The New Reeder

Ever since I started using RSS to read articles from my favorites sites, Reeder has been my go-to app for catching up on my feeds. A brand new version is out today, and it takes the app in a whole new direction. From my review on MacStories:

The best word to describe the new Reeder is "ambitious." Its purpose is not just to be your RSS reader, but your inbox for keeping up with feeds of many different kinds from various sources across the Internet – text from websites, sure, but also videos on YouTube, audio from podcasts, posts on social media, and more. It's a one-stop shop for the feeds you follow online, collecting them together into a single timeline that you can seamlessly browse across all of your devices.

For more details on the update and my thoughts after using it daily for some time, check out the full review. It was a privilege to get to cover the app for the site, and I had a lot of fun putting the story together.

Collections

In today’s issue of MacStories Weekly, I kicked off a two-part series on Collections, a database app I’ve been trying and found to be extremely useful. I’ve used it to build four databases so far, two of which – a collection of MacStories articles that I’ve edited and a log of my cars’ maintenance appointments – are documented in the story.

It’s less a review of the app and more an introduction to how it works using practical examples from my day-to-day life. My hope is that it will inspire some readers to try Collections themselves and use it to build something cool of their own.

Check out the story on Club MacStories, and be on the lookout for part two coming next week in the Monthly Log!

---

Update: The second story in this series is now available as part of the June 2024 Club MacStories Monthly Log. It covers how I’m using Collections as a budgeting tool and a creativity log recording everything I’ve published online since 2008, plus some more techniques for getting the most out of the app.

Bridges

Today sees the release of Bridges, a new app from Jonathan Ruiz for saving, organizing, and formatting links. I’ve had the opportunity to test the app throughout its development over the past year, and it’s become an integral part of my creative workflow. Now that it’s available to everyone, I’d like to share how I’m using Bridges and why I’m sticking with it.

The concept of a link-saving tool isn’t a new one. I’ve tried plenty of them myself. But what sets Bridges apart from the rest of the pack is its focus on making it really easy to get links back out once you’ve saved them. It isn’t a vault for locking links away forever; it’s a funnel for storing links and then putting them to good use.

After all, the purpose of collecting links is to do something with them. Whether you’re building a list of interesting articles to read later, gathering research for a project, or putting together show notes for your podcast, you eventually want to act on the links you save. That’s where Bridges shines.

But let’s back up a bit. Before you start using your links, you’ll need to save them. Bridges offers a couple of different ways to do that. You can copy a link to your clipboard, open Bridges, and use the Add Link button to save it manually. (Hint: You’ll want to go into the Settings app and give Bridges permission to access your clipboard without asking each time.) Or you can use the share sheet extension, which works best for my use case.

View fullsize

I mainly use Bridges to assemble show notes for my podcast, Magic Rays of Light. Those links come from various different sources: the TV app, social media, my RSS client, text messages, and more. But whenever I find a link I want to save, the process is always the same: I open the share menu and choose the Bridges icon, which has made its way to the top of my share sheet.

One nice touch when adding links to Bridges is the ability to rename them. The app will automatically pull in the title of the webpage you’re saving, but you can easily change it before hitting Save. For example, I have a specific way I label trailers in my show notes, but the video titles from YouTube don’t always match that format. Thanks to Bridges, that’s no problem; I simply change the name as I’m importing the link, and the title I choose is permanently saved with the link.

There’s an additional method for saving links that I’d like to see added to the app: Shortcuts. Bridges doesn’t currently include any Shortcuts actions, though I’ve been told by the developer that they are on the roadmap. When they come, I think the most obvious way they’d be helpful is for adding links to the app. This would give users the ability to save links without going through the manual process of the share sheet and maybe even sort them into folders automatically. This is a feature that I’d love to have.

Saving links is just part of the equation, though. You also need to organize them, something the app helps with handily. Every link in Bridges is saved into a folder to keep things nice and tidy.

The app comes with two folders out of the box: Junk Drawer and Read Later. Junk Drawer is the default folder that links will be saved to from the share sheet unless you choose a different one. Think of it as an inbox where you can keep links that haven’t been organized yet. Read Later is, as the name implies, as place to save things you’d like to read at some point in the future. It’s really just a suggested use case for the app to help you get started.

You can create as many folders within Bridges as you want. When you choose the New Folder button, you’ll be prompted to choose a name, icon, and color for the folder you’re creating. SF Symbols serve as folder icons with a variety of categories to peruse and a search bar to help you find just the right one. Apple’s system color picker is built-in, too, which makes it easy to find the right shade.

Links can be moved between folders at any time, so you don’t have to overthink your file structure too much. My suggestion would be to start with a few broad categories and add more over time if you find a need for them. Creating new folders is an enjoyable process, especially when you track down the perfect icon, like when I found the Apple TV icon for saving recommended TV shows and films.

While links are organized into folders, folders themselves are further organized into collections. Collections give you the ability to group folders into sections, which can be used to break things down by project, link type, or different areas of your life.

In my Bridges setup, I have a collection called MROL (short, of course, for the name of my podcast). Within the collection, I have a folder for each segment of the show: upcoming releases, recommendations, news stories, and so on. This two-tier structure keeps my podcast links separate from any others that I save while also allowing me to more finely sort those links into different sections for my show notes. I really appreciate this organizational approach.

Browsing your folders in Bridges is a treat thanks to the unique way it displays links. Folders are shown in a vertically-scrolling list that show each folder’s name and icon, as well as the number of links it contains. But within each folder’s listing is also a horizontally-scrolling view of preview images for each the links contained in the folder.

View fullsize

This method of displaying information is similar to the way Apple shows album art within collections in the Music app, but it’s not something I’ve come across in a productivity app. It gives Bridges a whimsical flair, and it’s genuinely useful. It allows you to quickly scan the links in a folder without having to actually open it. This UI is outstanding.

From the list of folders, you can choose a folder to open its full list of links. Or you can choose one of the link preview images and go directly to that link’s detail view. These two views are where the app’s final—and most important—bit of functionality comes into play.

As I stated above, the whole purpose of Bridges is to not only to enable you to save and organize links, but to help you format them for use and sharing as well. While the saving and organizing tools are top-notch, this last set of features is what makes the app indispensable for me.

There is no one way to share a link, despite the fact that most apps only allow you to share the raw URL. Sometimes, you do want the URL to paste into a web browser. Other times, though, you might want a nicely-formatted hyperlink for an email, an HTML tag for use on a website, or a Markdown-style link for the blog post you’re working on.

Or if you’re feeling particularly spicy, maybe you want to share a link in JSON. Why would you do that? I don’t particularly know. But I there are people a lost smarter than me who use JSON for all kinds of stuff, so I’m sure the use cases are quite cool.

Thankfully, Bridges offers the ability to share links in all of these formats quickly and easily. From a link’s detail view, you can copy it in hyperlink, Markdown, HTML, JSON, and URL formats by choosing the Copy button next to the format you need. This screen also includes options for editing the link’s title, opening it in your browser, and deleting it. Whatever you want to do with your link, you can do it here.

The array of sharing options that Bridges offers is impressive, and it covers a huge number of uses cases. But the app doesn’t stop there. In addition to copying individual links in your preferred format, you can share all of the links in a folder at once.

At the top of each folder screen is a Copy button that brings up the same formatting options as a link’s detail view. Once you choose an option, Bridges will copy all of the links in that folder to your clipboard in the selected format. Then you can take those links and do whatever you like with them.

In my case, that’s putting together show notes each week. For you, it might be sending a gift wish list to your family or something completely different. Whatever you want to do with your links, there’s no faster or easier way to share them in the perfect format than with Bridges.

I do wish it were easier to clear links out of folders once I’m done with them. Since most of the links I save only stay in Bridges for a week, I’m constantly deleting them one-by-one using the swipe options in the folder view. This is another case where Shortcuts actions would come in handy, and I hope to see them added in a future update.

This app has done wonders for my podcast show notes workflow. No longer am I keeping a jumbled list of links in Notes or trying to remember to paste them into a Markdown document and type the format manually. And as proud as I am of my previous Shortcuts-based approach to building show notes,sometimes it’s easier just to use a tool that’s built for the task.

Bridges is built perfectly for a need I have: saving links for show notes. But I’ve been enjoying it for general link-saving as well, and I believe its use cases go far beyond my own. I think a lot of people can benefit from the app’s tools for saving and organizing links, and it’s a must-try for anyone who regularly needs to share links in a particular format. It’s simply the best app I’ve found for dealing with links, and I highly recommend giving it a try.

Bridges is available on iPhone and iPad for $3.99 and as a separate purchase on the Mac for $3.99. (The Mac version features a different UI from the iOS version but includes all of the same features.) Links, folders, and collections are synced across devices with iCloud.

Sequel

Being a TV fan in the age of streaming can be confusing. It’s not as simple as when everything was just on cable. There are so many shows on so many services with so many release schedules that it’s hard to keep up. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools out there to help.

The main app I use for keeping up with my favorite shows is Apple’s TV app. It’s excellent for finding and launching titles, and the app’s Up Next queue is the perfect way to make sure I never miss an episode. But that’s just part of the equation.

The Apple TV app is a great reactive approach to TV tracking: A new episode comes out, and I watch it. But sometimes, I want to be more proactive. When does the next episode of my favorite show come out? Has it been renewed for a new season? And what’s the release date for that series I’m really looking forward to? Those are questions I often find myself asking—and usually looking up on the web.

But I’d much rather use an app, a centralized place to quickly and easily find all of that information for all of my shows. What I need is a TV tracker. The problem is that I’ve tried many of them over the years, and none of them stuck. That is, until now. At long last, I think I’ve found the right one for me.

Sequel is an iPhone and iPad app created by Romain Lefebvre for tracking not only TV shows, but also movies, video games, books, and audiobooks. It’s the ultimate media tracker. I’ve been trying it out for the past month, and it’s the first time one of these apps has ever clicked for me. The app is just so good.

For the sake of this article, I’ll mostly be focusing on the TV-tracking features of Sequel, since that is my primary use case. However, the app works much the same way for other media types as well.

Getting started with Sequel is as simple as searching for the item you want to track and adding it to your library. Search is one aspect of media trackers that I’ve always found tricky, but Sequel really nails it. The process is simple, straightforward, and quick at finding just what you need.

View fullsize

Search results in Sequel for The Last of Us.

When you hit the + button, in Sequel, you’re immediately taken to the search box without having to specify what type of media you’re looking for. Just type what you want, and the app will show the most relevant results across all media types. If you want to get more specific, you can choose to filter the search to only show a certain category, but that step usually isn’t necessary.

For example, if I search for “The Last of Us,” the app will show me results for the video game, the HBO show, and a couple of books based on the game. Results are even color-coded so I can quickly identify what type of media each result is. And I can choose any of the filters across the top of the results if I only want to search for a specific type.

The search view integrates with JustWatch to show where you can stream TV shows and movies in your region. It also shows upcoming releases and trending titles for each media type in case you’re looking for suggestions. It might not seem like a big deal, but the way Sequel handles searching is a big part of what won me over. I can find exactly what I’m looking for quickly and without hassle.

Once you’ve found a title you want to track, you can add it to your library. Sequel creates a separate library for each media type, so you can have up to five libraries total in the app. But in a nice touch, Sequel will only create a library for media types that you’ve purposefully added. Since I only use the app to track TV and films, I don’t have empty libraries for books, audiobooks, and games. Those features won’t appear unless I choose to use them. This keeps the app nice and clean, which I greatly appreciate.

View fullsize

The library view for Series.

The library view is where things get really fun. When you add a title to your library, it goes into your Watchlist (or Wishlist for books and games). This list is broken down into several sections:

• Out Now shows recently-released titles that you haven’t watched yet.

• Watch Next lists the next episode of series you’re currently watching, much like Apple TV’s Up Next queue.

• Upcoming gives you a glimpse of future releases. It can be configured to show upcoming seasons or upcoming episodes.

• Released is a list of all the titles you’ve added to your library that aren’t in the Upcoming view.

Titles that you’ve completed will move from the Watchlist to the Watched section of the library (or the Read or Played section, depending on the media type) so you can keep a record of all the titles you’ve tracked.

I’ve been very impressed by the structure of Sequel’s library view and the helpfulness of the information it surfaces. Each section has something unique to offer, and they’re all laid out in a way that is easy to understand.

I spend quite a bit of time in the Watch Next and Upcoming sections. Each time I watch an episode of a show, I mark it as watched so that my library is always up-to-date. It’s a great way to keep track of where I’m at in each of the shows I’m watching. (Some might argue that I’d have less trouble if I would fewer shows; I object.)

The Upcoming section is my favorite feature of the app, though. By default, it lists the premiere date for the next season of each show in the library. This is a great way for me to keep up with upcoming Apple TV+ debuts and with when my favorite shows are coming back.

But that’s not all. There is a sorting button at the top of the library view that can unlock the Upcoming section’s secret superpower: upcoming episodes. Rather than listing only future seasons of shows, this setting will turn the Upcoming section into a list of upcoming episodes of all shows in your library, including ones that are currently airing.

View fullsize

My favorite feature of Sequel: the Upcoming list sorted by upcoming episodes. Isn’t it beautiful?

With this setting, I’ve been able to create something I’ve always wanted but never been able to find: a chronological list of every upcoming episode of every show I’m watching. Now, I can open Sequel at the beginning of the week and find out exactly which of my shows are coming out on which days. If a show I’m watching takes a week off or change its release day, I won’t waste time looking for a new episode. I’ll already know what to expect thanks to my Upcoming list.

When I found this feature of Sequel, that’s when I knew for certain that it was the right TV tracker for me. As a chronic planner, I love having this sort of information available to me at all times. It gives me an idea of what’s to come. And it helps me get excited for all of the shows I love!

The library view adjusts slightly for different media types. The TV library is definitely the most in-depth, but each one is well-designed and made to help you keep track of your favorite media.

Sequel also offers a nice set of widgets for your home screen. You can use them to count down to a particular release, view your Watch Next queue, or quickly launch into a search. Unsurprisingly, the widget I like the most is the Upcoming widget, which shows upcoming releases across all media types in one list. It’s a really great way to keep track of all the fun things you’re looking forward to watching, reading, and playing.

Sequel’s widgets help me get excited for upcoming shows and films.

I keep the Upcoming widget on my home screen right underneath my Up Next queue from the TV app. The two make a perfect pair, and Sequel’s widgets round off an impeccable feature set for an ideal media tracker.

When I first heard about Sequel, I had already fallen off so many media trackers that I was hesitant to even give it a try. But I’m so glad that I did, because it’s become my favorite way to keep up with the shows I’m watching and looking forward to. It fits perfectly with the way my brain works, and it’s unlocked some abilities that I’ve always wanted in an app but could never find before. It is hands-down my favorite media tracker of all time.

If you’re like me and watch a lot of TV that you need to keep track of, or if you’re interested in tracking other types of media like films, books, and games, Sequel is a great way to do it. I highly recommend checking it out. It’s been so useful in helping me to take full advantage of my downtime, and I’m confident it can do the same for you.

Sequel is available to download for free on the App Store. Certain features like widgets, release reminders, and Where to Watch are available as part of Sequel+ for $3/month, $20/year, or a one-time payment of $100.

---

If you’d like to hear me rave about Sequel some more in podcast form, check out this recent episode of Magic Rays of Light where Sigmund and I shared our experiences giving the app a try.

Up Ahead

Countdown apps have been around since the dawn of the App Store. Even before smartphones were a thing, people marked off days on their wall calendars to count down to a big event. I’m not sure what people used before wall calendars, but I’m sure they had some way to keep track of how many days stood between them and whatever it was they were looking forward to.

The truth is that humans love countdowns.

I’ve personally never gotten into these sorts of tools, but when Up Ahead by Daniel Gauthier came out recently, I had to give it a try based on its unique design alone. The app is beautiful. And in case you can’t tell from the fact that I’m writing a blog post about it, Up Ahead ended up sticking for me.

As I’ve previously written about, I use a combination of Calendar, Reminders, and my day planner Structured to keep track of events and tasks. But even with this combination, I found that there was a still a hole in my setup. (Am I destined to keep finding apps that fill smaller and smaller gaps in my life for the rest of my days? It’s a possibility.)

There are events that I look forward to but don’t necessarily want taking up space in my calendar. These are things like movie and TV show premieres or events in games that I play. But because I don’t have a system for recording them, they often end up slipping through the cracks. I realize too late that a movie I want to see comes out tomorrow and tickets are sold out, or that I’ve missed something cool in Pokémon Go because I wasn’t paying attention.

That’s where a countdown app like Up Ahead can come in handy for me. I now have a place to put events that aren’t urgent or even all that consequential but still worth keeping track of.

Of course, I also use Up Ahead to count down to big events like my wife’s birthday and trips we’re planning, but that’s mostly just to add to the anticipation. That stuff is too important not to be front-and-center on my calendar. However, a continual countdown is a fun way to keep those important events in mind as they get closer.

So even though I started out skeptical that I would have any use for Up Ahead, its gorgeous design and usefulness combine to make something that I enjoy opening every day. It’s even made its way onto my home screen. That’s why I decided to write up this quick overview of the app’s features and what I love about it, just in case you might find some use for it, too.

View fullsize

The Up Ahead timeline features all of your upcoming events.

Up Ahead’s main feature is the timeline, a running list of all of your events. As you scroll through your timeline, you’ll see how many days are left until an event occurs and, if applicable, how many gap days there are between events. The timeline is a simple, straightforward way to see what’s happening and what’s coming up.

Of course, the timeline is only useful once you’ve added your events to it. In the bottom right corner of the timeline is a + button that opens the New Event pane. This screen is full options for customizing an event before adding it to your timeline.

Events in Up Next have the following properties:

• Name

• Date

• Category

• Color

• Pattern

Naming an event is pretty straightforward. You can call it whatever you like. Assigning a date can be as simple as picking the day that you’re counting down to, but Up Ahead also gives you some options. You can add a time to your event in the bottom right corner of the date picker, and you can set an end date if the event lasts more than one day. Finally, events can repeat on a regular basis every week, every two weeks, every month, or every year. (Yearly events are a great way to remember loved ones’ birthdays!)

Each event is also assigned a category, which is represented by a symbol. There are lots of symbols to choose from with a search box to help you find just what you’re looking for. Categories might seem at first like a simple way to add a bit of flair to the timeline (which they certainly do), but there’s more to them than that. They allow you to organize your events into groups, and that organization is very useful once your timeline is full of events. At any time, you can filter the timeline to only show events from a certain category.

For example, I have a category in Up Ahead for upcoming TV show debuts, represented of course by the TV icon. If I want to look at a list of just my TV-related events, I can tap the filter button in the top left corner of the timeline, choose the TV icon, and voila. Now I see a list of my upcoming TV shows in a single, clean timeline.

Categories also come in handy when using Up Ahead’s widgets, which we’ll get into later. Suffice it to say that organizing your events into categories from the start will pay dividends for you down the line.

I find it interesting that categories are assigned an icon but not a color. Personally, I prefer for all of the events in a given category to have the same color, but Up Ahead allows you to set any color for an event regardless of its category.

View fullsize

Up Ahead has a variety of fun patterns.

Beyond color and category icon, you can customize the look of your events with patterns. These background decorations for your events come in all varieties and are unlocked as you perform certain tasks in the app. This gives Up Ahead a bit of gamification and encourages users to keep exploring. I’ve personally unlocked 20 patterns so far but hope to discover more. They’re quite a bit of fun to collect, and you can always check your progress in the pattern gallery.

Creating events and keeping track of them in the timeline are the big features of Up Ahead, and in that sense, it’s pretty similar to other countdown tools you might have seen before. But for me, it’s the small details and design considerations that really set the app apart from the crowd.

I love the look of the timeline and the way it invites you to look forward to the events you’re planning. The timeline can also be customized to only show the details you’re interested in and to format dates in the way that makes the most sense to you. If you like customizing apps to your liking, Up Ahead offers a handful of color themes and app icons to choose from, too.

Widgets are another feature of Up Ahead that I really appreciate. The Countdown widget allows you to select a particular event and add its countdown to your home or lock screen. And the Coming Up widget lists whatever’s next in your timeline. The Coming Up widget can be filtered by category, so you can have one widget listing upcoming TV shows and another for holidays or whatever else you’re looking forward to. Personally, I have a Coming Up widget on my phone so I can see the next three events on my timeline without opening the app.

View fullsize

The Coming Up widget is my favorite way to quickly check in on my next few events.

Up Ahead also offers three Shortcuts actions: Create Event, Get Next Event, and Get Days Until Event. I haven’t had a chance to try these out in my own shortcuts yet, but I imagine they can be quite useful, and they show the amount of care and effort that went into the app.

And I think that’s what sticks out to me about Up Ahead. Yes, it’s useful, and I appreciate its utility. But more than that, I appreciate it as a tool that’s been meticulously crafted. The developer really put his heart into Up Ahead, and it shows on every screen. There’s a consideredness and a whimsy to the app that I can’t help but be drawn in by.

The fact that the developer cares so much makes me hopeful for its future, too. Up Ahead has already received its first big update, the Low-Hanging Fruit Update, which added some nice customization options. And Daniel Gauthier has put out a list other potential updates in a sort-of loose road map that makes me very excited for what’s to come.

Of course, there are a few things I hope to see added to the app. Right now, it’s iPhone-only, and I’d like to see it come to more devices. I can run the iPhone app on my iPads and Macs, but it’s a bit of a limited experience. And I really think this is the kind of tool that makes sense on the Apple Watch. I’d love to be able to scroll my timeline on my wrist.

iCloud syncing is another feature I think Up Ahead is in need of. Right now, the app automatically backs up events to iCloud Drive for safekeeping, but it doesn’t sync events across devices. As someone who likes having all of my information everywhere, I’ve been able to turn this backup system into a sort of manual sync, but it’s clunky and not ideal. I imagine that if the app ever expands beyond the iPhone, iCloud sync will come along with it.

Finally, I’d like the ability to share events with other people. The app will generate a nice image of an event that you can share with others, but you can’t actually send someone an Up Ahead event that they can add to their device. Shared events and even shared categories would be a welcome addition in a future update.

As it is today, Up Ahead is a wonderful countdown app that I so enjoy using. Its design is impeccable, and the experience of using the app only adds to my excitement for the events I’m counting down to. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to give Up Ahead a try and see how much fun countdowns can be when they’re done this well.

Up Ahead is available on on the App Store as free download. An in-app subscription to Up Ahead Plus includes unlimited events, repeating and multi-day events, widgets, and more for $1.50/month, $10/year, or a one-time payment of $30.