Version 5.0 of the app debuts today, following a public beta, and brings a number of much anticipated features, including a microposting interface accessible via a global keyboard shortcut that makes it easy to quickly dash off a blog post—though I do wish it had an “Advanced” mode for specifying some additional metadata for a post. There’s also a revamped rich text editor that provides better performance, a schmancy new icon, and—at long last—syntax highlighting for text written in Markdown.

In addition, developer Daniel Jalkut has made tweaks an enhancements throughout, adding a bunch of improvements that bring the app into line with the latest versions of macOS. It remains the best-in-class Mac blogging app that it’s been for more than fifteen years.

MarsEdit 5 runs $59.95 for a new license, though owners of MarsEdit 4 can upgrade for just $29.95. Family packs are also available for up to five people in a household.¹

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]

By Jason Snell

December 5, 2022 5:06 PM PT

My social media is in an Mac app, or it’s nowhere

Note: This story has not been updated since 2022.

My explorations with Mastodon have thus far been undertaken largely with the service’s web app. It’s fine, as far as things go. But it’s definitely lacking something.

As I’ve been exploring, I’ve been thinking of how I use social media services—and how the only service that I really connected with, Twitter, is the only one with a Mac client app. While most services only offer mobile apps—Facebook, Instagram, the list goes ever onward—I use my Mac all day, every day.

And for better or worse, Twitter has always been there for me because Twitter—or more precisely, Twitterrific—has always been an app in my Dock or a bird icon in my menu bar. The same has never been true of Facebook or Instagram or any other network that has shunted its desktop users into a web-browser window.

Those services are out of sight and out of mind when I’m using my Mac. Even in the days when I actually used Facebook, I only remembered to visit the Facebook website every day or so. The extra leap of having to open a browser window and then visit the site was a leap I rarely made.

Likewise, my use of private social apps like Slack and Discord is magnified by their availability on my Mac as discrete apps rather than bookmarks in Safari. I can launch them or quit them or hide them on their own, and they’re there in my Dock when I want them. If there was no Slack app, and I had to use the web to check my Slack communities, it would be the Facebook situation again. I’d pop in occasionally but not regularly, just as has been the case with Mastodon and me.

There’s something healthy about that. But if Mastodon gets enough community gravity to make me want to pay more attention, I’ll need an app. There are a lot of Mastodon client apps out there, and I’ve tried several of them, but none of them are really good enough or polished enough for me to use regularly. The truth is that modern Twitter clients have set the bar pretty high.

Tapbots is currently beta-testing a Mastodon client based on Tweetbot for iOS and Mac, and early buzz is that it’s very good. I don’t know if I’m going to commit to using Mastodon nearly as much as I used Twitter back in the day, but if I use it at all regularly, it will only be because someone wrote a Mac app that was good enough for me to embrace and put in my Dock.