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.

Watch History Journal →

Alongside this week’s Magic Rays of Light—our first as part of MacStories—we debuted Watch History Journal, a shortcut I made for logging what you watch in your favorite journal app.

From my writeup in the latest edition of MacStories Weekly:

Watch History Journal uses your Trakt profile to generate images of titles you’ve watched on a given day and share them to your journaling app of choice. Run it once a day when you’re finished watching (or set it up as a personal automation that runs in the background before bed), and it will create a journal entry that includes everything you’ve watched. It integrates with Day One, Everlog, and the Journal app…

This shortcut rounds out Apple’s journaling suggestions system for me and turns my journal into a true one-stop shop for what I’m doing, experiencing, thinking, and making. I love journaling in this way.

If you’d like to try Watch History Journal for yourself, you can download it here. And for more details about how it works and how it was made, check out MacStories Weekly: Issue 401 featuring my article along with a lot of great writing from my new colleagues.

Thank you for following along with what has been just an incredible week. I’m so grateful to be where I am, and the best part is that this is only the beginning.

Streamlining Workouts with Apple Fitness+ Plans and Stacks

Apple Fitness+ is one of my favorite services the company offers. The classes are top-notch, the trainers are some of the most likable people you’ll ever meet, and most importantly, it actually motivates me to stick to a workout routine.

The service is also constantly improving. Not only are there new classes each week, but new features get added all the time. I’m honestly surprised how much Apple have invested in Fitness+ from a technological perspective over the three years it’s been around.

Two major additions that came last year were custom plans and stacks, two of my longstanding wishes for the service and features that make my experience with it better every day.

Custom plans take the work out of choosing workouts. Instead of picking individual classes, you set a schedule of how long you want to work out and on which days of the week. Then you pick what types of workouts you want to do, and the app does the rest for you. Each day you’re scheduled to work out, Fitness+ will present you with a series of classes custom-built to fit what you want to do.

You can customize your plan further by choosing which equipment you want to use, trainers you prefer to work with, and types of music you’d like to work out to. There’s so much variety on the service that you can knock out a lot of classes without hitting repeats. And the best part is that you don’t have to scroll through a long list to find what you want; the app does it for you!

I’ve been using a custom plan to do a combination of core, yoga, and meditation daily for the past couple of months, and it’s been so helpful. The plan removes that initial step of picking a workout so I can focus on what really matters: getting my body moving. With that mental hurdle out of the way, I find it much easier to get started.

Meanwhile, stacks allow you to do several workouts back-to-back by, well, stacking them on top of each other. To start a stack, you simply long-press on a workout and choose Add to Stack. Once all your workouts are added, you can press the stack button in the top right corner and get going.

When I’m doing multiple workouts in a row, it can be distracting to have to stop, choose the next workout, and then start again. With stacks, I can easily flow from one workout to the next without interruption. I don’t even have to touch my TV remote or iPad screen. The button to start the next workout shows up on my Apple Watch, so I can move on with a quick press of the wrist.

Both of these features are great additions to the service, and I’ve been using them for a while. But it was only recently that I had the idea of combining them. I opened my workout plan for the day, and instead of tapping the Let’s Go button, I long-pressed on each workout and added it to a stack. When I finished the stack of workouts, I returned to my plan to see that each one had been marked as complete. Perfect!

Now I have the convenience of not having to choose my workout classes or manually switch between them. I can run through my entire exercise routine for the day in one go. And when I’m done, I have the satisfaction of knowing I did something good for myself that day.

For me, it’s not about closing my rings or hitting a certain spot on the burn bar. It’s just about making a positive choice and getting my body moving. That’s enough, and that’s the satisfaction Apple Fitness+ brings to me day in and day out.

If you’re a Fitness+ user, I highly recommend trying out custom plans and stacks, especially in combination with one another. They’re really great enhancements to an already top-tier service.

And if you haven’t given Fitness+ a try, maybe now could be time. Apple offer a one-month free trial, and the service is approachable in a way I’ve never experienced with anything in the fitness world before. It truly does have something to offer for everyone.

Thanks for reading, friends, and remember: Stay active, close your rings (if that’s helpful for you), see you next time!