Dan had a baby so we discuss tech advice for new parents and our favorite toys. But we also dig into invasive network video cameras, the ruination of Instagram, and if VR is ever going to be a thing.
Time zones. I hate them. But without them, I’d be waking up with the sunrise at 10 a.m. or 3 p.m. or some other outlandish times. I do, however, enjoy collaborating with people in different times zones and putting my stuff out there to be read by anyone, anywhere, regardless of time zone.
Fortunately, our devices can be faithful helpers when it comes to dealing with time zones. I use my calendar app of choice, Fantastical to convert many of my events to the right time zones. However, I’ve struggled to communicate times to others in places like this website and in Slack and Discord.
One app that can help is Elsewhen from The Lovely Developers, a fun group that sprung out of the Relay FM Discord. Elsewhen lets you quickly set a date and time and then translate it — either into a bunch of human-readable time zones, or into Discord’s time-code format.
I love the Discord feature, which lets me say that Apple’s quarterly results will be available <t:1659040203:f> and have the result — July 28, 2022 at 1:30 PM Pacific — be displayed to everyone in their local time. For communicating out of Discord, the Time List view in Elsewhen lets you pop things on the clipboard:
🇺🇸 – 1:30 PM Pacific
🇺🇸 – 3:30 PM Central
🇺🇸 – 4:30 PM Eastern
🇬🇧 – 9:30 PM BST
🇪🇺 – 10:30 PM CET
It’s a small utility (and I’d love for the Lovely Developers to make it more customizable), but it’s great to be able to quickly communicates times in Discord and elsewhere and make sure that everyone’s on the same page. Elsewhen is available for free on the App Store.
One of my favorite Safari extensions is Noir, which applies a dark stylesheet to websites that don’t get satisfactorily dark when in Dark Mode. The $3 app, which is available for macOS and iOS, just got a big update.
Noir now offers a library of dark themes you can import, and if that’s not enough, you can create your own (and share them with your friends). Yes, you can configure different themes for different sites. iPhone and iPad users can now fully customize keyboard shortcuts, including a bunch of optional shortcuts.
I use Safari a lot on my iPad in the evening with Dark Mode enabled, and while I wish every website would properly implement a dark mode, Noir is the next best thing. (And yes, it will also let you override sites that offer “dark modes” that are either bad or stubbornly not dark.)
In my previous column I wrote about the disappointment over the current state of tvOS and the lack of any significant forward movement with the platform. Now I want to focus on one area where I think Apple could substantially revamp and improve the Apple TV interface: a new home screen that unifies the existing home screen and the Apple TV app.
Revising and unifying navigation on tvOS has gone from being sorely needed to being absolutely critical to the platform. Even Amazon, which has had a pretty bad home screen experience for Fire TV users, just heavily refreshed its home screen.
(I wrote most of this this piece just before Amazon announced its revamp… and here it is basically doing what I what I had outlined. You’d think it would be frustrating, but it’s strangely validating. I wish Apple would follow Amazon down this path.)
Over the years, the demands we place on computers connected to our TV have shifted. Here’s what we need today:
The ability to resume the last item watched.
A collection of other items that are in progress, including shows that have new episodes, or media that was partially played on other devices.
A collection of recently used apps or services, including favorite apps that do not directly integrate with Apple’s connected experience, as well as any subscribed Apple TV Channels.
A collection of personalized recommendations based on subscriptions and watch history.
The ability to access watch history.
The ability to view purchased or rented Movies and TV from your library.
The ability to browse live programming, and personalized notifications about live programming.
Quick access to settings.
I know, it seems like I’m asking a lot. But that’s the whole point of the home screen: It needs to be the home where you can do everything you need to do, or get to the place where you can do it quickly. Splitting up these functions between the app-based home screen and the TV app isn’t solving problems for anyone. I know that the current bifurcated approach is familiar, and change is hard, but switching between a content screen (the TV app) and a bunch of app-based silos (the traditional home screen) doesn’t make sense.
The TV app itself presents a lot of information, but very little of it it is tailored to the person holding the remote, so there’s row after row of stuff that isn’t relevant to your interests, or even your subscriptions. Even if you brave the swamps of self-promotional material, and channels for apps that you already have subscriptions for, to finally get to the personalized content you’ll see that it’s not all that personal, or all that relevant. You liked Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? Well here’s Star Wars shows and movies instead of any Star Trek recommendations. You want more like Obi Wan (I don’t, but you do you), well then… here’s The Orville, for some reason?
The functions and contents of any new home screen should also not be set in stone. They should be able to adapt over time as needs change and evolve. The current TV app changes what it shows you frequently, but it’s largely unchanged since its introduction.
Even Apple recognizes this. That’s why it will sometimes turn a row that could all be tiles for different shows or films into a triptych of images for the same thing. The building blocks of design certainly haven’t evolved beyond “grid of three things with some more things hanging off screen right.” It’s time to break out of the tiled-thumbnail list rut.
But let’s start with small steps. Maybe Apple can make a new set of grids that’s a little more relevant and prevents toggling between apps and content. Once that’s done, maybe Apple can start to play catch-up with Amazon on live TV and sports.
[Joe Rosensteel is a VFX artist and writer based in Los Angeles.]
Jason and Julia answer your letters. So many questions! We discuss live TV on Apple channels, merger mania, niche streaming, valuable hot-dog streaming rights, “it’s just an eight-hour movie”, and tactical release times.
In this special Summer of Fun episode, Jason and Myke welcome three special guests to discuss how development, accessibility, and widgets have been affected by Apple’s latest operating-system cycle.
My thanks to Kolide for once again sponsoring Six Colors.
Kolide takes a different approach to endpoint security and fleet management. They help companies meet compliance goals by enlisting the support of their users with a structured, message-based approach.
Here’s Kolide’s secret sauce: It communicates security detection and compliance issues to users via Slack messages, reaching them directly and providing them with the information they need to help make their organization more secure. It’s a user-first approach to security and IT compliance.
I’ve wanted Touch ID on my Mac for a long time. Here at Six Colors, we’ve wished for it since the earliest days of this site. But when it arrived, it was a strictly laptop-only affair.
…Which is good, because the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID costs $149 (a little less if you buy it used). But hey, I said money was no object. I wanted the sweet, sweet power of Touch ID on the tip of my finger.
Which, great, money exchanged for goods. A couple of days later, I had the keyboard. So now what? I don’t really want two keyboards on my desk. Taking another cue from Myke, I decided to attach some velcro tape on the keyboard and the bottom of my desk, positioning the keyboard so that the Touch ID sensor was at the very front of the underside of my desk.
It’s… fine? The biggest issue I’ve had with it is the accidental press of keys when I’m reaching for the Touch ID button. To solve that problem, I installed the free Karabiner-Elements, a powerful utility that lets you map keys on your Mac keyboards to almost anything.
Karabiner lets you re-map—or in this case, map out—keystrokes.
I feel bad about using Karabiner to make a keyboard less productive, but that’s what I did: I re-mapped the keyboard’s keys to a useless function1, so that mistyped keys will have no effect.
Still, I don’t love the idea of having this enormous keyboard velcroed to the bottom of my desk just so I can have access to a Tiny Touch ID button. This brings me to a potential future project: separating the Touch ID button from the rest of the keyboard.
I’m about ready to do this. The one thing that’s lacking is a case to put it in when I’m done. Tian built one himself, and I might look into getting one 3-D printed based on his design. Until then, it’s just a big keyboard velcroed to the underside of my desk.
Thanks to reader Allen F., who suggested the hilarious concept of “mouse button 32” as the target for all my errant keystrokes. ↩
We live in a wonderful era for Apple laptops. The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros provide desktop power and stunning HDR displays. The new M2 MacBook Air has now joined the family, with a similar striking design and the Air’s trademark smaller size and weight.
After a dark period where Apple struggled with flawed laptop keyboards, a painful transition to USB-C, and an increasingly frustrating relationship with Intel, things haven’t looked this bright in quite some time. That’s why, as Apple looks on proudly at the new line of laptops that it has fashioned over the past couple of years, I have only one request: More, please.
How we pay online, in stores, and elsewhere. How we use (or wish we could use) our smartphones to aid in travel. The data we’d like to see on our iPhone Lock Screen. Our three favorite emoji and a new emoji we’re most excited about.
The latest update to the Omni Group’s OmniFocus task manager has a mild-mannered version number – 3.13 – but it includes one pretty big new feature. You can now control the app (on iPhone, iPad, or Mac) using your voice, with an assist from JavaScript-based Omni Automation features and the Voice Control accessibility feature that’s built into macOS and iOS.
Voice Control is an accessibility feature designed for those with physical disabilities, like motor delays that make it difficult to use gestures or a keyboard. Once Voice Control is enabled, you can control the Mac or iOS interface and dictate and correct text. It goes well beyond what you can do with Siri. Voice Control works inside apps, too, but OmniFocus has beefed up that support with hooks to its own automation scheme.
With Voice Control enabled, and a set of scripts provided by Omni, you can speak commands to create OmniFocus tasks, update or refer them, or hear which tasks are due, among many other options.
You can also create custom commands, or use Voice Control commands to trigger shortcuts.
Omni says Voice Control support is coming to its other apps, beginning later this year. Besides OminFocus, the company’s productivity tools include OmniOutliner, OmniPlan and OmniGraffle.
The OmniFocus 3.1.3 update is free to subscribers. Voice Control requires macOS Monterey or later, or iOS 15 or later. Omni has posted a set of Voice Control automation demo videos.
Myke and Jason both have new M2 MacBook Airs, so it’s time for our full review. Jason opens the Stocks app for the first time in ages. Jony Ive’s long fade-out from Apple is completed. And in honor of World Emoji Day, we select our favorite emojis in seven categories.
Apple’s public betas are an opportunity for all of us—not just developers prepping apps—to get a peek into the future of the company’s software. Granted, we’re not transporting ourselves to a far-off year where no doubt we’ll all be wearing Apple-branded headsets and riding in Apple cars—this time travel jaunt is only a matter of months. But it’s still a chance to see what new capabilities we’ll be able to take advantage of come the fall.
If we zoom out a bit, though, we can also see the hallmarks of places where Apple is investing in the future, or—to use the classic adage that has become an Apple operating principle—skating to where the puck will be. Because Apple has a tendency to lay the groundwork for major changes years in advance, knowing it’s going to take some time for the rest of the world to catch up.
This year is no different. iOS and iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, watchOS 9, even the latest update to the HomePod software are all about not just the year ahead, but the years ahead, with features that will change our lives in big ways—eventually. Just not necessarily right away.
My thanks to Kolide for once again sponsoring Six Colors.
Kolide takes a different approach to endpoint security and fleet management. It’s all about helping customers meet compliance goals by enlisting the support of their end users with a structured, message-based approach.
Kolide believes that the key to unlocking a new class of security detection, compliance, and threat remediation is getting the “average” person involved—and so do the hundreds of organizations that send important security notifications to their employees directly in Slack via Kolide’s app.
Kolide’s “Honest Security” is part guide, part manifesto. It’s a user-first approach to security and IT compliance. Kolide doesn’t like the current trends toward human-hostile security and device management. That’s why you should check out Kolide today.
Public betas and the M2 MacBook Air
We discuss our favorite features of the public betas and Dan’s going on leave! (This episode also contains the complete audio of our hourlong YouTube live stream about the M2 MacBook Air.)
