Jun 5, 2021

📱💻 Finer Tech Newsletter ⌚️📺 Speech-to-text, Darkroom, Things 3, Apple TV

By David Chartier • Issue #74 • View online

Hey everyone! Chicago has thankfully warmed up as the city gradually reopens and, yes, I’m vaccinated. I scored one of the new iPad Pros with 5G, and I’m pulling down anywhere from 5-20 Mbps from the lawn outside Shedd Aquarium. It’s pretty sweet.

Now, I know it’s been a while, my finer readers, and I don’t have a good excuse for that. But I’m back on the saddle and have quite the pile of tips to share here and on the site. As the YouTubers say, let’s get to it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this issue on Mastodon, Tumblr, Micro.blog, Twitter, or email. If you know people who would enjoy my newsletter, I’ll owe you a beverage if you recommend it to them.

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💡 Tips

📱 iPad: Use Siri speech-to-text anywhere

When working on an iPad with a keyboard, double tap the Control key to use Siri’s speech-to-text feature just about anywhere (this is the same as tapping the microphone on the software keyboard).

The first time you do this, you might be asked to download a language pack in order to enable this feature.

📱 Darkroom: How to hide individual adjustments, reset sliders

Darkroom is a powerful photo editor for iPhone, iPad, and more recently, Mac. When using its editing features, it has a couple great tricks for resetting individual edits and previewing how your photos look without them.

To reset an adjustment slider: Double tap the slider knob and it’ll snap back to zero

To see your photo without an adjustment: Say you’ve made a lot of adjustments and you’d like to see what each of them brings to the table. Tap and hold on the adjustment title (Contrast, Temperature, Highlights, etc.) to temporarily remove its effects from the photo.

📱 Twitter: Bypass its dumb sharing menu and skip straight to the iOS menu

Twitter doesn’t need to know the people and apps we like to share with outside of Twitter. To skip its custom shearing menu, just tap and hold for a beat on the sharing button, and you’ll go straight to the iOS share sheet.

💻 Things 3: Quickly apply tags with keyboard shortcuts

Things is my task app of choice, and it has a great trick on the Mac if you’re into organizing (and filtering) tasks with tags. If you go to Window > Tags, then click any box next to a tag, you can assign a letter or number shortcut for that tag.

Then, when a task is being edited or one or more are selected, use Control + a shortcut to instantly assign your tags.

💻 The iTunes Store is hidden, not gone

It’s still possible to buy songs and albums if that’s your thing, at least on the Mac. Just open Music, go to Preferences > General, and toggle it on. Click Ok, give it a moment, and it should appear in the sidebar.

📺 New Siri Remote: The new scrub UI matches your thumb’s position on the dial

Unlike apparently a lot of people, I actually liked the previous Siri Remote. That said, the new one is certainly an improvement in every way, especially when it comes to scrubbing a video.

With the new dial around the touchpad, it’s much easier to move back or forward to the specific moment you want. When you’re scrubbing, the timeline on the video displays a live dial icon that mirrors your thumb’s position. It’s a nice touch.

Note: The new scrubbing doesn’t work in every app yet. My guess is they’ll need to update to support it.

Screenshot via Karthik Subramaniam on Twitter

🔗 Good Links & Reads

You Should Take More Aimless Walks

To the uninitiated, walking is just putting one foot in front of the other. When the destination is the goal, walking is indeed a slow approach and sometimes considered a waste of time. Walking can also be interpreted purely as a form of exercise without the walker having any other expectation.

humanparts.medium.com • Share

I’m Not Scared to Reenter Society. I’m Just Not Sure I Want To.

This post-pandemic summer is evidently expected to be one long orgiastic reunion, after which, once that’s out of our system, it’s back to work, back to school, to what we used to call “normal.

www.theatlantic.com • Share

If you’re feeling behind in life, watch this.

The Bizarre History of Head Transplants

On a cold night in Cleveland in 1971, Dr. Robert White waited for signs of life. He stood, exhausted and still enrobed in a stiff surgical coat, over an operating table. Fluorescent lights bled color from the room, leaving it sterile, silent.

elemental.medium.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, Twitter, 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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