Watch History Journal 1.1

When I released Watch History Journal, my shortcut for logging TV shows and films in your preferred journaling app, I had no idea if anyone else would find any use for it. To my pleasant surprise, a lot of people have reached out to let me know that they're using and enjoying the shortcut. Turns out, we love journaling about the shows and films we watch.

To help make that experience the best it can be, I’ve continued working on Watch History Journal, and I’m excited to release its first update today. Version 1.1 includes a few changes:

• Image Sorter: Title images are added to your journal app in watch order.
• Adjusted character counts for show and movie titles to allow for longer titles.
• Revamped time zone logic to work for all regions.

Image Sorter was the first thing I added to the shortcut after its release, and it came from my own experience using it. I noticed that my journal entries weren’t displaying title images in the order I watched them; in fact, they were showing in reverse. I added a small loop to reorder them, and now, shows and films appear in watch order as they should.

While using the shortcut, I also noticed that some titles were being shortened unnecessarily. It’s hard to know exactly when to cut off a title because not every character is the same width on the image. But there was certainly some wiggle room, so I upped the limit.

The final improvement in this version came after I mentioned Watch History Journal in my recent column for the Club MacStories Monthly Log. Club member Vlahn reached out to let me know that the shortcut wasn’t returning any results even though there were a couple of episodes logged for that day. Thanks to Vlahn's kind help, I was able to narrow down the problem to a time zone issue, and I realized that Watch History Journal wasn’t compatible with certain time zones.

This led to a complete redo of the way the shortcut handles time zones, as well as a thorough testing process. I wanted to ensure that no matter where you are in the world, Watch History Journal will return the titles you watch on a given day in your location – something it was intended to do all along. I believe this version delivers on that.

These are just a few little fixes that make the experience of using the shortcut a bit better (and a possibility at all for those in affected time zones). This update is an iterative one, but I hope it will be the first of many. I’ve never put out a tool for other people to use like this before, much less followed up on it, and I quite enjoy the whole process.

You can download Watch History Journal 1.1 here. Once installed, it will require you to go through the setup process again, so be sure to have your Trakt API information handy. (I suggest copying it over from the previous version.) If you ever wonder which version of Watch History Journal you’re running, just tap the … button on its listing in the Shortcuts app, and the very first text action will list the version number.

My thanks to everyone who’s tried Watch History Journal, and especially to those who’ve let me know how they’re using it. It makes me happy to know that other people are out there reflecting on what they watch, too.

I love working on this shortcut and plan to continue doing so. I’ve got a couple of ideas of thing I’ll try to add next. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see in a future update, be sure to let me know!

A Paramount+ Update

Well, they finally got me. After granting me with well over a year of free access to the service due to a technical glitch, my Paramount+ suscription has expired.

My wife and I were settling in Monday night to watch the latest episode of The Equalizer when I was greeted with a message saying I needed to resubscribe. "Oh wow," I literally said out loud. "They finally figured it out."

To be fair, I had been trying to rectify the situation from day one. I only cancelled my original subcription to Paramount+ so that I could activate the plan that comes included with my Walmart+ account. But every time I checked the Paramount+ account page over the past year, it confidently told me that I'm still subcribed. That is, until Monday.

It seems that I'm not alone in receiving this message. Other former subscribers have written in to let me know that they, too, were able to access the service long after cancelling, but it all ended recently. The fact that we were all subscribed through Apple TV Channels and received cancellation notices around the same time makes me think this must be a system-wide fix.

So I was finally able to do what I'd been trying to do all along: I logged into my Walmart account, chose the option to link it to Paramount+, and reactivated my subscription. Within a couple of minutes, I was watching Queen Latifah take down the bad guys again, and all was well.

The only downside of this change is that I'm now on the ad-supported tier of the service, which is a significant step down from the experience I'm used to. It felt like watching linear TV again, with the show constantly stopping to show me the same few ads for things I'm not interested in.

Thankfully, Paramount+ did recently add the ability for Walmart+ subscribers to upgrade to the ad-free Paramount+ with Showtime tier for an additional fee. I image I'll be taking advantage of that option before long.

It makes me happy to see these fixes and improvements come to the tech behind Paramount+. Streamers have been too lax when it comes to ensuring their services are built on firm foundations, but I hope this is one sign that the tide is changing.

If the future of TV is streaming – and I believe it is – it's going to need to be even more solid than the technology that came before. Here's to hoping it continues to move in that direction.

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Update 1: My thanks to Matthew and Steve for reaching out about losing access through their own cancelled Apple TV Channels subscriptions. This post has been updated to reflect that the loophole seems to have been closed system-wide.

Update 2: A big thank-you to Rick for pointing out the option for Walmart+ subscribers to upgrade to Paramount+ with Showtime. A previous version of this post incorrectly stated that this was not possible; the error has been corrected.

Extending Everlog →

Today, I wrote about my expanded approach to journaling in the Club MacStories Monhtly Log:

What I found was that I could turn my journal into something much more than just a place to write. Through a combination of Everlog’s built-in features, Apple’s journaling suggestions, and Shortcuts, I’ve crafted a rich timeline of my life that’s easy to put together, beautiful to look at, and so much fun to revisit.

My excitement for Apple-generated journaling suggestions in Everlog has proven to be well-placed. Over the past few months, my journaling practice has continually grown to incorporate more and more of my life. I love where I've ended up with it, and if you'd like to learn more about my approach, you can check out the column on Club MacStories.

A New Role at MacStories

You might remember that a couple of months ago, I joined the team at MacStories when my podcast, Magic Rays of Light, became a part of the site’s family of shows. The response to that move has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, and I can’t say thank you enough.

Now, I’m grateful to make another announcement: I’ve taken on a new role at MacStories in addition to podcast host. I’m helping out with editing stories for the website and Club MacStories! I’ve been lending a hand behind-the-scenes for a couple of weeks now and am absolutely loving it.

It’s an honor to get to work with our excellent writers so closely and help them in a small way to get their stories out there. I’ve held MacStories and its team in such high regard for so long; it’s a dream come true to have the chance to take part in that work.

I’m incredibly excited to share this news with you and even more excited to take on this new role. It’s been so inspiring and fulfilling already, and this is only the beginning.

You can check out the work that the MacStories team is doing at MacStories.net and on Club MacStories. That’s where I’ll be – in addition to Magic Rays of Light and here, of course.

Thank you for reading and for all of your continued support. It means so much. Here’s to new challenges and exciting things ahead!

Six Months

My son turns six months old today, his half-birthday. How has it already been this long? Where has the time gone? When people told me it would go by too quickly, I knew it was true. I just couldn’t imagine how true it would be.

Seeing Noah grow, change, and learn these past six months has been the greatest pleasure. Nothing brings me more joy than knowing that he’s happy and thriving. He is such a blessing to me and to everyone he meets.

These first six months with my son have been the best of my life. Here’s to many more.