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trivia

WWDC 2022

For those who are not “in the loop,” WWDC is Apple’s developer conference, where they announce all the new software releases for the year. Usually the new updates are made available in September and October, but we get a preview of what’s coming in June.

So, what happened this year?

I don’t think there’s anything earth-shattering for Wandle Software. The improvement to SwiftUI should be beneficial, as should the enhancements to Catalyst. App Intents should make the Shortcuts that were included in Yummy 3.6 a little bit more useful.

I’m going to take a look at the new home screen widgets for iPhone, but I’m not convinced that this is the right place for Quick Calendar. You’ll also be disappointed that Apple did not allow widgets to be interactive, so the long wished-for ability to move back and forth between months is still not possible. Maybe next year.

My favourite new feature, PassKeys, is the beginning of the end for passwords, but there’s no immediate application of it in any of our apps.

All good stuff. We’ll continue to support the latest operating systems of course.

As a consumer, I’m most excited about the watchOS updates. The improvements to the Workout app look great. But — and this is important — I have not installed any of the new operating systems on my devices.

Please don’t install the betas on any of your devices!

I have not tested our apps on the new operating systems yet, and, even if I had, there has not been enough time to resolve any issues. Be patient.

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news

Quick Calendar 1.3.2

Version 1.3.2 of Quick Calendar is currently with Apple and, with luck, will be available for download as you read this. This version is for Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Version 1.3.2 checks off pretty much every feature request I’ve received for Quick Calendar since version 1.3 came out late last year.

  • Option to show the week number
  • Option to change the first displayed month
  • Option to use the “system” highlight colour
  • Customise the first weekday in the Watch app
  • Localised in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese

Most of these are self-explanatory, so I won’t go into any detail. A couple of them need some context.

The second feature I lied about: the ability to change the first month displayed is not a popular request. The request I get is “I’d like to be able to move to the next and previous months,” though often the message is not that polite. The amount of abuse I’ve received for removing this feature has been shocking. Pretty much every negative review on the App Store is about this.

But I didn’t remove the feature because I wanted to. I removed it because Apple provides no way to implement it! Big Sur uses a completely different way to display widgets and it does not provide interactivity. (So the people threatening to use a competing product were barking up the wrong tree.)

The best alternative I’ve been able to figure out so far is to have the ability to start on a different month other than the current one. I appreciate this isn’t ideal, but without the ability to add buttons I’ve not come up with anything better.

Finally, I’ve localised the widgets and the Watch App into a handful of languages other than English. If you have any corrections for what’s there in French, German, Spanish or Portugues, please let me know. Similarly, if you’re interested in localising into any other language, please get in touch.

I hope you’re enjoying using the widgets. Remember, if you do, I really appreciate any donations. It takes a lot of effort to keep it up to date with the latest Apple technologies — the widgets in iOS 14 and Big Sur were a complete rewrite of the older widgets — and other feature requests.

Update, 7 March. Apple approved the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch version but rejected the Mac version, for reasons unrelated t the new features.

Update, 14 March. I submitted a fix to Apple. Second time lucky?

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news

Yummy 3.4.3

New shortcut menu
Yummy

Yummy 3.4.3 has just been approved by Apple and should be available for download from the App Store shortly (if it isn’t already).

It’s a pretty small update, one of those “bug fixes and minor update” releases. The main user-visible change is that it now supports all the latest Apple devices and their new screen sizes. It’s built with the latest Apple developer kit but doesn’t currently take advantage of any of the new iOS 14 features.

I have heard a few reports of Yummy’s Share Extension not appearing correctly on iOS 14. I think this is a problem with iOS since I’ve not changed anything in Yummy and it’s been working since 2015. Indeed, Yummy 3.4.2 is still built against iOS 13. I can’t guarantee that this version will miraculously fix it, but that’s my hope.

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news

Quick Calendar 1.3.1 (for iPhone, iPad and Watch)

Quick Calendar

Approved in super-quick time: the latest update for Quick Calendar. This version runs the same code as the Mac version and has the exact same features in the iOS14 widget.

That means, new in this version is the ability to pick the first day of the week. Previously it always picked the day your system’s locale suggested, and that’s still the default. But now you can change it.

This was basically the number one feature request. Embarrassingly it only didn’t make it into 1.3.0 because of a silly off-by-one error. Anyway, better late than never!

Hope you like it. You can download it from the App Store now.

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news

Quick Calendar 1.3.0

Quick Calendar 1.3.0 is currently with Apple for review. You can think of this as the iOS 14, ipadOS 14 and watchOS 7 release.

Quick Calendar’s iOS 14 widget

If you saw the tweet, you’ll realise that this release didn’t entirely go to plan. The whole Apple developer community were wrong-footed by the new versions of the operating systems launching with less than a day’s notice. Fortunately, this release was almost ready.

The “original” notification centre widget is largely unchanged, but there is additionally a new one that’s supported only in Apple’s newest operating systems. It’s based on the same foundation as the Watch app that arrived in version 1.2.

You can place your widgets on the left side of your iPad screen, alongside your app icons or on the very left screen of your iPhone. Quick Calendar’s widget comes in three sizes: one month, two months and four months.

One of the most popular requests I’ve had since launch has been for the ability to change the “today” highlight colour. The new widget has this ability. If you press-and-hold the widget, it flips over to reveal the available options.

I’ve been using this widget myself for over a month now and I like it! I hope you do too. I should be available to download in the App Store shortly.

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news

Quick Calendar (for iPhone and iPad)

Quick Calendar (iOS)

Following the success of Quick Calendar for Mac, I am happy to announce the imminent availability of Quick Calendar for iPhone and iPad. (Okay, the fact that I wanted it also factored into the decision to make it!)

Without wishing to undersell it, it’s basically the same as the Mac version. It shows the current month — or slightly less in the default “small” mode — in the Notification Center. It’s free but you can donate in the main app. There’s no obligation, but if you think it’s useful I’d appreciate the support. It helps keep it maintained on new versions of iOS and potentially funds new projects.

I use it all the time. I hope you find it useful, too.

Update (5 September): now available on the App Store!

Categories
news

Yummy 2.7.10

I don’t think we’ve ever got as far as double-digits in patch version numbers — so that makes this new version of Yummy special!

Other than the number it’s a pretty minor update. There are two visible changes:

  • When you ask for tag suggestions, if there are none you now no longer get an error message
  • The Open Source library that I was using for the tabs in the edit bookmark screen was proving to be a little crashy, so I have removed in and am now using a standard Apple component in its place

In addition there is the usual collection of minor tweaks and fixes. Hopefully I’ll have more news about version 3.0 soon, once it’s feature complete.