Yesterday, I wrote about iPadOS 16, and I think it was obvious how excited I was to use all of the new features.  But iOS 16 on the iPhone, which should also come out this Fall, looks to be just as interesting.  From the moment that you first pick up your iPhone, it will look and work differently because of the brand new Lock Screen.  And there are tons of changes throughout the operating system and the built-in apps.  Here are the features that I am most excited about and the reasons that I think that lawyers will love iOS 16.

Messages

I suspect that others will not put Messages at the top of their iOS 16 list, but I’m a person who hates to make mistakes.  I’m certainly not perfect in my legal writing, but I do my best, and on the rare occasions when I file a brief and then discover that there was a typo that I missed, I feel crushed.  It is similarly, albeit less, annoying when I type a text message and hit send, only to realize that there was a typo or autocorrect misinterpreted what I was trying to type.  I’ve long wished for a way to edit a text shortly after you send it.

In iOS 16, for up to 15 minutes after you send a message, you can go back and edit it.  When you do that, a small notification under the message will advise others that you have edited the message, and I’m all in favor of full disclosure.  But I love that you can clarify a text quickly and easily.  You can also delete a message that you sent—again, within 15 minutes.  Click here for a short video showing how this works.

I presume that those two features will only work for conversations with others using an iPhone—your “blue bubble” friends.  But for me, that is probably 95% of my text communications, if not more.

Another nice change is that if you start to read a message but then know you will have to turn your attention to it later, you can mark a message as unread, just like you might do for an email.  Note, however, that if you have the feature enabled to let another person know that you have read a text message, the message on their end will show “Read” even if you have decided to mark it unread.  In other words, mark as unread is designed only for your convenience—not to trick another person.

I mentioned yesterday that SharePlay is coming to Messages so that you can text with someone else while you watch a movie or listen to music with them at the same time.  On the iPhone, I can see this being particularly nice for music.  You can listen to a song with someone else and have shared playback control while you are chatting.

These are simple improvements, but they will be immediately useful for me and millions of others.

Personalized Lock Screen

The new Lock Screen is the feature that Apple has been promoting the most, so let’s talk about it next.  If you own an Apple Watch, you already have a sense of how it works.  Just like you can swipe to switch watch faces on an Apple Watch, and you can modify specific watch faces to change the colors, complications, etc., in iOS 16 you can have multiple Lock Screens that you can swipe between and customize.  If you use a picture of a person, pet, etc., the time can be displayed somewhat behind the subject, similar to the Portraits face on an Apple Watch.

You can also place widgets on the Lock Screen so that you can see important information as soon as you first pick up your iPhone.  Widgets can provide information on upcoming calendar events, the weather, battery life, alarms, activity ring progress, etc.

One special type of widget is called Live Activities.  It can update information in real time to show you things like the score of a sports game, the status of a ride-share service, flight status, order status, etc.  I can see Live Activities being very useful, especially when third parties start to use them with their apps.

 

Notifications on the Lock Screen are different in iOS 16 to provide space for some of these other features and make it easier to see the subject on your Lock Screen.  They now roll up from the bottom of the screen.

I don’t use Focus Mode on my own iPhone, but I know that others do so to manage their notifications.  Focus Mode has expanded uses in iOS 16 because you can have different Lock Screens associated with different modes.  Thus, you may have one Lock Screen that only shows content from Messages and another Lock Screen that only shows Calendar information.

The new Lock Screen will be one of the most notable changes in iOS 16.  I’m not sure that I will use all of the new features, but I suspect that I will enjoy some of them, and it is always nice to have the ability to personalize an experience.

Mail

I almost talked about the Mail improvements in yesterday’s post, but I think that I might use Mail on my iPhone even more than I do on my iPad.  Regardless of which platform you are using, there are lots of nice new features in Mail.

First, you can schedule emails ahead of time.  I’m a night owl, and I have often drafted a work email before I went to sleep after midnight, but I may not want to express the sense of urgency that some recipients may read into a middle-of-the-night email.  In iOS 16, you can tell Mail to send an email at a specific time.

Much like you can delete a message in Messages after it has been sent, you can now cancel delivery of an email.  I believe the way that it works is that Mail can automatically wait 10 seconds before sending a message after you hit the send button.  That way, if you change your mind quickly enough, you can still edit the message or change your mind about sending it.

Mail will also look at the text in an email—all on your device, so your Mail is not being read by anyone at Apple—and will prompt you if it appears that you mentioned an attachment but forgot to add the attachment.

If you receive an email but you are not yet ready to review it, you can tell Mail to resurface the message at a later date or time.

Finally, Apple says that the Search feature is dramatically better in Mail (and other apps).

Working with emails on my iPhone and iPad is an important part of my law practice.  I will be thrilled to start working with these new, useful tools

CarPlay

According to Apple, over 98% of new cars in the United States now have CarPlay available.  Moreover, 79% of buyers in the United States say that they would only consider buying a car if it has CarPlay.  I’m certainly part of that 79%; I love using CarPlay, and I do so every day.

Apple noticed that cars are starting to add larger screens and more of them.  Apple has been working with auto manufacturers to reinvent the CarPlay experience and provide deep integration with the car’s hardware.  You will be able to use CarPlay to do things like look at your speed, check your gas tank, change your car temperature, defrost windows, and more.  How it will all look depends upon your specific car model, but CarPlay can adjust to lots of different layouts, and the end result can be a dramatic new look for your (next) car:

Of course, it will be a while before cars are shipping with the new screens that support CarPlay, but it is nice to know that it is coming.  Apple is currently working with Land Rover, Mercedes, Porsche, Nissan, Ford, Lincoln, Audi, Jaguar, Acura, Volvo, Honda, Renault, Infiniti, and Polestar.

Apple Maps

When I use CarPlay in my car, I am often using a map to travel to a destination.  But what if I have multiple stops along the way?  In iOS 16, Maps will support multistop routing so that you can plan up to 15 stops in advance.  You can even plan the route on a Mac and then sync it to an iPhone. 

Home app

Apple’s Home app, a central place to control HomeKit devices, see your home video cameras, and more, has a new interface.  The main screen of the Home app has a single view on which you can see all of your devices.  And there are new options for grouping different accessories together.  There are categories for things like climate, lights, cameras, etc., and if you tap on a category, you see everything associated with that category.  And the tiles that correspond to accessories can now have different shapes to make some more prominent.

From what Apple has shown off so far, it looks like a much-improved interface.

Siri dictation

Even though it has been a very long time since I dictated a letter to a tape so that a secretary would type it, old habits die hard, and it still comes naturally for me to say out loud the punctuation marks when I am speaking.  But most people don’t do that, and Siri in iOS 16 will automatically add commas, periods, and question marks as you speak.  You can also use Siri to insert emoji as you are dictating.

Also, as I mentioned yesterday, you can dictate and use the keyboard at the same time, unlike the old system where nothing else could happen while Siri was listening to your voice.

Medications

An update to the Health app lets you manage, track, and learn more about the medications that you take.  You can even scan a prescription bottle to add a medication into the Health app.  If the Health apps detects that different medications may have adverse interactions, the app will warn you.

Conclusion

These are great new features, but this just scratches the surface.  iOS 16 includes tons of other new features, some of which we may not even realize how useful they are until we try them.  iOS 16 looks to be a great update for the iPhone.

Yesterday, Apple had a keynote event at its Apple Park campus in Cupertino, CA to introduce lots of new products and software features.  It will take some time to process everything that Apple announced, and I expect additional details to surface throughout the rest of this week as Apple holds its WWDC developer conference.  Today, I’m going to start by focusing on the announcement that Apple saved for last in the keynote presentation: the new iPadOS 16.  Combine the new features that are unique to the iPad and the features that are coming to the iPad, iPhone, and/or Mac, and the result is a significant update to the operating system for the iPad, especially iPads that use Apple’s M1 chip (the iPad Pro and the newest iPad Air).  Here are the highlights that I am looking forward to the most because I think that they will enhance the use of my iPad in my law practice or because they will increase the enjoyment that I get with my iPad.

Stage Manager

Up to now, multitasking on the iPad has mostly meant running two apps side-by-side.  There are a few exceptions, like the ability to put one or more apps in Slide Over mode, but there was always a sense that Apple was resisting any move away from a single app on the screen at the time.

Yesterday, Apple introduced a new way to manage windows on the iPad and the Mac for whenever you want to do so: Stage Manager.  With Stage Manager, you can have overlapping windows of different sizes on the iPad, much like you might have on a PC or a Mac.  But it is better than what you are used to doing on a computer.  On a computer, overlapping windows can get confusing when you have a whole bunch of windows on top of each other.  Stage Manager solves this by putting apps into groups.  You can work with one, two, three, or four windows at a time in the main portion of your screen.  To the left, you will see miniature versions of the other windows or groups of windows in order of how recently you used them, turned on their side so that they take up less space:

I cannot wait to try this out.  From the first look, this appears to be a great solution for going back and forth between different apps and seeing what is going on in one or more windows while you work in another one.  And I love the solution of just working with one window, or a group of windows associated with a single task, in the main portion of the screen while easily seeing the other open windows peaking out on the left side. 

Another advantage of Stage Manager over the current approach is that right now, when you have two apps running side-by-side, there is often confusion over which app you are using.  If you type on the keyboard, are the letters going to appear in the app on the left or on the right?  With overlapping windows, it is immediately apparent which window is on top.

Now that you can use more apps at the same time, do you need to worry about your iPad running out of memory when you use multiple power-hungry apps at once?  Apple has a solution for that too.  iPadOS 16 adds Virtual Memory Swap for iPads that have the M1 chip, which currently means the iPad Air (5th generation, introduced in 2022), iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation,  introduced in 2021), and iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation, introduced in 2021).  With this feature, Apple can use your iPad’s storage instead of RAM to help run software.  Computers have done something similar for a long time, and it’s nice to see Apple borrowing this for folks who want to run multiple apps that each can use up to 16GB of memory.

Stage Manager is optional.  If you prefer to use just one app at a time, you can continue to do so.  But if you want to jump into Stage Manager mode, it looks like you can just use a finger to shove in from the bottom corner of a full-screen app to jump into this mode.

More space to work

With the ability to use multiple windows at one time, you may find yourself wishing that you had more screen real estate.  iPadOS 16 gives you two ways to get some.

First, for the first time ever, you will be able to connect an iPad to an external display without simply mirroring what is on the iPad’s display.  External display resolutions of up to 6K are supported.  Thus, you can put your iPad on a desk in front of an external display and have some app windows on your iPad’s display and a bunch of other apps windows on the monitor behind the iPad.  You can even drag and drop between your iPad’s display and the external display.

Because we have never before had this ability, I’ve never before thought about how I might use it.  And I’m curious how it might work in practice.  I’m also curious if an iPad can use an iMac as an external monitor, much like a Mac can currently use an iPad as an external monitor.

Second, even if you don’t have an external display, the new Display Scaling Mode changes the pixel density of your iPad’s display.  That way, you can see even more at one time—although, of course, text and pictures become smaller. 

I believe that both external display support and Display Scaling Mode require using an iPad with an M1 chip, which—as noted above—means the higher-end iPad introduced in 2021 and 2022.

I certainly don’t imagine that I will use these two modes very often.  But in certain circumstances, I can see both of them being incredibly useful. 

Customizable toolbars

On my Mac and PC, I always love it when a program gives me the ability to customize a toolbar so that I have easy access to the commands that I want to use the most.  Traditionally, not many iPad apps have offered this feature, but I love it when I find it.  For example, one of the main reasons that I pay for the PRO version of the fantastic PDF Expert app is that I can create a custom toolbar with the pens and drawing tools that I use the most.  It makes me much more efficient when I am annotating documents on my iPad.

iPadOS 16 will allow you to customize toolbars in apps to display the buttons and actions that you use most often.  Apple only mentioned this feature for a few seconds, so at this point, I don’t know what built-in apps and third-party apps will take advantage of this feature.  I hope that lots of apps gain this feature.

Other cross-app improvements

The new customizable toolbars feature looks like a particularly useful feature that will make lots of apps better.  There are other system-wide improvements that I look forward to using.

For example, a new multiselect feature will allow you to select multiple items and have a context menu appear that lets you apply an action to all of the items at once.  A new find-and-replace feature in apps like Mail, Messages, Reminders, and others looks like a nice improvement with a search field above the keyboard and an improved interface for finding, moving, and replacing words.  Apple also said that undo and redo will work better in more apps such as Files, Photos, and Calendar.  And a new instant Search feature will show results in apps as you type.

Files app improvements

The Files app will become even more useful in iPadOS 16, adding features such as the ability to change file extensions, view folder sizes, additional options for sorting in a column, and more.  Apple has also improved the open and save panel, including the ability to rename folders inline.

iCloud Shared Photo Library

Now, I want to turn to a few features that technically work on multiple platforms, including both the iPhone and iPad, but which I think will be particularly valuable on the iPad.

Let’s start with photos.  Although I love to take photos on my iPhone, I far prefer to look at them on my iPad because of its large, high-quality screen.  That is especially true if, like me, you have the larger 12.9" iPad Pro with its Liquid Retina XDR display.  The Photos app on my iPad already works great when I want to see the pictures that I took, but what about when my family and friends want to see my pictures and videos or I want to see the ones that they took?  The new iCloud Shared Photo Library lets you share all or some of your photos and videos with up to five other people.  Thus, if you and your spouse both take pictures at an event or on vacation, you each have access to all or most of the photos. 

I say “all or most” because you may not want to share all of your photos.  iCloud Shared Photo Library will have different ways that you can manage who can see which photos and videos.  For example, you can choose only to share photos starting on a specific date, or only the photos that have the other person in them, or only the photos that you have both you and the other person in them.  There is also a new icon in the Camera app on an iPhone associated with your shared library.  Turn it on by pressing the icon (much like turning on the flash or other features in the camera app) and then photos that you take will automatically go to the shared library.

If one person in your group edits or deletes a photo, that applies to the photo for everyone in the group.  I’m not yet sure if this means that it also deletes the photo on the iPhone of the person who originally took the photo; I suspect that the edit or deletion only occurs in the shared library, but we’ll see.

There are lots of other features also coming to Photos.  A new duplicate detection feature allows you to find duplicate photos and clean up your library.  By default, your hidden and recently deleted albums are locked and you need to use Face ID / Touch ID / passcode to access them—a great privacy feature.  If you make edits to one photo, you can copy those edits and quickly apply them to other photos.  You can sort your People album alphabetically—which is something that I’ve been doing manually for years, wondering every time why I couldn’t do this automatically.  And if you like using the Photos widget but wish that it only showed you photos, you can now disable Memories and Features Photos from appearing in the widget.

SharePlay via Messages

When Apple first came out with the ability to use SharePlay with a video, it didn’t much appeal to me because it relied on FaceTime.  Although I can imagine a circumstance in which I might want to watch a movie with someone else in a different location at the same time, I don’t really need to see their face while I’m watching the movie, nor do I need them to see me.

In iPadOS 16, you can watch a movie or show, or listen to a song, at the same time as others using SharePlay via Messages.  This makes a lot more sense to me.  You can watch a show and send text messages to each other about what you are watching or listening to. 

There are related collaboration features coming to SharePlay via Messages, such as the ability to share notes, reminders, Safari Tab Groups, and presentations with others via Messages.  I have never really collaborated with others this way, so I don’t think I’ll do it in iPadOS 16.  But sharing a movie or music does sound interesting to me.

Copy text and objects

Currently, if you are looking at a picture that contains text in it—like a picture of a sign—you can use Live Text to copy the text and then paste it someplace else.  With the new Live Text for Videos, you can pause a video that you are watching and then do the same thing with any text that is in that frame of the image.  That’s a natural extension of Live Text.

Currently, if you are looking at a picture that has an object in it—like a dog in the middle of the picture–if you want to take just the dog and put him someplace else, like on a page of notes or in a presentation, all you can really do it crop the image to a square around the dog.  You need to use other apps or tools to remove the rest of the background.  But in iPadOS 16, you can now tap on an object in a picture to lift that subject from the background.  This works in Photos, Screenshot, Quick Look, Safari, and other apps, as long as you have an iPad with an A12 Bionic chip or later, such as the iPad Air (third generation, released in 2019).

I love the enhanced ability to copy just the part of an image or video that you want and then use it elsewhere.

Dictation

I often find that it is faster to dictate an email, text message, etc. than to type it.  And since Siri translates your voice to text on the device without sending what you say to the cloud, the system is private and I am comfortable using it for text entry in my law practice.

In iPadOS 16 and iOS 16, Apple has made it easier to talk, use the keyboard, and (on the iPad) use the Apple Pencil all at once.  You can more quickly go back and forth between typing something or dictating something because the keyboard remains on the screen and remains usable even while you are talking.  This will be useful in lots of different apps and allow you to be more efficient when you are entering text, no matter what tool you are using to do so.

Freeform

I’ve noted above the new features that interest me the most.  Another addition in iPadOS 16 looks interesting, although I’m not sure that I will ever use it myself.  it is a new app called Freeform.

Freeform lets you create a white board and share it with others.  Thus, instead of getting together in a room and writing on a board with markers, you can use your Apple Pencil to write on a virtual white board.  I rarely use a white board so I don’t think I’ll get much use out of Freeform, but I’m sure others will appreciate this new app.

Handwriting straightening

Apple says that if you handwrite something in a note, you can select what you wrote and then ask the iPad to automatically straighten your handwriting so that your notes look neater.  I could have really used this feature when I was in grade school being told by a teacher to improve my penmanship.

Other interesting features, especially on the iPhone

iPadOS 16 will get other new features that will be nice on the iPad but especially useful on the iPhone.  For example, in the Messages app, you will (finally!) get the ability to edit or delete a message after you send it (for up to 15 minutes).  I’ll discuss these features in an upcoming post on iOS 16, but they will also be great for iPad users.

Weather app

When the iPad was released in 2010, there was a weather app on the iPhone, but not the iPad.  It has taken Apple a dozen years to figure out how to accomplish this monumental task, but there is now also a built-in Weather app on the iPad.  Just think, maybe in a dozen more years, there will be a built-in calculator app on the iPad too.

Conclusion

I had my fingers crossed that Apple would introduce some features that would appeal to intermediate-to-advanced iPad users.  Apple has certainly done that in iPadOS 16, plus they added some crowd-pleasers that lots of folks will enjoy.  This looks to be a fantastic update that will make all of our iPads even better to use.

Apple’s WWDC is just around the corner, and in this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett and I speculate on what Apple might announce on Monday.  We also discuss using MagSafe to charge your iPhone, the differences between an iPad and a laptop, using your iPhone to recognize different types of flowers, plants, etc., Tim Hortons invading your privacy, the pros and cons of different styluses, and more.

In our In the Know segment, Brett explains how you can use a password to protect documents that you share with others.  I explain how to force quit an app on an Apple Watch and why you might want to do that.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just use your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

If you can feel the excitement in the air, it may be because we are on the verge of new Apple announcements.  On Monday, Apple begins its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern on Monday, Apple will hold a keynote address to announce something new.  We are certain to see news on the next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system—which I expect will be called iOS 16/iPadOS 16 and which I expect will be released around October.  But as for what new software features these updates will bring to our iPhones and iPads, only Apple knows for sure.  I’m excited by some very recent rumors of Apple bringing power user features to the iPad and improvements to the Apple Watch.  The keynote may focus on software improvements, but sometimes Apple announces new hardware at WWDC, so that is a possibility.  Maybe Apple will even say something about the AR/VR goggles that the company is widely rumored to be working on, although I suspect that one isn’t quite ready for a preview.  It will be exciting to see what Apple shows us … and then it will be frustrating knowing that we need to wait several months before we can actually use the new software.  And know, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks, who I’ve mentioned quite a few times this week on iPhone J.D., shares the good news that the spy show Slow Horses on Apple TV+ will have a third and a fourth season.  I loved the first season, I know that the second season was filmed at the same time as the first and can’t wait for it to be released, and I’m excited that there will be two more seasons after that.  Mick Jagger wrote the theme song, and it is pretty good as well.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors discusses what he hopes to see at the WWDC keynote on Monday.
• This week, Apple announced the finalists for its 2022 Apple Design Awards.  The winning apps will be announced next week at WWDC.
• I’ve been thinking about getting Apple’s $99 MagSafe Battery Pack ever since it was announced in July of 2021.  Amazon is currently running a sale, so you can purchase the Battery Pack for only $79.99.  I just purchased one, and I’ll post a review after I’ve used it for a while.  But if you already know that you are interested and were just waiting for the price to drop, the time is now.
• Speaking of MagSafe, Simon Jary wrote a great article on the best MagSafe and MagSafe-compatible chargers for Macworld in which he explains what you should look for when you buy a MagSafe product. 
• Federico Viticci of MacStories is well-known for making his iPad his primary computing device.  But for the last few months, he switched to using a MacBook Pro, and he explains what he likes and dislikes about a Mac versus an iPad.
• Kenny Wassus of the Wall Street Journal created an interesting video comparing the Apple Pencil with the Surface Pen and the Samsung S Pen.
• Jeremy Reimer of Ars Technica writes about the Apple Newton MessagePad, which was introduced 30 years ago this week.  The handwriting recognition on the Newton was criticized when the device was first released, but it got better over time, and the Newton was clearly the precursor of the iPhone and iPad.  Additionally, as Reimer notes in that article, working on the Newton led Apple to invest in a British company called Acorn which had a new CPU design that was fast but had very low power requirements.  The Acorn RISC Machine became the company ARM which is the core of the chips that Apple uses in every iPhone and iPad and its newest Macs.  Reimer’s article is full of great stories and is worth reading.
• Andrew O’Hara of Apple Insider explains how to identify plants and flowers using an iPhone camera thanks to the iOS 15’s Visual Lookup feature.
• Tim Hortons, a well-known coffee chain in Canada that also has locations in other countries, has a mobile app that tracked its users constantly according to an announcement this week by Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner, as reported by Jon Brodkin of Ars Technica.  The report concludes an investigation that began in 2020, and apparently, Tim Hortons modified its app in 2020 shortly after the investigation started to stop the constant tracking.  I know that Tim Hortons has a lot of admirers, so this shows that just because you like a company that doesn’t mean that you can trust the company to respect your privacy.
• I haven’t heard this yet myself, but Jason Snell notes in an article for Macworld that Apple has started inserting ads in some of its playlists and radio stations on Apple Music.  They are ads for other Apple radio shows and/or short interviews with artists, so it is not like your music is being interrupted by a commercial for a detergent, but it is still an interruption.
• And finally, here is an advertisement for AirPods with Spatial Audio released by Apple this week.  The video features the song Music for a Sushi Restaurant by Harry Styles, and it reminds me of the old iPod commercials that featured dancers in silhouette.  I believe that this video just uses stereo, but if you listen to that song on Apple Music, it sounds good in Spatial Audio:

California attorney David Sparks recently shut down his law practice so that he could devote 100% of his time to his various tech-related endeavors, such as the Mac Power Users podcast, the Automators podcast, and his MacSparky website.  Another one of his projects is a series of video tutorials that he calls the MacSparky Field Guides.  The Field Guides are courses that teach you how to use various types of technology.  I’ve written about many of them over the years, including his iPhone Field Guide, Paperless Field Guide, Photos Field Guide, and Shortcuts for iOS Field Guide.  Today, I am reviewing David’s most recent project: the Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide.

These Field Guides are excellent for a number of reasons.  First, David Sparks is a great teacher—a skill that probably comes, in part, from his being a successful trial lawyer for many years.  Second, David has great video production skills, so the quality of the Field Guides is amazing.  In some videos, David speaks directly to the camera, but in most videos, you see his screen so you can follow along and watch what he is doing as he describes what he is doing.  Third, unlike a traditional video course where you have one video to watch, the Field Guides are broken up into dozens of segments that are typically just a few minutes long.  The website that you use to watch the videos has an outline along the left side, making it incredibly easy to jump to different sections.  If you are a complete beginner on the subject of a Field Guide, you may want to start from the beginning and watch the videos in order.  But if you already have some knowledge of the subject, you can skip over the videos that seem more basic and jump right to the topics that interest you the most.  Having said that, if you are like me, you will initially skip over an introductory video, and then find yourself going back to it later just to get a refresher on the fundamentals because you didn’t know quite as much as you thought you did.

I was a big fan of the Shortcuts for iOS Field Guide.  Although I still don’t consider myself anything close to an expert with the Shortcuts app, that Field Guide helped to elevate me from a newbie to an intermediate-level user of Shortcuts on my iPhone and iPad.  More importantly, it gave me the confidence and the skills to create simple automations in Shortcuts to make me more productive with my devices.

Although I was happy to learn that Apple brought Shortcuts to the Mac last year, I had never tried it out before this week.  That is mainly because I use a PC at work, so my Mac use is a relatively small part of my day.  Additionally, I wasn’t sure that I would have much use for Shortcuts on the Mac.  As a result, when I learned that David was releasing this new Field Guide, I wasn’t sure that it would interest me.  However, David shared a free copy with me so that I could check it out, and I’ve been going through it this week.  I’m so glad that I did.  This new Field Guide is excellent, and it has opened up my eyes to a large number of ways that I now want to start using Shortcuts on the Mac.

The main thing that this Field Guide helped me to appreciate is the different triggers on the Mac.  There are some triggers that are on the iPhone but not the Mac, such as a location-based trigger, which you can use to have a shortcut run when your iPhone senses that you have moved to a specific location.  That type of trigger doesn’t work on the Mac, and indeed, for someone like me who uses an iMac, that type of trigger wouldn’t even make sense because my iMac always stays in the same location.  On the other hand, on the Mac—and unlike the iPhone/iPad—you can right-click on a file and then select a shortcut from the Quick Action menu.  That’s a very useful trigger that is perfect for a shortcut that changes something about that file, such as changing the filename, converting the file from one format to a different format, etc.  You can also trigger shortcuts on the Mac using a keyboard gesture, from the menu bar, or from another automation program such as Keyboard Maestro.  These Mac-specific triggers make Shortcuts on the Mac far more powerful than I had previously realized.  And it gives me all sorts of ideas for making my own simple shortcuts to speed up and improve my use of my Mac.

The Field Guide also includes information on how you can use Shortcuts with dozens of different apps on the Mac.  This is useful for the obvious reason that it shows you what you can do with different built-in and third-party Mac apps, but it also helped me to come up with more ideas for what I could do with Shortcuts.  The Field Guide also includes sixteen lessons on advanced concepts.

Much like David’s Shortcuts for iOS Field Guide, one of the most useful parts of the Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide is a section that includes almost two dozen sample shortcuts.  You can download and use these shortcuts as-is, or you can use them as a starting point for creating your own shortcuts.

Finally, David has a section that I haven’t seen before in his other Field Guides: interviews with five power users of shortcuts on the Mac.  David interviews Rosemary Orchard, Myke Hurley, John Voorhees, Stephen Millard, and Stephen Hackett.  The videos are around 15 minutes long, and they provide a different perspective on the best way to take advantage of Shortcuts on the Mac.  This is a great idea, and I hope that David incorporates it into future Field Guides.

I mostly used Safari on my iPad to watch the course, which worked well for me.  Sometimes, I would curl up with my iPad on my couch and watch the videos.  Other times, I had my iPad next to my iMac so that I could watch the course on one screen while working with Shortcuts on my iMac.  Of course, you can also watch the videos on a computer, and I did that a few times.  If you want to watch the videos while you are offline, you can either download individual videos or you can download different sets of combined videos.

If you are a complete novice on Shortcuts, this Field Guide is perfect for you.  If you are like me and you have used Shortcuts on iOS but not on the Mac, this Field Guide is a perfect way to help you with the transition.  And even if you are an advanced user, I suspect that you can still learn something from the advanced lessons and the power user interviews.  In other words, if you have any interest in using Shortcuts on a Mac, this Field Guide should be perfect for you.

You can purchase the Field Guide for $49, although it is currently on sale for $44.  Alternatively, you can purchase the “Plus” edition of this Field Guide for $99, currently on sale for $89.  The Plus edition gives you everything that I described above, plus you have the opportunity to participate in a series of Webinars hosted by David to discuss Shortcuts on the Mac—or, if you cannot participate in one or more of the webinars, you will be able to download them to watch them at a later date.

Bravo to David for creating what is clearly his best Field Guide yet.  

Click here to get Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide (on sale for $44)

Click here to get Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide Plus (on sale for $89)

California attorney David Sparks publishes the MacSparky website.  That site features a long-running series of posts in which David asks different people to share what their home screens look like and describe some of their favorite apps.  I first shared my home screen on MacSparky back in 2013, but obviously, a lot has changed since then.  Thus, David asked me to share an update on what I am now doing with my iPad and iPhone home screens. 

The biggest recent change that I made to my home screen was to start using widgets instead of icons, turning each home screen into more of a dashboard.  Indeed, my iPad home screen is now all widgets:

Check out the new post on MacSparky for all of the details on what I am doing with my iPad and iPhone home screens and why I am doing so.  If you are not currently using widgets on your iPad or iPhone home screen, you should consider doing so.  For me, it has been a major improvement.

If you are interesting in listening to or watching a podcast during what is a three-day weekend here in the United States, I recommend that you check out this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett Burney and I start by discussing something about Apple that we like (Apple’s efforts to protect user privacy) and something that we don’t like (the paltry 5GB in the free tier of iCloud storage).  Next, we look ahead to what Apple may have in store for the iPod operating system and possible new hardware in the HomePod line.  We finish up with some additional topics including AirTags success stories and changes to Google Street View.

In our In the Know segment, we both share tips for using an Apple Pencil with an iPad. Brett discusses the double-tap feature on the second generation Apple Pencil. I discuss using an iPad as a digital white board so that you can write things as they are mirrored to a TV.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just use your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

June starts in just a few days, and in celebration of Pride month, Apple has released two new Pride Edition bands for the Apple Watch in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Rikka Altland of 9to5Mac shows what the new bands look like. But even if you don’t buy a new band, all Apple Watch users can now use the new Pride Threads watch face.  It’s a really interesting design in which the numbers float around when the face is active.  Which reminds me, I wish that Apple would substantially increase the number of watch faces available for the Apple Watch, and a good way to do this would be to allow third parties to create and sell watch faces.  This is not a new request—people have been asking for this since the first Apple Watch came out in 2015—but a dramatically new watch face like Pride Threads that is so different from all of the others is evidence that clever designers could come up with countless interesting watch faces.  Apple is a big supporter of diversity, and that is one of the best parts of the company under CEO Tim Cook.  Diversity for watch faces is obviously less important than diversity for people, but it still ought to be something that Apple embraces.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• In an article for ABA Journal, New York attorney Nicole Black discusses some of the best apps that you can use for trial presentation from an iPad, such as TrialPad.
• Claire Stern of Elle magazine interviews Jane Horvath, a lawyer who is the head of Apple’s Privacy, Policy, and Regulatory team.
• California attorney David Sparks notes that in 2011, Steve Jobs announced that iPhones would get 5GB of iCloud storage for free.  And now, eleven years later, Apple still only provides 5GB, even though iPhone storage needs have gone up substantially during that time.  Sooner or later, it seems that Apple needs to change this, but when?
• Speaking of Sparks, Episode 640 of the Mac Power Users podcast recommends dozens of useful iPhone apps.  It’s a great episode.
• Time magazine’s cover story for the issue dated June 6/June 13 is the 100 most influential people of 2022.  Apple CEO Tim Cook made the list, and Time features a short video interview with Cook and two paragraphs about Cook written by Laurene Powell Jobs.  Of course, I’m going to mention Cook on a website like this, but frankly the entire list of full of incredible people, and the accompanying paragraphs are all written by other incredible people who know the honorees.  Of course, “influential” isn’t synonymous with “good,” so while Zelensky made the list, so did Putin.  But most of the folks who made the list are inspirational, and I look forward to reading about all of them.
• Apple will introduce some of the new features coming in iPadOS 16 in less than two weeks.  Michael Simon of Macworld shares his predictions for what might be included.
• There are rumors that Apple might announced a new HomePod at some point soon.  In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell speculates on what a new HomePod might include.
• Brian X. Chen of the New York Times discusses using Apple’s self-repair program to replace his iPhone’s battery in an article that is interesting but, in my opinion, unfair.  He complains that it is more expensive to use this program than to have a battery replaced by a professional at an Apple Store, but of course that is true given the economy of scale that comes from replacing lots of batteries by a trained professional, and Chen doesn’t even mention that Apple is clearly subsidizing the cost of this program.  He complains that the process is complicated, but of course that is true when you are taking apart something complicated in a small package.  He complains that the equipment Apple rents to you is bulky and heavy, but it is the exact same equipment that Apple uses in its stores; if Apple provided something less than what it itself uses, people would be complaining about that.  And he complains that he broke his iPhone screen as he tried to replace the battery, but then he admits a few paragraph later that his screen broke because he skipped a step in the instructions.  His article is still a good read because it demonstrates how complicated this process is, but I find his gripes unwarranted.
• After I wrote the prior paragraph, I saw that John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a similar take on article with a similar slant published on The Verge.
• Erin Jones of VERIFY explains that the personal information stored in most period-tracking apps is not protected by HIPAA (because the app developers typically do not constitute “covered entities” or “business associates” under the statute), notwithstanding what some of these apps assert.  Thus, these apps could share your personal data with third parties.  As the article notes, this is something to keep in mind should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
• Abner Li of 9to5Google reports that the Street View function in the Google Maps app on the iPhone now has the ability to show you historical pictures of a location in addition to the most recent image.  The new feature hasn’t yet shown up in the app on my iPhone, but perhaps Google is just rolling it out slowly.
• Joe Otterson of Variety reports that J.J. Abrams is executive producing a live-action “Speed Racer” series for Apple TV+.  There was a heck of a lot less to watch when I was a kid than there is today, but I used to enjoy watching that one.  I’ll be curious to see what they do with this series.  Go, Speed Racer, Go!
• An article by KATU in Portland explains that a thief stole a number of items over the course of a day last week, but his downfall was stealing a knapsack because it had an AirTag in it, allowing the police to track and apprehend the thief.
• Ross Feinstein of The Points Guy reports that his airline lost his luggage containing ski gear, but the luggage had an AirTag on it so he was able to help the airline to locate his luggage.  It turns out that the ski bag was still near the plane, presumably because it was a larger item.  With this information, the airline quickly had someone retrieve and bring him his ski bag.
• Katie Francis of WDW News Today reports that a woman was fidgeting with her Apple Watch while on a ride at EPCOT (The Seas with Nemo & Friends) when the watch fell off our wrist and onto the pathway below.  Her husband jumped off of the slow-moving ride and tried to retrieve it, but was told by an employee that the watch would be returned to their hotel room at The Contemporary Resort.  The Apple Watch was not returned, and instead, the victim says that a thief used Apple Pay on the watch to make $40,000 in purchases.  This does seem possible if the thief guessed her passcode, which I can imagine that happening if it is something simple like 1-2-3-4.  If you lose your Apple Watch, consider alerting your credit card companies.
• And finally, David Pogue of CBS Sunday Morning created a video discussing how an Apple Watch can continually monitor your health and act as an early warning device.  He interviews Dr. Sumbul Desai of Apple and others to discuss what the Apple Watch can do today and what it may be able to do in the future.  If you currently wear an Apple Watch or you are thinking about getting one, this one is worth watching.

As Brett and I begin our second year of the In the News podcast, we look to the future: Apple may be releasing some sort of AR/VR goggles, new accessibility features are coming to the iPhone, and Verizon will be more expensive but 1Password and Costco can save you some money.  Also, we discuss Apple’s new video on data privacy.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for ensuring that text messages received on your iPhone show up on your other devices.  I discuss and recommend the COMPLY Foam Apple AirPods Pro Earbud Tips that I’ve been using since I posted a review last year.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just use your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Mark Gurman of Bloomberg has a long record of reporting on unannounced Apple products.  Sometimes, the things that he predicts do not come to pass, perhaps because his source gave him bad information or perhaps because Apple changed its mind about a product.  But sometimes, the rumors that he reports on turn out to be incredibly accurate.  There have long been rumors that Apple is working on some sort of headset that would be used for augmented reality (AR) and/or virtual reality (VR), and this week, Gurman reported that this product is far enough along that it was previewed for members of Apple’s Board of Directors last week.  Gurman reports that the headset will run a version of iOS, the iPhone operating system, and that it could debut “within the next several months” and go on sale in 2023.  Gurman says that the headset “represents the company’s first major new product category since the Apple Watch in 2015.”  I would argue that the HomePod was also a new product category, and it was announced in 2017 (and went on sale in 2018).  Regardless, it is always interesting to see Apple launch a new product category, however one defines that.  But again, these are all rumors for now, so even if this product is the subject of R&D, that doesn’t mean that it will ever see the light of day.  I still have lots of questions about how useful a product like this would actually be—concerns that John Gruber of Daring Fireball also noted yesterday—but it will be interesting to see what it is.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Apple will announce many of the new features in iOS 16 at its WWDC Keynote address scheduled for June 6.  But this week, in connection with Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Apple announced many accessibility features that will soon come to the iPhone and other Apple products.  Illinois attorney John Voornees of MacStories has a report on these interesting new features.  For example, folks who are blind or low vision can use an iPhone to navigate the last few steps to a door, and the iPhone will even advise whether the door opens by pushing or pulling and will read signs and symbols on or near the door.  Apple will also add Live Captions to just about any video on the iPhone, including video calling apps like Facetime and streaming video services.  Accessibility feature may be designed for folks with specific needs, but they are often useful for everyone.  To pick one old example, closed captions on TV shows may have originally been created for the hearing impaired, but I frequently turn on captions when I am watching shows and I have trouble following the dialogue.  It will be interesting to see all of these new accessibility features come to Apple products over the next year.
• Two weeks ago, I noted that AT&T will raise the price on some of its cellphone plans.  Allison Johnson of The Verge reports that Verizon will also raise rates in a few weeks.
• Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac discusses the new Eve Outdoor Cam, which he says is the first-ever floodlight for a home that supports HomeKit Secure Video.
• José Adorno of 9to5Mac discusses a new report from Ookla (maker of Speedtest.net and the Speedtest app) of the airports with the fastest free Wi-Fi in the world.  San Francisco was #1, followed by Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.  The best ones outside of the United States are in Dubai and Amsterdam.
• V. Palladino of Engadget reports that 1Password is on sale for 50% off right now.  I’m a big fan of password managers, and I’ve been a happy user of 1Password for many years.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that you can now purchase subscriptions to Apple TV+, Apple News+, or Apple Arcade at a discount through Costco.  If you want all of those services, you are probably better of purchasing an Apple One subscription, which I discussed last year.
• If you are a fan of Apple TV+ shows and you live in the Los Angeles area, you should check out the Apple Store at The Grove, where Apple has lots of fun displays associated with many of its shows.  If you can’t make it to that store, Filipe Espósito of 9tor5Mac shared some great photographs that are worth checking out.
• Speaking of which, this week Apple released a trailer for Season 3 of For All Mankind, one of my very favorite shows on Apple TV+.  The new season debuts on June 10, and I can’t wait.
• While you are watching videos, you may want to watch this video for UserWay, a service that makes websites more accessible—not so much because of the service, but because someone whose voice you know very well makes a surprising appearance.
• And finally, Apple debuted a new video this week to highlight several iPhone features designed to protect your privacy.  The video, titled Data Auction, is funny and a good follow-up to the excellent privacy-focused video called Tracked that Apple debuted this time last year.