On Keeping Around Old Apps

Most of the apps I use are in active development and regularly receive new features. I like it that way because it keeps things fresh and fun. But there are some staples in my setup that haven’t been updated in years, including one of my most important tools: my budgeting app.

In the Club MacStories Monthly Log, I wrote about the considerations that go into the decision whether to stick with an aging app or replace it. It’s a question I ponder often but have never formally thought through until now. If you’re like me and wrestle with this issue sometimes, I invite you to check out the column.

AppStories

I had the privilege of being a guest on this week's episode of AppStories. My thanks to Federico and John for having me. It was a really fun discussion that included how and why I track different things in my life, my evolving approach to journaling, and my day-to-day use of the Apple Vision Pro as my primary computer. I also made everyone listen to me talk about Mello Yello in the members-only pre-show.

If you're into apps, technology, and Apple, I think you'll love AppStories. And if you enjoy reading what I write about here, well, this is a lot like that, but in spoken form and with better jokes courtesy of Federico and John. You can listen to the episosde in any podcast player or watch the video version on YouTube now.

Vision Pro Accessories

Aside from my visionOS 2 review, I haven't written much about the Apple Vision Pro in the year that I've had it. That's despite the fact that I really do love the thing and use it to do my professional and creative work nearly every day. I went into some of my reasons for being hesitant to write about the Vision Pro in a recent episode of Magic Rays of Light, but one year in, I feel like it's time for me to devote more of my public creative work to the device, just as it's become a bigger and bigger part of my personal computing life.

My first Vision Pro-centered piece was published yesterday as part of the Club MacStories January Monthly Log. I wrote about three accessories I've recently added to my setup to solve friction points with using the Vision Pro day-to-day. None of them have to do with comfort or fit; rather, they're focused on making the device more convenient and accessible, the way we've come to expect modern computers to be.

If that sounds interesting to you, I hope you'll check out the column. I really enjoyed getting to write about the Vision Pro, and I look forward to sharing more about how I'm using it soon.

Pinning

In the November edition of the Club MacStories Monthly Log, I got a chance to write about an app that’s been on my list to cover for many months: Pinning. On the surface, it’s a straightforward countdown app, but Pinning has so many integrations and features built in that it’s hard to summarize everything it’s capable of. Rather than try (and fail) to do so, I instead shared some tips I’ve picked up from my personal use of the app to help others get the most out of it.

I hope you’ll check out the story if that sounds like something you’d be into, and even if not, I highly recommend giving Pinning a try. It’s an app that I’ve come to rely on more and more over time, and it’s constantly surprising me with the way it continues to grow and improve.

iMessage Notification Overwhelm

Jason Snell, writing at MacWorld regarding iMessage Tapbacks:

They’re fun! But they also generate, by default, an additional notification and a haptic tap every time a new one is made. And that means that the average post in a group text thread will now generate three, four, five, or more notifications–because it includes not just the post, but notifications for every single reaction.

Jason makes some great points about iMessage notifications and ways Apple could empower users to fine tune them, but this part about Tapbacks really resonated with me. In a world where the 👍 emoji is shorthand for, “I saw this message,” there’s no need to clog up my notification center with a bunch of them. We need the option to turn Tapback notifications off.