I’ve heard from some Labs members that want to do more with dictation on their Mac, but are getting hung up on the fact that the words appear on the screen as they speak. …
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I’ve been digging deep on developing Action Button shortcuts for my iPhone 15 Pro. In this video I share all the tricks.… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?
On this episode of Mac Power Users, Stephen and I discuss macOS Sonoma, which brings with it Desktop widgets, a new screen saver and desktop experience, more powerful video conferencing tools and updates to Safari, Messages, Notes, Reminders and more.
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Here’s what I sent out to Labs Members in September of 2023:
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It’s time for the latest Lab Report from MacSparky, covering this week’s Apple news and updates…This is a post for MacSparky Labs Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?
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Jesse J. Anderson is back on Focused to talk about troubleshooting productivity systems and his new book for helping adults with ADHD find focus.
With macOS Sonoma, we got widgets on the desktop for our Macs but no easy way to toggle them on and off, short of digging around in System Settings like some sort of monkey.…
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I received a request from a Labs member about automating his VPN when he opens a specific work app… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?
Hooray! It’s macOS Sonoma release day. This new operating system has some great features, including better dictation, small (but nice) improvements to the Apple productivity apps (Kanban in Reminders!), a bunch of messaging and video conferencing updates, PDF tools, and desktop widgets. Stephen and I will cover them in depth on this weekend’s episode of the Mac Power Users.
But there is a more significant point here. Apple had an extraordinarily successful beta season in 2023. They promised some solid updates in June at WWDC and delivered on them from the beginning. None of the new features required a “boil the ocean” effort by Apple, but all of them provided a lot of bang-for-the-buck, quality-of-life improvements.
Moreover, they got it all out with very little drama. They didn’t have to delay the iPadOS launch until weeks (or months) after the iOS release. Moreover, this macOS version is shipping just a week after the iPhone. At the same time, they are also going full tilt at an entirely new operating system with visionOS.
I am impressed with the effort all of that took. I would love to know the story behind all of this. I’ve got four pet theories, none of which have a lick of evidence:
They’ve been updating multiple major operating systems for over a decade now. I expect they’ve learned quite a bit.
That experience also gives management a better idea of what to expect and aim for while giving engineering a better idea of what they can pull off in the time allotted.
Apple has taken on some big tasks over the past decade as they’ve moved to SwiftUI and made significant architectural changes to the programming interface and the chipset. All of that is behind them now, which should make things easier from this point.
This theory is probably a stretch, but I think the fact that Apple has looming deadlines related to visionOS gave the company even more focus across the board. That showed up in the decisions and work done on everything else.
I expect all of these factors (and probably a few more) played a role in Apple’s success this year, but I hope their management is paying attention and figuring out how to make this the new norm.