Apple first teased the next-generation CarPlay a year and a half ago. Now Aston Martin and Porsche have both officially signed on, and it looks pretty nice. My guess is it will be years before this becomes more common, but it can’t come soon enough for me. We bought a new Kia this year, and I generally like the car, but the in-dash display feels silly compared this.
image: Car and Driver
Chef, creator, and entrepreneur Justin Khanna joins Mike and me on this episode of Focused to share focus lessons from the culinary world.
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2023 proved to be very busy for Apple, with updated hardware and software shipping, as well as a look at an entirely new platform coming early next year in the form of visionOS. This week on Mac Power Users, Stephen and I take a survey of the company’s year.
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On this episode of Automators, Rosemary and I explore the how and why of moving Automators to Notion and the automation possibilities this brings to the show.
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I recently discovered In Your Face, a simple Mac App that ensures you don’t miss your next meeting. It gets *in your face* in the best possible way…
This is a post for MacSparky Labs Level 3 (Early Access) and Level 2 (Backstage) Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?
I’ve been using OmniFocus since the first beta. That’s over 15 years in one app. If you know me, you know that’s not usually the thing I do. When it comes to apps, a part of me always feels like I’m missing something just over the horizon. I’ve spent more time than I should have looking at the competition, yet I always end up with OmniFocus. If you’re on the Apple platforms, I don’t know of anything better. That’s even more true with version 4.
My hat’s off to the Omni Group on this release. It was a difficult road, but they’ve released a great update. I’ll have more to say on this in future posts.
I often hear from listeners/readers looking for a research solution in the Mac ecosystem. My favorite app for this, without a doubt, is DEVONthink. DEVONthink is the most professional document and information management application for the Mac. It’s the one place for storing all your documents, snippets, or bookmarks, and working with them.
The Integrated A.I. assists you with filing and searching, while the extensive search language with advanced Boolean operators.
DEVONthink features a Flexible sync system that supports many cloud services – or lets you synchronize over the local network too – with everything securely encrypted. This gives you the choice for however syncing works best for you!
It has Smart rules and flexible reminders that let you automate all parts of your workflow and delegate boring, repeating tasks. Let DEVONthink automatically organize your data with rules you define!
DEVONthink’s AppleScript dictionary is one of the largest on the Mac. There’s no part of DEVONthink that can’t be automated. Extend DEVONthink’s functionality with your own commands by adding them to its Scripts menu.
Even templates can have scripts inside and you can set up new documents with data from placeholders, or inserted by your own AppleScript code.
DEVONthink To Go, the iOS companion app, has really seen a lot of updates this year. The latest version, 3.8, adds in-document search to text documents, formatted notes, and RTFs. Search using quotes and Boolean operators. When you open a document from a global search, DEVONthink To Go reuses the query to highlight occurrences in the document. You can now also undo and redo many item actions, from moving and replicating to converting and more. It even now shows replicated or duplicated items in color, just like on the Mac.
I find DEVONthink’s combination of innovative features and automation support irresistible. Interested? MacSparky readers can get a 20% discount on DEVONthink.
There’s a new feature heading to iOS 17.3 after the New Year that will make it harder for someone to shoulder-surf your passcode and change your Apple ID on you. This is directly aimed at the vulnerability Joanna Stern wrote about in the Wall Street Journal. The new feature will require Face ID to get to saved passwords, and changing your Apple ID password will be subject to a security delay unless you do it from a familiar location, like home or work.
You’ll need to turn it on when it ships, but my initial take is that it seems like the right balance of security and convenience. I doubt we’ll see 17.3 before February.
Now that Apple’s Journal app is in the wild, it’s time to test it out in the MacSparky Labs…
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On this Mac Power Users feedback episode, Stephen and I revisit Apple Notes and talk about Name Drop. Also, I share the good news about a new battery pack.
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