Feb 16, 2020

📱💻 Finer Tech Newsletter ⌚️📺 Music while you shoot video, Control Center convenience, new Mac tricks

By David Chartier • Issue #62 • View online

Hello all you finer readers! I’m sick this weekend, and hopefully It’s just a cold or flue and not the beer virus. Nevertheless, the newsletter must go on, so here we are.

I have a collection of iOS 13 and macOS Catalina tips today, as well as some good reads and links. Allons-y!

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: Listen to music while recording video

As of iOS 13 and the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, we can finally record video and listen to music.

While you’re grooving (ideally with headphones), open Apple’s camera app to Photo Mode. To shoot video, tap and hold the capture button. Your phone will record video and ambient audio like normal.

To give your thumb a rest, slide the button to the lock on the right for continuous recording.

📱 Listen to YouTube videos as audio with Castro Plus

Castro is an excellent podcast app with some clever, unique features. One is the ability to play the audio of YouTube videos, effectively treating them as audio podcasts. Castro Plus is required.

To podcast-ify a YouTube video, simply open it in YouTube’s app or Safari. Tap the Share button, then Sideload to Castro. It’ll appear in Castro’s inbox along with anything else queued up.

📱 iOS 13: Choose WiFi networks, Bluetooth devices from Control Center

Finally. Finally (as of iOS 13).

Pull down Control Center
Force Press on the block in the upper left that contains these features
Force press on the WiFi or Bluetooth icon
Enjoy

💻 10.15 Catalina: New window controls for Split View, Slideover

In macOS 10.15 Catalina, Apple added easy toggles for working in Split View and for the new Sidecar feature that uses an iPad as a second display.

To see these toggles, simply hover over the green window button. The bottom three options here will place the current window into Split View or move it to your nearby iPad.

💻 Use an iPhone or iPad as a scanner or sketch pad for a Mac

Apple has built a number of Continuity features that combine the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and even Apple Watch in clever ways. These are things like using your Watch to unlock your Mac and, in recent years, Continuity Camera.

This allows your Mac to use an iPhone or iPad as a scanner and even a quick sketching tool. A variety of Apple apps support this, and it’s up to third-party developers to add it to their apps.

To try this feature:

Open Apple Notes on your Mac
Grab your iPhone or iPad
In any note, go to File > Import from iPhone or iPad
Choose an option like Take Photo or Sketch
Enjoy

🔗 Links

The World’s Most Efficient Languages

How much do you really need to say to put a sentence together? Just as fish presumably don’t know they’re wet, many English speakers don’t know that the way their language works is just one of endless ways it could have come out.

getpocket.com • Share

Randy is Sober - Full Show

Randy is one of my favorite recent discoveries in comedy, and this is a particularly good show (it’s a hair over an hour long). He really plays with the advantages of a puppet, but NSFW warning: he curses and does occasionally get lewd. Maybe watch with headphones or in private.

What Happens When You Spend a Year Using Science to Improve Your Brain

How plastic is the brain? Here are two things that are both true. Neuroplasticity is real — that is, the brain really can change and learn and improve based on experience. And there’s little evidence that brain-training games are any better than placebo.

getpocket.com • Share

Albert Camus on love and the absurd

Albert Camus wrote in his journals that if he ‘had to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank’. On the last page he said he would write, ‘I recognise only one duty, and that is to love’.

iai.tv • Share

🤩 Thanks for reading

Thanks everyone for reading issue 62, and I hope the Roarin’ 20s 2.0 are treating you well.

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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