Apr 12, 2020

📱💻 Finer Tech Newsletter ⌚️📺 A new editing toolbar, a volume trick, and Apple Watch gets Dick Tracy mode

By David Chartier • Issue #63 • View online

Hey all you finer folks.

To get something out of the way: I have to admit that it’s been a struggle to write lately, and these bizarre times certainly haven’t helped. The world gives me more anxiety than I’d like to admit, and in some ways I feel like I’ve lost my voice.

But I’m working on it, and I’m happy to be back with a variety of tips for you and some good reads for these not-so-good times.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this newsletter on Mastodon, Tumblr, Micro.blog, or email. Let me know if you have questions or something you’d like to see covered in the future. If you know people who would enjoy this newsletter, I’ll owe you a beverage if you recommend it to them.

💡 Tips

📱 iOS 13: Use the new editing toolbar with a triple tap

Text editing controls in iOS have been, shall we say, a mixed bag since it was called iPhone OS. In iOS 13, we now have a simple, dedicated gesture to toggle an editing toolbar: a three-finger tap. Well, more like a ‘tap and wait a beat’ gesture.

This displays a toolbar at the top of your device with controls for undo, cut, copy, paste, and redo.

It works in most apps I’ve tried: Messages, Safari, Slack (surprisingly), Tweetbot, and Keep It, but not Things (also surprisingly).

📱 iOS 13: You can tap and drag the new vertical volume slider

There’s a new volume slider in many apps, thanks to iOS 13. On an iPhone, it appears next to the volume buttons on the left side of the screen. On the iPad, it’s at the top in both landscape and portrait.

Once you press a volume button to display the slider, you can tap and drag on it to change the volume more quickly.

💻 macOS 10.15: Apple Notes has a Gallery view

A list view of notes is fun and all. A Gallery view with thumbnails can be useful too, especially with notes that contain photos and other rich content.

Toggle between Gallery View and List View with the toolbar buttons next to the window controls, or with ⌘ + 2 and ⌘ + 1.

⌚️ watchOS 6: The Watch also got a Reminders revamp

Apple completely redesigned Reminders for all its devices last fall, and that includes the Watch. The new app overall is much more useful for organizing and sharing tasks with others, and the Watch app is a competent companion.

It got all the new major sections like Today, Scheduled, and Flagged. It can even display when a task has attachments like a location, photo, or a web link, although links are not tappable on the Watch.

⌚️ watchOS 6: Voice Memos comes to the Watch

Footage of early watchOS 6 testing

You can finally get your Dick Tracy on with the new Voice Memos app in watchOS 6. Memos are synced to your iPhone and all other Apple devices signed into the same iCloud account.

🔗 Links

Comment: Why I ditched the Kindle in favor of Apple Books on iPad Mini

I have been using a Kindle for many years now. Most recently, I was using a Kindle Oasis as my primary book reader. As I was looking at some upcoming books a few weeks back, I realized that I was not too fond of the purchasing process on iOS for Kindle.

9to5mac.com • Share

Stop Trying to Be Productive

The internet wants you to believe you aren’t doing enough with all that “extra time” you have now. But staying inside and attending to basic needs is plenty.

www.nytimes.com • Share

Note: This next story was so preposterous and oddly hilarious, I had to include it.

Burning calories: pig starts farm fire by excreting pedometer

Firefighters in North Yorkshire have tackled a blaze that broke out after a pig swallowed a pedometer which then combusted in its pen after excretion. The fire crews were called to a blaze covering 75 square metres at four pigpens in Bramham, near Leeds, on Saturday afternoon.

www.theguardian.com • Share

Augmented Reality: Meet the artists creating the future of storytelling

A small but growing number of artists are combining emerging technologies with creativity to make the world a brighter place. These illustrators, designers, and digital sculptors believe that augmented reality (AR) has the potential to unlock new forms of storytelling and self-expression.

9to5mac.com • Share

🤩 Thanks for reading

How did you like this issue? Was it useful and bite-sized enough? Are there certain kinds of tips or apps you’d like to see here? Let me know what you think on Mastodon, Tumblr, Micro.blog, or email.

Did you enjoy this issue?

By David Chartier

Quick productivity boosters for apps and Apple devices, served with a side of humor, links, and videos across culture, science, and more.

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