The Browser Company's second act
The Browser Company today announced they're working on something new. Arc hasn't reached the critical mass they'd hoped so they're taking another shot at it with an entirely new browser that's simpler for the average user to wrap their head around.
Throughout my career, I’ve had projects shut down while searching for market fit, bogged down by restrictive timelines, budget constraints, and misalignment with management. That’s why this shift feels exciting – watching a team get the runway they need to create something.
For me, the Windows release of Arc felt like a turning point. With the focus shifting to bring the Windows version up to speed, major feature releases for Mac naturally slowed. You could see this coming.
I get it. When I showed it to some of my family, they weren't sold – and that’s fine. While I'm nervous that Arc won't get any major updates or new features, I'm interested to see what's next.
Home screens: October 2024
I haven't done one of these in a while and figured it was time. I keep my devices fairly tidy, so I think I can get away with covering both my iPhone and iPad, since there's a lot of overlap in the two.
iPhone and iPad
Reeder
Reeder is quickly become my everything app. I use it to keep up with my social media, RSS feeds, podcasts, and more. I have it baked into parts of this website as well, like my bookmarks page. It is, unquestionably, my most-used app at the moment.
Tumblr
I've used Tumblr for a long time. Granted, I've deleted several of my blogs over the years a couple of times for various reasons, I've always had at least one running. In terms of art and general absurdity, there are few places better than Tumblr, which the app helps me keep on top of.
Spotify
I do not like the Spotify app or the company itself. The only reason it's on my home screens is that I have a family plan and use it to listen to music. I'm constantly working to move my family over to Apple Music but, for now, it lives here.
Arc Search
I stuck with Safari for a long time but switched to Arc on my Mac earlier this year. It took a bit for the sidebar to grow on me, but it has. With that in mind, it only makes sense that I use the Arc Search app on my phone and tablet to keep everything synced up. The app is snappy and well-designed. I like the summarize feature for news articles and the fact that it has a built-in ad-blocker.
Mail and Messages
I've tried other Mail apps and usually grow bored with the design or features. Apple's app is simple and does the job for me. As for Messages, iMessage is the only messaging service I use besides the occasional Discord chat.
Apple Passwords
I switched to Apple's password app when it debuted in iOS 18 earlier this year and never looked back. I'd been having progressively more issues with 1Password and, like many other third-party apps, never felt like it properly integrated with the system. Passwords is always there when I need it and, as a big user of the other stock Apple apps, I find the experience familiar and simple.
iPhone
Slack
I basically live in Slack for my day job, so it feels weird not to have it on the home screen of my phone.
iPad
Panels
Panels has been a mainstay on my iPad since it launched. It's difficult to stress just how good the app is and how much it's improved over the years. If you read comics or manga on an iPad, this app is a must.
Widgets
Currently, I have a smart stack on my phone that shows me the weather, since it changes at a moment's notice here, and a calendar to keep track of my work meetings. I've dabbled in them on iPad but, at the moment, I keep things lean and mean.
Apple breaks Beeper’s iMessage app again as company tries rallying users
[Migicovsky] wrote that it was up to the press and the community. “If there’s enough pressure on Apple, they will have to quit messing with us.” “Us,” he clarified, meant both Apple’s customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends.
“That’s who they’re penalizing,” he wrote. “It’s not a Beeper vs. Apple fight, it’s Apple versus customers.”
I mean, no? As an iPhone user, I already have access to iMessage and can communicate with my friends on other apps if needed. Beeper hasn’t improved my life in any way so I’d say this does little to help Apple’s actual customers. If anything, this is Beeper creating a broken, unreliable experience for Android users. They actually aren’t Apple customers.
What concerns me a bit is that, as the article mentions, “[Beeper is a] third party introduced into what was previously an entirely Apple-controlled stack of servers, messages, and devices”. I didn’t sign up to have my messages sent through a company that’s reverse-engineered iMessages for non-Apple devices. It’s almost Beeper versus Apple’s customers.
Gee, I wonder why Apple wouldn’t be cool with that?
App defaults 2023
Some background on this post: I saw Manuel Moreale’s list earlier today and thought it was a neat little idea. After a bit of digging, it’s actually a neat big idea with over 120 others sharing their own. So, here’s mine, with a couple adjustments.
- Mail client: Apple Mail
- Mail provider: iCloud
- Notes: Apple Notes
- To-Do, shopping lists: Apple Reminders
- Photo management: Apple Photos
- Calendar: Apple Calendar
- Cloud storage: iCloud
- RSS: Reeder (with Feedbin)
- Contacts: Apple Contacts
- Browser: Safari (personal), Chrome (work)
- Chat: iMessage, Discord
- Bookmarks: Safari
- Read later: Instapaper
- Word processing: iA Writer
- Subscription tracking: Outgoings
- Music: Apple Music
- Podcasts: Apple Podcasts
- Password management: 1Password
- Design: Figma
- Code editor: Nova
I rely heavily on Apple’s services but switch to alternatives (and back) often. For example, I recently switched back to Apple Music and Podcasts from Spotify, to Apple Reminders from Todoist, and to Apple Notes from Obsidian.
Other notable, recent switches include going from Raindrop and Pocket (don’t ask) to Instapaper for reading later, and Notion to Outgoings for tracking my subscriptions.
Update
I've started keeping an up-to-date list of my defaults here.
Discord users not happy with CEO's crypto tease
Discord CEO Jason Citron shared an image for crypto features in the app, particularly with Ehtereum, which sparked community backlash and concerns about its potential for NFTs.
What place does this have in a chat app?
Popular Podcast App Pocket Casts Joins Automattic
Eli Budelli for Wordpress.com:
Pocket Casts will be joining Automattic, making it easier for podcast fans to discover new content and customize their listening experience.
Interesting portfolio of products Automattic has been building with these recent acquisitions, like Tumblr, Day One, and now Pocket Casts. I’ve loved Pocket Casts for a long time, it’s nice to see them secure a path to longterm growth and success.
GG moving from Discord to Guilded
In recent months the mod team has found that our community has grown too large for Discord’s functionality, and have been looking for the best course of action to stay organized.
The number of members in the GG Discord, as of this writing, is 970 with roughly 250 users online at any given time. For comparison sake, the Minecraft Discord server has 700k members, the maximum that the app allows for, with around 150k online. Discord is built to support communities considerably larger than GG.
This is a bad move and one that worries me when considering how future decisions and changes are made within GG itself. Rather than uprooting the entire community and forcing users to switch apps, add a couple more mods to Discord and tidy up the existing channels to keep things under control.
Twitter's night mode coming soon to iOS
Last month, Twitter added a night mode for Android users, hoping that it would drive people to use the app and boost its flagging user-base. The update wasn’t extended to iOS users, who were left it in the dark (no pun intended). Now, it looks like Twitter might finally be adding night mode to its iOS app soon: it’s included in the latest beta build for iOS.
I can’t wait for this. Twitter’s dark mode, available right now on Mac and Android, is a great feature. Fingers crossed we see it in the next major update to the iOS app.
Pocket Casts 6 brings dark mode, multitasking, and more to its iOS podcast app
Pocket Casts is a cross-platform podcast player with apps on iOS, Android, the web, and even Windows Phone, and today Shifty Jelly released a major update to the iPhone and iPad version. Pocket Casts 6 is out today and includes loads of changes including a refreshed user interface, a dark theme, multitasking features on iPad including Picture-in-Picture and Split View, and much more.
Pocket Casts has been my go-to podcast player for a while now and while it always got the job done, the UI left much to be desired, specifically on iOS. The new app, built in Swift, doesn’t reinvent the wheel but does bring a much cleaner, modern, more comfortable look to the app. Rows are given greater margins, the app typeface has been switched and, as mentioned, they’ve included a dark mode option, which looks great.
Facebook is killing Paper
Paper was beautifully designed and almost universally adored by the design community for its novel animations, clean UI and immersive experience that provided an entirely ad-free way to view your newsfeed. The app transformed the typical newsfeed into a Apple News-esque reader, complete with customizable sections for a variety of topics from food to politics.
I think I understand why they’re moving away from the app, likely because Paper doesn’t encourage the velocity normal users require while browsing Facebook, but damn if it isn’t disappointing. Paper was unlike anything Facebook has ever done and likely will ever do again.
Twitter's Android app gets Material Design inspired update
Twitter has announced its native app has been overhauled with a “revamped look and feel” in order to move its aesthetic in line with Android’s Material Design guidelines.
The earlier version of the Android Twitter app, in my opinion, suffered from a number of issues revolving around general usability, buttons were placed in awkward locations, buried in other sections, were tough to reach with one hand, etc. With this new update, thanks in large part to the Google design spec, it seems many of those issues have been alleviated.
The new design looks great, it’s much simpler to use, and will give users a much more consistent experience alongside the other apps on their devices.
Podcasts hit Google Play Music this week
Micah Singleton for The Verge:
Podcasts have finally made their way to Google Play Music, the company announced today in a blog post. Google began recruiting podcasters last October after it initially revealed plans for the service, and has managed to sign up a ton of podcasts, including major shows like Marc Maron’s WTF, Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist, and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio, among others.
I was pretty excited about this announcement but I’ve had a ton of issues getting episodes to actually play. Also, there’s no ability (as far as I can tell) to mark episodes as played and I’m also not entirely sure how/if you’re notified when new episodes are available for listening.
Overall, this feels like a soft launch more than a fully developed release. It reminds me a lot of when Google initially launched Drive back in 2012 and people complained about the lack of features compared to services like Dropbox, which had been around for quite awhile at that point.
I’m sure Google’s take on podcasts will get there, it’ll just take some time to catch up. In the meantime, i’ll be sticking with Pocket Casts.
Sunrise will be shuttered in favour of Outlook on mobile
Blair Hanley Frank for Macworld:
Microsoft hasn’t said exactly when it plans to end support for the app it acquired last year, but the company has put Sunrise users on notice that it will leave the market after its features get “fully integrated” into Outlook.
Once upon a time, Sunrise was my go-to iOS calendar replacement. When Microsoft bought the team in early 2015, I had hoped it meant more than the app getting swallowed up and merged into Outlook. It’ll be a sad day when they pull the plug.
Reeder 3 available on iOS
First off, the update adds support for using Instapaper as a sync service. Instapaper joins services like Feedbin, Feedly, and Feed Wrangler as services supported by Reeder. The update also introduces a Safari View Controller, meaning that you no longer have to exit the Reeder app itself to view links. Instead, they will open directly within the app, making for a much more seamless experience.
[…]
Various other interface tweaks have been made, as well. There are now font size options, unread and starred counts for smart folders, a new archive folder, font options for the article viewer, and more.
If you’re not using RSS, and specifically Reeder, already for your news consumption, you should be. The new update adds a handful of really great features to enhance the overall experience for any iOS device, not just the latest and greatest.
Tweetbot for Mac 2.0
Twitter for Mac continues to suffer from its on-again, off-again death. They clearly don’t consider it a first-class citizen compared to the other clients. So I highly recommend the new Tweetbot for Mac 2.0, which I’ve been trying out the past week or so. First-class all the way.
Yes, it’s $12.99. But you should be okay paying for a piece of software you’re going to use a ton. Plus, it’s OS X Yosemite-pretty.
I’ve seen a ton of press for Tweetbot’s OS X version since it launched back in 2012 and it has been overwhelmingly positive. It’d be interesting to see the install numbers for Twitter’s official app which, as Siegler mentions, has been almost completely ignored since it arrived in the Mac App Store several years ago.