Parker Ortolani, writing at 9to5Mac, imagined an Apple-designed smart display:

When a smart display isn’t in use, it should show a beautiful clock and/or pertinent information of your choosing. Apple already knows how to make beautiful clocks. They could extend the same watch faces that make Apple Watch such a beautiful timepiece to a larger display. Some of the complications could make the jump too, like Fitness rings.

There’s a lot to like about Parker’s concept. He’s right that all the pieces already exist within Apple’s ecosystem between aerial screensavers from tvOS, watch faces from watchOS, apps from iPadOS, and compelling hardware of course. One thing that I would add to the concept is widget support, which would be perfect for more dynamic, glanceable content.

Personally, I’ve had my eye on a Google Nest Hub as a kitchen device since the right solution from Apple doesn’t exist. While sticking an iPad in the kitchen is close, what it’s missing is a hands-free mode (Siri doesn’t cut it), and an ambient mode. For an ambient mode, I’m thinking of how the Nest Hub displays photos or a home status dashboard when not in use. A digital photo frame that ties into iCloud Photo Library would help my wife and I to more frequently enjoy all the memories we’ve captured over the years.

For FaceTime calls in a kitchen environment where people are rarely stationary, Center Stage would probably do the trick. But additional flexibility from a physically moving stand, like the Echo Show, would be welcome, too.

If such a device was introduced by Apple (running homeOS?), I’d be sorely tempted. Check out Parker’s piece for more on how Apple could pull together technologies from their various product lines and services, plus concept images.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

Oliver Haslam, writing at iMore:

As we found out yesterday, not all macOS Monterey features will not be available to those on Intel Macs. Portrait Mode in FaceTime, some Maps features, and on-device dictation are all out and that’s just the start. The missing features can be blamed on Intel chips and their lack of a Neural Engine in some cases. In others, it’s just a case of good old-fashioned performance — Apple is only confident that its M1 Macs can handle features like the high resolution, detailed all-new city maps experience it showed off on Monday.

The reasons for the features going walkabout on Intel Macs isn’t really important here. It’s the messaging. Or lack of it.

We all found out that Intel Macs were getting left behind two days after macOS Monterey was announced. Why? Because it was hidden at the bottom of the update’s preview page on apple.com.

I actually think this was a calculated decision. Apple is rumored to still have more Intel Macs to introduce. Understandably, they wouldn’t want to draw additional attention to OS features that those brand-new Macs won’t be able to use.

I’m sure when the whole lineup is powered by Apple silicon, Apple’s marketing team won’t pull any punches when compared to the competition.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

1. I discovered this post from Arun Venkatsen about Apple’s 1987 Identity Guidelines. Arun has a beautiful blog where he often discusses beautiful designs. I love to see the thought and attention to detail that companies put into their brands, and Apple—as you might expect—had a lot to say about its identity even as three-year-old company.
2. Doom now runs on an Ikea smart light bulb. Yep, you read that right.
3. In a totally unexpected move, Apple will soon allow custom domains with their iCloud+ service. If you use iCloud for your email (and pay at least $1 per month for extra storage), you’ll soon have the option to use something other than the @icloud.com domain in your email address. Perhaps an @heydingus.net address is in my future.
4. Some really powerful accessibility controls are coming to Apple products later this year. Giving users the ability to operate a device using only basic sounds and mouth noises in case they are non-verbal is so thoughtful.
5. Incredible attention to detail on this project where Armin, an Apple fan, meticulously recreated Apple I manuals by hand. He took scans and overlaid the correct typefaces on top, moving each letter individually to match the original typewriter positioning. He’s done the work and saved a bit of history. [Via 9to5Mac]
6. We got a first look at The Shrink Next Door, a dark comedy starring Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, and Kathryn Hahn. With that lineup, I have no doubt it will be excellent. The show comes to Apple TV+ in November.
7. A couple great Twitter follows are That Gay Guy Candle Co. and One Fresh Pillow. I don’t have either of their products, but they both put out excellent tweets and play off each other all the time. It’s a riot.

7 Things

Dan Moren, writing at Six Colors:

iCloud Private Relay helps combat both of these loopholes through the use of a dual-hop architecture. Essentially, any traffic from Safari on an Apple device, as well as DNS queries, and a subset of app traffic (specifically insecure web traffic), will be routed through two separate servers: an ingress proxy managed by Apple that hides your IP address (by essentially slapping its own IP address on the request), and an egress proxy, run by “a content provider,” which only sees the server you’re trying to access.

I typically use a VPN when I’m at an airport or on other public networks and otherwise rely on cellular service. But it’s hit or miss that I remember to turn it on at all. A built-in solution that requires no configuration or user input will be a welcome addition.

It’s good to see that Apple has thought through the implications of iCloud Private Relay, including a solution for schools and other managed networks to disable it. But, users will also be notified and given the option not to use that network.

I am looking forward to turning this on, leaving it on, and removing my existing VPN.

Go to the linked site →

Linked WWDC

Igor Bonifacic at Engadget:

When you sit down to watch a movie or TV show, the included head tracking feature will lock in after it detects you’ve been looking in the same direction for a while. Once you get up to walk around, it will reactivate.

It turns out there was no hardware limitation after all. Apple just hadn’t gotten around to implementing it on tvOS yet. I can’t wait to give it a try this fall!

Go to the linked site →

Linked

I can’t stop thinking about how Apple has further democratized app development with their introductions at WWDC this year. Here’s Dan Moren at Six Colors on how Xcode Cloud means Mac developers can do more with less:

Obviously, moving parts of this process to a cloud-based system can bring significant advantages. For one thing, you’re not strictly limited by the hardware on which you’re writing your code. While developers often favor getting the most powerful system to help build their apps faster, letting users take advantage of the cloud opens the door for those who may not be able to afford high-end systems.

Speaking of opening the door, another (potentially more significant) new avenue for creating apps is with Swift Playgrounds on iPad. You’ve always needed a Mac to publish an app to the App Store, but that’s no longer the case. This, I think, will be a big deal.

For one, the entry price for a development machine just dropped significantly. The least expensive Mac starts at $699. The iPad starts at $329! So droves of people will soon be able to write and publish apps for the world’s most lucrative platform on a device that costs less than half the price of a Mac mini.

Second, think of all the people who use the iPad as their primary computer and can now become developers on their preferred platform. Three groups immediately come to mind:

• Children who grew up with iPads and can fly around iPadOS.
• Older folks who are drawn to the simplicity of the iPad and might be intimidated to learn to navigate the Mac.
• Students learning to code in Swift Playgrounds who can continue their education by building a complete app right there.
• People who prefer the direct manipulation and focus brought by iPadOS.

Many people used to think the iPad was suitable only for content consumption, not creation. While there are sure to be many caveats and asterisks about publishing an app from Swift Playgrounds, I think we’re at the precipice of a new generation of creative app development from people who have just had their world expanded.

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Though they didn’t get much time at last week’s keynote, Xcode Cloud and app development in Swift Playgrounds promise to bring more power to more people who create the digital tools we all use daily.

WWDC

Om Malik somehow captures my inner musing in his blog post. He successfully articulates why I started my own blog, and how I try to think of it in relation to social media:

In other words, one is a performance for an audience, while the other is highly personal, though others may end up finding it interesting.

But the meat of his piece is about how future media and news consumption will continue to look more like YouTube and TikTok than anything else, which in turn have their roots in blogging:

For the future of media — including blogging — look to YouTube, Snap, TikTok, and Instagram. By the way, the content on these platforms is often created and engaged with in a spirit much more analogous to that of traditional blogs than anything you’re likely to see on Twitter.

Om’s full post is worth the read.

Go to the linked site →

Linked Blogging

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

Then there’s the Globe key. Hold it down in any app in iPadOS 15, and you’ll see a different set of commands, all of which can be applied globally. (Get it?) These menus are full of shortcuts to switch to the home screen (Globe-H), open a Quick Note (Globe-Q), activate Control Center (Globe-C), and pretty much any other system-level area.

and

On the Mac, systemwide shortcuts and individual app shortcuts can collide and interact in strange ways. It’s kind of a mess. On the iPad, Apple seems to be saying that global shortcuts use the Globe, and apps use the other modifiers. That makes… a lot of sense.

I think Jason is onto something here. Upon learning that Globe-Q was for Quick Note rather than Quit, like on the Mac (they did duplicate Command-H as Globe-H to go Home after all), I wondered how it would play out as a new modifier. I’d be interested to know if apps are prevented from using Globe key — that’d be another sure sign.

One other thing to note is that Apple’s new Macs and standalone keyboards come with the Globe key. I’d be surprised if these global commands didn’t also come to macOS in due time.

Oh, and I’ll +1 on global Shortcuts commands and media controls for the iPad, please.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

Hey, would you look at that — I designed a shirt! A shirt that you can actually buy and wear. It’s available on-demand at Cotton Bureau.

The HeyDingus Shirt is adorned with the blog’s new colorful logo, and available (at the time of posting) in a variety of colors as a t-shirt, sweatshirt, tank top, and even a onesie. The standard tee goes for $29, a small portion of which would come back to me in support of this site.

I’ve been a big fan of Cotton Bureau’s products for quite a while. Many of my favorite podcasters and bloggers have made apparel for their fans to purchase, and they’re both high-quality and super comfortable. I don’t presume this blog has fans yet, but it is still incredibly exciting to put a physical product out into the world — even if I’m the only one to buy one.

But, I certainly don’t want to be the only one, so if you like the design I’d sure appreciate if you’d share with your friends. They don’t have to know about HeyDingus, or even what a blog is to enjoy a colorful logo shirt. You can tell them it represents calm waves if you like.

If you do end up purchasing one, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to post a picture of you wearing it and tag @HeyDingusNet on Twitter.

Merch

Last night I went on a journey into Shortcuts and API requests while trying to solve a problem I have in managing images for this blog. One of the limitations of Squarespace, my website host, is that it’s very reliant on its online editor, including for adding arbitrary images to blog posts. Adding images to posts that use Markdown blocks, as mine do, is particularly clunky. 

I wanted an image solution that was Markdown-native, so that I could keep everything in the text file and adjust while in the writing flow. Shortcuts was the obvious place to turn, as it has Markdown actions, and I do many posts from an iPad. Furthermore, Shortcuts will be fully cross-platform when it comes to the Mac this fall. A few months ago, I found a shortcut by Matt VanOrmer on Peer Reviewed that seemed to solve the problem. Matt’s shortcut takes an image and uploads it to Imgur using the Imgur action included in Shortcuts. It returns the appropriate HTML for pasting into a text editor. 

This solution was good for a while, but I always felt a nag in the back of my mind that I didn’t have any control over what Imgur did with the image files. The hotlinks could suddenly stop working, seeing as using Imgur as a Content Delivery Network (CDN) wasn’t kosher with their Terms of Service. I needed a solution that I could control and rely on before getting too far down the road. I knew I needed to find a traditional CDN.

After some research, I found ImageKit.io which promises fast delivery, has a generous free plan, and an API. I’d heard about using APIs with Shortcuts, but never delved into using them myself. I quickly created an account and located my private API key; it was time to put the rubber to the road.

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Below, I give you the full saga so that if you, too, are just starting to make more advanced shortcuts, you can learn from my mistakes. If you’d rather skip right to the goodies, here are the Upload to ImageKit and Upload Image to Text shortcuts that I created.

UPDATE: These two shortcuts have since been streamlined into one standalone shortcut.

Using the Get Contents of URL Action

I knew that the key to making API calls in Shortcuts laid within the Get Contents of URL action, so I started there.

Luckily ImageKit’s documentation for a server-side upload was clear about that first endpoint URL: https://upload.imagekit.io/api/v1/files/upload. That’s where I needed the file to end up.

I wanted to post a file to CDN, so I chose POST as the Method, and File as the Request Body. I immediately ran into a wall: I couldn’t figure out how ImageKit’s parameters fit into the Headers and Request Body. I scoured the internet for screenshots or explainers for making a similar API request. Surely someone else had used ImageKit for this or showed how they upload images to a CDN via Shortcuts. I couldn’t find anything in all the usual places, but this YouTube video did come close.

Many trials of guess-and-check later, I was still banging my head against the wall. The shortcut was reaching ImageKit, but always returned an error about missing the fileName parameter or incorrect authorization. I had to be missing something simple. 

I was. It turns out that Headers are primarily for authorization, and require specific formatting. The Request Body is where other parameters should go.

Parsing ImageKit’s documentation with my non-technical eyes (what the heck is a cURL?), I realized that I needed to use Authorization as the key, and Basic username:password as the value for that key. Username is the private API key, and there is no password. I also needed to Base64 encode that user:password string, which, luckily, is trivial in Shortcuts using the Base64 Encode action.

By using Form (not File as I originally guessed) for my Request Body, I was able to add file and fileName for my required parameters, and used variables generated by the shortcut for their values. More on those variables below.

Finally, I had success. Shortcuts didn’t error out, and I was able to see my test image in my ImageKit library. Huzzah!

Click here for a screenshot of the full shortcut.

Building Out the Rest of the Shortcut

File Variable - I’m a proponent of building many individual shortcuts as building blocks so that they can be called by multiple other ones. That’s how I typically use this shortcut; I call it as a Run Shortcut action in an adapted version of that Imgur Uploader shortcut that I got from Peer Reviewed. That shortcut does some heavy lifting by getting the image, preparing it for the web by converting it to JPEG, resizing, and then passing it to the Upload to ImageKit shortcut as its input variable. That shortcut also takes the URL returned by this one and gives me a few options for formatting it (plain URL, HTML image, or Markdown image).

Auth (Base64) Variable - I’m using the app Data Jar to store my private key. That way, I can reference it across multiple shortcuts and have only one place to change it if needed. Plus, I can freely share this Shortcut without revealing the key. However, you could just paste your private key directly into the first Text action and remove the Data Jar action altogether. Just don’t forget the colon (:) at the end of your private key to satisfy the user:password format that the API expects.

File Name Variable - ImageKit needs a name for each file uploaded to the library. I enter one in an Ask For Input action, but with the default text set to the file’s existing name. That speeds things up if the file is already named on my device.

Output - A shortcut is only as good as the output, so when Get Contents of URL returns some JSON, you need to do something with it. I used the Get Dictionary Value action to specify that I wanted to get the value for the url key out of the JSON. This is the direct link to the item just uploaded, which is ultimately what I need so that it can be formatted into a Markdown image link.

Checking for Errors - Since I’m running this shortcut from the Share Sheet most often, I need some indication if something goes wrong. The final action returns an alert if I don’t get a URL back from ImageKit.

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I hope you enjoyed going on this journey with me. Despite some initial frustration, I enjoyed learning more about making web requests, and how these actions work together. I plan to share more Shortcuts tips as I learn!

Get the Upload to ImageKit shortcut (Original Version) →
Get the Upload Image to Text shortcut (Original Version) →

UPDATE: I have since streamlined these two shortcuts into one. The latest version can be found on RoutineHub.

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I’m new at this, so please forgive me if I used some technical language incorrectly here.

Shortcuts Blogging